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Experience or science?
- Thread starter Bob Callahan
- Start date
Hue said, “What were we talking about in this thread again? 
”
Experience versus science.
Note that in my prior post (#125) I briefly summarized some literature that leads to the conclusion that experienced professionals violate their own rules under known circumstances and are often too close to their own experience to be as reliable as scientifically derived algorithms. Scientifically derived rules were not only better than the experts with many years of experience, they were better than any single professional expert.
This may seem counter intuitive but those are the results of several meticulous studies conductive with regard to very serious and highly professional people working to save (or treat) lives. All of this work leads to the conclusion that scientifically derived conclusions are better than any person’s experience or knowledge.
I think that part of the problems alluded to in this thread are based in the idea that with regard to all things pocket billiards the studies have not been conducted. When the scientific studies have been conducted our collective scientific “experience” concerning the role of professional experience leads to the conclusion that science is better. Not the “science guy” but the results of carefully controlled and replicated studies.
I think that if Dr Dave and colleagues include specific methods for testing their ideas and ways for people to provide feed back, the science of pool could be advanced quickly. Science is slow to change, but in today’s world we need to take advantage of new methods for collecting data.
PS. In my thinking a “zealot” is anyone who is closed minded and spreads his, and only his, way of seeing the world. Everything else is discarded. In my life I avoid them and suggest, based on my experience, that they should be avoided. In other words I agree with the original author of this phrase.
”Experience versus science.
Note that in my prior post (#125) I briefly summarized some literature that leads to the conclusion that experienced professionals violate their own rules under known circumstances and are often too close to their own experience to be as reliable as scientifically derived algorithms. Scientifically derived rules were not only better than the experts with many years of experience, they were better than any single professional expert.
This may seem counter intuitive but those are the results of several meticulous studies conductive with regard to very serious and highly professional people working to save (or treat) lives. All of this work leads to the conclusion that scientifically derived conclusions are better than any person’s experience or knowledge.
I think that part of the problems alluded to in this thread are based in the idea that with regard to all things pocket billiards the studies have not been conducted. When the scientific studies have been conducted our collective scientific “experience” concerning the role of professional experience leads to the conclusion that science is better. Not the “science guy” but the results of carefully controlled and replicated studies.
I think that if Dr Dave and colleagues include specific methods for testing their ideas and ways for people to provide feed back, the science of pool could be advanced quickly. Science is slow to change, but in today’s world we need to take advantage of new methods for collecting data.
PS. In my thinking a “zealot” is anyone who is closed minded and spreads his, and only his, way of seeing the world. Everything else is discarded. In my life I avoid them and suggest, based on my experience, that they should be avoided. In other words I agree with the original author of this phrase.
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Ditto!
I've put a tremendous amount of time and effort into figuring out how and why some people can use various versions of CTE effectively.
FYI, a fairly complete explanation for how CTE works can be found here:
Also, all basic cut-shot aiming system, including CTE, provide many benefits to people who use them. These benefits also help explain how the systems work.
Regards,
Dave
That's right ... the coefficient of friction can vary with speed by quite a large factor (e.g., 10). Marlow's data, along with a plot, can be found on page 4 here:
This effect is clearly backed up by experimental evidence (from Marlow, you, me, and others) and demonstrations. A good summary of all throw effects that directly agree with the science can be found here
(see items 15-35 in the effects list):
and demonstrations of most of the important practical effects can be found here:
... but not for small-cut-angle combos (per the examples starting at 7:28 in the video, which is backed up by the science).
Regards,
Dave
I know you guys are joking, but LD shafts (from both science and practical experience perspectivse) have both advantage and disadvantages, per:
And "hit," "feel," and "playability" can be very subjective and mean totally different things to different people, and can sometimes not make a bit of difference in actual results.
Regards,
Dave
This certainly isn't the case for me. If one is good at judging the amount of "gearing" outside English for a wide range of cut angles, outside English is definitely the way to go, especially with balls that are old, dirty, and clingy. FYI, this topic is covered some here:
The right approach for dealing with throw and compensating aim when using English will depend a lot on the ability and experience of the player.
Regards,
Dave
the difference between science and pool
Joe,
I'll ignore that you mispelled my name and point out that the sentence I turned red is the major difference between hard science and pool. In hard science the results never vary. The same inputs give the same outputs repeatedly. If the same inputs give a different output you can be sure of an error somewhere. Pool is nearly the opposite. The hard science has to be constantly modified by experience and current information not documented anywhere.
I beat some of the very best when they came to me in a little bar. One reason was the light was nearly as strong or as strong from one side of the tables as it was from the pool lights. I have even played in open air halls and those with large picture windows where the light was stronger from the side. No book can tell you how to adjust for changing light. The sun going behind a cloud changed your world too. Some of my most brutal safety play wasn't safeties at all in the normal sense, just forcing someone to shoot looking directly into a ball of fire over and over as the sun went down.
Bad rails, table rolls, napped cloth, even the type and condition of the balls, no science to help you with any of that in terms that are effective. When some general advice is given the documentation can't tell you when to apply it. All the science you can rustle up makes a very fine start when learning to play pool. All the science in the world won't make a player a champion, only experience does that, with or without science.
Knowing something in your head and knowing it in your heart is two different things too. All the scientific theory and fact in the world can't give you the same confidence in making a shot that you have after having made it and very similar shots thousands of times.
As I said when I first entered this thread, pool doesn't lend itself well to scientific method. Far too many variables, some of which are ever shifting. My favorite table to gamble on or play tournament matches has the AC blowing on parts of it. One long rail banks one way, the other entirely differently and the end rails play differently from one end of each rail to the other. The same rail banks one way hit one place and totally differently hit six inches from there. Some of the cloth is warm and wet, some cool and dry. That table drove me crazy when I first found one of the coolest spots in the pool hall and started playing on it. Once I realized the cause and gained experience on the table it became the ultimate gaff table for me because few suspected an almost new Diamond nine footer could play so gaffy.
Duckie and I drifted off topic into racing earlier. Probably over a million dollars spent on the science of racing for every dollar spent on the science of pool yet no amount of science wins a race. Like pool, racing doesn't lend itself to being dominated by raw science. I'd bet Richard Petty's forty year old car with a top driver in it against any car on the track today with any driver in it that has driven on the same tracks for a few years and not finished in the top half of the field if both were allowed to run in a tour event.
Experience and science is best of all, no argument. However if I could only have one I'd choose experience every time having had old competitors in a half-dozen fields that weren't half as knowledgeable as I was beat me like a rented mule! I delve into the science early on trying to gain an edge any time I take up a new form of competition. Often my equipment, even the basic design of my equipment, is superior to that of competitors with many years of experience. Only after I pay my dues and learn from the more experienced competitors do I start competing effectively myself.
Hu
Hue said, “What were we talking about in this thread again?
Experience versus science.
Note that in my prior post (#125) I briefly summarized some literature that leads to the conclusion that experienced professionals violate their own rules under known circumstances and are often too close to their own experience to be as reliable as scientifically derived algorithms. Scientifically derived rules were not only better than the experts with many years of experience, they were better than any single professional expert.
This may seem counter intuitive but those are the results of several meticulous studies conductive with regard to very serious and highly professional people working to save (or treat) lives. All of this work leads to the conclusion that scientifically derived conclusions are better than any person’s experience or knowledge.
I think that part of the problems alluded to in this thread are based in the idea that with regard to all things pocket billiards the studies have not been conducted. When the scientific studies have been conducted our collective scientific “experience” concerning the role of professional experience leads to the conclusion that science is better. Not the “science guy” but the results of carefully controlled and replicated studies.
I think that if Dr Dave and colleagues include specific methods for testing their ideas and ways for people to provide feed back, the science of pool could be advanced quickly. Science is slow to change, but in today’s world we need to take advantage of new methods for collecting data.
PS. In my thinking a “zealot” is anyone who is closed minded and spreads his, and only his, way of seeing the world. Everything else is discarded. In my life I avoid them and suggest, based on my experience, that they should be avoided. In other words I agree with the original author of this phrase.
Joe,
I'll ignore that you mispelled my name and point out that the sentence I turned red is the major difference between hard science and pool. In hard science the results never vary. The same inputs give the same outputs repeatedly. If the same inputs give a different output you can be sure of an error somewhere. Pool is nearly the opposite. The hard science has to be constantly modified by experience and current information not documented anywhere.
I beat some of the very best when they came to me in a little bar. One reason was the light was nearly as strong or as strong from one side of the tables as it was from the pool lights. I have even played in open air halls and those with large picture windows where the light was stronger from the side. No book can tell you how to adjust for changing light. The sun going behind a cloud changed your world too. Some of my most brutal safety play wasn't safeties at all in the normal sense, just forcing someone to shoot looking directly into a ball of fire over and over as the sun went down.
Bad rails, table rolls, napped cloth, even the type and condition of the balls, no science to help you with any of that in terms that are effective. When some general advice is given the documentation can't tell you when to apply it. All the science you can rustle up makes a very fine start when learning to play pool. All the science in the world won't make a player a champion, only experience does that, with or without science.
Knowing something in your head and knowing it in your heart is two different things too. All the scientific theory and fact in the world can't give you the same confidence in making a shot that you have after having made it and very similar shots thousands of times.
As I said when I first entered this thread, pool doesn't lend itself well to scientific method. Far too many variables, some of which are ever shifting. My favorite table to gamble on or play tournament matches has the AC blowing on parts of it. One long rail banks one way, the other entirely differently and the end rails play differently from one end of each rail to the other. The same rail banks one way hit one place and totally differently hit six inches from there. Some of the cloth is warm and wet, some cool and dry. That table drove me crazy when I first found one of the coolest spots in the pool hall and started playing on it. Once I realized the cause and gained experience on the table it became the ultimate gaff table for me because few suspected an almost new Diamond nine footer could play so gaffy.
Duckie and I drifted off topic into racing earlier. Probably over a million dollars spent on the science of racing for every dollar spent on the science of pool yet no amount of science wins a race. Like pool, racing doesn't lend itself to being dominated by raw science. I'd bet Richard Petty's forty year old car with a top driver in it against any car on the track today with any driver in it that has driven on the same tracks for a few years and not finished in the top half of the field if both were allowed to run in a tour event.
Experience and science is best of all, no argument. However if I could only have one I'd choose experience every time having had old competitors in a half-dozen fields that weren't half as knowledgeable as I was beat me like a rented mule! I delve into the science early on trying to gain an edge any time I take up a new form of competition. Often my equipment, even the basic design of my equipment, is superior to that of competitors with many years of experience. Only after I pay my dues and learn from the more experienced competitors do I start competing effectively myself.
Hu
Hu:
I think Joe was trying to imply that your vision was hued -- as in you are wearing rose-colored glasses.
Seriously though, I'm in agreement with you in that while I personally think of myself as a scientifically-minded person (always have been -- science and math were my best subjects, and my career is based on the two), when encountering a difficult choice between science and experience conflicting, I'll take experience almost every time as well. Sometimes, science hasn't yet focused on (someone hasn't spent the time analyzing) "why" hanging that weight off the rear bumper yields better track times. But the guy who discovered it just accepts it, and utilizes it to his benefit every day, much to the chagrin of the science guys.
Great debate going on here, and I'm enjoying my feeble attempts to keep up with it on my breaks.
-Sean
bad idea
Sean,
Hanging the weight off of the back bar has a handful of small advantages and a huge disadvantage. Had he been nearly as smart as me he could never have won a race like that!
The old pool players with all kinds of bizarre techniques are the same. They couldn't win against the younger pool players with perfect pendulum strokes who know that swoop and swerve and raising the rear of the cue for no reason are all wrong if they had any idea how bad their game was. When I was young and full of beans I tried to convince more than one old player that what he was doing was all wrong. They just looked at me kinda funny and sadlike as they kept stuffing my money in their pockets.
Hu
Hu:
I think Joe was trying to imply that your vision was hued -- as in you are wearing rose-colored glasses.
Seriously though, I'm in agreement with you in that while I personally think of myself as a scientifically-minded person (always have been -- science and math were my best subjects, and my career is based on the two), when encountering a difficult choice between science and experience conflicting, I'll take experience almost every time as well. Sometimes, science hasn't yet focused on (someone hasn't spent the time analyzing) "why" hanging that weight off the rear bumper yields better track times. But the guy who discovered it just accepts it, and utilizes it to his benefit every day, much to the chagrin of the science guys.
