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Science a Mystery to U.S. Citizens
maddugan writes "CNN and probably others are posting their synopses of the National Science Foundation's biennial report on the state of science understanding in the US. Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction."
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
God, don't scientists ever learn?
-Linux was for the masses, who spoke, and everything was crystal clear.
I don't know how the questions were phrased, but if someone asked me "do you think it's possible psychic powers, alien abductions or esp exists?" I'd say yes. To say no discounts far too much evidence. Sure, it's all circumstational and mostly unsubstantiated, but there's _so freaking much of it_. However, if the question had been "do psychic powers etc exist" then to answer yes would have just been naiveity.
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
in god?
Talk about wide-spread ignorance!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
i have esp, so i knew that this article was going to be posted three days ago.
None of those things can be disproven by science anyway... Belief and science are not completely contrary to each other.
More than 60% of Americans believe in this "God" person, and they believe he created us. Isn't that enough evidence that people don't understand science? :)
Belive it or not, the slashdot population does not represent the US general population, and quite probably will score much higher on these polls. So please don't reply with the fact that you got them all right, so did everyone else reading these commments.
What signature defines me as a person?
Only 50% of people surveyed knew that the Earth revolves around the Sun once a year. I am absolutley gob smacked. Is this really a cross section of American society!?
What do Americans teach their kids at school, if not that the Earth goes around the Sun once a year?
As a graduate student in physics, it has long been obvious to me that the general public has NO idea of what is going on in science. There are a variety of reasons for the scientific ignorance of the general public.
1. The common "Who cares" attitude about science. This is rampant in society -- try talking to a non-scientist about some scientific issue and watch the eyes of most people glaze over.
2. The media dramatizes and reduces complicated scientific issues into 2-second sound bites. This is why, for example, so many people misunderstand what Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity actually state.
In some sense, this is a dangerous development for society. The US Founding Fathers supported the creation of public libraries because they realized that having an informed public is important for good government. This does not mean that everyone should be an expert at say diagonalzing a Hamiltonian, but at least actually know what the heck Quantum Mechanics is about (and no it will not help you lose weight). Scientific progress is creating technology that will revolutionalize human society and even what it means to be human. These are things that the public, as a democracy, should understand because it affects everyone.
Quick summary: People are interested in science, but don't understand it.
What I want to know is what can I, as a professional scientist, do to help?
[TMB]
...that the son of an all powerful omnipotent (yet invisible) being was nailed to a cross 2000 years ago but was resurected, came back for a long weekend but hasn't been really seen from since.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Religion cannot be tested by science. After that little dustup with Copernicus, most religions are carefully designed to be untestable. ESP, psychic powers, and the such (i.e. superstition), CAN be tested by science, and routinely are tested and disproven by scienc. That people believe in them is a matter of grave concern.
And cut off as many cable signals as you can.
With the sci-fi channel and its charlattan
John Edward, and with TLC&Discovery doing
their share reporting credulously on
fringe science, cable is a part of the problem.
(Talk show hosts and their habit of coddling
"psychics" don't exactly help either, but if
you're going to jam TV radio signals, you'll
have a hard time looking sweet and innocent
with the FCC.)
Just last week, I read an article in Mother Jones magazine about Robert Moses, a 60's civil rights leader who now is strongly advocating better math education for minorities, both through his own actions teaching in a Mississippi school (he commutes weekly from his Massachusetts home, bless those dedicated liberals), and in his book, Radical Literacy . (I just ordered the book, ISBN 080703127, but haven't got it yet.)
I absolutely agree that math and science education should be a stronger emphasis in schools (math is probably more important than science, but they each fuel the other). And clearly, inner-city schools, and other poor schools, provide lousy education, especially in math and science. And as the survey cited here demonstrates, that lousy education shows.
Here in Pleasanton, California, a wealthy suburb, my Rotary Club awards prizes each month to a "student of the month." I'm amazed each month that these kids all take multiple AP classes (sometimes five or six) and have GPAs of 4.15 or 4.25. When I went to school, even taking AP Calculus, it was mathematically impossible to have a GPA greater than 4.0 -- speaking of "math literacy". But what about the many inner-city students who never graduate from high school, and lack even the basic math skills required to work at a cash register? (Ask your local McDonald's manager how they work around the lack of functional literacy and math skills.)
Another book plug: I just finished the book And Still We Rise , a reporter's account of a year in an AP English classroom in South Central Los Angeles. It's a remarkable book that left me feeling hopeful (unlike most books in this genre, which leave me frightened and numb). But alas, that book focuses only on just a few dozen surviving geniuses, and not thousands of their peers whose best efforts could not overcome the cruel challenges of the inner-city school environment.
Finally, I read an article in yesterday's newspaper (the Valley Herald), recounting a new bill by my local state legislator, who wants to exempt more new teachers from needing teaching credentials. The bill's stated intent is to allow more skilled professionals to teach, but I suspect the real goal is to circumvent teaching standards and put more lower-cost teachers into classrooms without adequate training.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
... I mean, look at how Star Wars portrays 'laser blasts' and the speed of light!
"Derp de derp."
Well, I saw that coming. The aliens told me about this announcement weeks ago.
Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction
Believing in one of these things doesn't necessarily mean that you have a poor understanding of science.
Indeed, since none of these things can be proven or disproven, a true scientist would be open to the possibility that these things could actually exist (or not exist).
Now, if you said that humans and dinosaurs were alive at the same time, or that antibiotics kill viruses; THEN you have a poor understanding of science. The former has been proven to the best of our ability, the later has been proven outright.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Personally, I find it more disturbing that 40% of those surveyed believe that astrology is based on scientific fact.
Topics like alien abduction are open for speculation, since surely, scientists aren't prepared to prove they don't exist.
Astrology, on the other hand, simply has no science behind any of it. The idea that stars and planets being in certain alignments controls one's destiny flies in the face of common sense and reason!
i just called and asked Miss Cleo if U.S Citizens are gaining a better knowledge of science.
And she told me that "not even tha cards can answer that one", but she did tell me that i would be rich very soon!
In the summer of 2000 CNN ran repeated studies and found that about 7% of the US adult population claims firsthand experience with alien abduction.
Clearly, too many of us are munching grandma's Paxil without permission.
