From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> When Uranus was found not to follow its predicted orbit, some astronomers
> decided that something was "missing" and used Newton's laws to discover
Neptune.
> When there were gaps in Mendeleev's periodic table some chemists searched
and found the
> "missing" elements. When there seemed to be energy "missing" in beta
decay physicists
> theorized the neutrino & found it after a 25 year search.
There is a difference in asking "Is something missing?" or "Are we missing
something?" as opposed to asking "What is missing?" The first two questions
are exploratory in nature and are a natural part of science. The last
question makes the assumption that we already know whats what.
The reason for the exercise we to make us aware of the reasons why we ask
the quesitons we ask.
Allen
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 27 2000 - 11:24:14 EST