Habitually misused scientific terms

[skepticalbip]

...but its color is bright red.

it's irrelevant

You missed the little devil....

but it's quite relevant. Its function is to record flight information and it doesn't matter on what medium that recording is made on or the design of the recorder as long as the function meets the requirements therefore it is a "black box". The fact that it is bright red illustrates that the name, "black box', has nothing to do with a physical description of the recorder.

 

[steve_bnk]

'black box' refers to a physical component or device with well defined inputs and outputs of which we can make use of without knowing what is inside.

'black box analysis' refers to empirically characterizing the input to output functions of a device without knowing or caring what is inside.

There is actually a formal structure to it.

RF devices are characterized by S Parameters.

Y Parameters, Z Parameters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-port_network


'...The two-port network model is used in mathematical circuit analysis techniques to isolate portions of larger circuits. A two-port network is regarded as a "black box" with its properties specified by a matrix of numbers. This allows the response of the network to signals applied to the ports to be calculated easily, without solving for all the internal voltages and currents in the network...'

To an aircraft systems engineer the flight data recorder is a
'black box' as are all the subsystems.

 

[fromderinside]

it's irrelevant

You missed the little devil....

but it's quite relevant. Its function is to record flight information and it doesn't matter on what medium that recording is made on or the design of the recorder as long as the function meets the requirements therefore it is a "black box". The fact that it is bright red illustrates that the name, "black box', has nothing to do with a physical description of the recorder.

steve_bnk nailed it. The problems with calling aircraft information recorders 'black boxes' are that they have known attributes designed by implementing FAA and other agency regulations into sensors and recorders contained within the boxes. All that is unknown is what the instrument in the orange boxes recorded.

The idea that one would call an orange box black runs contrary to the originating definition of 'black box'. You will find that definition in steve_bnk's nailed it response.

'black box analysis' refers to empirically characterizing the input to output functions of a device without knowing or caring what is inside.

The problem with calling the orange box flight data recorder a black box is we don't know the output is before we read it, but, we do know what goes on within the orange box that was designed to well defined specifications.

OK?

 

[skepticalbip]

You missed the little devil....

but it's quite relevant. Its function is to record flight information and it doesn't matter on what medium that recording is made on or the design of the recorder as long as the function meets the requirements therefore it is a "black box". The fact that it is bright red illustrates that the name, "black box', has nothing to do with a physical description of the recorder.

steve_bnk nailed it. The problems with calling aircraft information recorders 'black boxes' are that they have known attributes designed by implementing FAA and other agency regulations into sensors and recorders contained within the boxes. All that is unknown is what the instrument in the orange boxes recorded.

The idea that one would call an orange box black runs contrary to the originating definition of 'black box'. You will find that definition in steve_bnk's nailed it response.

'black box analysis' refers to empirically characterizing the input to output functions of a device without knowing or caring what is inside.

The problem with calling the orange box flight data recorder a black box is we don't know the output is before we read it, but, we do know what goes on within the orange box that was designed to well defined specifications.

OK?

Nope.

The term "black box" does not mean that what is inside is unknown (although that could be the case in some really odd instances). It means that, for someone designing it into a system or using it, what is inside is irrelevant. What is relevant for them is what it does (its function). For the flight recorder, does it meet the shock, vibration, temperature, operating voltage, power drain, mounting requirements, size, weight, etc. etc. and does it record the required information and play back that information in the required format. If it meets all the required specifications then it is irrelevant to the designer of the system that it is going into what is inside and how it does it. It is a "black box" to that designer and user even though the people who designed it know exactly what is inside and how it works.

 

[Valjean]

OK, my point is, while flight recorders certainly can be black boxes in a schematic, the term "black box" does not automatically denote an aircraft flight recorder, as the news broadcasts would have you think.

When a news reader refers to a black box, he's rarely referring to an electrical schematic.

 

[arkirk]

My pet peeve is the misuse of the word "chemical". Like when some of the organic food nutters say they don't like to eat food with "chemicals" in it. The word chemical is neutral, yet its mostly taken by the general public to mean poisonous, toxic, harmful.