With all this "feel-good" methodology used in schools, it's no wonder people are getting dumber. 2+2=5? Sure, Timmy, if that makes you feel good. Central America is Kansas? Sure, that's right for you. Everyone's a winner!
I for one am sick of it. Where is the intellectual discipline? Our society will get dumber and dumber until the government no longer functions, because democracy is built upon a supposition that the populace is smart enough to know what to vote for.
--- witty signature
For the vast majority of people, science is just another religion: taken on faith or rejected as heresy. It's sad, but true. The reason a lot of people probably get disillusioned with science is because science doesn't have all the answers, and isn't always right, and it makes no bones about it (at least the good scientists don't, anyway). I find that one quote I love is the one from a movie called Dangerous Beauty, "The people want answers. They don't care if they're wrong answers, they want them just the same." When someone comes across something not currently explained by science, and science cannot explain it immediately, they automatically assign a supernatural explanation to it.
Are people just so arrogant as to not be able to admit, or perhaps even afraid to admit, that there are just some things that have not been explained yet? Things that are just beyond our current grasp, but not necessarily beyond our potential grasp?
*sigh*
BlackGriffen
Either:
b) Americans think they know everything
c) All of the above
This report makes the spurious assumption that the belief in "ESP" "psychic power" or "alien abduction" automatically means the believer is at odds with the understanding of science. Belief and scientific understanding are quite seperate ideas, and shouldn't be seen as two polar opposites.
Just because one "believes" in paranormal activity or "believes in astrological predicitions" does not mean the person is incapable or ignorant of rational scientific thought. For example, although I am a daily reader of my horoscope, because I find the idea of fortunes fun and intriguing, I'm not incapable of understanding how I and my collegues as scientists are capable of scientifically testing hypotheses.
Likewise although I do believe that extraterrestrial life has abducted people for whatever reason, I am not saying that I can scientifically prove that it has occured.
The report should be more critical of the publics understanding of science, and not its acceptance of paranormal activity as real. Science can be a wonderful provider of truth, but it's not the end all to truth. Something still may be true even though it has not yet been proven scientifically, eg. the graviton, the tachyon. The term is a hypothesis. Most scientist believe their hypotheses are true, and science is their proof. However, if they didn't have their belief that is was true, they wouldn't even have a will to want to prove it.
Science is a process that provides proof to ideas. The public's understanding of that idea should be what the survey is testing. And not saying hogwash such as X% of the respondance believe astrology is a science.
The press is largely to blame for the misunderstanding most people have about the scientific method and how scientific institutions work, which this white paper confirms yet again. Science's daily routine is something like this: dog bites man, dog bites man, dog bites man hard, dog bites man in painful place, dog growls while biting man, dog bites man over disputed frisbee, man bites dog, dog bites man's shoes, dog bites woman.. The press homes in on man bites dog because that's how the press works, because men biting dogs can solve our energy woes, cure cancer, and reverse aging, and because the man who bit the dog is photogenic.
A week later, science finds out that man doesn't really bite dog, and the press reports on that dutifully, giving the public a distorted impression of science. And that's a major reason for the other findings, like people's belief in astrology (Pons & Fleischmann, Virgo bites dog, 1995).
In the 20th century, atheist regimes murdered well over 100 million people. Far, far more than had ever been killed by non-atheist regimes.
This reasoning is flawed. There is no link between the fact that USSR/ Cambodia etc. were Atheist and the fact so many got killed. There is no causality.
Help fight continental drift.
I couldn't find any data about what their confidence level is.
The sample data they used couldn't have provided them too high of a confidence level.
Only who believes in this article believes in psychich powers.
With some exceptions, this article creates stereotypes.
Just last week, I read an article in Mother Jones magazine about Robert Moses
I first read his name as Robot Moses (took me about three re-readings of that sentence to realize it wasn't). I thought he was an invention, not a person. Now there's an application of science and technology!
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Good luck striking those words from the Constitution. Bashing religion is about as effective for you as it is for Christianity when my Christian brothers bash atheism. Bashing doesn't have nearly the effect that showing love and compassion does. (Heh... and besides, Christianity's not about religion, it's about a relationship with Jesus Christ.)
From the article: ...in response to the 2001 NSF survey, a sizable minority (41 percent) of the public said that astrology was at least somewhat scientific...
The words "at least somewhat" indicate that it was one of those questions where you rank a statement from 1 to 5, where 1 is "not at all", and 5 is "absolutely".
That would probably mean that anyone selecting 2 or above is considered a person who believes that astrology is "at least somewhat scientific". Unfortunately, someone who you might consider a "fence sitter", who answered 3, gets counted as a full believer.
"How do you know when a scientist is lying? She's quoting statistics!" - me
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Watch out with the sun worshipping. Most (all?) of the fucked up religions of the world evolved from sun/son worship. Suffice to say, when Uhura said "It's not the sun in the sky, it's the son of God" she was about as wrong as wrong can be. It's the sun in the sky.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
In the end, most of us end up trusting "learned scholars" for most scientific issues. How many science-minded people have the skills to verify the validity of Steven Hawkings equations? How many of you have actaually calculated the speed of light? Or understand how DNA really works? Even most PHD's only have a very good understanding of a very small part of the big picture.
Not to say that science if fake, but chances are that 95% of the science you believe in is based on the fact that you trust someone elses conclusions and intelligence and integrity.
Don't forget how many smart people were taken in by cold fusion. Or when Stephen Hawkings calculated that the universe shrinking would actually cause time to go backwards just like watching a videotape in reverse.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
Science doesn't prove anything. Science proposes that under certian conditions something is true most of the time. Science doesn't discount ANYTHING - a true scientist would have to admit that anything is possible - perhaps unlikely, but almost never impossible. If we say "something doesn't exist because science hasn't proven it does yet" (e.g. alien abduction, ESP, psychic powers) then we are backing ourselves into a "science" based dogmatic society. Don't fear crackpots, or the unknown - because they are often times the ones who are hailed as genius hundreds of years after they die.
In other news, 90% of people living in India are illiterate.
On the whole, Americans aren't really that dumb folks...we have our quirks like every other culture/society.
