On 11/05/2006, at 5:31 PM, Dan Minette wrote:
The "ask Jimmy" prediction of the weather is a different
mechanism. No
model is available. If it exists, it's inside Jimmy's head....and
he's
claiming that he "just knows." We know that he's right, but we are
no more
able to predict what Jimmy will say tomorrow than we are able to
predict
tomorrow's forecast, given knowledge of the weather up to two
months ago and
knowing the last two months of Jimmy's predictions.
However, it is still testable. You can show to a high level of
confidence that Asking Jimmy works. And once you know that, you know
that there's SOME mechanism by which it occurs. That mechanism might
remain beyond our understanding until the day Jimmy dies, but we know
it's there (and can continue gathering data 'til he carks it). We
know one thing about Jimmy, and that is that he's uncanny at
predicting the weather. Knowing that we don't know any more than that
is knowledge too.
Like the mobile phone thing. We've kicked around and argued a few
mechanisms by which a mobile phone *might* cause cancer, or by which
the behaviour of people who are high-users of mobiles might lead them
to other behaviours which are cancer-promoters. But really, unless
there are some studies that show a clear correlation between mobiles
and brain tumours, we don't even know if there's really a link or
not. So we can have some fun chats on possible causes (I disagree
with the good brain doctor that physics is irrelevant here!) but
really it's only for fun (unless anyone here really *believes*
"phones cause cancer"?).
Charlie
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