New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 02:32pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14890 of 14912)
TRUTH outs in the end : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Showalter you say you 'guess' that Cooper 'is' from Chicago.

With respect to truth and lies - where does 'GUESS' fit in ...

Were Alex on the board he'd appreciate this dilemma.

klsanford0 - 02:33pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14891 of 14912)

ichic:

"Why pad the board out with 'non-content / filler' postings'?"

The fact that this utter moron could write such a thing shows a total lack of connection with Reality....

rshow55 - 02:37pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14892 of 14912)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

If you search lchic - you'll see a lot of beautiful, interesting stuff.

"extreme anti-intellectualism of rshow55 and ichic"

is a somewhat new criticism.

There are many good searches on this thread - and "hell of a mess" is a good search here.

13666-71 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.1aPdbRpYNqA.2333516@.f28e622/15359

lchic - 02:39pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14893 of 14912)
TRUTH outs in the end : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

K this forum is about 'truth' ... who has 'truth' ... who uses 'truth' and who puts a finger on the RED button!

------------

Showalter talks about 'truth' and working 'in clear' (with truth).

A major reason - 'quality of decision making'.

National and International decisions affect millions of people and their quality of life - and death.

It's therefore important that the information and knowledge, from which policy is enacted, are reliable and of the highest quality.

----------

rshow55 - 02:42pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14894 of 14912)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Statistics is about guesses - logic is about things assumed to be true.

Statistics and logic are linked. 41665 41666 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.1aPdbRpYNqA.2333516@.f28e622/5256

With a little added work - this thread would be a fine corpus for showing how.

rshow55 - 02:47pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14895 of 14912)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Assumptions are a lot like guesses - - and they have to be checked - usually in ways that are partly statistical.

Crypto people hate statistics - "don't believe in accidents" - and have to use statistics.

Statistics folks have to use a lot of logic. To make sense of their statistics.

There is a loop here - for basic reasons.

We need to be clearer on how we " connect the dots" and what " loops " are and are not good for.

If we keep our emotions under control - keep our sense of humor at least sometimes - we can make progress here.

People who know enough general information to enjoy a Star Trek movie really know a lot of the right answers. But they've repressed them - and need to be clearer - for reasons of safety.

klsanford0 - 02:53pm Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14896 of 14912)

rshow55:

"extreme anti-intellectualism of rshow55 and ichic"

"is a somewhat new criticism."

A direct response from Showalter for the first time...must be getting rattled, he's never so quickly and directly even acknowledged any Criticism.....pressure must be consistently applied for some results...

(16 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense