Once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains,
however unlikely, is the truth
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
To keep a reaction going according
to the law of mass action, there
must be a continuous supply of
energy and of selected matter
(molecules) and a continuous
process of elimination of
the reaction products.
- P. Mora
- http://tinyurl.com/px9j6
Trial and error (AKA: generate and test or guess and check) is a method
of problem solving for obtaining knowledge, both propositional
knowledge and know-how.
One selects (or generates) a possible answer, applies it to the problem
and, if it is not successful, selects (or generates) another
possibility that is subsequently tried. The process ends when a
possibility yields a solution.
In some versions of trial and error, the option that is a priori viewed
as the most likely one should be tried first, followed by the next most
likely, and so on until a solution is found, or all the options are
exhausted. In other versions, options are simply tried at random.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial-and-error
Use the Process of Elimination
Virtually all problems with PCs involve more than one component or
subsystem. The difficulty is usually in figuring out which component is
responsible for the problem.
Using the process of elimination
you can usually narrow the problem
down rather quickly by making small
logical changes and observing the
impact on the problem.
Your objective is to isolate the cause of the problem so you can
correct it.
The key is to make only one
change at a time and then see
if the problem goes away;
....if it does, then whatever you changed is likely responsible for the
problem (although it could be fixing the problem indirectly in some
cases.) If you make more than one change at a time, you cannot readily
discern which change was responsible for fixing the problem.
You will want to first check
the most probable sources of
the problem, and also the things
that are easiest to change.
[For example]: if you are having a problem with your disk drive being
recognized, it's a lot easier and cheaper to explore things like
double-checking jumpers and connections or replacing the interface
cable, than it is to try replacing the drive itself. That is something
you'd only do after you had eliminated all the other possibilities (or
if the evidence implicated the hard disk directly).
Here's a simple example. Let's suppose one morning your PC will not
turn on. You hit the switch and nothing happens. There could be many
different possible causes for this problem: the power to the house
could be out; there could be a malfunction in the wall socket; the
surge suppressor that the system is plugged into might have blown; the
electrical cord may be loose; the power supply could be damaged. To
figure out what is going on you need to eliminate these variables by
making small changes and seeing what happens. For example:
Change the wall socket you are using. If the PC now boots, you have
isolated the cause to the electrical wiring in the house.
If the problem persists, examine the surge suppressor. Change it, or
temporarily bypass it and plug the PC into the wall directly. If it now
works, the surge suppressor is the problem.
If the problem still isn't fixed, try changing the power cord.
If the problem persists still, you may then have to open up the box and
look at the power supply unit to see if it might need replacing.
Realize that the key here is making these changes one at a time. If you
approach this problem by changing the wall socket you use, bypassing
the surge suppressor, and changing the power cord all at once, your
problem may go away but how will you know what caused it?
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/gen/diagElimination-c.html
Football Manager logo competition shortlist is published - winner to
be found by process of elimination over the next 14 days. ...Visitors
to each of these sites will be asked to vote for their favourite logo,
with the least popular being eliminated as the days unfold.
http://forums.ic-games.co.uk/showthread.php?t=325
The National Football League (NFL) is the largest professional American
football league, consisting of thirty-two teams from American cities
and regions.
The league's teams are divided into two conferences: the American
Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC).
Each conference is then further divided into four divisions consisting
of four teams each, labeled East, West, North, and South.
During the league's regular season, each team plays sixteen games over
a seventeen-week period generally from September to January.
At the end of each regular season, six teams from each conference play
in the NFL playoffs, a twelve-team single-elimination tournament that
culminates with the NFL championship, the Super Bowl. This game is held
at a pre-selected site which is usually a city that hosts an NFL team
or a popular college stadium...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL
In the regular season, each team plays 82 games, which are divided
evenly between home and away games. Schedules are not identical for all
teams. A team faces opponents in its own division four times a year,
teams from the other two divisions in its conference either three or
four times, and teams in the other conference twice apiece. A team can
therefore have a relatively easy or difficult schedule, depending on
the division and conference it is located in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA
The National & American leagues are each split into three divisions and
structured as listed in the tables above.
In all, there are 30 teams in the two leagues: 16 in the older National
League ("NL") and 14 in the American League ("AL"). The leagues do not
have the same number of teams because 15 teams in each league would
force interleague play (or rest days) every day. Each has its teams
split into three divisions grouped generally by geography. They are
(number of teams in each division in parenthesis): NL East (5), NL
Central (6), NL West (5), AL East (5), AL Central (5), and AL West (4).
Each team's regular season consists of 162 games, a duration
established in 1961 in the American League and 1962 in the National
League. From 1904 into the early 1960s, except for 1919, a 154-game
schedule was played in both leagues (7 opponents X 22 games apiece).
