A Powerful concept:SES vs LES
Imagine many, many decades ago, a researcher was looking at a new finding: chemical nitrate has just been foundto help plant growth. Virtually no quasntitative research has been done, so this researcher forges ahead in breaking the frontiers of science and plans his big experiment!
He plants many identical plots of corn, and on a group of randomly selected plots, he puts no nitrate. On another group of randomly selected plots, he puts 5kg of nitrate. On the next group of randomly selected plots, he put 10 kg, and so on and so on until the last group of plots gets 25kg.
His experiment works well, and when he gathers the harvests and measures them, he finds the following relationship becomes plain:
Plots with 5 kg of nitrate..........................5% increase in yield
...............10kg.......................................10%......
...............15kg.......................................15%.....
...............20kg.......................................20%.................
Plots with 25 kg of nitrate........................25% increase in yield
Now this background will help everyone understand the difference between SES (short extrapolation science) and LES (long extrapolation science):
If the scientist believes in SES only and you ask what the yield will be if I put 26 kg on a plot, he will say, "It's outside of the range of our data, but there is a good chance that it will result in about a 26% yield increase".
If you ask him about 30kg, he will say, "Well we're getting way outside our dataset here. The answer could be 30% but we have no certainty. We have to run experiments for certianty".
However if the scientist believes in LES and you ask what the yield will be if I put 26 kg on a plot, he will say confidently, "It will result in about a 26% yield increase".
If you ask him about 30kg, he will say, "We have a straight line graph. It will certainly be 30%".
In fact, if you ask him about 300kg, he will say, "We have a straight line graph. It will certainly be 300%".
Now you may think that the LES scientist has an excuse that he doesn't fully understand the operation of nitrate and why it works, and why it wouldn't work in massive amounts.
But consider this: standard paradigm physicists claim that all phenomena are esentially explained by atoms and 4 forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear. But they DON'T KNOW what cuases them. We have been measuring gravity for 500 years, but I calculated to arrive at the (supposed) big bang 15 billion yrs ago, you must do aan extrapolation outside your dataset of 30 million percent (All that on a force when you don't know what causes it!!!!!!!)
In short, the use of LES in both the above examples is ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY!!!!!!!
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ralph Thurlow on -
Sorry, I should have explained myself more fully.
SES stands for "short extrapolation science"
LES stands for "long extrapolation science"
In other threads on other websites, I have found arguments based on this concept to be extremely powerful.
If you try to make a distinction between "historical science" and "operational science", it seems, in my experience to have less impact than using LES/SES.
I have also used the argument with Newtonian mechanics as the example as follows:
Newton showed that particles of 1 grm size (e.g. a ball bearing) and 10^30 grm size (e.g. Jupiter) obey Newtonian mechanics. That is an enormous size range of thirty orders of magnitude!
However, an LES believing scientist 300 yrs ago would have insisted that extremely tiny particles of 10^-30 grms and extremely large particles of 10^60 grms must also obey Newtonian mechanics. (That is 30 orders of magnitude even smaller than a ball bearing, and 30 orders of magnitude larger than Jupiter respectively).
However an SES believing scientist of that era would have simply said that we can't extrapolate to that degree.
Of course according to current physics knowledge, the frowardness of the LES scientist is shown to be foolish, because particles of 10^30 grms are about the size of an electron, and they obey quantum mechanics rather than Newtonian mechanics for much of the time.
Likewise, a particle of 10^60 grms is 30 orders of magnitude larger than Jupiter! and would (according to current projections) is a very very large bleck hole. It obeys Einsteinian Relativity far more than Newtonian mechanics.
This is another example that shows that LES is really "stupidity disguised"!!!!!
When I was debating a poster on another site, I put to him "How do you KNOW that gravity (for example) acted the same in the distant past (i.e. greater than 6000yrs ago) as it does today?". He was stumped, though he put on a brave face and babbled someting like "The universe wouldn't look like it does today if it were different", which of course is balony.
I continally point out that LES has no epistemological foundation, and I find that they are stumped.
When they accuse me of bagging science while using it everyday, I simply point out that all useful science that I've ever used has been done with SES.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on -
So if cosmologists proclaimed that the big bang is the likely explanation based off the current evidence instead of a certain explanation, you would have no problem with that?