"Why? Galileo claimed the Earth revolves around the Sun, which at the time was quite controversial and extraordinary. However, simply observing the planetary motions proved him right. Nothing extraordinary there"
It was indeed extraordinary. Observing the motions of the "wandering lights" with Galileo's "magic glass" was very extraordinary. Actually seeing the moons of jupiter revolve about the planet was a world shaking event for those that saw it and understood the Ptolemeic worldview that was official church dogma. It just *couldn't* be so. but you lool in the glass, and it *is* so.
Extraordinary.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
I'm really not sure what your point is. But if it's to suggest that belief in the big bang theory is "a matter of theology," or rather "faith," then I'd say you're dead wrong.
The neatly forgotten fact about science is that it's ideas require actual evidence to be taken seriously. The more evidence, the more seriously they are taken. Got a different idea? Also got evidence? Then we'll pit the two competing ideas together and find out which one has the more convincing evidence.
The big bang theory has actual evidence- publicly observable and verifiable evidence- that supports it. Whatever it is that "some religeous leaders" believe, I can assure you it can't stand up to that kind of inquiry.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I think the distinction is that the former of your items fail to stand up to independent review.
There is evidence for scientific theories that can be judged objectively by anyone who cares to do so. ESP, alien abductyion, etc. fail to ever provide any evidence that we can apply the scientific process to. All evidence for those events is hearsay, speculative, or achieved through dubious means.
It's very difficult to "believe" in ESP when every ESP capable person put in a scientific study fails to produce results that are better than chance.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Do you have life insurance? How about car insurance beyond the minimum required liability? Or medical insurance? If you do, you're contradicting yourself. You've considered and prepared for remote possibilities. If you do die tomorrow in a car crash, you've prepared for your loved ones. The car is paid for, your medical bills are paid for and you're paid for. Do you have savings in the remote possibility that you'll lose your job? How about extra fuses in your house? Do you back up your hard drive? All of these are preparations for things that are remote possibilities, yet you are prepared for them. Either be consistant or don't bitch. I personally have plans for a large underground shelter / habitat ala Blast From The Past. While I haven't constructed it cause I have no money, I would like to do so. Maybe I'm paranoid.... Or maybe I'll be laughing when the aliens use their ESP to abduct you and insert an anal probe, then you get turned away from the hospital cause you have no insurance.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Some of the questions are certainly a matter of grave concern. In particular, those which revolved around actual science.
Some of the others, however, such as the belief in pseudoscience, I'm not sure are as alarming. Is this really a disbelief in science, or simply a turning away from something I call "scientific exclusivism"?
Allow me to explain. Science, logic, empiricism, and the like are very good at explaining stuff. In fact, you can explain a whole lot of things with these. But you cannot explain everything with them; there are holes. And there are holes in every school of thought out there; the universe is just plain not simple enough to allow for a single set of principles to explain all things. So to fill in those gaps, something else is needed. And whatever this "something else" is, it has its own holes, ones filled in by science. They complement each other, rather than conflict.
Also interesting to note is the conflicts you see in any exclusivist system. A religious fundamentalist will blithely ignore what he sees every day, in an attempt to justify his own beliefs. But a militant atheist will weave together a maze of logic which, in the end, contradicts itself, usually by an assumption that lack of proof positive equals proof negative. And then there's Objectivism, but going into the exclusivist errors in that one will take more time than I currently have. In the end, though, it all goes back to Goedel's theorem that no system of methematics can be both consistent and complete at the same time. It's true for schools of thought as well; if you want to be truly consistent in your beliefs, then it is impossible to stick with only one.
There has been a growing trend among academia for scientific exclusivism lately, that is, the idea that science can explain all things and anything else is ridiculous superstition. This bothers me; in its own way, it is as bad as any religion, and breeds the same sorts of intolerance (albeit with different targets). If this test shows a trend away from exclusivism -be it scientific, religious, philosophical, or whatever- then someone is doing something right for a change.
... can't reason their way out of a paper bag.
... ) but in no way what they are doing is scientific. The one thing that psuedo-science does not have that really sets them appart is they have NO peer revier of their findings.
One of the major problems with psuedo-science is..
Unexplained != Inexplicable
Just because we don't know why some things happed does not mean there is some supernatural reason behind it.
ESP has never been proven to be anything but statistical number games or fraud. Cold reading is a well documented skill that has been used for centuries.
Psuedo-science != Relegion
Religion takes things on faith. People believe in religion for many reasons. Psuedo-science attempts to prove something is true by using scientific ( language, tools,
To summerize what alot of people have said already...
"But too many people believe it not to be true"
This is a classic appeal to populatity. Common knoledge is often simplified or all together wrong.
"You cannot prove that it's NOT ESP"
I don't have to. That is an appeal to ignorance. By that reasoning I can prove and disprove anything I want. Basic critical reasoning says that I don't have to prove you wrong, you have to prove to me that you are RIGHT.
"ESP is a faith just like any other science"
Nope, see above. Science has the feature of being peer reviewed and have reproducable results. ESP has never been proven in any controled environment.
As most of the slashdot public has proven this article is quite right.
Let's look at these things.
While they are rebuffed by scientists - does that make these things "fake" or non-science?
Part of the Great Witch Hunt was physicians, along side of their Church counterparts, who killed off any "medicine men" or faith healers. Kind of ironic considering they [hunters] were advocates of prayer for healing and both sides treated illness with their limited knowledge of the human body.
We look back and assume that the medicine men were crazy shamans - but they were in fact scientists in every sense of the word. Be very careful not to get on either side of this debate because in the past the debate was based on politics and not based on science what so ever. [look into the real history of the American Medical Association]
"Science" is a mystery. We can only study what is before us.
I don't believe in these things - most of all the UFO portion. But look here for more. I do, however, think that there is too much that we don't know or don't understand about our own minds to say these ideas are all "fake".
Get your Unix fortune now!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Science would probably be in a much better state if people didn't jump to conclusions based on the most cursory of searches for data.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The US really has to improve their school education.
We have probably the best university education in the world, and one of the worst public education systems in the industrialized world.
It is a side of the great inequality ruling american society - just as we have a huge disparity between rich and poor, we have a great disparity between people with good and bad education.
I dont know if people realize how problematic this is. Having large numbers of badly educated people is just asking for civil unrest. And we can really do better in the richest and most powerful nation on earth.
Of course there are communities in the states that will strongly resist education. But that pressure will be getting very weak because the internet erode the power of local authority centers.
I have a great story about this.
