Academic education is all about regurgitating for A's. — Rich
However, I think there is good evidence that nature behaves in a roughly constant way over large time scales. — fdrake
No, we have evidence over a very long period of time. We, roughly, have a paradigm in physics called quantum mechanics which has been around for just under 100 years. — fdrake
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Just because there are current avenues for improvement or further research in a field doesn't make all the predictions of a field wrong. — fdrake
Like most people, you have a horrible understanding of what probability is. Probability is the frequency of possible outcomes. Whether or not that is a result of predetermination or "chance" is irrelevant. — Jeremiah
To understand what it's doing, we need to look at what a random variable is. A random variable is a mapping from a collection of possible events and rules for combining them (called a sigma algebra) to a set of values it may take. More formally, a random variable is a measureable mapping from a probability space to a set of values it can take. Intuitively, this means that any particular event that could happen for this random variable takes up a definite size in the set of all possible events. It is said that a random variable X satisfies a probability measure P if the associated size of an event (E) which induces a set of values from the random variable has probability P(E makes X take the set of values). — fdrake
Also, if you're going to give a reference, then give a direct reference, and not a "it is somewhere in that general direction." Statistics is the second degree I am working on; writing was my first, and I know that that is a poor citation.
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