From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>, <owner-critical-cafe@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie>
Subject: Statistics is a red herring
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 16:17:37 -0400
We don't need Statistics to see light behaving like a wave. Objects cast
shadows. Even objects that are light sources cast shadows when standing in
the beam from the light sources. But it is surprising that light itself
casts shadows. When a light source is split, and recombined, all that should
happen is for the original luminance to be recovered. But a dark spot can be
produced. Light can cast shadows. How can this be? If light is a wave, that
would explain it.
But we don't even need to confirm interference patterns for evidence of
light being a wave. There is still the Doppler effect. We can hear the
Doppler effect in the changing the pitch of sound emanating from passing
vehicles. We can see the Doppler effect observing a moving wave source on
the surface of a body of liquid. And we can also measure Red Shift and Blue
Shift. If light is a wave, then interference patterns are predicted. That is
why the experiments where ever performed. It was first suggested and
forgotten, as a Reductio Ad Absudum. It was carried out, later on, in hopes
of finding the evidence.
Of course, it's not true, or at best not fully understood, that light is a
wave. Because in other experiments it behaves as a particle.
Now, this may have all began, conjecturally. And such conjecture arose, in
some part, from Neural structure. And Neural structure evolved for survival.
But conjecture is testable. Alas, tests are also Memetically conceived. They
are also, however, Empirical. And as Memetic structure has evolved, it
continues to do so. Yes, any explanatory scheme may tend to be self
reinforcing. But we deliberately push them until, like all analogies save
Tautology, they break down. Thus we squeeze new clues from reality, and then
struggle with them.
Chris Lofting has not shown a new breakdown. Wave/particle duality is
already known. All he has done is to harp upon bias and the limits of
imagination. Something which has already long been under consideration. But
he tries to make it look both new and fatal. He certainly offers no new
reason to consider it fatal.
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