Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist In continuation of my post#:

In my post#5, I had quoted from Steven Weinberg about philosophy. Allow me now to quote of Carl Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians of all times. According to E.T. Bell (Men of Mathematics, pp. 239-240), ``It will be of interest here to quote what Gauss thought of philosophers who busy themselves with scientific matters they have not understood. This holds in particular for philosophers who peck at the foundations of mathematics without having first sharpened their beaks on some hard mathematics. Conversely, it suggests why Bertrand A. W. Russerll, Alfred North Whitehead and David Hilbert in our own times have made outstanding contributions to the philosophy of mathematics: these men are (were) mathematicians.

Writing to his friend Schumacher on November 1, 1844, Gauss says, `You see the same sort of thing [mathematical inconsistencies] in the contemporary philosophers Schelling, Hegel, Nees von Easenbeck, and their followers: don`t they make your hair stand on end with their definitions? Read in the history of ancient philosophy what the big men of that day - Plato and others (I except Aristotle) - gave in the way of explanations. But even with Kant himself it is often not much better; in my opinion his distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions is one of those things that either run out in a triviality or are false.```

Bell further wrote, ``When he (Gauss) wrote this Gauss had long been in full possession of non-Euclidean geometry, itself a sufficient refutation of some of the things Kant said about `space` and geometry, and he may have been unduly scornful.``

In spite of it, philosophy does contribute lot of useful things to the development of science but its formulations are not always correct and faultless.

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist khurram: #40

F=dp/dt is another way of writing F=mxa. You wrote:

p=mv,

then

dp/dt= d(mv)/dt = m x dv/dt = mxa,

because dv/dt = a, the acceleration.

This is my last post unless somebody wants to discuss the original article.

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist khuraam:

On the contrary, mass is defined as the ratio of force and acceleration. In the experiments, force and acceleration were measured; so they were already defined. m was the constant of proportionality in the relationship connecting force with acceleration. Definitions of parameters do not descend on human mind like wahi; they are deduced from observations and actual sensory experience.

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist A Rejoinder to my post#32:

Based on my information some ten years back, 2/3rd of the papers submitted for publication to ASCE were rejected. So the publication standards of the refereed journals are not lackadaisical.; they are strict but fair.

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist Khurram: #12

I try to give my perspective on the questions that you raised in your post in the following:

1. You cannot derive scientific laws and theories simply from definitions. Definitions also take long time to become clear and generally accepted. I wrote in the article that Kepler had a sense of force of gravity but it was not clear to him how it worked. A couple of centuries passed before Newton was able to give his laws of motion.

For instance, according to Newton`s law of motion,

F = m x a

in which F= force, m=mass of a body and a= acceleration of that body. This law was established empirically by measuring the values of force and corresponding acceleration and then correlating them together. Only logic could not establish this law. Logic could only state that there was a relationship between force and acceleration but what precise relationship existed between the two, it wouldn`t be able to determine. even the assertion that there is a relationship between F and m could not be made without the benefit of observations.

2. Social changes in the 17th century Europe liberated science from the clutches of religion and the Church so that scientific work was done without any fear of retribution from religious authorities. Science needs to be likewise liberated from authoritative religion in the Muslim world.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist
khuram and other interactors:

Let me give some information regarding peer-reviewed papers. Khuram in his last post wrote as follows:

``Now I tell what is the ``logic`` of Science. If you go through the ``criteria`` of ``Peer Reviewed Science Journals``, you will find that in order to get your work published, it should contain handsome number of ``citations`` to already published works. This is just an easy way to ensure consistency in different scientific researches. Under this system, you only can ``cite`` already published theories but you cannot criticize already published scientific theories. If you ``criticize``, your work shall not be published. Simple is that. This process is like a valid argument which can have false premises or conclusions!!!! Even false things can have internal consistency. Example is such a valid argument which has false premises and conclusion etc.``

I don`t know which scientific journal he is quoting from. Usually the standards for peer-review of scientific papers are quite strict. I am speaking from my personal experience both as an author and a reviewer. I reviewed several papers for the journals of American Society of Civil Engineers (Journal of Hydraulic Engineering and Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering).Unless a paper contains author`s original work upgrading the existing status of knowledge, it is not accepted for publication. Review papers are accepted but they also should have up to date information.

A technical paper usually takes from 9 months to several years before it gets published. ASCE gets a paper reviewed by three independent reviewers whose identity is kept secret. If an author does not agree with a particular review and gives sound reasons for it, the paper is sent to another reviewer. If two reviewers recommend publication, the paper is published.