I was TA for a NATSCI course at my university (science for arts students). It was based on the history of science.
I was teaching about Zodiac signs, and thought I could lead them in with horoscopes and the Zodiac signs are the constellations crossed by the Sun, and so on...
I thought this would be a great opportunity to show the kids (first year) that belief has changed because of philosophy. So I mentioned that "back then, lots of people believed horoscopes led their lives, and ruled their actions. Now that we're more scientifically advanced, and have learned more about the nature of the universe, we don't subscribe to this anymore. For example, how many of you here believe astrology controls our lives?"
Three-quarters of the kids raised their hands.
Idiots.
I think that the state of US science education is more than just an embarassment or sad situation -- it is actually an insult to the rest of the world.
For here you have the world's "greatest" and most affluent country, whose citizens have more resources than any other country in the world, and they choose not to open their minds to science and rational thought. Yes, they choose not to. Because it's not as if there isn't access to education. It's because they choose to believe in what is easy and pleasurable instead of what is logical and reasonable.
And all the while other children in poorer countries feel lucky when they receive a pencil just to write with! How can we claim to be a civilized society and squander our resources this way? We should be ashamed.
This thread confuses me. Ryu2 says that religion is the root of death and destruction. He gets to keep his 2 points.
The anonymous coward says that atheists have killed alot too. He gets moderated down to flamebait.
Now you talk about there being no causality to support atheism being bad and get an insightful.
Let me just ask you this, if there were no religion, do you think Osama Bin Laden would somehow be a nice wonderful person? Do you think he wouldn't have found some other reason to attack?
Atheists have done bad, Christians have done bad, Muslims have done bad, Pagans have done bad, etc. etc. etc. There is no causality to support that ANY religion is inherently "bad".
" Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction."
If that scares you, wait until you realize that an equal number of Americans believe that an invisible man who lives in the sky sent watches over every one of us, all the time, and will torture us for all eternity if we refuse to believe that he sent his son to earth, had the guy killed, and then brought him back from the dead!
Most people are idiots, especially when it comes to science or the supernatural, especially if rationalizing a difference between the two is involved. It doesn't help any that the work of theoretical scientists sometimes gets treated and taught as fact with no proof, and is then later discredited in the press. A good example is black holes, which have long been treated as fact with no real proof, and just recently the news was full of stories stating that black holes might/do not exist. This only confuses the public, most of whom have almost no chance of ever (Conciousley.) interacting with a black hole, and makes it hard for people to know who to trust when science is concerned.
I'm of the opinion that what most people call "ESP" or "psychic powers" probably has some basis in fact. Just because we don't have a strong scientific theory for it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The fact that scientists are more or less obliged to be materialist in order to garner any respect from their peers probably doesn't help. The safest attitude to take towards anything "psychic" is to ignore it as unworthy of study. The second safest attitude is to "debunk" it. Try to do any serious research on it, and you'll be branded a crank, I think.
And what's with this implied attitude that "you really shouldn't believe in that sort of thing, since we haven't proved it." Why is science the One True Epistemic Gatekeeper? Science is a useful tool, of course, but is it the best way of determining the truth of every possible question?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
For instance, there are plenty of scientists who claim to be Christians (as opposed to Christian Scientists). Should those scientists be stripped of their professional accreditation because they believe in the eventual return to Earth of a 2,000-year-old dead Jewish guy?
If you think so, then be prepared to lose the benefits to society of a number of otherwise-intelligent, thoughtful people.
If you don't think so -- if you believe that one's religion should not disqualify one from being considered a "scientist" -- then what's the difference between a scientist who is a Christian and one who believes in other unprovable, irrational propositions such as clairvoyance or astrology?
A great many people, including some of history's most successful scientists, have their pet irrational beliefs. It probably doesn't make sense to use someone's New Age-y beliefs as the chief yardstick of their scientific literacy.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Of course I beleive in Alien abduction! I was taken up into a ship myself!
They talked to me via ESP and also levitated me using their psychic powers.
The problem with science is that there is always doubt, and most people don't want doubt, they want certainties.
For example: from where I sit, I cannot see into my garage - in fact, I cannot see my garage at all. Therefor, if I am to be absolutely precise, I cannot state that my car is in the garage. It could have been stolen, it could have disappeared in a puff of smoke, it could have been abducted by aliens. Each of those is a hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that the car is setting there. If I am to be precise, I cannot state for fact that my car is there or not.
However, since my garage is locked, my car is locked, and had the doors opened I probably would have heard them, the hypothesis that it was stolen is unlikely. Given the body of evidence supporting conservation of matter, the hypothesis that it went poof is unlikely. And any aliens that could reach Earth would have little use for my car, so even if the Drake equation is bunk it would seem unlikely aliens would have stolen it. The most likely hypothesis is that my car is right where I left it (relative to the Earth's surface).
However, that sort of thinking doesn't make sense to the average person. "How can you *not* know your car is out there?" And when a scientist says "I cannot conclusively disprove it", they think that means that is must be true.
Most so-called "science" teachers just teach that water is H20, that natural gas burns in oxygen, etc. In short, they teach facts, rather than teaching the tools to THINK, and to CHECK what you think. It's easy to test if a student can regurgitate the facts you've crammed down their throat - testing if a student can actually THINK when confronted with a new situation is hard, and subject to opinion (read: "If I flunk this kid, can his parents cast doubt upon my grade?").
Until we actually start teaching kids to THINK, to constantly question what they know, and to take nothing for granted, we will have this sort of nonsense running around. And since the Industrial Revolution the purpose of public schools has been to turn out organic labor units, not thinking individuals.
And before you pat yourself on the back, smug in your superiority - when was the last time YOU actually stopped to think about your opinions, and to ask "Now, what are the underlying axioms of this belief? What truths must I hold self-evident to get to this belief? How can I test if those beliefs are true?"
www.eFax.com are spammers
Actually, I think turbo was meant to mean 'gun turns really fast and shoots', and laser means 'bad guy red beam'. If it were truely a laser you wouldn't see the beam. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
In other news, 95% of 4-year-olds believe in santa clause
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Ah, the theory of Proof by Instant Gratification: "If I don't immediately understand it, it must be false."
Some knowledge takes a lot of work to understand. If that were not true, then the Greeks would have killed themselves off with laser-guided nuclear warheads dropped from a solar-powered orbiting platform built from superconducting nano-tubes.