Great debate going on here, and I'm enjoying my feeble attempts to keep up with it on my breaks.
-Sean
Sean,
Hanging the weight off of the back bar has a handful of small advantages and a huge disadvantage. Had he been nearly as smart as me he could never have won a race like that!
The old pool players with all kinds of bizarre techniques are the same. They couldn't win against the younger pool players with perfect pendulum strokes who know that swoop and swerve and raising the rear of the cue for no reason are all wrong if they had any idea how bad their game was. When I was young and full of beans I tried to convince more than one old player that what he was doing was all wrong. They just looked at me kinda funny and sadlike as they kept stuffing my money in their pockets.
Hu
Many good/great players don't know the science that they are proving. They think that they play by "feel", but would they be better shooters if they understood the science that they are practicing without knowing?
I shoot, for many years, with my friend who shoots by feel with a punch stroke - we play even until he loses his "feel" and that is where my knowledge of geometry makes me more consistant than him.
He can't explain how he shoots and doesn't want to know the geometry that I can teach him..."You can lead a horse to....":wink::thumbup:
I shoot, for many years, with my friend who shoots by feel with a punch stroke - we play even until he loses his "feel" and that is where my knowledge of geometry makes me more consistant than him.
He can't explain how he shoots and doesn't want to know the geometry that I can teach him..."You can lead a horse to....":wink::thumbup:
Good Question
That is a good question that can only be answered by putting it to the test if your friend was willing. It might be that he wouldn't slump, or it might be that his free and easy shooting would go away and he would play worse all the time. Very possible that he would lose his enjoyment of the game too. There are risks to this test.
I bowled recreationally for several years in high school. Had a ball and could roll 180's to low 200's pretty much at will. If I was competing with someone I was usually towards the higher end of that. Not great but not terrible. Having learned on my own I took three long steps and gave the ball a fling!
Then I decided to give college a try a few years after I left high school. Freshmen had to register on the last day after the plum classes were gone and the two PE's available were golf or bowling. Being a pretty sharp guy I figured it was better to have a big ball sent back to you every time than to go chasing after a little one that could be hard to find.
I only lasted a few weeks in college before I decided that I wasn't really cut out to be a college student. However during that time an instructor insisted on teaching me a prissy little four step approach to bowling. Terrible things happened starting off on the wrong foot. I knew I was bass ackwards and my unconscious would throw in a skip step or something trying to get my legs in time. My right leg was in the way of my swing now and I sent my leg halfway down the alley sometimes. To add to my embarrassment by some miracle I was still attached to the leg. Hitting the thigh a mighty whack or swinging the ball out a foot and a half were the only options it seemed. I was the most hapless bowler in the class including people who had never picked up a bowling ball! I spent time on my own working on a four step approach as well as in the classes, no joy.
After some time passed I tried to bowl again. Now neither a three step or four step approach worked. I was caught in some middle hell where nothing was right. I probably attempted to bowl another half-dozen times but I never regained the ability to even approach the alley much less get a ball to the other end of it.
For some reason I don't particularly blame your friend for not being open to change! :grin:
Hu
That is a good question that can only be answered by putting it to the test if your friend was willing. It might be that he wouldn't slump, or it might be that his free and easy shooting would go away and he would play worse all the time. Very possible that he would lose his enjoyment of the game too. There are risks to this test.
I bowled recreationally for several years in high school. Had a ball and could roll 180's to low 200's pretty much at will. If I was competing with someone I was usually towards the higher end of that. Not great but not terrible. Having learned on my own I took three long steps and gave the ball a fling!
Then I decided to give college a try a few years after I left high school. Freshmen had to register on the last day after the plum classes were gone and the two PE's available were golf or bowling. Being a pretty sharp guy I figured it was better to have a big ball sent back to you every time than to go chasing after a little one that could be hard to find.