I am attaching in the following ASCE`s guidelines for authors and reviewers. I don`t want to bore the readers giving this lengthy extract from ASCE. Those of you who are interested to read the guidelines are welcome to do so, others can skip it.

Mohammad Gill

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Ethical Standards for Publications of ASCE Journals

Preface

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) serves the civil engineering community and society at large in several ways, including the publication of technical journals that present the results of current engineering and scientific research and practice. Fundamental to that service is the responsibility of editors, authors, and reviewers to maintain high ethical standards relating to the submittal, review, and publication of manuscripts. These ethical standards derive from the ASCE`s definition of the scope of the journal and from the community`s perception of standards of quality for engineering and scientific work, and its presentation. The ethical standards that follow reflect a conviction that the observance of high ethical standards is so vital to the entire engineering and scientific enterprise that a definition of those standards should be brought to the attention of all concerned.

Ethical Standards
Obligations of Editors

1. The primary responsibility of an ASCE journal editor is to ensure an efficient and fair review process of manuscripts submitted for publication, and to establish and maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Criteria of quality are originality of approach, concept and/or application; profundity; and relevance to the civil engineering profession.

2. An editor shall give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication and shall judge each on its merits without regard to any personal relationship or familiarity with the author(s), or to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, professional association, or political philosophy of the author(s).

3. The editor and editorial staff shall disclose no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice regarding the publication of the manuscript is sought. The names of reviewers shall not be released by the editors or editorial staff.

4. An editor who authors or co-authors a manuscript submitted for consideration to the journal with which that editor is affiliated, shall not review that work. If after publication, the editor-author`s work merits ongoing scientific debate within the journal, the editor-author shall accept no editorial responsibility in connection therewith.

5. An editor shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. An editor shall not send a manuscript to reviewers who are known to have personal bias in favor of or against the author(s) or the subject matter of that manuscript.

6. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of an editor or associate editor, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author (s) and with appropriate attribution.

7. If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references or other material included in a manuscript published in an ASCE journal are erroneous, the editor, after notifying the author(s) and allowing them to respond in writing, shall facilitate immediate publication of an erratum. If possible, an editor shall also facilitate publication of appropriate comments and/or papers identifying those errors.

8. If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that a manuscript or published paper contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the editor shall forward such evidence to the Manager, Journals, for investigation by the ASCE Professional Conduct Committee.
Obligations of Authors

1. An author`s central obligation is to present a concise account of the research, work, or project completed, together with an objective discussion of its significance.

2. A submitted manuscript shall contain detail and reference to public sources of information sufficient to permit the author`s peers to repeat the work or otherwise verify its accuracy.

3. An author shall cite and give appropriate attribution to those publications influential in determining the nature of the reported work sufficient to guide the reader quickly to earlier work essential to an understanding of the present work. Information obtained by an author privately, from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties shall not be used or reported in the author`s work without explicit permission from the persons from whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall be treated in the same confidential manner.

4. The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data. ASCE defines plagiarism as the use of the ideas or words of another person without giving appropriate credit to that source. The Society views any similar misappropriation of intellectual property, which may include data or interpretation, as plagiarism. [This definition is based on one used by the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. ASCE added the sentence on misappropriation of intellectual property.]

5. Fragmentation of research papers shall be avoided. An engineer or scientist who has done extensive work on a system or group of related systems shall organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.

6. It is inappropriate for an author to submit for review more than one paper describing essentially the same research or project to more than one journal of primary publication.

7. Scholarly criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified; however, personal criticism is never appropriate.

8. To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research or project and manuscript preparation shall be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as co-authors have seen the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the criterion for co-authorship shall be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious name shall be given as an author or co-author. An author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for having properly included all, and only, qualified co-authors.

9. It is inappropriate to submit manuscripts with an obvious commercial intent.

10. It is inappropriate for an author either to write or co-author a discussion of his or her own manuscript, except in the case of a rebuttal or closure to criticism or discussion offered by others.
Obligations of Reviewers

1. Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication process, all engineers and scientists have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews.

2. If a reviewer feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to fairly judge the work reported, the reviewer should immediately notify the editor and promptly return the manuscript.

3. A reviewer shall objectively judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is never appropriate.

4. A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly without review and so advise the editor.

5. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of a reviewer or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.