Also, "processed food". Lots of food processing makes food safer, palatable, cheaper, longer lasting, etc. Yet "processed food" seems to be universally despised and condemned. My suggestion to people is if you really want to eat unprocessed food, only eat was available about 10,000 year ago in its raw form, and see how much you like it (if you live to tell).

The fact that food is "processed" alone is not the issue. It is whether or not that processing has deleterious effects on the health of people who may be eating it. When it is adulterated with persistent pesticides or preservatives it may have cumulative effects on the human body. Over time, some of these food additives do indeed prove to have deleterious effects on those who consume them. This process of testing and statistical analysis is glacial in its pace while the proliferation of these additives has been surprisingly rapid.

The use of "chemical" to describe these additives has come to mean either synthetic additives or inorganic components not inherent in the life cycle of the food material involved. It is true that even an organically grown food product is entirely a collection of chemicals in the first place, but their relationship to the food source organism is integral to the growing of that source organism. It would be more accurate to use the word "chemical adulterant."

Unfortunately, the advertising culture in our society has kept the average consumer ignorant of just what they are eating for the sake of being able to sell the food products. I agree the word "chemical" is not entirely accurate, but if the additive or the process used produces a product that has significant effect on the overall chemical effect of the food, then the new product is indeed chemically different from a product lacking these additives and processes.

Thus the problem can be regarded as a chemical problem. I thought the late Norman Cousins had a good approach to our environmental chemistry. He pointed out that many compounds being currently produced by our chemical industries have been synthesized in large quantities without regard for why they were absent from our living environment in the first place.

The problem with the chemical industry is that it is too deeply involved in marketing what it produces and has been found to have created a number of very harmful pollutions of the biosphere. When an organic food activist uses the word "chemicals," it may just be a reference to the practices of the chemical industries. I agree with the post's accuracy in a linguistic sense, but still understand the meaning of the word when it is misused.

 

[steve_bnk]

Pure semantics.

The flight data recorder is correctly called 'A black box'.

The semantic error is when it is refereed to as 'THE black box'.

Black does not refer to a physical attribute, it metaphorically refers to the inside workings of the device as being dark or unobservable.

The flight data recorder has well defined digital and analog signal inputs, and a well defined data output. It is a black box.

To most consumers a wall wart power supply is a 'black box'. you do not need to know how power supplies work to use it.

Same with a FDR. A systems engineer does need to know anything about how it works to design it into an aircraft. To him, or her, it is a 'black box'.

To a mechanic the engine computer module in a car is a 'black box'.

 

[barbos]

it's irrelevant

You missed the little devil....

but it's quite relevant. Its function is to record flight information and it doesn't matter on what medium that recording is made on or the design of the recorder as long as the function meets the requirements therefore it is a "black box". The fact that it is bright red illustrates that the name, "black box', has nothing to do with a physical description of the recorder.

Exactly, that's why particular color is irrelevant, what is important is function

 

[Kharakov]

For some reason I keep hearing a 2600 hertz tone. That 1980s tinnitus must be acting up again.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I didn't say I had a problem with it per se. It's just that the word "optics" has a very specific and different meaning to me, because I hear it all the time in the context of astronomical instrumentation. The reason that I feel that the people who use it are just trying to sound fancy is that "optics" does not have a different meaning than "appearance" in the contexts in which the word is used politically. But I generally don't have a problem with scientific-based words used in a casual meaning, as long as everyone knows they're being casual.

We must not debase the sacred science words?

Apparently we must take hyperbolic responses to someone expressing a personal feeling.

Sounds akin to the Muslim conservatives who get really pissed when some words are used casually or without an expectation of respect.

Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like. If you really don't want to read and try to understand my posts, then you really don't need to respond to them.

In engineering the word light is often used to refer to all of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Are you saying that there's something wrong with that?

 

[Shadowy Man]

We must not debase the sacred science words?

Sounds akin to the Muslim conservatives who get really pissed when some words are used casually or without an expectation of respect.

On second thought, I think your response here is just ridiculous. You come into a thread that starts with a post by someone saying that they are bothered when people use scientific terms outside of scientific contexts and then asks others to join in. Then when someone joins in, and with a relatively mild response at that, you accuse them of acting like a religious fanatic.