Education is the silver bullet.
Wow, please tell me that's a troll. Please.
Explain quicksort without math. Explain the behavior of gyroscopes. Explain TV.
Wow, man, if you happen to be math challenged, that's OK. But when virtually all of our modern advances require math to explain, your lack of understanding of it doesn't mean that it doesn't work.
And I agree with the other reply... the distinction between science and esp is that I can write down what I observed, explain it with math, and send it to someone across the world who can duplicate my experiments, and get the same answers from that math. If you could do that with ESP, we would use it instead of telecommunications satellites. Oh yeah, explain orbits without math. Details matter.
"ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do,"
If the entire survey was composed of questions like these, then the survey cannot be trusted. The question is ambiguos. Change one small word, and the question's meaning changes. A fair number of people may have read: "ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes that genetically modified tomatoes do,".
Most people in the US are only nominally literate. They do not always read what is actually written on the page. I work with lots of differnt people daily. A very small percantage of them are capable of reading a sentence correctly the first time. You'd be shocked and amazed how many people just scrape by, literacy-wise. It's really important to be carefull of that sort of thing when making a survey.
I also noticed a number of evlolution vs. creation sort of questions. As that little prob is a hot spot, with scientists in many fields divided on the topic, I personally would leave that to the 'personal optionion' section of the survey. Same thing with life on other planets. The hypothesis is untestable.
The scientific method requires testing the hypotheseis; if you cannot test it, it's philosophy, not science.
He said if you cannot explain your idea to an intelligent freshman, then you don't really understand it yourself; an even better test might be to explain your idea to an intelligent twelve-year-old.
Quicksort - great example! If I had moderation points, I'd give them to you.
I've got another one - try to explain transistors without math.
Education is the silver bullet.
How did alien abduction slip in there. I'm not saying that I believe in alien abduction, but it's not something that is impossible or improbable. If the science world is going to back up Carl Sagan's claims the universe brimming over with life, then they have to be willing to accept that one day we will interact with that life. Possibly right now.
Dude, antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses.
We're collaberatively having a discussion (in this thread) on religion. As such, a variety of important quotes and points of view are perfectly normal to interpose in the conversation.
George Carlin makes a statement that furthers one point.. I'd call it fair use.. It is perfectly reasonable to use another authors words (if attributed) in a debate. Hell.. This is one of the purposes of fair use.
Haven't seen them posted with all the Flaming going on, so I called up a summary then from their spreadsheet (this is the all adults row from the detailed spreasheet at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/append/c7/at07- 10.xls)
True or False
------------
A = The center of the Earth is very hot - 80% Correct
B = All radioactivity is man-made - 76% Correct
C = The oxygen we breathe comes from plants - 87% Correct
D = It is the father's gene which decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl - 65% Correct
E = Lasers work by focusing sound waves - 45% Correct
F = Electrons are smaller than atoms - 48% Correct
G = Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria - 51% Correct
H = The universe began with a huge explosion - 33% Correct
I = The continents on which we live have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move in the future - 79% Correct
J = Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals - 53% Correct
K = Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer - 94% Correct
L = The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs - 48% Correct
M = Radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling it - 65% Correct
Short Answer
-------------
N = Which travels faster: light or sound? 76% Correct
O = Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? - 75% Correct
P = How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun: one day, one month, or one year? - 54% Correct
Q = Please tell me in your own words, what is DNA? - 45% Correct
R = Please tell me in your own words, what is a molecule? - 22% Correct
Good job stating the obvious. A more interesting question would be - what do the majority of U.S. citizens know?
-bugg
Given the high number of bible-thumpers, it's no surprise that science is a big DUH? to many yankees!!!
I don't think he claims that these are not scientific theories. He's looking for an experiment that would disprove evolution (since falsifiability is the hallmark of a scientific theory).
It should be possible to breed two populations of some species in different, isolated environments. There should be some adaptive pressure we can apply that will force the two populations to diverge into different species.
--
E_NOSIG
I disagree with the implication of this statement - as if one's belief in ESP, psychic powers, and alien abductions means that one is obviously a science illiterate.
If one believes blindly, without considering the large volume of oppposing evidence, then I would say you are ignorant of science. But as far as I know there is no *unquestionably conclusive* evidence that disproves any of these things (we may have debunked every report of alien abduction, but that does not mean all future reports will be false also). So it would be equally unscientific to dismiss all claims of paranormal phenomena as ridiculous... (even stranger things than ESP have turned out to be true, despite overwhelming disbelief by scientists - consider quantum mechanics in its early days!)
Science is fundamentally about asking questions of the world, forming explanations, gathering evidence to test one's theories, and accepting the results - whether supportive or contrary. A scientifically-minded person always keeps a skeptical, though responsibly informed, view on the world.
Oh really? And do the majority of accountants accept the theory of evolution? And what about the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies? Because their opinions are just as fucking relevant as those of religious leaders.
CNN and other media sources have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the loud rantings of an incredibly small but rabid minority of religious demagogues, who have decided that a 4000 year-old myth trumps 100 years of indirect and direct testing and a mountain of supporting evidence. So now, well established and supported theories, like evolution, need an apologetic footnote. WTF.
American society has been hustled into believing the opinions of religious leaders matter to science. They don't. Let them tell us what scientific findings mean for our soul or our humanity. But I'm sorry Father/Reverend/Rabbi, if you are using words like "kinds", "flood", or "dust" instead of "mitochondrial DNA", "punctuated equilibrium", or "vestigial" then you need to be left out of the debate.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Disclaimer: Yes, I know this wasn't written by the poster. Yes, I know this was satire. Yes, believe it or not, I did find it marginally amusing.
But, I'm still going to pick apart a couple of points.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being.
[...]
The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice.
According to a friend who is studying university-level theology, the Roman Catholic view is currently that there isn't a "divine plan", as that would contravene free will. The idea is that God would love to see us all happy, offers guidance etc. if we ask for it, but we are still free to screw ourselves over. This results in all of the wonderful ills that plague our civilization.
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more.