6. If a reviewer receives for review a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional relationship, the existence of this relationship shall be promptly brought the attention of the editor.

7. A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall neither disclose nor discuss it with others except, as necessary, with persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.

8. Reviewers shall explain and support judgments adequately so that the editor and author(s) may understand the bases for their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported shall be accompanied by the relevant citation.

9. A reviewer shall call to the editor`s attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published manuscript or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.

10. A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author(s) and with appropriate attribution.

11. If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the reviewer shall notify the editor and send the evidence to the Manager, Journals, for investigation by the ASCE Professional Conduct Committee.
Acknowledgments

The ethical standards reported herein were initially drafted using the ``AGU Policies and Procedures`` of the American Geophysical Union. ASCE acknowledges its appreciation to the AGU for granting permission to quote from that work.
Companion Papers

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist kaalchakra:

There are not many conflicts between pre-postmodern philosophy and science. Conflicts between the two mostly arise in interpreting and extrapolating the scientific theories. Philosophy does not reject a theory which is verified by empirical evidence. The scientists use as much logic as is needed in formulating their theories which are logically consistent.

I don`t know if I have answered your question adequately or not because I did not fully understand your question.

With regards,

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist khuram:

There is confusion in your thinking. Science is constructed both by rational arguments and empirical evidence. Science needs both of them. Pure rationalism can (and frequently does) lead to more than one rational conjecture, hypothesis, or philosophical theory, if you will, but science uses only that theory which is supported by empirical evidence. So there is no conflict between science and philosophy on that account.

You wrote, “..let’s say the First Law of Motion is a complete Logical Law.” Of course it is. It’s not only the first law of motion, all scientific theories are logically consistent. But if you are implying that pure rationalism led Newton to formulate his laws, you’re wrong.

You must also understand that scientific theories are not eternal (same is true of philosophy). All scientific theories are temporal and empirically verified. Newton’s laws of motion are replaced by theory of relativity when the motions of extremely fast objects (moving near the speed of light) are considered. However, Newton’s laws of motion are still valid for our planet. It is also not important if Newton did any experiment himself or simply used the data of others. As long as his laws conform to empirical evidence, they are good. There is a breed of scientists who are called theoretical scientists. They don’t need to go to laboratories to collect data, they use data collected by others. Einstein was a theoretical scientist and so was Salam and are Weinberg, Glashow, etc. Notably, the string theorists are all theoretical scientists.

You also wrote that “obviously such a law can only be empirically tested in the time-scale of infinite period…” No, sir. A scientific theory that is being constructed at present time needs only to be verified by the data that is available now. If the future data falsifies it, it will be revised and updated.

The rest of your discussion is repetitive. There is no real conflict between rationalism and empiricism in science. A purely rational theory can be wrong but if it is verified by empirical evidence, it is accepted as a valid scientific theory – not an eternal one but a temporal one. It’s good as long as it is not falsified.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist khuram:

I suspect that you have missed the sense of “final theory” to which Weinberg referred. He was talking of the final theory which some scientists have euphemistically called “Theory of Everything” (TOE) and which more specifically is the unified theory or theory of unification of all the fundamental forces. The string theorists (and many non-string physicists also) are trying to develop a theory which will combine all the fundamental forces.

Maxwell’s electro-magnetic theory unified electric and magnetic forces and Salam-Weinberg’s electroweak theory has combined the weak nuclear force with the electro-magnetic force. The strong nuclear force was combined with the electroweak force by the Grand Unified Theories (GUT). The remaining stumbling block is that of unifying gravity with a GUT theory. So Weinberg’s reference to final theory was very specific and not to any philosophical hypothesis of ultimate reality.

I respect genuine knowledge whether it is scientific or philosophical. Philosophers are questioning the nature of scientific theories in a positive way. Karl Popper’s theory of falsification was a step in this direction. Weinberg made a point that even those physicists who do not care much about Popper’s falsification theory are not handicapped in any fundamental way to do their physics. Contributions of some of such scientists are noteworthy.

While all credible scientific theories are logically consistent, logic by itself has seldom, if ever, discovered any scientific theory.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist ahmedmadani:

Thanks for your appreciation.

Mohammad Gill

Johannes Kepler – A Mysterious Cosmographist The tenor of Khuram’s interacts is reminiscent of the intellectual conflicts between the postmodernists and the hard-core scientists. This conflict culminated in the so-called “Science Wars” that raged during the 1990s (the wars provoked Sokal to publish his paper in Social Text, which came to be known as Sokal’s Hoax). I thought this conflict was put aside because I didn’t come across any significant works on this issue recently.

