This episode is a testament (pun intented) to the ability of foolish people to create whatever god they need at the moment.

If the study of higher physics (a subject I readily admit I have little capacity for) is now required to properly understand the full, true purpose and definition of science as a whole, then I concede that everything else I've ever learned about the subject might now be in doubt. My mistake for overlooking the possibility that the definition had expanded beyond mere layman comprehension.

Or, rather, mere layman capacity for belief.

Science is a means to an end: that of discovering how things work by noting observable attributes about those things and attempting to discern relationships between them. Whether individual scientists tend to behave contrary to that principle may itself be an interesting subject for a scientific study, but it doesn't support your argument.

Yes, string theory is popular right now. Someday it won't be, because new discoveries will make possible a better theory to explain the phenomena it attempts to describe. Scientists, by definition, seek elegant solutions, not beautiful ones. There's a difference.

That's part of what Horace is doing here, too. He's attempting to filter out the emotionalism of marketing trash-talk and instead parse statistics as indicators of a worldwide phenomenon. His rigor exists, in part, in the degree to which he can dismiss his "non-empirical" feelings about one company or another, while focusing upon what numbers and corporate behavior suggest is occurring. Science, not faith.

I consider attempts to degrade the scientific method with the irrationality of emotion as politically-motivated sophistry. You're trying to associate the emotional fallibility of individual judgment with the ideal that the process is intended to represent. That's about as rigorous an argument as any I've ever heard coming out of the Discovery Institute. Which is to say: not very.

@publiclee: You appear to make a lot of assumptions about the "humanity" of an individual who goes to great efforts to keep his personal affairs private, "christian capitalist" or not. I don't believe many here can knowledgeably quantify Jobs' philanthropy, because he's probably not the kind of person who'd want to make a public spectacle of such a thing.

But how fortunate for Jobs that he has you to recommend worthy causes for him to support.

Science isn't a belief system. It's a method for learning empirical information about the natural world by observation and experiment. You can't have a belief about empirical facts.

Is "Apple's Kool-Aid" acceptable language for readers of the Harvard Business Review? Or is it merely a convenient expression of "objectivity" when you wish to insult people you don't know?

I'll be very interested to see next year's churn numbers as early Android-user phone contracts expire in quantity.

There are any number of use cases in full public view that demonstrate the fallacy of viewing the iPad as a "consumption-only" device. Unless your knowledge of its user base is informed only by those who feel threatened by its popularity.

At least this "innovation" didn't require Eric Schmidt to kneel at keyholes while still serving on Apple's board. All they had to do was copy screenshots.

An insecure company that can't come up with its own ideas.