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  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-06-2023, 02:18 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Ukraine in The Bilge
    Hmm. Who started this war? Which of the parties entirely on their own volition invaded and attempted to conquer a neighboring country? Who could...
    12632 replies | 654409 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-06-2023, 10:39 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Ukraine in The Bilge
    I often say that one shouldn't assume malice where incompetence is sufficient, but that probably doesn't apply in a war - OTOH, malevolence plus...
    12632 replies | 654409 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-06-2023, 09:43 AM
    I'm not done yet, but it came out last year, so I presume it goes up to the present, or pretty close.
    1963 replies | 318152 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-06-2023, 07:54 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Not what I was getting at, or trying. There's a lot we don't know. We can empirically measure the effects of something which we call 'dark matter'...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 07:56 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Mostly writing books for a popular audience, I think. He retired from his teaching position, IIRC, just writing now.
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 06:18 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Nah. Dawkins may be irritatingly dogmatic sometimes on religion, but he's a genuine evolutionary biologist who has written several excellent books...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 02:41 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    A matter of scale. If we made a mess in our village, we could move. Now we can change the composition of the planet's atmosphere.
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 01:40 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    This describes my theology very accurately. Y>
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 01:15 PM
    700,000 years ago (assuming that's accurate) they wouldn't have been much like us, despite the similar footprints.
    24 replies | 456 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 01:10 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    I suspect it's simpler than that. For almost our entire species' history we couldn't do much. Anything we could manage, destructive or not, was...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 11:57 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Nah. Take the long view. Being self-destructive is, well, self-destructive. If a species does something that damages its habitat too much, it...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 10:02 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    I'll repeat myself. One good thing about empirical evidence-based methods is that mistaken ideas can be disproven - and human beings make lots of...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 09:13 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Ukraine in The Bilge
    I would laugh, if it weren't so tragic. Mr Putin may be many things, but he's not a fool. He knows perfectly well that Ukraine is not the...
    12632 replies | 654409 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-05-2023, 08:55 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread esoteric in The Bilge
    Jesus T. Christ! What, the winner of a contest to see how much unnecessary complication you can put into a simple process? One more time: ...
    18 replies | 528 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-04-2023, 10:03 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    OK - you may be right. So how do you tell whether these 'other methods' produce accurate information or not? Empirically-based knowledge can be...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-04-2023, 10:30 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Empiricism works. The alternatives simply do not. OTOH, it's not sufficient for some things. But I completely agree about Plato. A long time...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-03-2023, 10:52 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Well, of course. What we think affects what we do. What we do affects the physical world. This is hardly a surprise. But physical reality...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-03-2023, 12:45 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    I think you have to make a distinction between physical reality and human ideas about physical reality. (And for the sake of simplicity, I'm not...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 10:21 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread My Dad is Fine in The Bilge
    Damn, Joe, that's tough. Very, very sorry to hear it.
    98 replies | 2549 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 10:13 PM
    He might very well have made it up entirely.
    16 replies | 409 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 02:01 PM
    Yes, this happens all too often - but at the risk of further hijacking the thread, the example that originally brought this up, the complexity of...
    71 replies | 1195 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 01:08 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    I sure as hell don't want you working on my car, or fixing my air conditioning.
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 01:04 PM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    I quite agree. I'd bet a lot that there are other species which can do that to one degree or another. But that's not really what he said. Also...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 11:38 AM
    Y'know, maybe we shouldn't hijack this thread. My point was that while I like simple, easily fixable machines as well as anyone, a simple carburetor...
    71 replies | 1195 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 11:20 AM
    Keith Wilson started a thread Discuss in The Bilge
    Just to stir the pot a little, some interesting questions from Richard Dawkins' website. I think he tends to say just 'truth' when he means 'truth...
    106 replies | 1497 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 09:07 AM
    Keith Wilson replied to a thread Cartoons. in The Bilge
    5029 replies | 1162519 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 08:53 AM
    :rolleyes: This is just silly. I have no tolerance tor baseless conspiracy theories, but not all bad things are accidental, not even close, and...
    71 replies | 1195 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-02-2023, 08:38 AM
    Whooping Cranes are still in trouble, just not quite so much as previously. Sandhills were very rare in the early 20th century, now pretty common.
    71 replies | 1195 view(s)
  • Keith Wilson's Avatar
    06-01-2023, 06:10 PM
    Listening to her (and not talking too much, if at all) sometimes helps.
    87 replies | 1682 view(s)
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About Keith Wilson

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September 11, 1955 (67)
About Keith Wilson
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St. Paul, MN, USA
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Mechanical Engineer
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Keith Wilson
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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
for nature cannot be fooled."

Richard Feynman

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