Descartes and Scientific Method
One wonders why modern research is still confounded by opinion, ambiguity, and deference to experts. French philosopher Ren� Descartes (1596-1650) fought against such spurious investigative approaches. He rejected the notion that everything could be determined by pure logical analysis, without recourse to observation or experiment. Instead, he resolved to eliminate ambiguity, uncertainty and reliance on authority from his own methodology, as he says in his 1637 Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences:

"Instead of the great number of precepts of which Logic is composed, I believed that I should find the four which I shall state quite sufficient, provided that I adhered to a firm and constant resolve never on any single occasion to fail in their observance.

"The first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid haste and prejudice in judgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.

"The second was to divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as many parts as possible, and as seemed requisite in order that it might be resolved in the best manner possible.

"The third was to carry on my reflections in due order, commencing with objects that were the most simple and easy to understand, in order to rise little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex, assuming an order, even if a fictitious one, among those which do not follow a natural sequence relatively to one another.

"The last was in all cases to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I should be certain of having omitted nothing."

Descartes codifies the methods by which useful investigations can proceed. Galileo's 1638 exposition of his own investigations provide a practical application and extension of such methods (RMT 6:4 256).

Thomas K. Rehfeldt

Descartes and scientific method. Rehfeldt TK. � 1993, 7:2 p.291

Dan, HotCore and others interested in the way real, old fashioned science is done... even today should find interesting the above reading.

I suggest the following, in my humble opinion :

1) Create a solid theoretical foundation of the principles involved
2) Test the math model
3) Go to the lab
4) Use rest, many different components combination
5) Measure barrel vibration
6) Use lasers and high speed cameras
7) Spend a lot of money
8) After that...
9) Go back to the lab!!!

When finished, publish your results, not mere speculation and field experiences...

Destroy myths and critics (like tis one) by providing a solid set of principles backed by test done under controlled conditions... not a few nice pictures of targets, where Dan is trying to figure out whatever suits him better...

I find amusing to see how when other shooters results don't match the "OCW findings" he will conclude anything he can come up... in order to figure out how the OCW is working good

On the other hand... please DO NOT MAKE HIGH CLAIMS !!! that is the worst part... take a humble approach (as when asked Denton to provide a stat model...)

Learn, learn and together the true will show up for itself... not by making hilarious critics to opponents...

Of course, our sport is plagued with such claims, and myths... something we must learn to cope with.

On the other hand, how come that every year major ballistics labs, around the world spend millions and never, ever conclude such thing ???

Just a question to some "engineers" out there

I'll reprise my response to your post in another thread here...

Unfortunately, Gus, it appears that no amount of math, science, or anything else is going to convince you here. It appears that this has become some sort of a quest for you not to lose a debate...

Over the eons of human existence, there have been formulas and methods that were first noted to work, and only later scrutinized by science. Serendipity... And 99.997 percent of the time, you can bet that those who noted the usefulness of those formulas and methods were not the scientists themselves.

Did you know that for over 50 years some people have been putting a duct tape patch over their warts because someone, somewhere noted that the duct tape patch totally removed the wart faster and more efficiently than any medicines on the market? And just last month I heard of the scientific study on that matter, which did in fact conclude that the duct tape works! Now if you had asked all of the advocates of duct-taping warts to show you the math, you'd have likely gotten a lot of dumb looks. (Like you're getting from me) ! I am the messenger, not the scientist. I have found a system that works, and works well. If you're the scientist that you claim to be it should be a cake walk for you to prove to me and everyone else why it works.

You ask why the Audette method isn't well known--but it is in fact well known, and has been for years. And it works about half of the time--it just doesn't work as well as the OCW method.

My method is relatively new. I've been sharing the method with a few fellow shooters, and noting excellent performance in a variety of rifles from identical load recipes arrived at via my method. This began less than one year ago.

You seem to be ignoring what Denton has said for some reason...

So again, it makes not a whit of difference whether Hotcore or I can back any claims with math or science. If something works, it works. We can bring the egg-heads in later to tell us why it works. Know too that the egg-heads maintained for years that bumble-bees could not fly. But that was of course news to the bees! You are in the precarious postion of arguing that bumble bees can't fly because no one has shown you the math!

Anyway, in the inimatable words of Bill O'Reilly, I'm going to give you the last word here... Unfortunately we aren't about to solve anything with the continued rhetoric.

Best of luck to you and yours,

Dan Newberry
green 788

Dan,

First of all... this is not a personal crusade against your idea. On the contrary! but I cannot take offense on a free basis, especially when I tried to condcut a reasonable debate.

I did not questioned Denton, becasue he offered a model, and until I see it, I had no comments whatsoever.

Let me make my point :

Many times before I said that I appreciated your work, becuase it's interesting, but your response is always the same... I understand that you have no means to prove it in a scientific manner, but don't descredit science because you don't like it.

The problem here, as I see it is that you like to claim, even mixing concepts not fully understood, like harmonics and the OCW...

I�m very interested to see someday a hard-working method, but try to listen others instead of beat them.

Of course, I have no intention to develop such model, because people like HotCore are so good that I prefer to wait and see.

Keep up the good work. Again, don't fear debate if you really want to improve. Otherwise, stop claiming.

Best regards,