Unfortunately, the temporal institutions that are the earthly manifestations of religion do not have access to God's bank account (must have slipped his mind). Therefore, they are bound by the same need to raise money to pay people with (administrators and the people who go out and do good works) as any other earthly organization. As they have a pretty unlimited mandate (make sure everyone on the planet is fed/clothed/etc, preferably while worshipping God), they are an unlimited sink for funds. As people are stingy bastards, they generally barely have enough money coming in to cover their infrastructure costs.
So I'm not surprised that most religious organizations say they desperately need more money. They may even be telling the truth.
The Greeks did kill themselves off with all that tech. But only some of them.....the ones that emmigrated to Mars just couldn't get along. I think it had something to do with this ugly rock face carving that some guy did.
Hmm, if this is a troll, it is a good one. If you are serious, then I humbly offer this serious explanation.
;)
Science in its purest form, has no hatred of god, though little love for him might also be true. Science has never said that god doesn't exist, or that if he does that you shouldn't listen to what god has to say. As a matter of fact, science is completely compatible with a careful belief in god.
You see, those "religious" statements that some "holy" men have made, those are scientifically problematic. Science has a bad habit of knocking on their ass, those who claim to speak for god. Why? Because more often than not, those men are immoral charlatans, and not clever enough to avoid the watchful eyes of science.
Is this a bad thing? Would a person who truly believes in god want to be decieved by such people? The christian bible speaks of false prophets. If there are such in the world today, are you going to be pissed off if science helps to point them out?
But it has been that way for along time, and much of what religion still is today, hates science for that. You should be wary of religions that are at odds with science.
For instance... detroit auto-makers use a sort of evolution to design new cars. Is it so hard to believe that if there is a god, he might use a similar approach (hell, maybe that's a reason why we find the process so useful)? But many religious fanatics are so STUPID that they can't see past the poetry of their own holy writings. Maybe their god is a little bit saddened, that they have no appreciation for the poetry.
There are many examples of such, this was just one. But in truth, if someone managed to believe in thermodynamics in 204 A.D., they weren't scientific crackpots (it hadn't been proven scientifically yet) they were geniuses, IMO. Again, believing in something unproven doesn't make you dumb, or unworthy, or even incompatible with science. As long as you admit that it is unproven, both to yourself and others. And hell, if you are somehow proven wrong, being willing to admit it would be nice. I'm not going to make fun of you if that happens, I've got too many unproven beliefs myself.
But you must be willing to admit that there is always the possibility of that happening.
All of this, is the difference between the two. With science, you can be reasonably sure that something is so. Religion (as opposed to the charlatany that often substitutes) deals with the unknowable.
Why do I feel like I'm not finished? There is more here to say. You see, science also only tells us what to be able to expect when we do certain things. Jump off that plane with a bad parachute, and you will die. Science does a very poor job of telling us how to live our lives, what will make us happy and fulfilled, or even why it is immoral to kill someone.
Could science tell us those things? Yes, I think that science could, if it truly wanted to. If we have 10 million earth-like planets, populated with billions of human-like beings, and we made thousands of them jump out of planes w/o parachutes each second, and we kept statistics on that, then yes, it is very easy to deduce that after a few trillion have died, that killing them is a bad thing. Of course, the damage would already be done.
In that instance, religion is superior to science. Science often requires "bad" results (please forgive the subjective term "bad") to prove something. This is fine when those bad results are something mundane, like 3,459 of your 10,000 seashells along this stretch of beach are too big to account for your theory.
And this does cause problems. For instance, some religions have said that divorce is a "bad" thing. But some people obviously don't believe that today. So now, there are plenty of statistics for scientists to use, to maybe determine if divorce is bad or not. Not enough, bt someday there will be. If science confirms what religion has said all along, what happens then? This sounds like a dumb example, but eventually there may be enough evidence to conclusively say whether divorce is a bad action to take, or merely the sympton of another problem. Things could get icky... and this isn't even a very controversial issue.
Abortion could be much worse, in that respect.
Human beings need someone who can tell them what is right and what is wrong. And we're torn... between those priests who are monsters, and those scientists who seem apathetic. Science would have a very difficult time telling us, if it can at all, and religion seems all too willing to abuse us when we ask.
Kids should be taught to care about the information. When grades are emphasized, the information becomes pointless.
While it would be nice if we could magically make kids want to learn, nobody's found a way to do this yet.
I like learning enough that after a BASc and MASc, I'm still coming back for more. But if you'd given me the chance to cut out on school when I was a kid, I'd have jumped at it (and be mopping floors right now).
Spend some time working with kids. By and large, they're selfish, lazy little bastards, with redeeming qualities that only emerge as they grow older. Until they grow up enough to gain maturer attitudes, all of the good intentions in the world won' help.
I agree that emphasizing grades (and grading in general) is an imperfect system, but it's the best one we've found so far.
[Yes, I know that a few rare kids actually do care about learning from a young age, but most don't.]
Sure, I suppose the reviewers for a journal could conspire to knowlingly let a fraudulent paper through, or suppress a valid one with interesting results that go against the accepted theories. In the first case, the bad science would inevitably be noticed by the journal's readers (other professional scientists, after all), and the editors would be disgraced. In the second case, some other journal's editors would accept and publish the paper, "scooping" journal #1 and claiming the glory of publishing the groundbreaking new research.
Like all self-policing systems, it has flaws, but by and large it works fantastically well, uncovering charlatans and incompetents, and allowing the dissemination of well-validated new information to the scientific world. It's not physically possible to verify everything in life yourself, which is why you sometimes have to trust others to properly verify things for you. But that trust cannot be blind, nor based on "faith". This holds as true for your doctor or auto mechanic as for the editors of a journal.
Freedom: "I won't!"
You know, I spent much of this evening wondering to myself if its just me, or has everyone around me more or less just become more stupid as the years have gone on...After overhearing this conversation at a local PetsMart:
Dumb Lady: Oh my God! Oh my god, this fish is dying!
Clerk: Hm? The goldfish?
Dumb Lady: Whats wrong with your fish?
Clerk: Oh..That one. They're supposed to look like that.
Dumb Lady: With...with its head like that?
Clerk: Yeah.
Dumb Lady: What about those eyes? Thats not supposed to be like that..
Clerk: Yeah. Those goldfish are supposed...supposed to be like that. They're....genetically...not supposed to be like that, originally.
Dumb Lady: Huh?
Clerk: Thats the way they make em. Genetically...altered.