I only lasted a few weeks in college before I decided that I wasn't really cut out to be a college student. However during that time an instructor insisted on teaching me a prissy little four step approach to bowling. Terrible things happened starting off on the wrong foot. I knew I was bass ackwards and my unconscious would throw in a skip step or something trying to get my legs in time. My right leg was in the way of my swing now and I sent my leg halfway down the alley sometimes. To add to my embarrassment by some miracle I was still attached to the leg. Hitting the thigh a mighty whack or swinging the ball out a foot and a half were the only options it seemed. I was the most hapless bowler in the class including people who had never picked up a bowling ball! I spent time on my own working on a four step approach as well as in the classes, no joy.
After some time passed I tried to bowl again. Now neither a three step or four step approach worked. I was caught in some middle hell where nothing was right. I probably attempted to bowl another half-dozen times but I never regained the ability to even approach the alley much less get a ball to the other end of it.
For some reason I don't particularly blame your friend for not being open to change! :grin:
Hu
Exactly correct. To the extent that any particular string theory does not produce testable conclusions, its usefulness is limited to helping theorists work on other theories that are testable.How does one experience the "String Thoeries"?
If a theory isn't testable, it can only be useful temporarily. Theories that can't be tested by experiment don't become permanent parts of knowledge.
Scientists don't cut *anyone* slack on this. Some of Einstein's predictions had to wait decades for verification by experiment. Even though almost everyone was very confident Einstein was right, they still "ran the experiment", and still do, to refine the experimental data.
Too many folks read the popular current books and think they are reading hard science. Most of the content is usually speculation, not science.
You're arguing more against pure "book learning" vs experience than science vs experience. Science does not equal "book learning".
I agree with the points you make about local knowledge vs more general knowledge. The saying in golf is to never bet money against a golfer who has grooved his faults.
Scientists only cover (when they have their white lab coats on) all the parameters, general and specific, to be able to cover all cases, in a verifiable and repeatable way. Then, the job of actually beating you on your specific table with the irregular felt and bad lighting, dead cushion spots, tilted table, etc falls to engineers.
Give a for-profit engineering firm five years or so and maybe 100 million US dollars, and they will build a machine, a pool-shooting robot, that will walk into your pool room for the first time, look at your table with lasers and CMOS imagers, test the rails with pressure-sensitive transducers, test the felt and balls for friction, and test the roll using those balls to confirm all previous tests. Then it would select a cue, break, and beat the pants off you, me, and 99% of all the other pool players in the world. It would keep refining its knowledge of the table and tracking environmental changes (in table temp, room humidity, etc) as it did so - getting better as it beats you. To beat the last 1% of meat pool players may take twice as long and twice as much money - but it is inevitable that it will happen. That's what science can produce.
What are often referred to as the “hard” sciences are no longer quite as “hard.” Physicists, for instance, have learned much from psychology and its use of statistics to tease out complicated relationships.
There is much that can be learned about the physics of colliding spheres under controlled conditions from the sciences. However, it is true that that much of what has been learned cannot easily be replicated by a human with a cue stick. The application of scientifically derived principles is often a sub-field unto itself.
An acquaintance often said that physicians were “nothing more” than applied chemists. True perhaps but the physician’s training includes much more than chemistry and we would be far worse off if we were “treated” by chemists. The derivation of knowledge and the application of knowledge are quite different areas of expertise.
An old joke told by the Dean of the engineering college states that a Ph.D. candidate in Physics and a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering were both told that they could jump half way to a naked beautiful woman at the other end of a room as many times as they desired. The physicist said you could never reach her. The engineer immediately jumped.
In the clinical disciplines there is a term known as sub-clinical phenomena. These are conditions that do not quite reach the standards set by prior research. None-the-less if treated 80 percent of the patients receive beneficial results.
I guess that all of this suggests that science, as a tool, is of limited usefulness. Knowing when to use it and when to go with cutting edge (unproven results) is what wisdom is all about.
Others have pointed out that a great deal of excellent pool playing relies on physiology and psychology. Neither of these disciplines has taken much interest in the sport of billiards (especially relative to the mathematicians, physicists and engineers). However when the studies conducted by these disciplines are available they should (at least in my thinking) over ride the expert. For instance, recent research on the Quiet Eye across several sports is indeed quite useful. Pros who are not aware of this research and or those who advocate otherwise are simply out of step.
