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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

The Four Quadrants of Science

Originally on Judy Curry's blog

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13 comments:

  1. Grace and RustMay 30, 2017 at 9:34 PM

    I'm sure I'm way oversimplifying here, but when I looked at your picture, I found myself thinking, the Scholastics were in the Bohr quadrant, while the early moderns were in the Edison quadrant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom SimonMay 31, 2017 at 12:21 AM

      And Voltaire, who liked to play with a chemistry lab but never did any work of value, was definitely in the Nye quadrant.

      Delete
    2. FredMay 31, 2017 at 11:00 AM

      Well, no scientific work of any value. Candide is very funny and fun to read, though, so I wouldn't say absolutely no work of value.

      Delete
    3. Tom SimonMay 31, 2017 at 9:25 PM

      I meant he did no work of value with his chemistry lab, of course.

      Delete
  2. Joseph MooreMay 31, 2017 at 10:24 AM

    Ha! Although if Nye is anywhere to be found on a science chart, it should only be as a cautionary tale.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sophia's FavoriteMay 31, 2017 at 3:40 PM

    Can you even really call what Edison did research? It was more like "meticulous trial and error". As Tesla said of him, "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."

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    Replies
    1. HrodgarJune 1, 2017 at 12:34 PM

      Yeah, I'd say that's research. Though admittedly, if true, very inefficient research.

      Delete
  4. Desmond JonesJune 1, 2017 at 1:22 PM

    I'm not sure Nye is worthy of a whole quadrant. Maybe just the origin (0,0). . .

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJune 1, 2017 at 8:46 PM

    I don't understand the disdain for Bill Nye. He's probably the most popular voice for science -especially climate science - right now, taking on climate deniers and demonstrating the fatal flaws in their arguments. All of this under an administration that is waging a *secular* war on science - something people like Dawkins and Harris said was impossible.

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    Replies
    1. Tom SimonJune 2, 2017 at 3:35 PM

      ‘Climate deniers’. That’s your trouble right there. In your mind, anyone who is not passionately convinced that humans are solely and exclusively responsible for an imminent catastrophic change in global temperatures, and that the overbearing and draconic action of the state is the sole possible method of averting the catastrophe, is a ‘denier’ who knows no science and wants to know none.

      Nye, like you, is a religious cultist; only because his religion does not contain a god, he and you can go on pretending that you’re advocating good science instead of bad religion.

      Delete
    2. Sophia's FavoriteJune 2, 2017 at 4:39 PM

      @Tom Simon: To be fair, Anonymous did say that the Trump administration was mounting a secular attack on science, which "people like Dawkins and Harris" denied the possibility of.

      @Anonymous: Part of the antipathy to Nye is that he is actually included in "people like Dawkins and Harris". Another part is that climate is not remotely as cut-and-dry as political advocacy would like it to be. And a third part is that Nye abused the authority he acquired in his audience's childhood to help propagate nonsense like that "gender" is a spectrum—as a scientific idea, not a cultural one. ("Gender" as a set of social norms is, indeed, not exactly binary. But the biology in question is; the intersex conditions, so frequently cited to the contrary, don't change that. "Some aspects of A as well as B" is not actually "C".)

      Delete
  6. Desmond JonesJune 5, 2017 at 4:24 PM

    Bill Nye, like the Left more generally, is of the school of 'If-You-Disagree-With-Me-You're-Wicked-or-Stupid-or-Both'. The whole point of the 'Climate Denier' epithet (and it's cousins, 'Science-Denier' and 'Anti-Science') is to shut down discussion/debate on legitimate scientific grounds, in order to advance a political/ideological agenda.

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    Replies
    1. LucretiusJune 9, 2017 at 10:56 AM

      Wow, what perfect aim, right to the heart of the matter!

      Christi pax.

      Delete

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