[seqfan] Re: Arabic Poetry Sequences

[Brad Klee]

Hi Antti,

Nice, agreeable response. I differentiate between "bias" and
"prejudice", with the former
a necessary evil, and the later an ill of society deserving of
negative connotations.

The paradox of scientific bias is that: Science is predicated upon
bias-free means, yet
one of its principle ends is to develop a clear bias for systematizing
knowledge.

One way around this paradox is to think of the butterfly's chrysalis
as a metaphor for
bias. For a short period of time, it serves a protective and
developmental purpose. In
the end, the chrysalis must be shed before the butterfly (or
scientist) can fly away
and attain new knowledge.

A major problem for science is that some scientists--usually Nobel
Prize winners,
MacArthur geniuses, Institute Directors, etc.--get old and become
overly certain of
their own ideas. Then they are trapped in a bias that causes them to make poor
judgements. One example I just happened to read is the case of Josephson VS.
Bardeen (a loss for Bardeen), which sounds to have had a traumatic effect on
Josephson's career development.

Re: USA. It is not the twentieth century anymore, and the many
novelties of capitalist
invention are wearing thin and loosing their original lustre. The US
Constitution did not
sufficiently plan for combating class division, nor could it possibly
anticipate the driving
force of technological innovation in the computer age. The great ideal
of egalitarianism
was never truly achieved, and is now a joke amongst a populace whose
first common
dream is to see themselves and their own kind as a new master class,
at any cost.
We're only through the first two decades of Century XXI, but already
USA has faltered
significantly and lost its lead on the world stage. Maybe it's natural
and for the best.

Cheers --Brad


On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 7:19 AM Antti Karttunen
<antti.karttunen at gmail.com> wrote:
> The rest are my comments to Brad's posting