Research conducted in Australia on how to void bad habits and replace them with new habits is currently getting quite a bit of play in the literature. Those involved in teaching others to play would be well advised to read and use these findings.
Unfortunately, much of the “good” research in the social and biological sciences are not directly related to playing pool and one has to go looking for what we do know. Until then some of the best insights can come from the professional player with years of experience. But this information is always suspect for many reasons and requires much empirical study by those who may find it useful. The applied expert is one of the best places to find leads about the cutting edge of any discipline. How much credence we should place in their statements until they have been tested is another matter.
At one time I worked in the lab of a Nobel Laureate in neurophysiology. He was asked which was more important, theory or application. His answer was that neither was more important for without one we would not have the other, at least in his thinking.
When I told this story to one of my professors in graduate school who considered himself a theoretician I was thrown out of his office and told to never return to the third floor where his offices were located. There are all sorts of bigots.
---
My apologies for misspelling Hu’s name. My word processor found and automatically replaced it with what it knew. So much for scientifically derived solutions – or was it human error. Naw – blame the machine.
There is much that can be learned about the physics of colliding spheres under controlled conditions from the sciences. However, it is true that that much of what has been learned cannot easily be replicated by a human with a cue stick. The application of scientifically derived principles is often a sub-field unto itself.
An acquaintance often said that physicians were “nothing more” than applied chemists. True perhaps but the physician’s training includes much more than chemistry and we would be far worse off if we were “treated” by chemists. The derivation of knowledge and the application of knowledge are quite different areas of expertise.
An old joke told by the Dean of the engineering college states that a Ph.D. candidate in Physics and a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering were both told that they could jump half way to a naked beautiful woman at the other end of a room as many times as they desired. The physicist said you could never reach her. The engineer immediately jumped.
In the clinical disciplines there is a term known as sub-clinical phenomena. These are conditions that do not quite reach the standards set by prior research. None-the-less if treated 80 percent of the patients receive beneficial results.
I guess that all of this suggests that science, as a tool, is of limited usefulness. Knowing when to use it and when to go with cutting edge (unproven results) is what wisdom is all about.
Others have pointed out that a great deal of excellent pool playing relies on physiology and psychology. Neither of these disciplines has taken much interest in the sport of billiards (especially relative to the mathematicians, physicists and engineers). However when the studies conducted by these disciplines are available they should (at least in my thinking) over ride the expert. For instance, recent research on the Quiet Eye across several sports is indeed quite useful. Pros who are not aware of this research and or those who advocate otherwise are simply out of step.
Research conducted in Australia on how to void bad habits and replace them with new habits is currently getting quite a bit of play in the literature. Those involved in teaching others to play would be well advised to read and use these findings.
Unfortunately, much of the “good” research in the social and biological sciences are not directly related to playing pool and one has to go looking for what we do know. Until then some of the best insights can come from the professional player with years of experience. But this information is always suspect for many reasons and requires much empirical study by those who may find it useful. The applied expert is one of the best places to find leads about the cutting edge of any discipline. How much credence we should place in their statements until they have been tested is another matter.
At one time I worked in the lab of a Nobel Laureate in neurophysiology. He was asked which was more important, theory or application. His answer was that neither was more important for without one we would not have the other, at least in his thinking.
When I told this story to one of my professors in graduate school who considered himself a theoretician I was thrown out of his office and told to never return to the third floor where his offices were located. There are all sorts of bigots.
---
My apologies for misspelling Hu’s name. My word processor found and automatically replaced it with what it knew. So much for scientifically derived solutions – or was it human error. Naw – blame the machine.
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In my current neck of the woods, there's a lot of contempt for "book learnin' ", and a great love for "common sense". But book learning is really just common sense (and perhaps a little "uncommon sense") collected and organized. Any scientist worth his salt is well aware that every theory is just a model, and those models are always getting refined based on new observations.
As someone far wiser than me has said, "The map is not the territory".
Experience is the basis for science.
Science explains experience.
As someone far wiser than me has said, "The map is not the territory".
Experience is the basis for science.
Science explains experience.