Dumb Lady: ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!?? (gasp)
Clerk: Yeah.
Dumb Lady: These fish are GENETICALLY ALTERED?????
Clerk: Well..they're not.....they're..just come like that.
Dumb Lady: Oh my god. Radiation. Oh..my god..thats...I guess that means they wont live very long. Like the sheep.
Clerk: Well, no, its just they're not as hearty as...the other goldfish.
Dumb Lady: I see.. wow. Look honey, they can do that now..to fish!
The "fish" the 40-something mother-of-two woman was referring to was one of those big googly-eyed goldfish that you can see in any pet store..Just normal goldfish that are bred to be decorative fishes. I would have said something, but it was already obvious this woman had absolutely no concept of something as simplistic as breeding animals... That,and I felt bad for the clerk who had to endure this woman's sub-roomtemp IQ. I just walked off and felt sorry for civilization.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
As a graduate student, my dissertation research focused on the beliefs young children hold about the permanence/vulnerability of objects. That is, what do kids understand about the vulnerability of objects to undergoing destructive transformations? It turns out that the larger the object and the younger the child, the more likely they are to endorse the notion that the object will exist unchanged forever. (The cookie I am holding won't exist forever, but the sun or a mountain or my house can never be destroyed.)
This is not really a surprise since young kids are very concrete in their thinking and most haven't witnessed/experienced the destruction of large-scale objects.
However, as a kind of control I also studied University undergraduates (3rd year students) and asked them similar questions. I was surprised to find that about a quarter of these students endorsed the notion that large objects like the moon, the sun and the stars would exist unchanged forever. I also asked the University students about their spiritual beliefs. For example, did they believe in God? What surprised me was how often students would reject traditional spiritual notions, but then go on to offer up spontaneously some really weird ideas. E.g., 'I don't believe in God or organized religion, but I think my soul astral-projected through the Bermuda triangle before I was born.' (The indestructibility of large objects and the weird spiritual notions were almost never expressed by students who were science majors.)
Even in a major University it seems, ignorance and strong irrational trends were not being engaged by the educational process. Not good, if one accepts the notion that a healthy democracy requires a reasonably well-educated electorate.
IMESHO, the right question should be `Are scientists perfectly correct, unbiassed and 100% trustworthy?'
The survey answer, however stuffed and rounded, answered `no' and for a change got the answer right (-: still IMESHO
Scientists are as human as the rest of us and have pressures like job security, tenure, avoidance of boat-rocking and peer pressure driving them.
So... if you turn up something embarrassing, unless you're a rare individual (find `Missoula'), you either don't publish it, or waffle around the consequences in the hope of getting credit for the work and not damnation for where it leads.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I can think of a few (currently non-major) religions that involve human sacrifice, a non-zero number of which still have adherents. Under modern value systems, that tends to be considered "bad".
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
No one's trying to find better ways.
On the contrary, people try all the time, and every once in a while a new approach makes it into the mainstream (remember "New Math"?).
Anyone who could come up with a better scheme and prove that it worked would make a fortune as an educational consultant (government will throw *vast* amounts of money at this kind of thing). Nobody's succeeded yet.
Ever seen 'Sesame street'. Seems to me that kids learn stuff from that show without grades being involved.
Watched this as a kid, and loved it.
Try to teach the entire elementary school curriculum through Sesame Street. I dare you.
[And don't forget to pick up your dumptruck full of cash from government consulting contracts when you present proof to them that it works.]
Impossible, no.
Improbable? Well, let's analyze this. The requirements as I see them (feel free to add to these, if you can come up with any) are...
#1 Intelligent aliens, when SETI has analyzed a large portion of the sky, and not came up with anything.
#2 Intelligent aliens that somehow have managed to invent a form of travel several orders of magnitude faster than light. Sure, 80% light speed might be fast enough to go to another star... but it's a given that there are no such aliens within a few light years (see #1 for explanation).
#3 Aliens that have managed to become as technologically sophisticated as all this implies, and yet so ethically/morally challenged as to come here to commit what I would think of as a universally criminal act.
#4 Aliens that find some reason, any reason to shove bizarre probes up our asses.
#5 Aliens that have no moral trouble committing kidnapping, sexual assult, torture... but fail to kill the experimental "animal" once the experiment is finished, as many scientists do with lab animals.
#6 Aliens, that having shoved probes up our asses for as long as 3 decades, that still don't have enough data about anal sphincters and need to conduct more such probings.
#7 That considering all this, we still don't have the necessary technology to at least notice that something weird really is going on. Sure, I can easily believe that we can't look at the computer, and have the sensor logs report "Klingons have entered a tight polar orbit around earth".... but damn. No exotic radition or matter samples? No alien DNA/skin scrapings underneath abductee fingernails? No photographs? (Conclusive photographs, bozos... photography was sufficiently advanced by the 1930's to show us stuff that strangely, only starts showing up after computer graphics is sophisticated enough to fake it).
#8 Aliens so cold hearted, that they can't be bothered to donate anti-"BSD IS DYING" troll technology to slashdot. OK, so this one is a little far-fetched...
Let the conspiracy nuts have fun with this list.
*shrug*
It's the NSF -- N as in national, not international. And the US government cannot do THAT much to influence education in other countries; hell, the Federals don't do that much about education inside the United States, as its largely a local matter. From their point of view, there's not much point in studying scientific illiteracy in other countries if they cannot affect it...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
As a "fan" of UFO studies, I have to say that many of the skeptics in the field are idiots. They are as much hellbent extremist as many of the so called "ufo nuts". Their "daytime mass saucer hallucination" theories are utterly ridiculous.
I is not hard to understand why much of the public dismisses them.
If they would simply say, "I don't have an answer to that one", INSTEAD OF create ridiculous freudian media-induced hallucination trigger pet theories, they might carry more credibility in the public eye.
Table-ized A.I.
Personally, I feel that the questions themselves represent very limited thinking and bad science.
Example #1: The question about the big bang.
While the big bang has gained a lot of credibility over the last couple of decades, it is in no way a fact yet. It is nothing more than a best-guess based on very scant evidence. It's not unlikely that a better theory will be put out in the future as more evidence builds (one that changes the nature of how we percieve the big bang or one the discounts it entirely.) I believe at this time that the cosmological community does not completely agree that the big ban happened or what it means. (note: I'm not saying that it didn't happen, just that it's not even close to being conclusive, unlike Evolution.)
