David J Terrell

Christmas 2013 is here today! Many thoughts come to mind as one sits still pondering the wonders and marvels of life and the gifts some of us have for having a wonderful family. I am now, after opening presents and having some coffee, writing these words to express how grateful I am for life and for all the blessings I have received.

Nothing has changed it seems when on looks around and outside, but wait, look carefully and you’ll see how everything has changed. I don’t know who said that the only thing is constant is “change” and thinking about it I see it is true. For a late December day, today is extraordinary here in Portland OR. It is sunny and warm, if it wasn’t for the green and the trees you could say is like my good o’l San Luis Potosí, in the middle of the desert in Mexico’s north central region. Is this product of climate change or is it just another day in the statistical dimension of Portland’s weather?

The question is significant because we want to know what is the reality of our lives in this environment. We want to be able to explain logically and systematically why things are the way they are and thus be able to predict how things (e.g. weather) will be. Modeling, mapping, and theorizing is the way that we have in the physical sciences to establish hypothesis and methods to understand reality, by the way other disciplines like economy try to do the same but when dealing with human behavior all gets kind of messy.  Therefore I am eager to read “Farewell to Reality” by Jim Baggott where he is postulating how modern physicist have become fairy-tail-physicists proposing all sorts of hypotheses that are not based on any empirical data, and in some cases find it convenient to say that these hypotheses will never lead to observable phenomena! We’ll see what arguments Baggott mention and what is his reaction to them.