Hmmm
Joe,
While any disagreement I have with this post might be significant to a scientist I don't think it would be significant to an expert. Without splitting hairs to a ridiculous level, we are in agreement. :thumbup:
Hu
Joe,
While any disagreement I have with this post might be significant to a scientist I don't think it would be significant to an expert. Without splitting hairs to a ridiculous level, we are in agreement. :thumbup:
Hu
Hu:
I think you quoted and responded to JoeW's post too soon -- he's not finished editing it yet. He might yet add/change something that will tip the balance as to whether you deem a response necessary.
J/K Joe!
-Sean
Though modern medicine now has a solid foundation in evidence based practice and that evidence base is found in the sciences, the true roots can be traced back at least 5,000 years and predate any modern notion of science. Science itself is rooted in philosophy.
Modern medicine is a fusion of arts and science. Though not so common in the US anymore, in other places medicine is still formally referred to as "Arts". I give you the example of the Netherlands, where you will find the oldest medical school in existence.
Indeed one would be in dire straights if left in the hands of the chemist. This is exactly why I have serious problems with Pharmacists altering prescriptions. They are highly educated pill counters with zero medical training. No offense meant to any pharmacists that might be reading this while on the night shift at Walgreens. :wink:
Though medicine as a profession clung tightly to science in the 20th century you will find the modern physician is now coming full circle and embracing the full body of the foundation from which the profession arose.
This is a particularly bad example of the superiority of experience over science. It hardly takes science to understand--and understand pretty much immediately--why CTE/Pro1 doesn't work as an aiming system. Just a little logic will do.Pushout said:
(Note that this in reference to the generally trumpeted claim that it is sufficient unto itself, i.e., the crucial "feel" adjustments, where the real aiming is done, are excluded from the "system.")
Jim
arts
Few outside the field realize that engineering is known as an art and science by those who study and practice it. Many of the "hard numbers" were established over years of trial and error. The sheer effort required to crunch all the numbers meant that it was less costly to simply add a little "fudge factor" and get a building, bridge, or whatever built in the ages before the computer. When it became feasible to crunch the numbers very tightly it seemed that very significant dollars could be saved on materials. That is true but it was also found that many of the "hard numbers" were wrong when there was no longer a fudge factor added to them.
A reading of this thread reveals that whatever state science is in at the moment is just a constant state of refinement of the known data hopefully approaching ever closer to the truth. Unfortunately scientific data is often presented to the general public and taught in schools as the absolute truth.
Were the scientists and the people who think they have hard scientific proof of things a bit more forthright most of the argument and entertainment would not occur. Of course many basing their arguments on science do not realize that it isn't absolute themselves. As one example, fractional aiming systems work beautifully in 2D drawings, not at all on a pool table. We don't use fractional overlap, we learn what sight picture gives us a certain overlap or to be more exact, the result a certain overlap is supposed to give. I have a low opinion of fractional aiming systems as illustrated on paper yet on paper it is perhaps the most elegant system of all.
Hu
Few outside the field realize that engineering is known as an art and science by those who study and practice it. Many of the "hard numbers" were established over years of trial and error. The sheer effort required to crunch all the numbers meant that it was less costly to simply add a little "fudge factor" and get a building, bridge, or whatever built in the ages before the computer. When it became feasible to crunch the numbers very tightly it seemed that very significant dollars could be saved on materials. That is true but it was also found that many of the "hard numbers" were wrong when there was no longer a fudge factor added to them.
A reading of this thread reveals that whatever state science is in at the moment is just a constant state of refinement of the known data hopefully approaching ever closer to the truth. Unfortunately scientific data is often presented to the general public and taught in schools as the absolute truth.
Were the scientists and the people who think they have hard scientific proof of things a bit more forthright most of the argument and entertainment would not occur. Of course many basing their arguments on science do not realize that it isn't absolute themselves. As one example, fractional aiming systems work beautifully in 2D drawings, not at all on a pool table. We don't use fractional overlap, we learn what sight picture gives us a certain overlap or to be more exact, the result a certain overlap is supposed to give. I have a low opinion of fractional aiming systems as illustrated on paper yet on paper it is perhaps the most elegant system of all.
Hu