snip snip snip!   
   >    
   > Wow, that's quite a rant.    
   I just thought I'd mention we are neck deep in doo-doo. :)    
   >    
   > I guess my view of science is that though it is a human endeavor (and   
   subject to all the foibles of humanity) it is in the long run se   
   f-correcting.   The explanations/ideas that work are the ones that get   
   adopted.     
   >    
   ***The philosophers of science try to explain the process of scientific   
   discovery. The olde, "Create a hypothesis, test it, replicate it, and we have   
   truth" dates back to Francis Bacon, 1620. That's pretty much what medical and   
   many other researchers use.   
    Francis (whom some think was Shakespeare), was trying to end habit and   
   opinion, to create a progress of knowledge. As a system, it sure has worked,   
   but is out of vogue today.   
   One criticism of this approach is it's "single causation." That's OK for   
   Newton, but for a disease not so good. This paradigm leads to the medical "One   
   ugh, one bug, one drug" approach to disease. These medical follies have   
   culminated in EBM today.    
   Now contrast this theory of evidence with what a cat does in hunting a mouse:   
   It may not see the mouse, but puts together many bits of circmstantial   
   evidence to justify a long wait for one.   
   That's why the aphorism, "Even your cat is smarter than a medical researcher."   
   has come about.   
   Just said in jest.   
   jb   
   >    
   >    
   > I read Schrodinger's "What is Life" back in college.  A fun read.  I don't   
   know of anyone else who could put so many ideas into a single sentence.   It   
   would sometimes take me a few minutes of rereading to parse it correctly.  And   
   of course he wasn't    
   even writing in his native language.    
   ***I just remember he thought DNA must be a crystalline type of material to   
   store so much information.    
   > George h.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)