"C. P. Weidling" wrote in message
...
"Thomas McDonald" writes:

"David James Polewka" wrote in message
...
http://www.panix.com/~clays/Una/una3.html

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of
...snip...
and effort that scientists put into their work. The
"curiosity" explanation for the scientists' motive just doesn't stand
up.

David,

This fellow is a comedian. How interesting that he feels competent
to
rule on what is "normal".

FWIW, pretty much everyone I know who has a very narrow scientific
focus
has a range of curiousity and excitement about other areas. Hell, even
Gould was a Red Sox fan, and wrote on baseball.

Tom McDonald

snip more-of-the-same ramblings
Gould was a Yankees fan. I remember reading something he wrote wrt to
Red Sox hitter Ted Williams. When the Sox played the Yanks, Williams was
The Enemy.

Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?

Tom McDonald

Thomas McDonald wrote:

Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?


Oh Yecchhh! Almost enough to turn me into a Steinbrunner-Marxist.
(Actually I don't think that's true. Say it ain't so, Joe, say it
ain't so. George Will is my idea of the uber-Yankee. If he should
come up to Boston, may everybody pour growlers of bottom-sludge on
his head.)

Excuse me, Mr. Van Winkle, did I hear somebody say the Dodgers have
moved out of town?

-dlj.

Thomas McDonald wrote:

Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?


Oh Yecchhh! Almost enough to turn me into a Steinbrunner-Marxist.

(Actually I don't think Will could be a Red Sox fan. With that
haircut he's gotta be a Princeton guy. Maybe a Yalie if he ever had
a bad hair day. But he's never been within ten miles of the Green
Monster. Say it ain't so, Joe, say it ain't so. [That was a bow to
David Friedman, as a Chicago lurker in this newsgroup.] George Will
is my idea of the uber-Yankee. If he should come up to Boston, may
everybody pour growlers of bottom-sludge on his head.)

Excuse me, Mr. Van Winkle, did I hear somebody say the Dodgers have
moved out of town?

-dlj.

"Thomas McDonald" wrote

Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?


Try again :-)

George Will was a Cubs fan in his youth. Then he went Beltway and started
rooting for the Orioles. I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that we, as a nation, are
_under_taxed.

-- Tony P.

"tonyp" writes:

"Thomas McDonald" wrote

Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?


Try again :-)

George Will was a Cubs fan in his youth. Then he went Beltway and started
rooting for the Orioles. I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that we, as a nation, are
_under_taxed.

-- Tony P.

John Updike perhaps? He saw Ted Williams last time at bat and wrote a
fairly famous description of the event.

tonyp wrote:
"Thomas McDonald" wrote
Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?
Try again :-)

George Will was a Cubs fan in his youth.

Gawd, what a f#$%^&*()g relief!!

Then he went Beltway and started
rooting for the Orioles.

Well, maybe the guy isn't that bad after all. The Orioles have their
good points... Like, take *that* Hubert Humphrey!

I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that we, as a nation, are
_under_taxed.

Undoubtedly true -- but when did whiney George say that?

-dlj.

tonyp wrote:
"Thomas McDonald" wrote
Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?
Try again :-)

George Will was a Cubs fan in his youth.

Gawd, what a f#$%^&*()g relief!!

Then he went Beltway and started
rooting for the Orioles.

Well, maybe the guy isn't that bad after all. The Orioles have their
good points... Like, take *that* Hubert Humphrey!

I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that we, as a nation, are
_under_taxed.

Undoubtedly true -- but when did whiney George say that?

-dlj.

tonyp wrote:
"Thomas McDonald" wrote
Oh, crap. Was it George Will who's the Red Sox fan?
Try again :-)

George Will was a Cubs fan in his youth.

Gawd, what a f#$%^&*()g relief!!

Then he went Beltway and started
rooting for the Orioles.

Well, maybe the guy isn't that bad after all. The Orioles have their
good points... Like, take *that* Hubert Humphrey!

I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that we, as a nation, are
_under_taxed.

Undoubtedly true -- but when did whiney George say that?

-dlj.

"David Lloyd-Jones" wrote in message
...
tonyp wrote:
I don't know whether that was before or after he
changed his mind about taxes: he used to argue that
we, as a nation, are _under_taxed.

Undoubtedly true -- but when did whiney George say that?


I figure, 1984: here's the opening paragraph of his column titled

America the Undertaxed

"Ah, July: the fields are white with daisies. In January, I promised that not
"until the fields are white with daisies" would I again mention that we are, as
a nation, undertaxed. I now return to that topic because the inescapable need
to raise taxes raises this question: can Ronald Reagan really want to be
re-elected? If he faces facts --if he reads the numbers in the Wall Street
Journal -- he knows that in 1985 the President must hurry to restore the
government's revenue base. Reagan cannot be a Reaganite after 1984."

How times do change :-)

-- Tony P.

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 07:51:47 -0700, Uncle Al
wrote:

Go marry a European if you
can stand the smell.

How many European ladies did you meet? Do you want us to believe that
Nth American beauties use more soap, deodorants, etc? Unless your
American broad mind is focused on Russia. Belarus and probably
Rumania.
I have been to most of European countries, and have totally opposite
experience.

