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Comment the wavelength is larger than the lab (Score 3, Informative) 347

This is pretty nonsensical. At 7 Hz the wavelength for sound in water would be hundreds of meters and light would be many order of magnitude more. How would such an em field be involved in forming nanometer resolution structures in water?

This is yet another case of wild extrapolation from measurements that are at or beyond the limits of the tools being used.

Comment Re:Dogmatic thinking is cross disciplinary (Score 1) 769

I went through engineering at a major university and the critical thinking training was negligible. More damning than the training was the prevailing attitude of the future engineers, which was very much a "do I need to know this for the test" and "will I ever use this material in my career" approach, rather than the "how does the world work" perspective which we might prefer to inculcate.

This "tell me only what I need to know" style of approach is fundamentally incurious and easily hijacked by authoritarian schemes. It is certainly not true of every engineer, and definitely not true of the best engineers, but it is in my experience extremely common.

I honestly can't speak to the other commenter's statement regarding artists and relativistic ideas of truth.

Comment Dogmatic thinking is cross disciplinary (Score 2, Insightful) 769

The rigors of engineering training discourage fundamental questions of why and how in favor of rote mastery of rules of thumb which are known to work. To engineers the question of why gravity works is unimportant, their concern is in dealing with the consequences of gravity (and so forth for other physical laws). The analogy to faith based belief systems, wherein you accept rules handed down by authority and are discouraged from questioning that faith. or from seeking justifications for those rules, and are forbidden to consider revisions of those rules, is quite direct.

The kind of person who thrives under one set of these conditions has met many of the criteria to thrive under the other set of conditions.

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