Recent content by ryokan

The Information Theory and Cybernetics (Shannon, Wiener) and the perspective of some physicists (Schrödinger) was very influential on the development of Molecular Genetics. The molecular genetic approach showed its power to explain a lot of biological and medical problems, from evolution...

DSM: Science or Scientism? It is possible that modern Psichiatry exemplifies the Scientism in his hard form. The manual currently used to diagnose psychiatric disorders, the DSM IV, do not seems, from my viewpoint, the best method of approach to the complexity of mental diseases.

The epistemic interest and technical applications of Science are obvious. A lot of scientists think that Science is the only possible way to the knowledge of the "reality". So, it would be only a matter of time the conquest by Science of all the old metaphysical questions. I am not in...

Yes. I agree I suggest the great Gibbon's "Decline and Fall...": http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/home.html

Obviously, the initial image of the genome replication would be very different. Does luck tarnish elegance in an experiment?

It is very difficult for a scientist to know about fields outside his specialized area of work. Nevertheless, there are a lot of books and magazines that popularize Science to make it accessible to men without a minimal scientific background. What do you think on the value of this...

Longevity in mammals Life span varies among species. One approach to the study of these differences is the use of dimensional analysis to stablish comparisons. More recently, telomerase activity was related to number of cell generations in humans and some experimental models. What would be...

Yes. That is the sense in what I refer to technician.

My question was more related with the scientific research. For example, a relevant paper published on Biology involves a lot of laboratory work. But often the technician's work is not recognized in any form. So, this situation, although in a very different social context, is reminiscent...

Emergence is currently used in both reductionist or "anti"-reductionist senses, being ambiguous the current expression " the whole is more than the sum of parts". It is clear the epistemological use of the term emergence. Entropy is an obvious example. A macroscopic description arises from a...

In Physicsweb are reported the ten most elegant experiments in Physics (http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/9/2). In Biology, the Meselson-Stahl is currently seen as one of the most elegant experiments. What biological experiment do you consider as the most beautiful? Why?

How do you see the relationship between "scientists" and "technicians" ? Are differences among them due to knowledge or rather to social causes?

In my last post, I only posed two questions. I didn't any affirmation as you seems suggest with your "elegant" reply. Now, I ask you these other questions: 1. Do you really think that your answer is scientific? Are terms as "balogna" and "bunch of crap" solid arguments? 2. Do you...

As in chess? That remember the classic prize to the chess inventor (although with negative exponent). In this case there would be a dilutional effect of similarities growing exponentially with the number of generations going back. I don't know which is the % of allelic variation among human...

But our universe could be also multiply-connected in absence of circles in the sky if the "cell" size were higher than our observable (horizon) universe. Is that o.k? If so, we couldn't know its topology. And... what do you think about the possibilities of repeated patterns in distribution...