From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Wed Feb 26 2003 - 10:27:28 MST
At 09:21 AM 2/26/2003 -0700, Terry W. Colvin wrote:
>Ron,
>
>Your message was forwarded as copied below Amara's comments.
>
>Terry
>
>*****
>Terry: You garbled too many quotes. Please keep the appropriate
>headers- the parts where I spoke and the parts where the
>other scientists (cosmologists, physicists, astronomers, etc.)
>spoke, and then there is a person whose name is at the end
>named Robert Ebert that I guess was disagreeing with every
>statement by all persons. Too confusing to me to sort it
>out.
>
>Amara
>
>BTW: news to me that a model is not a theory...
>I wonder what I've been doing the last n years!
>
>("models are merely visualizations" ... what???).
>To my understanding and last 20 years experience, models are the
>*applications* of the theory, that is what it meant when you see the
>term 'model' used in scientific journal articles as well as when you
>hear scientists talk. Models are usually described with math,
>sometimes with computer code and so on. Maybe Robert Ebert has
>different experience with this term, mine comes from astrophysics,
>atmospheric physics, planetary science, geophysics.
>
>[Amara]
What can I say to someone who can't even get my name straight when it is in
plain print before him? And then contradicts himself:
>"BTW: news to me that a model is not a theory..."
>"To my understanding and last 20 years experience, models are the
>*applications* of the theory,"
The term "model" is oftentimes used in a lose sort of way to denote an
aspect or a variant of a theory, but the two are not the same. We do not
consider the complete explanations of phenomena as the model of evolution,
the model of relativity, or the model of quantum mechanics.
This is a question of terminology and usage. It is not as important as
another person's misunderstandings of how science works that Terry has
forwarded from your list.
Ron Ebert
ron.ebert@ucr.edu
http://phyld.ucr.edu/
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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