tdehnel

They said the science was bad, not the summary.

If you’re curious, the reason the science is bad because it’s explanationless

Utterly terrible argument. You could just as easily claim social media or touchscreens or episodes of Modern Family or literally anything else has lead to this increase.

This could be an argument for anything, so it is a bad argument.

> film was designed for optimal rendering of light skin

Utter nonsense. Shadow contrast is lower with darker skin. It’s physics, no matter how much you want to see racism.

So it could very well be more than half.

so your theory is “things have predictable patterns” or “the future will be like the past”

yes, that is one good example

i see what you mean, i suppose my concept of “explanation” could be closer to what you mean by theory

> Thinking that something will either happen or not happen if I mix those two substances is not a theory.

OK I'll bite. What is it then?

There are practically infinite combinations of things to mess around with. Which stuff do scientists choose to mess around with and why?

Why would someone do an experiment without a theory to test? How would they know that a particular result was interesting without a theory about the expected result?

You can't even observe something without theories. For example:

- I need to observe here and not anywhere else

- I can reliably interpret my senses/the instrumentation is working correctly

- Objects of this type normally behave in X way, because of Y

- etc

Think of it a different way. You can come up with a theory without any observation whatsoever. Black holes, for example, were conjectured well before they were observed.

I wouldn't disparage that method of discovery at all. But some of the theories required to do it are:

- Many brute-force combinations of these specific organic molecules will yield interesting results (this is the main hypothesis of the experiment)

- We don't need to include the molecules that we haven't included

- We have good criteria for determining what results are interesting

- Our instruments/methods of phenotype prediction are well-understood and working as expected

Once the experiment is run, the observations are meaningless unless interpreted in the context of whatever prevailing theories the scientists have in mind.

“That’s funny…” implies you had a pre existing theory about how it was supposed to work.

Which properties to check? Why that sample and not countless others? Why not spend the rest of his life checking different properties of the one sample?

Can you tell me why a scientist would decide to do a certain experiment without a theory about what to test and why? Why that experiment and not any of infinite others?

The “oh this sticks” part is only ever interesting precisely because it doesn’t conform to the pre existing theory.

You cannot even make an observation without theories baked in:

- Normally these things do X

- My senses or instruments are detecting reality accurately

- This thing I’m measuring will result in something interesting etc

Calling theories useful if they predict future events is called Instrumentalism and it’s a dead end if your goal is to understand reality.

“The magician will pull a rabbit from the hat” might reliably predict what happens, and be testable, but it is not a good scientific explanation because it doesn’t help anyone understand how the trick works.

To consider an observation “weird” you need a theory about what a normal observation looks like.

Additionally, all observations require baked in theories about the observation being accurate.

Btw, I didn’t appreciate your insulting first sentence.

Edit: here's a decent writeup to show what I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness

The pre-existing theory Newton needed was “things move when other things act on them.” Without that, the observation would be meaningless.

Seeing the apple fall told Newton “some unseen force is acting on the apple.”

Incidentally, this was wrong. There is no “force”, only a warping of space time.

Not possible. Theory comes first. Scientists need a theory first to know which experiments to do.

Any interesting experimental results are interesting precisely because they do not conform to the existing theories.

Edit: here's a decent writeup to show what I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness

That is a logically different scenario from a government employee (acting in their official capacity) infringing the rights of a private citizen.

Wow what a jerk. I'm going off the Constitutional Oath, which all judges take. Obviously they use judicial discretion but be charitable for a second and at least try to understand my point, which is that deviating from what the Constitution says is the very rare exception, not the rule.

So much writing. So little explanation of your view or specific critique of the person you're responding to. You could have just typed "Wrong. Do your research."

You're really mixed up here. This is the text of the 1st Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

When a person who works for the government is acting in their official capacity, they are the government. In that case the 1st Amendment prohibits them from abridging a private citizen's freedom of speech.

When that same person is acting as a private citizen, they are protected from their speech being abridged by the government.

People at work in their government jobs, using government equipment and email addresses, with government signatures are 100% the government, not private citizens.

They certainly can speak freely and any number of channels will pick up their statements and carry them without much critique.

But their right to free speech ends when they start to hurt citizens' rights to express themselves.

From a constitutional perspective (which is the perspective Supreme Court Justices swear to have), the ability of the government to limit speech is not allowed. Full stop. Sources below.

First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Constitutional Oath taken by all current Supreme Court Justices: "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

As David Deutsch says, the reason is LLMs and the current batch of AI tools are the opposite of AGI.

You make an LLM by limiting what it can do. An AGI can decide what to do for itself. Maybe it wants to play chess instead of responding to your prompts.

Some people say AGI will emerge spontaneously from LLMs. This is supernatural thinking, based on a bad explanation. We will not be able to program an AGI until we understand how our own intelligence works.

Think of it this way: what if there was a 100% tax on profits?

Why would anyone invest money in that venture?

If we increase corporate taxes, companies will respond by either raising prices, struggling to innovate/grow, or going out of business. Which of those outcomes do you prefer and why?