a little help with the Oort Cloud please

[astroron (Ron)]

Craig, Can you in all your wisdom come up with anything other than an Oort Cloud I would be interested to hear your Hypothesis
Please advise accordingly
Cheers

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by astroron

Craig, Can you in all your wisdom come up with anything other than an Oort Cloud I would be interested to hear your Hypothesis
Please advise accordingly
Cheers

Now .. why would I do that ?
I have no intentions of fallin' for that one, Ron.

Cheers

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Richard;



As with any process, it needs to be managed. Your comments relate to the management of the scientific process and I, for one, am not aware of too many scientists renowned for their management prowess.


Cheers

You're pulling my leg, right?
Florey (managed Sir william Dunn School of Path, Oxford)
Fenner (John Curtin)
Nossl (WEHI)
Watson (Cold Spring Harbour, Nat Centre for Human Genome Research)
Oppenheimer (Manhattan Project)
Braggs (Cavendish)
Watson (AAT)
Clunies - Ross (CSIRO)
Pasteur (Institut Pasteur)
Koch (Koch Institute)
Hale (Yerkes, Mt Wilson, Palomar, CalTech)
Burnet (WEHI)
Edison (All he surveyed)
etc etc etc

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Richard;

Point taken and accepted. As I mentioned, the practical side of me is with you on this.

As with any process, it needs to be managed. Your comments relate to the management of the scientific process and I, for one, am not aware of too many scientists renowned for their management prowess.

This however, I also see changing, with new up-and-comers.

(I'll bet there'll be hell for me to pay, after that comment, too. )

Cheers

I agree with you wholeheartedly there, Craig.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by bkm2304

You're pulling my leg, right?
Florey (managed Sir william Dunn School of Path, Oxford)
Fenner (John Curtin)
Nossl (WEHI)
Watson (Cold Spring Harbour, Nat Centre for Human Genome Research)
Oppenheimer (Manhattan Project)
Braggs (Cavendish)
Watson (AAT)
Clunies - Ross (CSIRO)
Pasteur (Institut Pasteur)
Koch (Koch Institute)
Hale (Yerkes, Mt Wilson, Palomar, CalTech)
Burnet (WEHI)
Edison (All he surveyed)
etc etc etc

But most were more interested in the research and left the real management to underlings and others. They got all the kudos and the headlines, the others did the shoveling of the proverbial fecal matter.

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

But most were more interested in the research and left the real management to underlings and others. They got all the kudos and the headlines, the others did the shoveling of the proverbial fecal matter.

Which ones, in particular?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by bkm2304

Which ones, in particular?

All of them....they make great front men to these institutions, act as the guide and inspiration to move the research along, oversee the "big picture" organisation and planning, go to all the important meetings with politicians etc, and get all the credit when things go wonderfully great...but most of the groundwork is done by middle management. All the hard yards and nitty gritty is done by them. The big boys just look in every now and then to make sure things are running smoothly and how they want them to. Then get all the credit for the successes.

[CraigS]

Yes .. Richard;

Its a fine balancing act .. there are minds I've encountered who are brilliant at managing process and then there are minds brilliant at maneuvering around technical scientific issues.

There are two disciplines and two mindsets required .. and there's nothing to say that a scientist can't be a good manager, (of the process), or a good manager can't make for a good scientist. The two areas are both very tall however, and to be good at both would be quite an extraordinary find.

Come to think of it, why would you look for it all in one person, anyway ?

Isn't this why entire organisations exist, to produce the overall scientific 'goods' ?

Cheers

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

All of them....they make great front men to these institutions, act as the guide and inspiration to move the research along, oversee the "big picture" organisation and planning, go to all the important meetings with politicians etc, and get all the credit when things go wonderfully great...but most of the groundwork is done by middle management. All the hard yards and nitty gritty is done by them. The big boys just look in every now and then to make sure things are running smoothly and how they want them to. Then get all the credit for the successes.