Because it seems to me that that is what's happening. Granted, I'm more into biology so can only offer what I've learned from a cursory read of cosmology but I have discovered the field is full of people attempting to overturn the standard model. Even those who accept it admit it has flaws and are attempting to rectify them. All of that is inconsistent with people who believe reached a certain truth. Indeed, from what I gather the standard model is used simply because it has survived all these tests and nothing better has been proposed.
If you can, try and watch the documentary from the BBC's Horizon program: "Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?" It's essentially the world leaders in cosmology sitting in front of a camera and going "the standard model is likely but not certain."
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Permalink Reply by Ralph Thurlow on
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Actually I would have a problem with it.
I would simply say, "You can;t extrapolatre to that degree outside your dataset".
Adam J. Benton said:So if cosmologists proclaimed that the big bang is the likely explanation based off the current evidence instead of a certain explanation, you would have no problem with that?
Because it seems to me that that is what's happening. Granted, I'm more into biology so can only offer what I've learned from a cursory read of cosmology but I have discovered the field is full of people attempting to overturn the standard model. Even those who accept it admit it has flaws and are attempting to rectify them. All of that is inconsistent with people who believe reached a certain truth. Indeed, from what I gather the standard model is used simply because it has survived all these tests and nothing better has been proposed.
If you can, try and watch the documentary from the BBC's Horizon program: "Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?" It's essentially the world leaders in cosmology sitting in front of a camera and going "the standard model is likely but not certain."
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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Not even just to see what they could work out from the information they have? Just a blanket ban on any investigation.
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Permalink Reply by Ralph Thurlow on
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They can choose to, of course, but I would call that "conjecture"! I wouldn't describe enormous extrapolations as "investigation" - well definately not empirical investigation anyway!
Adam J. Benton said:Not even just to see what they could work out from the information they have? Just a blanket ban on any investigation.
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on
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The Extrapolation that I can't understand, is the one that says our earth's orbit is in decay. Our earth rotation is in decay. Our sun is burning out and getting smaller. Our EMF is also in decay.
What I can't understand is, if we extrapolate the current rates of what we observe, we would fix a point of time, in the past, in which our solar system would be vastly different and likely unmanageable, and yet there is no explanation as to how it has remained the same for billions of years. All within the parameters of what would be consistent for life to create itself w/out interuption.
If orbits don't decay at a particular rate, what would account for their ability to not decay? or decay at a slower rate? Could it be that some 'extrapolations' are simply formulas that describe the rate of change? Does LES work logically in some cases and not apply in others?
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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From what I gather the LES v SES thing seems to be more about attitudes towards extrapolation rather than whether to extrapolate (LES being certain they're correct). So the issue you're raising seems more to be whether extrapolation works, not "LES." I think.
Hypothetically if one had all the data available one could extrapolate everything with certainty. The more unknowns you introduce, the more iffy it gets. It's not that extrapolation doesn't work in some situations, its that some situations lack sufficient data for an extrapolation as accurate as one would like. You can still extrapolate, but the results should be viewed with caution.
As for things staying the same, I'm not sure they do. I did read a news story a while ago about scientists debating over whether the early earth was a firey ball of death or an icey ball of death. It seems to me that the past, should these extrapolations be correct, was a very different place and people are willing to accept that.
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on
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Fire or Ice isn't something that could be extrapolated... gravity and inertia would likely have a constant history... just a thot...
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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What makes you say that?
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on
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Whether the earth was a ball of fire or ice, we really have no starting point of cooling or heating of the planet. We may generally assume that the molten core has been there since Creation, but we don't have accurate data to say how fast it is cooling, if we wanted to try to evaluate that assumption.
All we really kow about gravity is that it exists between various objects of mass. Is it weakening, strengthening or staying the same? Did it exist in the supposed billion years ago era? Centrifical force is the same thing only opposite and balanced with gravity.
So with the changes we see in our solar system as winding down, wouldn't we at least have some clue about extrapolating back in time, when it was wound a little tighter? I'm thinking that aything that changes can't stay in perfect balance for billions of years, even though the exact results of extrapolating may be suspect.
Adam J. Benton said:What makes you say that?
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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That is what I was saying - they don't think that the earth has remained in perfect balance for billions of years, at one point it might've been a giant ball of icey death.
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on
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Yes, but the larger point is that the icey ball of death is unextrapolateable... theoryizing about that wouldn't come under the definition of extrapolation... would it? :)
Adam J. Benton said:That is what I was saying - they don't think that the earth has remained in perfect balance for billions of years, at one point it might've been a giant ball of icey death.
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