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   From: tvaughan@buphyk.bu.edu (tvaughan)

   Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
   Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
   Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab.
   Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab.
   and, most importantly,
   Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department.

Being a philosopher, I felt compelled to post the following upon
seeing the above.  I don't know the source, although I first heard it
from Brian Smith of Xerox PARC:

Philosphers truly appreciate the profound nature of life's deep
questions.  As a result, they are still struggling with the same
questions that have been asked for millenia.  Thus, they are the
objects of ridicule on the part of scientists, who have less patience
with such lack of progress.

For example, consider the age-old question: If a tree falls in a
forest, and there is no one around to hear, does it make a sound?

This question was posed by philosophers of antiquity, and there is
still no philosphical consensus as to what the answer should be.

But ask a scientist the same question, and he'll go off for short
while, apply for a grant or two, and come back saying, "Well, we've
solved it for elm and birch, but we're still working on the general
case"!

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