If math is to science and language is to literature then would you say language is the same as literature? Of course not! In a similar fashion, mathematics is used to communicate some scientific results. Math is not a scientific result.

There isn't a way that I can think of to rebut a thought that isn't first posed as a falsifiable hypothesis.

Vast arenas of possiblity can be approached with ideas that really can't be falsified, not with language only. Asserting with an argument that one such idea is loony could be called 'rebutting' as used in practice or per the definition.

Math is much more than a collection of random words, not yet arranged. It boggles the mind to think of the skill and imagination required to come up with calculus as Newton did, perhaps at the same time as Liebnitz, though there is endless controversy about that.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Not to belabor the point, but formal debate is initiated on a falsifiable premise: "Resolved that ...". So though we ordinarily think of hypothesis testing as being somehow mathematical, it isn't necessarily so.

And the same with scientific hypotheses. Evolution, for example, is still mostly within the domain of spoken language rather than mathematics. Which brings us full-circle. The major problem with evolutionary theory is that the theory is difficult to present as a falsifiable hypothesis. It isn't even inductively arguable except in very narrow circumstances. Instead, it is correlative (as is most of economics ...) and is abductively argued. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning

Bot

On the second part, if that's how you want to limit the word, that's up to you. I've heard 'rebut' used more flexibly.

Who said that the saying "math is the language of science" is etched in stone? Do biology and botany use math to any degree? Not sure why you want to diss mathematics and mathematicians here.

Economics -- is that a science? Modern economics would be far poorer w/o linear algebra, which makes possible complex models with dozens of variables, each one affecting the manner in which the others will act upon the whole. I can only imagine the discoverer of that had to experiment plenty on paper to make sure it worked accurately.

Physics and math are intertwined in a big way. Math is more than the language of physics, it's an integral part of it. I guess you could say math is a tool of these two, as well as astronomy, but even that seems simplistic to me.

How much math have you gotten into? Have you ever seen the method by which calculus is proven, which essentially lays out the steps of its discovery? It's a thing of beauty, I'm telling you.

Complicated mathematical proofs require all sorts of mental experimentation. I've about tied my brain in knots trying to apply reglar ol' Euclidean geometry to 3 dimensional problems. Doesn't sound like it would be that tough but it is.

Then I read somewhere about the complexity of that. Didn't feel so bad afterwards.

I dunno, call it a discipline if you wish but it's far more than just a ***** of other sciences.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Whatever happened to that Cassandra guy who was talking about the apparent market health of 2007 just being another bubble? Jeez, what a loser . . . .

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Talk about losers, ha!

What, you referring to our 401Ks?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

No, gentle person. I refer to nincompoops who believe that acknowledging things as they are is the same as claiming that's how they ever shall be. It is a foolish person who thinks things cannot change.

My 401k is doing fine. I adjusted out of stocks last November and into T-Bills. In late summer I'm intending to shift back into the stock market.

Sorry about your 401K. Stayed in the stock market huh?

B

My sister, the stock broker was talking to me on Friday about how the normal strategy is to shift assets into bonds when the equities markets get like they are now. Lately, she said the bond market has not been too good either.

Maybe that's why the price of gold has skyrocketed lately. What else you going to invest in? Real estate? Actually, if you're a contrarian, real estate is probably the thing to put money into right now.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

I've got better things to do than to constantly watch and time the market. I think that's one big reason so many wealthy and powerful were big on the whole 401 k thingy. It brought a huge new pool of people too dumb or distracted to notice that they were buying overpriced stocks and who stay with them when the real card sharks leave them holding the bag.

It's a sordid mess -- many of the so-called gains made in the market are made directly on the backs of the losers.

I'm trying to recall another period in American history when infatuation with distant gains in the stock market, of an almost magical sort, was big. How'd that one turn out?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I recall in 2000 people who'd bought stock in various internet companies were realizing that they'd made an uh-oh.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Of course I'm in real estate, I have a mortgage.

I am also buying int'l mutuals. I don't buy commodities. She's right about bonds. What they have done is barely grown at all -- a complete contrast to the stock market which is in a death spiral, IMO. Buying bonds is far better than George Costanza trying to explain, "Shrinkage"!

BTW Bot, don't tell me you're a fair weather capitalist. Ready to dump the titans of industry in favor of some boring T-bills?

I guess we should all pick a day and do that, just dump all our stocks, buy T-bills or money market funds, and then when the market hits bottom (in about one day under this scenario) we could all buy back in (low) and end up smelling like roses on easy street.

It's the American madness (more than American). Put a price on everything and convert the natural world into cash flow. Don't look now but all sorts of characters are willing to facilitate poisoning waterways around the world so that they can have X dollars worth of gold salted away, so that their "wealth" will endure. Meanwhile, real wealth has been destroyed so that folks can maintain their illusion of wealth.

Reminds of the way you always hear people going on about X billion dollars worth of wealth evaporating over night in any of the various black Monday -like events. Good Lord. There was no wealth that disappeared -- just the appearance of wealth, the presumption of wealth, the numbers on a computer that we use to represent wealth.

Real wealth IS disappearing in our world but it's not happening in the stock market. Because of it perhaps but not in it.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

the stock market is no place for your money right now unless you are in it for the really long haul, and even then it is going to be a rough ride. depending on who you listen to, the s&p has peaked for generations to come, mainly due to way higher than average returns for the past 20 or so years. i cashed out of the market a couple of years ago and diversified my 401K with largely overseas small and mid caps. i put the majority of that cash into real estate locally following katrina, and nationally following the "untimely demise of people who got in way over their heads so they could impress their friends with their big mansions on adjustable rate mortgages that any idiot can tell you are, in fact, adjustable rate (which means they can go up too) and the overzealous commission hounds that sold them to them" or the "sub-prime crisis" if you so desire. now i am enjoying renting out property to poor saps that won't even be able to get a home depot card for years to come for about 20% higher than i could have 3 years ago. the dollar is a joke, and uncertainty (war, upcoming election, mortgage crisis, bear stearns et al, etc.) is exacerbating the problems. the rest of my cash is in nice slow, stable cd's and none of it is going to see the light of day until 2010 at the earliest.

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1983 300D classic white 196,xxx
2007 toyota yaris lb
2007 nissan versa (wife's)
2001 nissan frontier
2006 bmw r1150gs
2001 ducati monster 900
2003 zr7s
2007 klr650

Which bonds are not too good? I've wonder for 8 lustrums why stock brokers have to earn money generating commissions on advising other people to buy and sell things? Some things cannot be explained.

Not you Dee8Go..........but it seems there was a "genius" running around here trying to learn how to day trade bonds sometime ago........LMAO!

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert