Re: Reconsidering Halton Arp

Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:

> So what do you think Aristotle means when he says that gold is heavier
> than wood, if he is not speaking of the relative density of the two
> substances?  Are you telling me that Aristotle thought that a lump of
> gold (however small) was heavier than a lump of wood (however large)?

It doesn't matter. Even if you assume weight means density, I have 
already show that an experiment doable by a boy scout could falsify 
Aristotle's conclusions. He didn't check. That is why he got motion all 
wrong.

If he had oiled a large wooden table and gave a smooth puck (a 
cylindrical piece of marble polished smooth, say) a shove and it kept on 
going that would have blown up his hypothesis that movement required 
continuous force. Too bad Aristotle did not play shuffle board. He might 
have learned a thing or three.

His ueber error, his category blunder was regarding the kosmos as alive. 
It isn't. The universe is mostly dead. Live things are just temporary 
arrangements of dead things. His nonsense on final cause and telos mark 
him as an inferior thinker in matters scientific. If there is any cause 
at all (Hume doubted this), it is efficient cause. The bat hits the ball 
and the ball goes flying. That is cause. None of this entelechia nonsense.

Aristotle share the fault of many of the Greek thinkers. They loved 
their logic and their arguments so much they did not bother to check. 
Even John Philliponos in the sixth century c.e., a christian scholar in 
Alexandria knew enough to check.

Fortunately for science, most of Aristotle's horseshit has been purged 
from physics. Only unschooled children buy into Aristotelan notions of 
movement. And best of all most of our scientist know enough to check on 
their conclusions. One way another, experiment has the last say.

We are all empiricists now.

Bob Kolker

All there is, are atoms and the void.