Uncle Al wrote in message ...
David James Polewka wrote:
[snip]

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of surrogate activities.
[snip]

http://w0rli.home.att.net/youare.swf
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/sunshine.jpg

The mindless troll has found a compadre. If you don't like
technology, ass, don't use it. Sure as Hell don't bother those of us
who are the high priests of it. We are busy creating the future you
so abhor - including smoother, softer, silkier, drier armpits for our
ladies. You got a problem with that, bub? Go marry a European if you
can stand the smell.

Interesting little piece of research came up the other day.
There are two statistically significant links concerning breast cancer
:
1) Right handed people tend to get them on the left breast and vice
versa.
2) The UK, which uses more underarm deodorant than other European
countries ( as in most things, we Brits seem to be mid Atlantic ) has
higher breast cancer rates than other european countries.

The researchers posit that the aluminium or zirconium oxides in
deodorants may be causing the cancers......and the right / left part
is becasue a right handed person will naturally aply more doedorant
using their right hand....to hte left side of the body. ( Rather like
men nearly always have shorter sideburns on the other side of their
face from their handedness ).

I don't say it's true, probably simply a result of data dredging. Yet
interesting nonetheless....smell or surgery ?

Tim Worstall

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
Do something naughty to physics.

Uncle Al says, "The inevitability of scientific socialism is queued up
with controlled thermonuclear fusion, christ's return, and honest
government."

"David Lloyd-Jones" wrote in message
...
Mark Thorson wrote:
Steve Harris wrote:
I can't tell you how many times I've had a grant
proposal
criticized on the grounds that it wasn't being submitted
by
a recognized expert in the field in which the work was
proposed. That's fine, but this actually happened once
in a
field my lab had invented, and in which there WERE no
experts working on the technique but me and a couple of
my
team members!

This would be your work in proactive treatments for
chronic, whole-body frostbite?


Nah, my work in rapid mild hypothermia induction in mammals
by repeated fluorocarbon lung lavage. Three years ago they
said it was pretty extreme, since not likely clinically
relevant. If you caught the front page of the NY Times
yesterday, you'll see that the clinical relevance of cooling
people down rapidly after resuscitation has now pretty well
penetrated, even to the popular media. This was all obvious
to us 3 years ago from 20 years of animal experiments done
by a dozen labs, but the reviewers had to read it in the
NEJM 16 mo ago. Morons. As noted, we gave all the
references; the reviewers were either too lazy to read them,
or too stupid to see their implications, or both.

We were NOT asking for money to do human research, just more
animal research as proof of concept (stuff since done by
others who DID get the grant money, in academia). Mostly at
the time it was research we'd already done g, but not all
of it. Try doing that and having a reviewer tell you that
work you already did won't work. It makes you want to commit
murder, since you really can't reply in any way which should
cause the kind of pubic embarrassment and career damage to
the anonymous reviewer that such remarks SHOULD occasion.

If a reviewer has the unmitigated egotistical gall to say
your experiment won't work, when you know it will because
you did it, and you know the reviewer can't be basing his
opinion on any of his own work or expertise because he
doesn't DO that kind of work, because it was invented by you
and *nobody* else is doing it, THEN you have the right to be
pretty damned angry. But who are you going to complain to?
The NIH is only going to yawn and tell you to take a number
and stand in line.

SBH

Uncle Al wrote:
The mindless troll has found a compadre. If you don't like
technology, ass, don't use it. Sure as Hell don't bother those of us
who are the high priests of it. We are busy creating the future you
so abhor - including smoother, softer, silkier, drier armpits for our
ladies. You got a problem with that, bub?

well, I think the Unibomber has a point. I mean if you're going
to do that, then wouldn't your time be better spent trying to
solve the seemingly intractible problem of creating a backless
halter dress that is also strapless (and also with a hem 12"
above the knees)?

As is well-known, Einstein has already carried out significant
preliminary research on the issue of spatial dependence of the
stress tensor along the periphery of a strapless dress. So, there's
good work to build upon here.

Alfred Einstead wrote:

Uncle Al wrote:
The mindless troll has found a compadre. If you don't like
technology, ass, don't use it. Sure as Hell don't bother those of us
who are the high priests of it. We are busy creating the future you
so abhor - including smoother, softer, silkier, drier armpits for our
ladies. You got a problem with that, bub?

well, I think the Unibomber has a point. I mean if you're going
to do that, then wouldn't your time be better spent trying to
solve the seemingly intractible problem of creating a backless
halter dress that is also strapless (and also with a hem 12"
above the knees)?

As is well-known, Einstein has already carried out significant
preliminary research on the issue of spatial dependence of the
stress tensor along the periphery of a strapless dress. So, there's
good work to build upon here.

A good engineer first identifies the real problem. A chemist would
use adhesive rather than equilibrium structural support. Given the
wonders of the marketplace (and ending up shopping for cosmetics with
my woman), I have empirical proof that one can purchase both adhesive
nipple outline obliterators and artifical high beams. We have come so
far from the pastie.

Implantable Fe-Nd-B magnets also suggest themselves.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

in article ,
steve harris wrote:

|"C. P. Weidling" wrote in message
...
|
|Members of a lay audience always ask the big questions, the important
|questions, and that helps us to remember that our piecemeal efforts
|are only worthwhile insofar as they're steps towards answering those
|big questions.
|
|
|Actually, in my own field (biomedical research) you don't
|need to rely on lay people to ask the big questions. The MDs
|in the audience will do it, because they're always thinking
|about how whatever it is you're doing can be usefully
|applied to some real and pressing clinical problem.


md's _are_ laypeople.










--


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