The Saunterer

Edmund C. Berkeley on good science

    For good science, the data and the reasoning that go into it must be correct. This, Edmund C. Berkeley tells, leaves various shades of bad science:

There is no substitute for honest, thorough, scientific effort to get correct data (no matter how much of it clashes with preconceived ideas.) There is no substitute for actually reaching a correct claim of reasoning. Poor data and good reasoning give poor results. Good data and poor reasoning give poor results. Poor data and poor reasoning give rotten results.

    (Quoted from “Right Answers -- A Short Guide for Obtaining Then,” Computers and Automation, September 1969.)
    For a brief biography of Edmund C. Berkeley, click here. For a timeline of highlights of his career, click here. For images of or relating to Edmund C. Berkeley, click here.

Albert Einstein on our (failed) task

    We have spawned for today seven billion of us, squeezing the large mammals down to practically nothing. Around 700 wild mountain gorillas remain, and the fewer than 60 Javan rhinos is less than the number of children on the city block where the Saunterer lives. Einstein once spoke of the responsibility we have blown:

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

    (From page 278 of Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love, by Stephanie Dowrick. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.)

    For a brief biography of Albert Einstein, click here. For images of or relating to Albert Einstein, click here. For a brief biography of Stephanie Dowrick, click here. For images of or relating to Stephanie Dowrick, click here.

Lady Colin Campbell on how to tell a real lady from a sham one

    The Saunterer is at odds with Lady Campbell on this, but that is a poor reason for not quoting her:

    There is no easier method by which to detect the real lady from the sham one than by noticing her style of dress. Vulgarity is readily distinguished . . . by the breach of certain rules.

    (Quoted from page 77 of Etiquette of Good Society, by Lady Colin Campbell. Cassell and Company, 1893.)
    Real ladies, in our view, are those who wear overalls, volunteering long hours cleaning the stalls of no-kill animal shelters.
    You may compare Lady Campbell’s view with the view that real ladies are soap fetishers. It’s in the Saunterer’s post of January 14, 2011: “Anne McClintock on cleanliness as a means of class distinction” (click here).
    For a brief biography and image of Lady Colin Campbell, click here.