Oh. I thought they got to where they were by hard work and used their experience to manage their respective institutes. Frank Fenner for instance. Rids the world of smallpox, and ran the John Curtin. Fenner, by the way, considered Florey as even more modest and unassuming than himself - which is saying something. Till the day he died last year, he was and still is an inspiration to many current and former students of immunology in Australia, myself included. Known to all as one of the most modest, humble, wise and insightful scientists the nation has ever produced. To say that this man was a credit - seeking, big boy, looking in on things every now and then is, well, I think I'll sign off on this thread now.

[renormalised (Carl)]

I didn't say they went seeking the credit, only that they got the credit for the lot when things went well. They wouldn't have been given their positions of leadership if they didn't get there by hard work and excellence in their fields. But to assume they were the ones who did all the work in managing their respective organisations and that others weren't just as responsible for the successes and shortcomings is a little short of the mark. However, where does all the credit go when something major works out...to the guys running the projects/organisations. Despite the fact that it was most likely the actual teams working on the problems that figured everything out, you hardly hear of the people in those teams. They're usually referred to as "the team/s".

None of these guys could've done what they did if they didn't have others to help them, even with the research. No one is an island of genius or anything else. In any case, what good is a genius if they can't get their ideas from theory to practice. Especially in those sciences where the theory can be put into practical use.

You're starting to treat this a little too personal and that's where stupid arguments will start to breakout. In any case, this is way off topic.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Now .. why would I do that ?
I have no intentions of fallin' for that one, Ron.

Cheers

QUOTE
It seems to me that the community, in general, is very quick to adopt speculative ideas, and frequently overlook the scientific distinctions which underpin how the information should be positioned in our thinking.

Scientific philosophy is just as significant as observational data.

Craig, I would have thought nearly eighty years for this hypothesis to hang around was a reasonable time for it to fall out of favour

Craig, surely you can give us an inkling of an idea that we can build on as to what else could be out there.
It is alright to knock the wall down but you should have some thing to put up in it's place
Cheers

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by CraigS

It seems to me that the community, in general, is very quick to adopt speculative ideas, and frequently overlook the scientific distinctions which underpin how the information should be positioned in our thinking.

Scientific philosophy is just as significant as observational data.

Originally Posted by astroron

Craig, I would have thought nearly eighty years for this hypothesis to hang around was a reasonable time for it to fall out of favour

Ron .. elapsed time doesn't disprove a hypothesis. Technology improvements may or other theories may make make advances, thus obviating the need for the original hypothesis. In the other thread (about the hypothesised hot Jupiter in the Oort Cloud) …

Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed.

.. a perfect example of what I'm saying. It just hasn't happened in the case of the Oort Cloud .. so it persists … which is fine .. I have no problems with its existence (nor have I said this, as best I can recall …)

Originally Posted by astroron

Craig, surely you can give us an inkling of an idea that we can build on as to what else could be out there.
It is alright to knock the wall down but you should have some thing to put up in it's place

I'm not aware of any walls I've knocked down, Ron .. could you please elaborate ?

And I have no desire to hypothesise about anything at the moment.

Whilst I appreciate your request, I respectfully decline your invitation.

Cheers & Regards.

[CraigS]

Just for the sake of completeness, the purpose of my not undertaking speculation leading to a hypothesis, is purely to emphasise that the absence of an alternative hypothesis does not prove or disprove, add to or diminish from, the weight of an existing hypothesis.

There are other means for classifying outer solar system objects which co-exist alongside of, and overlap with, the Oort Cloud concept. The classification of objects described as 'The Scattered disc', attempts to encompass a broader scope of objects (including some elliptical orbit objects), and has the science based potential to supersede the need for the Oort Cloud (via a means along the same lines as the Nemesis example, cited in my previous post).

It may not, also.

I can speculate along with the best of them, but my interest (in this Forum) will always be to strive to maintain as clear a focus as I am able, on the fine line between speculation, and the physical nature of the real world.

(And that's also not saying that I'm alone in doing so …)



Cheers