Expansion from 8 to 10 teams in each league in the early 1960s resulted
in a revised schedule of 162 games (9 opponents X 18 games apiece,
initially) in their expansion years, for the American League in 1961
and the National League in 1962. Although the schedule remains at 162
games to this day, the layout of games played was changed when
Divisional play began in 1969, so that teams played more games against
opponents within their own division than against the other division or
(beginning in 1997) the other league.
Unplanned shortened seasons were played in 1918 due to the United
States entering World War I, and in 1972, 1981, 1994 and 1995 due to
player strikes and lockouts. A 140-game schedule (7 X 20) was played in
1919, and the schedule before 1904 varied from year to year.
Games are played predominantly against teams within each league through
an unbalanced schedule which heavily favors intra-divisional play. In
1997, Major League Baseball introduced interleague play, which was
criticized by the sport's purists but has since proven very popular
with most fans. The interleague games are confined to the mid-summer
months. Typically many intra-division games are scheduled toward the
end of the season, anticipating the possibility of close divisional
races and heightened fan interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB
You can usually tell when a company's been around for awhile. Look
around at layer after layer of processes, implemented to improve
business efficiencies. Generally, the older the company, the thicker
the process. And the more they're drowning in them.
The problem is, when the process trumps change, you can quickly find
yourself old and behind the times, getting smacked around by a bunch of
start-ups, beholden to nothing and no one. The processes that were put
in place to make the work better, and our working lives easier,
ultimately become stifling, especially when allowed to exist without
question.
But the leaders many times are the architects, and have the most to
lose from their destruction. So, what then? Is the process the most
important, or is the evolution/revolution of the final product?
So, I ask this of you management types - Force your employees to
question you. Find time to throw out the process altogether, and
challenge your employees to do better. Make them fight for their ideas
ferociously, and give them the room to implement and improve on them.
Making the most badass product will always be more important than those
extra few minutes it takes to get there.
http://tinyurl.com/rxs4w
The most novel and most important concept introduced by Darwin was
perhaps that of natural selection. Natural selection is a process that
is both so simple and so convincing, that it is almost a puzzle why
after 1858 it took almost 80 years before it was universally adopted by
evolutionists.
To be sure, the process has been somewhat modified in the course of
years.
It is rather a shock for some
biologists to learn that natural
selection, taken strictly, is not
a selection process at all, but
rather a process of elimination.
It is the least well adapted individuals that are eliminated in every
generation, and those that are better adapted have a greater chance to
survive. Also, in recent years, there has been a great deal of
argument, what was more important, variation or selection. For me,
there is no argument.
The production of variation and true selection are for me inseparable
parts of a single process.
At the first step variation is produced by mutation and recombination,
and
at the second step the variants are sorted by selection. Of course,
during sexual selection real selection takes place.
Natural selection is the driving force of organic evolution and
represents a process quite unknown in inanimate nature.
This process enabled Darwin
to explain the "design" so
important in the arguments
of the natural theologians.
The fact that all organisms are seemingly so (perfectly_adapted) to
each other and to their environment was attributed by the natural
theologians to God's perfect design. Darwin however showed that
it could be equally well,
indeed even better, explained
by natural selection.
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01_2/autonomy.htm
Is Death Responsible for Diversity?
Some of the hardest questions we struggle to answer in life surround
the phenomenon of death.
What happens when we die?
Is there something beyond death?
Is one way to go better than another?
Is it possible to escape death?
Why do we die, anyway?
Why couldn't we just live forever?
One explanation for death may come from the story of evolution. To
explore this question,
let us imagine a hypothetical
situation, a world in
which nothing dies.
(We will imagine also, for now,
that organisms would continue to
evolve along the same trajectory
as they do at present.)
Every organism that has ever existed in the past would exist now, along
with every organism present and every organism that has yet to exist.
Not only would the world contain these organisms, but all potential
organisms.
However many ways there may
be of being alive, it is certain
that there are vastly more ways of
being dead or rather, not alive.
- Richard Dawkins
All the representations of the ways of being 'not alive' would be
there, including those that we could not possibly fathom, those that
are not necessarily contingent to our present environment.
What this signifies, this absence of death, is a lack of natural
selection. When nothing can die, everything is selected for, nothing is
selected against.
No death implies;
no tests,
no judgments of fit or unfit,
no randomness or weeding-out
of the genome,
no consequence to anything that
is potentially detrimental
to the species.
This hypothetical situation is a look at the unchanging set of all
possible options, every combination of DNA that could potentially give
rise to life. Every possibility is valid.
This version of the world could only exist if we ignore three crucial
points;
1. the second law of
thermodynamics,
2. the definition of a niche
as it pertains to the
environment and to
evolution,
3. and the fact that without
these influential factors,
evolution, at least in the
sense that we now know
it, would not exist.
1. The second law of thermodynamics states that energy tends to go from
a state of high concentration to a state of expansion, or being spread
out. In other words, there is a tendency to move away from potential
energy. As we know it, the sun 'dies', gives off energy. This energy is
taken in by plants, which die and fertilize more plants with that
energy. They also give energy to any plant-eating animals, which in
turn give energy in decomposing to more plants.