Maybe you simply enjoy seeing your own words on the screen, but I don't think your post really contributes in any way to this thread.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

'black box' refers to a physical component or device with well defined inputs and outputs of which we can make use of without knowing what is inside.

Or whether the cat inside it is alive or not.

 

[steve_bnk]

Science proper is a tool and an occupation. It is a job people get paid to do.

Popular science is entertainment and for some people a persona that can take on the trappings of religious devotees.

If you get bent out of shape over the word optics being co-opted to mean political appearances, then surely you wold have a problem with all of the Star trek saga incarnations. For example the prolific use of the word energy totally out of context of its exact scientific definition.

On the flip side how about the use of the word charm for a quark, rather silly no?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark

'...For some time, Gell-Mann was undecided on an actual spelling for the term he intended to coin, until he found the word quark in James Joyce's book Finnegans Wake:



Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he has not got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.

—James Joyce, Finnegans Wake[44]...


Imagine that, the name for a particle came from Joyce...

 

[Shadowy Man]

On the flip side how about the use of the word charm for a quark, rather silly no?

And I'm certainly not going to go to some English Literature forum and rain on the parade of people who started a thread about being bothered when physicists go around talking about "quarks" or "charm", just so I can read my own words.

 

[Emily Lake]

A "black box" is not a flight recorder.
Black box is an engineering term for a device of specified function but irrelevant mechanism.

A black box in analytical terms is a tool or analytical package that performs a function, but which is "closed and locked" so that you can't see it's inner workings. You put stuff in one end, you get answers out the other end, but you cannot see inside to figure out how it's working.

At one point in the distant past I actually took a math class about figuring out what was going on in there, using fancy partial differential equations and feedback systems and stuff. It was fun, but I've forgotten it all now


ETA: I see we've moved past this. Suffice to say that the term "black box" is larger than solely engineering, and does not apply only to physical devices. It applies to any process that is hidden or obscured in such a fashion that only the inputs and outputs can be interacted with. Most of the time, that's fine... but it can also be problematic, because you effectively have to take it on faith that the process is working correctly and without error... or you have to test it until your eyes bleed. And depending on how you need to apply the process, sometimes an unknown and unanticipated assumption or error in the process can have catastrophic results at application.

 

[Anon13948132]

Evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk says:

One of my favorite [misuses] is the idea of behavior being "learned vs. innate" or any of the other nature-nurture versions of this. The first question I often get when I talk about a behavior is whether it's "genetic" or not, which is a misunderstanding because ALL traits, all the time, are the result of input from the genes and input from the environment. Only a difference between traits, and not the trait itself, can be genetic or learned — like if you have identical twins reared in different environments and they do something different (like speak different languages), then that difference is learned. But speaking French or Italian or whatever isn't totally learned in and of itself, because obviously one has to have a certain genetic background to be able to speak at all.
10 Scientific Ideas That Scientists Wish You Would Stop Misusing
SEXPAND

Unfortunately, it is Zuk herself who is confused and deals in banalities. In fact, the very founder of the field (Francis Galton*) that studies nurture and nature (i.e. heritability), behavior genetics, noted this obvious point as though everybody already knew that. The question is not whether it is nature or environment. It is always both. The question is which accounts for how much variance? Now that question can be studied using both classical behavioral genetic studies (studying correlations between persons with different amounts of genes and environment in common (adoptive children, twins, siblings vs. half-siblings etc.) as well as modern studies (GCTA).

A useful overview is here.


* Galton was a relatively unknown but astonishing Victorian polymath. Half-cousin of Charles Darwin. For the specific nonsense that Zuk is saying, see chapter 1 in Sesardic, N. (2005). Making sense of heritability. Cambridge University Press.

 

[steve_bnk]

wrong thread

 

[Emily Lake]

wrong thread

It seems as though I ought to be able to make an embroidery joke out of this.

 

[steve_bnk]

wrong thread

It seems as though I ought to be able to make an embroidery joke out of this.

Whatever floats your boat, follow your bliss.

 

[Emily Lake]

It seems as though I ought to be able to make an embroidery joke out of this.

Whatever floats your boat, follow your bliss.

My embroidery stitches aren't tight enough to float a boat