Horace Heffner wrote:
"For example, Dr. Irvin S. Y. Chen, director of the AIDS Institute at U.C.L.A. , is working on using RNA "hairpin scissors" to cut out the bits of genetic material in blood stem cells that code for the receptors. . . .
This strikes me as a very promising approach to a cure.
Right. Yes. The Chen approach may be promising, and based on this other result with bone marrow transplant, we now have good reason to think it will work. (There was reason to thinks so before, but this bolsters it.) What I meant was that the procedures used with the particular patient cannot be duplicated on a large scale. The lessons learned from this case may contribute to a more practical cure.
Along the same lines, I do not think that bulk Pd-D electrochemical cold fusion will ever become a practical source of energy. It takes too long to turn on, it uses too much rare Pd, it is inherently difficult to control, and so on. However, it may teach us something about the reaction that can be applied to other materials, or that points to a theory. For that reason, I think we should continue work on this approach.
The above argument is a marvelous demonstration that logic applied to false premises can result in false conclusions. Hume's argument assumes the laws of nature apply to everything in nature. This is an unproven assumption.
Well, not perfectly proven, but Hume (and I) are of the opinion that nothing can be proven beyond doubt, and all proof is based on repetitive observations with no solid observations to the contrary. We are empiricists. Thus, for example, the fact that special relativity predicts time dilation and that nothing can go at the speed of light does not prove those assertions as much as the fact that people have measured time dilation; and they have never observed any physical object reach the speed of light, or any variation in the speed of light, although they have looked carefully. The second law of thermodynamics is still entirely empirical as far as I know, but I believe it as much as I believe laws that are backed by gobs of theory.
I am well aware of the fact that the MM experiments were not fully convincing, and some smart people still think there may be variations in the speed of light from ether, but from an empiricist point of view, it is true for now, true as anything, and true enough to act upon -- and there is no better or more solid definition of truth.
The laws of nature are determined by science, and the domain of science is only those things in nature which are repeatable.
That is incorrect. Science deals with countless non-repeatable, uncontrollable, one-off phonomena, such as the emergence of life on earth, the emergence of individual species (which are never duplicated) the creation and death of the universe (cosmology), super-nova, and of course experiments that are uncontrolled and difficult to repeat such as cold fusion and semiconductors in the 1930s
Hume presupposes the set of things in nature which are not repeatable is null. He presupposes his conclusion.
Not repeatable. He was talking about events that have not been reliably observed by objective means, such as being recorded by instruments. All miracles have been observed and reported by people, who are notoriously unreliable judges of what is occurring in nature. (Doctors included, by the way.) A miracle would be an event recorded by instruments, cameras and the like that clearly violates the laws of nature to an extreme extent, such as -- for example -- a putrefying corpse coming back to life (Lazarus). Such a thing has never happened since the beginning of the universe, and never will happen. Hume and I are as certain of that as we are of anything. The fact that many other people believe it can happen has no bearing on the subject and no effect on our opinions, any more than the fact that many people refuse to believe in cold fusion affects my views on that subject.
- Jed