This conflict became prominent after Thomas Kuhn published his “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in 1962. One of the premises in his book was that the evolution of physical science was sociologically determined. It generated a great deal of debate and the scientists felt as if the foundation stone of physical science had been knocked out by a false postulation. There has been so much written on this issue (for and con,) that it is pointless for me to discuss it here (I did publish an article with a title “Is Physical Science Socially Constructed?” on Chowk, February 21, 2004).

Whether religion, culture, theology, etc. play any significant role in the development of science has been debated to death particularly in the literature that was published after 1960. How does it affect the work of a scientist? Let me quote from “Dreams of a Final Theory (p.190)” by Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg in the following:

“These radical critics of science seem to be having little or no effect on the scientists themselves I do not know of any working scientist who takes them seriously…..In the end this issue will disappear. Modern scientific methods and knowledge have rapidly diffused to non-Western countries like Japan and India and indeed are spreading throughout the world, we can look forward to the day when science can no longer be identified with the West but is seen as the shared possession of humankind.”

Personally, I believe that science is not affected one way or the other by religious beliefs of a scientist or by cultural mores of any particular society. Professor Abdus Salam shared his Nobel Prize with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow for unification of the weak and electromagnetic forces. Abdus Salam was a Muslim of Ahmadi persuasion and deeply religious. He frequently quoted from Quran in his lectures and speeches. Weinberg and Sheldon are atheists of Jewish lineage. A scientist belonging to a particular religion and culture does not have any definite advantage in doing science over other different religious or atheistic scientists,

During the time that the science wars were raging, a movement to “Islamize” science began in the Muslim world. It seems to have died now not because science has been Islamized but perhaps because the whole thing was a futile activity.

There is a chapter in the afore-quoted Dreams of a Final Theory, which has a title of “Against Philosophy.” Weinberg does recognize the positive role that philosophy has played in science but again philosophy is not science. He wrote (pp.166-167):

“Physicists get so much help from subjective and often vague aesthetic judgments that it might be expected that we would be helped also by philosophy out of which after all our science evolved. Can philosophy give us any guidance toward a final theory? ….The insights of philosophers have occasionally benefited physicists, but generally in a negative fashion – by protecting them from the preconceptions of other philosophers.

I do not want to draw the lesson here that physics is best done without preconceptions. At any one moment there are so many things that might be done, so many accepted principles that might be challenged, that without some guidance from our preconceptions one could do nothing at all. It is just that philosophical principles have not generally provided us with the right preconceptions. In our hunt for the final theory, physicists are more like hounds than hawks; we have become good at sniffing around on the ground for traces of the beauty we expect in the laws of nature, but we do not seem to be able to see the path to the truth from the heights of philosophy.”

In the end, it is a matter of individual choice, I think. If one wants to believe that philosophy (and religion, theology and culture) plays a dominant role in science, or science is a subservient discipline, I do not have any problem with it. But I don’t believe in this conjecture.

Mohammad Gill

Inzi Post-Bob: An Interview Interesting interview. It should have ended with:

Inna lillahay wa inna alayhay raja`ayoon.

Mohammad Gill

Revathy Gopal: RIP
Death is always a sad thing in a man`s life. I didn`t know Revathy Gopal well although I had seen her columns at Chowk. The news of her death saddened me. Death is a debt we all must pay as Euripides wrote.

Also many of us fear death although frequently it is a release from pain and misery. According to Bernard Shaw, ``Death is for many of us the gate of hell; but we are inside on the way out, not outside on the way in.``

May she rest in peace.

Mohammad Gill

Fight Hudood, Protect Women
The following is a news item from Yahoo!News (March 6, 2007). I thought it might be of interest to the Chowk readers at this board.

Moahammad Gill

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``Violent debate on women`s rights in Pakistan

By David Montero, Correspondent of The Christian Science MonitorTue Mar 6, 3:00 AM ET

Working for the public was a gift from God for Zille Huma Usman, Punjab`s provincial minister for social welfare.

But two weeks ago, Muhammed Sarwar violently disagreed, killing her before a crowd because, he said, God does not allow women to work. He later told police that he felt no remorse for his crime.

Ms. Usman`s death, which shocked the country, comes at a moment of violent flux over the role of women in Pakistan. As the Pakistani government clamps down on Islamist extremists, the conflict over competing visions of Islam has enveloped the issue of women`s rights, turning it into a battleground issue between moderates and Islamist extremists.

