The Slightly Disgruntled Scientist

In contrast to the usual coherent and rational political debate that forms the meaty substance of this country’s media reporting, we are occasionally served the starchy, rehashed sidedish of xenophobic controversy. This time around, we are (apparently) interested in adding a new condition — a test, in fact — to applying for citizenship.

No, not a nominal and ineffective ploy to garner votes from a population whose chances at such a test would be dubious at best — we’re above that. The test will look at Australian values. At morality. At political ideals. Where traditional entry requirements just examine the mind and body of a potential citizen, this test will examine their heart. And possibly wallet. But mainly heart.

Now, at first I was skeptical. Yes, me. Cynical, even. I just didn’t see the value in what I thought was just a spurious exercise in off-season political campaigning. I failed to see the logic in attempting to combat issues that arise long after the application for and approval of citizenship by making said application slightly longer. But then I realised that, instead of whingeing and bitterness, this country would benefit far more from my involvement than my detraction.

So I decided to write my own test. I carefully chose questions that would test for and reflect our own values and national character, while maintaining a sensible degree of objectivity. I think that I have successfully formed a test that will evaluate the person while minimising bias.

So please, read my test — my contribution to how our population and even culture will be influenced by newcomers to this country of ours — and tell me what you think.

Originally from a Bad Science post asking about post-positivism…

[Tessa K]: positivism is the view that physical theories should only relate experimentally measurable — or even directly observable — quantities. For example, before the existence of atoms or molecules were verified, molecular theories of thermodynamics are not positivist.

Einstien worked in an environment very much influenced by positivists (like Mach), and you’ll note that his theories are very much oriented around observables (Heisenberg also).

POST-positivism comes after. With the advent of large, collaborative scientific endeavours (such as the Manhattan Project, Hollywood films and ridiculing P.T. Barnum until he made a lot of money), it was necessary to compile authoritative lists of things that could be measured. However, the question of whether the list itself could be experimentally verified to exist caused a great deal of consternation amongst the scientific community, leading to such famous quarrels as Russell’s paradox, the EPR paradox and Feynmann’s infamous “I know you are but what am I?” paradox.

Consequently, the list was split into four parts, each given to four little known physicists who died horrible deaths soon after. It is said that whoever finds and assembles the four parts will see the truth in whatever topic haunts them, shortly before dying a horrible death — making it a perfect present for that kid in the back seat who has just asked “are we there yet?” for the hundredth damn time.

What was the question?

Wow, it’s like someone got all the boring in the Universe and crammed it into three hundred pages. You could catapult it into New Orleans during the Mardi Gras and everyone would just go home and do their taxes before an early night.

— Me, on the manual for the Business Policy Game

Last week, I bought a magazine from a homeless vendor...

Vendor: Cheers, mate. How’re you today?
Me: Yeah, not bad...
Vendor: Yeah, you’ve got that look — “not great, but I’m not gonna complain to the homeless guy…”

On 15/03/2006 at 3:13 PM, Nettie wrote:

How can students do a lab on determining the Young’s modulus of a piece of wire and then not calculate the Young's modulus! There is a step which says “From the gradient of your ‘increasing’ graph, determine the value of ε in the units N/m²”

…And one of the students who completely neglected to calculate the Young’s modulus had a 6 word aim: “To find Young’s modulus of wire”

On 15/03/2006, at 3:31 PM, I wrote:

Perhaps they are protesting the attribution of the stretching of the wire to some simplistic physical principle. There are many details of wire-stretching that cannot be explained by current materials science, which indicates that the stretching is guided in some way — past and even present — by a more complex intelligence.

Maybe they feel that the idea of “Intelligent Deformation” should be given equal shrift in science education, rather than simply being dismissed as religiously motivated propaganda for another theory that, really, can’t explain the universe completely either.