Quotations

One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice. — H. POINCARE
Faith is the soul going out of itself for all its wants. — THOMAS BOSTON
Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world. — THOMAS BOSTON
I. The fallacy of non-experimental judgments, in matters of heredity and development.

II. The fallacy of attributing to one cause what is due to many causes.

III. The fallacy of concluding that because one factor plays a role, another does not; the fallacy of drawing negative conclusions from positive observations.

IV. The fallacy that the characteristics of organisms are divisible into two distinct classes; one due to heredity, the other to environment.

Blog Editor’s Note: I can find no reference to V or VI.

VII. The fallacy of basing conclusions on implied premises that when explicitly stated are rejected. Many premises influencing reasoning are of this hidden, unconscious type. Such ghostly premises largely affect biological reasoning on the topics here dealt with; they underlie several of the fallacies already stated, and several to come.

VIII. The fallacy that showing a characteristic to be hereditary proves that it is not alterable by the environment.

IX. The fallacy that showing a characteristic to be altered by the environment proves that it is not hereditary. It appears indeed probable, from the present state of knowledge and the trend of discovery, that the following sweeping statements will ultimately turn out to be justified:

(1) All characteristics of organisms may be altered by changing the genes; provided we can learn how to change the proper genes.
(2) All characteristics may be altered by changing the environmental conditions under which the organism develops; provided that we learn what conditions to change and how to change them.
(3) Any kind of change of characteristics that can be induced by altering genes, can likewise be induced (if we know how) by altering conditions. (This statement is open to more doubt than the other two; but it is likely eventually to be found correct.)
X. The fallacy that since all human characteristics are hereditary, heredity is all-important in human affairs, environment therefore unimportant.

XI. The fallacy that since all important human characteristics are environmental, therefore environment is all-important, heredity unimportant, in human affairs. — H. S. JENNINGS

Facts cannot be explained by a hypothesis more extraordinary than the facts themselves; and of various hypotheses the least extraordinary must be adopted. — C. S. PIERCE
Regarding the incessant obsolescence postulate

This argument reminds me of that cliche about Columbus deciding not to leave for the new world because in a few hundred years jet liners will be invented. — X on November 24, 2006 at 16:55

Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are — objective pictures. He mumbled that he wasn’t quite sure what that would be. The person who was questioning him produced a photograph of his wife from his wallet and said, “There, you see, that is a picture of how she really is.” Picasso looked at it and said, “She is rather small, isn’t she? And flat?” — GREGORY BATESON
The meaning of your communication is the response you get. — GREGORY BATESON
The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself. — GREGORY BATESON
I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can’t get them to work, but because the timing is wrong‍—‌not all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment. — RAY KURZWEIL
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. — HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don’t forget when you leave why you came. — ADLAI STEVENSON II
Who do you think you are? — PETE WEBER
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. — THOMAS SZASZ
For the believer there are no questions; for the non-believer there are no answers. — REBBE OF KOTZK
Calculations

Do your best work,
Revisit next morning and edit out errors,
Revisit next week and edit out errors,
Revisit and run several arbitrary (though maybe realistic) test cases, edit out errors. — klh

How I Learned

My grandfather worked for Gulf Oil in Port Arthur, TX.

My Dad was a boilermaker for 20 years at the Port Arthur Atlantic Richfield (now Total). He used to cuss the engineers at work, he said they had no idea what they were asking workers to operate and maintain. We had these conversations while working on the car, the lawnmower, or the plumbing. My father was killed in 1967 in an accident at the refinery.

Somehow, only a few years later, I was working on an engineering degree.

At Texas Tech, I was seduced by math and engineering, by how they afforded a grasp of how things worked. But when I started going into the refineries, working in the units, and talking to the men running the plants, I was taken by the real opportunity to learn. To learn from the men, to learn from everything I witnessed, all the successes, and failures, clean designs, shoddy designs, amateur efforts, things that stood the test of time, and those otherwise. I could learn more in a morning field trip than in six months in the office.
— klh

Lesson Learned

Stay in close touch with people that know things, that think about things, that do things. Visit with them, discuss things in person, be hands on with all your interests. Reading is fine but no replacement for physical interaction. Gather your own evidence; direct, develop, and hold dear your own experience. Even if it is of a trivial nature — your physical actions, your sensations, your encounters — are far more valuable than that obtained second or third hand. — klh

Every act of conscious learning requires

the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem.

That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

Thomas Szasz