Machinists are unusually scientific

[bloefeld]

I hate starting a new thread just to throw some flowers around but I couldn't see another way of doing it.

There is no other discussion I have found on the Internet where the participants are as rightly sceptical about global warming as on this site.

The tone of the discussion is very high-minded and there is little or no hate-speech on the topic that is a common feature of so many other forums on the topic.

I think that perhaps machinists work with complicated geometry, physics, computer logic, and a wide variety of materials has led them as a group to be more open-minded about the possibilities of what the scientific model offers than most other people.

I also believe that because they work with precision, they know that the 'truth' of most things can actually be apprehended and are not simply willing to stop seeking truth because it may be hard to find.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

[fizzissist]

....Then there's the scientific machinists....

I think that's a very nice compliment, to everyone that posts here. The nature of the beast does lean towards a precise understanding, and frustration when you can't get there from here.

I for one am fascinated by the back and forth parrying of scientists who each try to outdo or disprove their competitors. It really is kind of like racing. The difference is there's never a checkered flag, only the gratification of knowing you've discovered something more precise, or something that allows a more precise view of science.

A question raised by your post though is how good a machinist a scientist makes....and I can tell you that most often, in my experience, a machinist makes a better scientist than the other way around.

[bloefeld]

From my brief experience in academia I more often found that experiments were designed to prove the theorem and not the other way around.

So in the quest for publications more often than not the tricky bit was coming up with an experimental method that proved what you thought was the case.

This is utterly endemic right now in the global climate change field. The very selective use of data that is first found to prove the theory is what is causing so much of the muck around the topic.

This I think is especially true of the computer science guys who have become involved in the modelling of the climate. There is in my opinion a giant difference between a computer model to prove and predict one or two artifacts than there is between a computer simulation that attempts to bring some level of order to a highly complex system like the climate.

The models will always predict the desired outcome, sometimes to the degree that any set of random numbers within a particular range will give an output showing a 'proof' of what the future will hold. This has been proved with the famous "hockey stick" model.

Machinist of course cannot manipulate their data. Whatever the inputs are can be clearly measured from the resulting part. To a machinist, the truth is always self-evident and the difference between what he set out to make and what he made can always be found in reversing the process. What makes machinists as opposed to say welders better scientists, is that they work in a world of higher precision and seem to generally have a high level of understanding of the materials they use and the methods needed to chip them to the shape and size they require.

The climate debate and the energy debate that goes with it have become nearly void of truth. We are ruled by the opinions of people who are for the most part without knowledge of the subject, and in allowing that, we continue to be forced down the wrong path by a post-modern idea that truth is relative and is therefore not part of what is needed to form knowledge. This post-modern philosophy is completely bankrupt and without any philosophical merit. Yet, it has caused our education system to completely abandon the basis of scientific curiosity as the basis for solving problems.

I agree with you also on who is better at what; I have little doubt that the majority of scientists are not at all good at science, so machinists are almost guaranteed to be better at science than science at machining.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

[Geof]

Originally Posted by bloefeld ...... What makes machinists as opposed to say welders better scientists, is that they work in a world of higher precision and seem to generally have a high level of understanding of the materials they use and the methods needed to chip them to the shape and size they require......Cheers, Bloefeld

Hoo boy! Where are all the welders wsho are going to be offended by this elitism. Do you really think Machinists know more about the materials they work with than Ticketed Pressure Welders knows about the materials know about the materials they work with?


Incidentally your first post had this little gem;

The tone of the discussion is very high-minded and there is little or no hate-speech on the topic that is a common feature of so many other forums on the topic.

Go back a thousand or two posts in the Coming Climate Change thread and see how high minded some of the debate was; or look at current posts between different participants.

In my experience machinists are no more and no less scientific in their approach to their career, and life, than any other people no matter what their traded, career or profession.

[dan_the_welder]

Yeah Man,

Ease up on the welders

Dan_the_welder

[One of Many]

Interesting,

I'm not sure it is a fair comparison considering the 2 disciplines do not quite intersect logic GW wise. One being physical and consistently verifiable. The other being mixed theory with a multitude of theoretical and hypothesized variables, contrived into one metaphysical case closed outcome.

Where as a machinist is given a set of requirements within defined variations to produce a known result. Unlike my function in design and prototyping where I make the part functional then draw the prints and mating parts to match. I am rarely totally wrong, but I can just edit the drawing to make it right! LOL!

As opposed to the Scientific community pondering over questionable data with Galactically vast variations and so often no physical substance besides happenstance conditions correlative to mysterious circumstances, in an effort to produce one indisputable and finite result to which future laws will be enacted to prevent.

Machinist don't often deal in theoretical logic without concrete facts holding things together. To a Scientist, carving metal is one of those American jobs they just won't do. Not enough government funding and status in blue collar occupations.


