On Monday, June 24, 2013 9:07:46 AM UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:

However, the observers and their instrumentation are getting better all

the time so we live in a golden age where observation evidence will rule

out some of the theorists' wilder flights of fancy pretty soon.


"These are the imaginings of incomplete- notions-philosophers who make space an
absolute reality. Such notions are apt to be fudged up by devotees of pure mathematics, whose whole subject- matter is the playthings of imagination, but they are destroyed by higher reasoning" Leibniz

Leibniz partly understood the damage mathematicians are capable of and they have since almost destroyed astronomy totally by turning the celestial arena into an imaginary theoretical junkyard.Far from being a golden age,the empirical cult has run out of things to say that interests the wider population but have moved into areas of mathematical modeling such as climate,financial markets with the idea that highly complex systems can be managed,captured and tamed.

This idea of 'predicting' outcomes with the most spurious inputs is a relatively new phenomena yet when there computer models go South they vary the hypothesis to maintain the conclusion - when the world didn't burst into flames they altered 'global warming' to 'climate change' and kept on with this disastrous path. It is nothing more than Galileo's experience with these breed of individuals who were once kept in check by people of common sense and intelligence -

"I know; such men do not deduce their conclusion from its premises or establish it by reason, but they accommodate (I should have said discommode and distort) the premises and reasons to a conclusion which for them is already established and nailed down. No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous." Galileo

It is a golden era for imaging yet astronomy is dominated by people who merely chant voodoo and have no interest whatsoever in making sense of what time lapse footage and sequential imaging presents.New innovations in imaging is the true extension of the works of Copernicus and Galileo,tangible objects with their motions,traits and effects from a moon to a galaxy that people can appreciate and use to connect with Universal things that are central to their daily lives.

Mathematical modelers imagine they can control complex systems such as human control over global temperatures and that is shocking in any era but what may be more shocking is the inability to react when these mathematical wreck havoc,even in civil matters such as the financial system -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...416477138.html

There are some stupid people out there who imagine that none of this matters,that as long as they get a cut and keep their jobs,houses and cars then who cares what happens to astronomy or terrestrial sciences but there are now a lot more people worried about what they have in the fridge tonight because this mathematical modeling had severe consequences when it invariably fails.I have dealt with the origins and core of this aggressive strain of empiricism which turned science from an interpretative enterprise into a speculative/predictive animal.