Organisms give energy to other, carnivorous organisms by being eaten,
by dying. There is no way to create something new if some form of work
is not done.
Energy must be transferred, and the manifestation of this in evolution
is the process of death, and consequent creation or new life. It is not
possible to acquire something from nothing, the energy must be used,
given out, recycled. In the hypothesis version of the world, there is
no transfer of energy; there is only accumulation of life. This would
quickly exhaust the supply of energy and available space.
Another enormous side effect is that evolution would cease, at least as
it exists now.
A driving factor for this
process is the idea of
competition, which relies
on a loser, which implies
death or extinction.
"Indeed, the gist of every
selection is to favor individuals
that have succeeded in finding a
progressive answer to current
problems. The summation of all
these steps is evolutionary
progress."
- Mayr
A situation in which there is no death is a situation in which
everything is constant. Therefore there would always be the same
current problems and no catalyst to inspire any changes.
Elimination does not have
the 'purpose' or the 'teleological
goal' of producing adaptation;
rather, adaptation is a by-product
of the process of elimination.
- Mayr
No adaptation without elimination.
2. Death is also vital to the evolutionary niche, and the expansion and
contraction that occur within this niche. If death were non-existent,
we might have niches, but they would not be necessary. Every organism
would be able to live anywhere, to co-exist with any other organism.
This side effect of the absence spits in the face of our current
situation. According to Mayr, a niche is a "constellation of properties
of the environment making it suitable for occupation by a species." (p
288) It's important to remember that an environment is partially
defined by what organisms inhabit it. So a niche evolves and changes
with its living constituents. "Open ecological niches or zones are
often repeatedly colonized by entirely unrelated organisms that, once
adapted to these niches, become by convergence, extremely similar." (p
156, Mayr) This supports the hypothesis that the definition of a niche
includes the organisms to which it is home, and it also spotlights the
huge influence of selection pressure; what worked then will work now,
what worked there will work here.
3. If the niches are similar, they will probably yield similar
organisms and similar lineages. But if there is no selection pressure
then you could have penguins in the Savanna, giraffes on the South
Pole. There would be nothing barring these organisms from different
environments, because there is no death, no consequence for a lack of
compatibility between inhabitant and habitat. The world would be just
one big niche, where anything goes, anything is possible. If we do away
with natural selection, then we must consequently do away with change,
with evolution, with boundaries. "Whenever a species acquires a new
capacity, it acquires, so to speak, the key to a different niche or
adaptive zone in nature." (p 208, Mayr) The key merited is contingent
to the change only because the niche is 'locked' before the change
occurs. The boundaries we see are what create the selection pressures
that cause organisms to change and are often products of selection
pressures themselves. There is a direct relationship between these
phenomena. If we have change (evolution) and niches, then death and
natural selection are mandatory. Sources - Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution
Is. New York; Basic Books, 2001. Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous
Idea.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s04/web1/bbr.html
Target of Selection.
For many years I used the term target of selection for the object of
selection. The more I realized, however, that natural selection is an
elimination process, the more I realized that the eliminated
individuals were the real target of the selection process and that it
was rather misleading to call the "leftovers" the target of selection.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/6/2091?ck=nck
Skeptic: Do you acknowledge that social influences do shape the
development of a scientists' ideas? It seems fairly clear, for example,
that Darwin's idea of natural selection was indirectly influenced by
Adam Smith's concept of the invisible hand. Natural selection is, in
fact, the invisible hand of nature. But I suspect you would say that it
doesn't matter because it is a correct interpretation of nature.
Mayr: Well, actually, Darwin's metaphor of selection turned out to be
wrong. Natural selection is not a process of selection, it is a process
of elimination. Herbert Spencer, who was otherwise usually wrong, had
the right idea of the "survival of the fittest," defined as those
individuals that have certain characteristics that prevent them from
being eliminated. Nothing is being selected. Nature is just eliminating
the less fit.
Skeptic: Um, that's a debatable point. Is nature selecting for certain
traits or selecting against other traits? It's not just eliminating, it
is also selecting for certain characteristics, such as bigger brains.
Or are you saying there was simply a selection against smaller brains?
Mayr: We have to be careful here to use the right words. You have to
make a distinction between selection of and selection for. Certain
individuals survived because they had certain characteristics, but they
weren't selected. The process consists of eliminating all the others.
There is also an important distinction between natural selection and
sexual selection. In sexual selection the female is actually selecting
males for certain traits, and this is different from natural selection.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/mayr_interview.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_of_elimination
http://www.brembs.net/gould.html
http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S510.htm
http://www.nicksherman.com/degreeproject/development.html
http://o2jamforum.e-games.com.my/attach.aspx/13946/x%5BO2Jam%5D-Competition-Chart-.gif
http://home.earthlink.net/~ob1gui/images/playgrid.gif
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