DC

[Geof]

Originally Posted by One of Many ....where I make the part functional then draw the prints and mating parts to match. I am rarely totally wrong, but I can just edit the drawing to make it right! LOL!....DC

The best way to be a scientific machinist.

I thought I was the only one to do it this way; which, in my not so humble opinion, is the best way to design and make prototypes. There is one problem however, that most people do not seem to be able to overcome...you really do need to know what you are doing.

[bloefeld]

Perhaps at poor choice of trades to compare to.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

[bloefeld]

I am by no stretch of the imagination a machinist. I own a HAAS TM-1 because I thought it would be a good idea to have one. Now I am climbing up the learning curve between what I can design and what I can make.

I only prototype for my own inventions. I make my living inventing things to solve some problem or another I trip over in industry.

A scientist today is a specialist usually in a very narrow field. A North American University education has been reduced to the giving and getting of credentials. For the most part students are rarely curious about much more than their grade and then primarily as a means to an end. If they want to go to grad school, they need a GPA of some level of another. Once in Grad school they rarely do much more than act as their advisor's slave and go to classes that have somewhat fewer participants than those they attended in undergrad. The other students in the class are more or less as bright as one another and less time is spent weeding out the real idiots.

If the system hasn't completely sucked the life out of them at the Masters level they will sign up for PhD work. It is now almost impossible to not be awarded a PhD if the student is willing to hang around long enough being his advisor's slave. The student will do some research, usually in aid of his advisor's field and will write a paper about the research.

The student will defend his paper by submitting to some annoying questioning by some more Professors who are trying to make sure that the student doesn't begin to think he/she is as smart as they are. The 'thesis' is usually close to unreadable; either because the field has an arcane code it uses instead of language or the writer cannot actually write in any known language. I get to read a few of them every once in a while and certainly for the past 10 years they are getting nothing but worse.

After awhile the student demands his PhD and the adviser forces the rest of the faculty to give it to the student because by then the student is no longer all that willing a slave.

This confers little knowledge on the participants.

In five years the PhD reads his once cherished thesis and laughs about how ignorant the ideas put forth were.

The result is more or less what "One of Many" has concluded.

Except the public thinks that anyone who calls themselves a scientist must know more about anything than they do. And the scientific community agrees with the public.

Politicians like to get re-elected so a topic like global climate change is a perfect means to that end. Whichever way public opinion goes on the topic the political class will claim to have the answer to it. Of course the politicians will also try to create an illusion of an authoritative source from which the public can base their opinion upon. The truth is rarely if ever considered.

Business knows that if the political guys are going to solve something, there is money to be made one way or another on it. Because any political solution is nothing more than a way to spend tax dollars and create little empires for the governing people.

Business then acts to help feed the publics fears about the topic, in this case Climate Change.

Scientists need money too, so they quickly catch on to the ride and begin to create reasons for research and attract the funds needed to do the research.

Of course, most 'scientists' don't really know how to 'do' science because they are merely accredited as 'scientists' not truly knowledgeable about the actual process unless by some sort of weird accident they studied the philosophy of science.

Incapable of proving much of anything, they try to achieve the next best thing, get a consensus about it.

In the case of Global Warming the public has mistaken a consensus by scientists to be the same as scientific proof. Most members of the public don't know the difference between a correlation and causality. It appears to me that most scientists can't really tell either.

So now we are engaged in the sort of debates on this forum, and I still hold firm on my point. The people who post on this particular forum are much less nasty than those I have seen on any other forum on the topic.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

[dynosor]

Originally Posted by bloefeld This I think is especially true of the computer science guys who have become involved in the modelling of the climate.

Who needs a computer model when we have the humble thermometer? If a model cannot reasonably duplicate historical thermometer readings then how can it predict future thermometer readings?

[ImanCarrot]

A collegue of mine, many years ago, submitted his PhD thesis with the following text on a page somewhere in the middle:

"It is not generaly beleived that these are ever actualy read. If anyone would like to contact me and reference this page number and paragraph number, I shall buy them a case of Jack Daniels. If you contact me second I shall let you know who won".

It was never claimed.

[Geof]

Originally Posted by ImanCarrot A collegue of mine, many years ago, submitted his PhD thesis with the following text on a page somewhere in the middle: "It is not generaly beleived that these are ever actualy read. If anyone would like to contact me and reference this page number and paragraph number, I shall buy them a case of Jack Daniels. If you contact me second I shall let you know who won". It was never claimed.

You are not being fair; the best way to make sure something is not read is to place it in the middle of a page. If you want someone to agree to a contract change write them a letter which which blahs on for almost half a page, then mentions the change and finishes with more blah. They will probably never see the change.