``There is a growing sense of menace among women. I`ve heard working women express anxiety about driving on the streets alone. They work not only because they have to, but as a statement,`` says Jugnu Mohsin, the publisher and managing editor of The Friday Times, a progressive weekly newspaper. She adds that the threat emanates from a minority segment of society, but has grown worse over the years, incited in part by legislative victories favoring women`s rights over fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law.

In December, Pakistan`s Parliament passed the Women`s Protection Bill, which amended the Hudood Ordinances, a set of religious laws long considered discriminatory toward women. But by shifting the laws from religious codes to secular ones, the bill unleashed widespread political discontent.

``The Women`s Protection Bill has focused attention on the issue. Women have become the target because it`s a victory for women, even a partial victory,`` says Kamila Hyat, joint director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in Lahore.

Although not directly related, recent events suggest a growing arc of violence against women and girls. In the North West Frontier province, at least three girls` schools have been bombed, and threats circulated by pamphlets have directed female health workers to leave the area.

Despite what appears to be escalating violence, government officials say the situation is under control. ``We are cognizant of the matter, and we are taking all possible measures to make sure the area does not get Talibanized,`` says Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema. the director of the National Crisis Management Cell, which deals with matters of internal security.

A troubling parable of Pakistani society, observers say, rests at the intersection where Usman and her killer collided on the afternoon of Feb. 20 in Gujranwala, a northeastern city of more than 3 million.

Usman, the first female politician in her family, was a proud symbol of change. Thanks to national laws which allotted one-third of all local legislative seats for women, some 30,000 women entered local politics after 2001, according to a 2004 World Bank study.Usman herself began working up the ladder four years ago.

``She was very interested in giving charity to the poor. Her belief was that if you want to work, it is no matter if you are a man or a woman,`` her husband, Muhammed Usman Haider, says at the family home in Gujranwala. ``I`m proud to say she`s the most pious woman. She knows more about Islam than anyone.``

Meanwhile, religious leaders universally condemn Mr. Sarwar`s stated motives, and while few clerics would support his extreme actions, the rising violence indicates that there may be segments of society who do. A debate rages over what Islam says about a woman`s right to work and hold office.

``Whoever did this was wrong. She was not un-Islamic. There is nowhere in the Koran that women cannot hold office, as long as they act with modesty,`` says Aqeel Ahmed, who works at a computer shop in Gujranwala.

More than religion, what most disturbs observers is that Usman was not Sarwar`s first victim. In 2003, he confessed to police that he had killed at least four women and wounded four others, mostly prostitutes and dancers.

His gruesome acts made national headlines, but when Sarwar appeared in court, he changed his story and the cases fell apart. There were also allegations, according to the local press, that religious leaders paid compensation money to the victims` families, who eventually dropped the cases.

While police deny any wrongdoing or neglect in Sarwar`s previous cases, his frequent run-ins with the law, observers say, expose the institutional discrimination at work within the Pakistani justice system.

``[Women] are not getting real justice. They`re not going through the police and the judiciary ... It will take so much time and insults of that lady,`` says Humaira Hashmi, the regional general manager of the Punjab Rural Support Program in Multan, which addresses issues of women`s rights.

Such lapses are part of the larger fabric of abuse toward women that goes unchecked in Pakistani society, according to observers. An October 2006 United Nations report highlighted that honor killings claimed the lives of 4,000 men and women between 1998 and 2003 in Pakistan.

``Police almost invariably take the man`s side in honor killings or domestic murders, and rarely prosecute the killers,`` said a 1999 Amnesty International report. ``Even when the men are convicted, the judiciary ensures that they usually receive a light sentence, reinforcing the view that men can kill their female relatives with virtual `impunity.` ````

The Role of Mystics, Artists and Scientists in Human Evolution

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Thanks for your kind thoughts toward me. I quoted from David Hume because I have read some of his works. You did not give any reference to any relevant publication (that you quoted from) of any subcontinental author which I could acquire and read. The knowledge in the West is systematized and preserved. It`s so easy to obtain a book by any western author.

Moreover, knowledge is knowledge whether it`s from the East or the West.

I respect your sentiments. Be well,

Mohammad Gill

The Role of Mystics, Artists and Scientists in Human Evolution David Hume wrote about divinity and metaphysics as follows:

``If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.``

Blind faith is risky, to say the least.

Mohammad Gill