Paula,
What does this  have to do with the scientific method?
Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paula Nixon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: The Scientific Method and PD (with emphasis on the scientific
method)


> Dear Ray
> When Darwin first started talking about Evolution, it sounded very
> rational that life evolved from the simple cell which was thought to be a
> jelly like mass of protoplasm with a nucleus.  I remember drawing those in
> school.  Now we know there is no such thing as a simple cell, it is a
> single cell.   In 1963 Dr. George Palade of the Rockerfeller Institute in
> NY, discovered it was an amazingly intricate system of incredibly fine
> tubes and chain of minute bags that totally permeate the entire cell. To
> summary your 10 pages of the "simple cell" It has structural design,
> energy generators, invasion guards , transport systems, food factories,
> waste disposal systems, protective barriers, communication links within
> and without the cell city that it is.  Just the "skin" of the cell is
> amazing.  It controls the entry and exit of everything for the cell,
> almost as if it had a chemical sense of taste as it grabs or rejects the
> needed nutrients into the cell by forming a little "finger" !
> that
> reaches out and pulls the needed nutrient inside.  Then there is the DNA
> and RNA!   Science hasn't a clue how this could have just happened, but
> they don't say that in the schools or in science books, or if they do it
> is very low keyed.  It couldn't have just happened.
>
> There was a quote I read once, that I can't find when I need it, that
> said, "Evolution expects us to believe the unbelievable, but to do
> otherwise is to believe in a Creator and that is unacceptable."
> Paula
>
> rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> KF thank you and glad you clarified that many testers needed to get same
> result from experiment. I googled "Cell" and got 10 pages and had hard
> time
> getting beyond basic unit of life. Ray
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "KF Etzold"
> To:
>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 7:55 AM
> Subject: The Scientific Method and PD (with emphasis on the scientific
> method)
>
>
>> Rick posted some references on the scientific method; here is a brief
>> outline of the usual proceedure followed in research with some coments on
>> PD and intelligent design. As far as cells are concerned I had a similar
>> question, which I posed to a biologist. The result is that I now have a
>> 1000 page, ten pound tome called "The cell".
>>
>> K. F.
>> ______________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> Ray:
>> Please won't someone on the List with a science background explain to all
>> what the scientific method is? Also, what actually is a cell?
>>
>> Paula Nixon:
>> Parkinson's research, what if they are going down the wrong alley as the
>> pdrecovery.org thinks? They finance their own research and are getting
>> Recoveries.
>> ______________________________________________________________________________
>>
>> OK;
>> I am a scientist, and the work I do uses the scientific method. To solve
>> a
>> problem, or to find an answer to a question the first thing one needs to
>> do
>> is to create a hypothesis. This is a construct, based on previous,
>> established and verified results of a scientific inquiry. Fundamentally,
>> one poses a question and then tries to answer it by experiments or
>> observation. Unfortunately in many cases there is some uncertainty
>> attached
>> to the answer and so the experiment or observation has to repeated many
>> times and by different observers. After getting the same, compatible
>> results over and over again the hypothesis is accepted as valid. In
>> general
>> it not sufficient for one experiment to verify the hypothesis. Multiple
>> verifications are needed under different circumstances (such as changing
>> the ambient temperature, whether light is present etc.). There is the
>> question of whether a natural law can be true or not. Strictly speaking
>> this is only partially a valid question, because in science there is no
>> such thing as absolute truth, only multiple verification.
>>
>> One of the pillars of research is the ability to project forward: using a
>> combination of laws we can predict the future behavior of a new system.
>> If
>> this reliably happens then the constituent laws are generally accepted as
>> "true". Notice that there is no definite, absolute way to establish
>> validity. An example of the validity of a physical law is Newton's law of
>> acceleration, F=ma (Force equals mass times acceleration). Is there a way
>> to establish the truth of this law? The answer is no, BUT does it
>> describe
>> the motion of bodies? The answer here is yes. It would not be possible to
>> fly the Space shuttle, if it were not for the "truth" of this law and its
>> predictions. It is this sequence that fails in "intelligent design". The
>> hypothesis is that living things were designed by God. But the scientific
>> requirement of verifiability is missing. So intelligent design is an
>> article of faith, the key element of religion.
>>
>> But what about laws which are changed, or worse, become invalid. The
>> second
>> instance would be due to an incomplete hypothesis i.e. not all factors
>> were
>> taken into account. Thus the hypothesis is satisfied but was not
>> sufficiently broad. An example is the notion that the sun revolves around
>> the earth. This was based on incomplete observations (and religious
>> fervor). The first case (change) is a little more subtle. Newton's laws
>> hold in ordinary terrestrial situations but then Michelson and Einstein
>> came along and argued that the laws need to extended for very high
>> speeds.
>> This is the case for Special Relativity
>> which must be invoked for objects moving with speeds comparable to the
>> speed of light. At ordinary speeds Newton's laws are still fine but
>> corrections are necessary at higher speeds. So one cannot argue that
>> these
>> laws became invalid but rather that they had to be extended.
>>
>> In the discussion of research "going down the wrong path", one has to
>> recognize that many problems are multifaceted and all paths need to be
>> examined. Usually scientists have a hunch or preference for the most
>> likely
>> hypothesis. Those will be explored first. But the others must still be
>> investigated and either eliminated (wrong path) or verified (right path).
>> The key idea is that there really is no "wrong path", assuming that the
>> "wrong path" is not some crackpot idea which also happens unfortunately
>> but
>> is usually easy to spot. If an incompatibility arises the hypotheses
>> (plural) must be modified.
>>
>> There is another subtlety. In physics it generally possible to get ones
>> arms around a problem and have an accurate hypothesis. This is not the
>> case
>> in medicine or sociology, where the hypothesis is almost always
>> incomplete.
>> This complicates the design of an experiment and the interpretation of
>> the
>> outcome.
>>
>> All of us are familiar with the variability of PD symptoms. Thus the
>> correlation of a symptom or set of symptoms in PD with a specific Brain
>> defect is very difficult. It is made even more difficult by the
>> appearance
>> of confounding symptoms, often due to aging, but unrelated to PD. On
>> autopsy the situation is usually clarified, but the "experimental" space
>> is
>> confined when the PWP is alive.
>>
>>
>> K. F. Etzold
>> IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
>> Yorktown Heights NY 10598
>> 914 - 945 - 3816
>>
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