2) The questions about ESP, Alien Abduction, and Astrology were very closed minded. The truth is that we still do not know enough about the world we live in to throw this stuff out as pure fantasy, especially ESP (although not reproducible, there is substantial proof that something occurs that we do not understand... perhaps very rarely or commonly) It is very, very bad science to assume that something does not exist or can not occur... that's the same thinking that has held up most great scientific discoveries.
3) Asking yes or no questions treats them as simple facts, when they are not. It misses the point to putting out an hypothesis and developing it into a theory. Theories general get worked over for quite awhile before they are either discounted to evolve into more or less a fact. Once you can "build a car" out of it, then it truly has a tangible result (Evolution vs. Big Bang.) Each question has a different degree of truth. The fact is, the universe does revolve around the Earth (Einstien pointed out in the Theory of Relativity that it was just as true as saying that the Sun revolves around the Earth.)
4) Slashdot's reaction (especially those in Tech) has been it's usually self-centered "we know better" type of reaction. Slashdotters do not. In fact, I doubt if most of you can critically evaluate the survey based on social mythology, grammar/connotation, and scientific method (which never disproves anything, but does find "better" answers that can be built on.)
Many of the reactions mirror the standard Engineering reactions to anything that isn't already a well-used formula. In my experience, Engineers are very often the most closed minded and least likely to discover something new types.
5) Here's the ultimate example of why the survey doesn't work. Do you believe in ghost? Yes/No? Is yes/no a relevant answer to a phenonenom (excuse the spelling) that we can't properly place yet. Fact: We do not know if a ghost is a physical, psychological, or other type of occurance. It could all be in someone's head. It could be a strange particle effect related to the electrical signature of a previously living person and the way it interacts with the phsycial world on a quantum level, or it could be nothing at all. That wasn't exactly a Yes/No approach was it? Yet, it was a totally valid way to view the question.
Thanks,
James
We have a public school system monopoly which is ineffective.
For whatever reason we defend it.
We need to get rid of it.
My twelve year old son is terrible bored with his non-challenging schoolwork.
How many people believe this is a 6th grade honors homework assignment:
Underline the words that are not capitalized.
Well it was.
Our school system are producing inferior products. The school system have produced every excuse available. Overcrowding, Low Funds, Hard to keep and maintain good people, etc. Then I read my children's assignments/textbooks and know it is the system. People on slashdot are against monopolies, we need to get the school voucher program passed so there would be open competition. I want to see my son challenged as much as he can take.
Get a free ipod.
Ya know, all those "normal" people that I'm sure everyone on slashdot is bashing, just keep something in mind. That silent majority of Americans that get up every morning, work hard, pay their taxes, etc., don't take much from society (probably didn't get Federal aid to go to college, aren't milking the system for grant money, etc.) support most of your life styles.
While all the IT workers that put in 60 hrs weeks (with 20 hrs of work, 40 hrs of playing Quake and laughing at the "rest of the world") "struggle" with their jobs being underappreciated (only getting paid 1.5x-2.0x the median income for a family of 4) because the masses don't worship them, these people that you're mocking are the reasons that their is a demand for your services.
Especially the students enjoying the free/subsidized education, realize that these people you are mocking for being stupid are paying for your education. I guess that doesn't matter, because THEY paid for YOUR education, so you're better then them.
Perhaps everyone here that lives in the "blue" parts of the map should read this thread over and wonder why the "red" parts of the map hates you guys.
Yeah, those crazy scientists, you can never trust 'em to tell you the straight truth. What a bunch of crazy jokers, always out to put one over on us. Not nearly as trustworthy as people like you, for instance.
Say, this is sort of like that tree falling in the woods theory. If something happens in the world that's more complicated than you can understand, does it exist?
You really kill me. I bet you don't understand how the web browser, network protocols, operating system or CPU you're using right now works. I guess that means I'm not really reading what you're posting.
There I go, talking to myself again. (sigh)
-David
We're on the road to Tycho.
"When one turns to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared; what thousands of disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its mere foundations; what patience and postponement, what choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness - then how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke wreaths, and pretending to decide things from out of his private dream!"
-William James, The Will to Believe
We're on the road to Tycho.
Thanks for poiting out that book. It's a good one.
Got friends?
Then why don't you do it?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I won't go into the games we play to make this universe more interesting.
I will say that if think psychic phenomena are real, prove it. James Randi has a wonderful $1 million prize to the person who can PROVE the existence of paranormal phenomena.
No one has won it, and no one will. Why? Because psychic phenomena, et al., are bunk. It would be really neat to live in a world where you could read other people's thoughts and effect change in the world simply with your mind. But that's not the universe we have.
If you think otherwise, prove it. Don't post about how your uncle can dowse water, or how you saw your friend after he died, etc. Sit down and prove it; prove that there are phenomena that are attributable to paranormal forces.
I'm not trying to troll, it just pisses me off when normally rational people behave in subrational ways.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
I'm not attacking you personally, but I have found that anyone who is 'comfortable' with their beliefs has simply stopped examining those beliefs. Being comfortable with your beliefs is like being comfortable with syphilis. Belief is a sort of disease that comes from the ego's need to protect itself from reality.
Am I trying to prove God doesn't exist? No. Am I trying to prove that he does exist? No. I'm just asking: why do we need to prove anything about God?
When you lay aside everything you think you know and think about it at that basic level, it really is quite mystifying.
There is truth in the religious experience, it didn't come from thin air. I have felt this much. But just how much of what we're told is authentic and how much is contrived to meet current political/power needs?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Source, please? How was "wealth" measured - and by whom - to get that number? Also, was that one percent of the people as individuals or one percent of the "households" where different households hold different numbers of people?
I hope you are not suggesting that it is unfair to have that one percent of the population pay 40% of the taxes.
Note also that income taxes are a tax on getting rich not a tax on being rich. So even if we granted your ridiculous claim as to the current wealth distribution, a graduated income tax would make it harder, not easier, for your mythical 99% poor to catch up to the 1% rich.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Take a group. If you're sorting, there must be some ordering, so we can say that for any pair A and B, either A comes before B, B comes before A, or it doesn't matter which you put first.
Pick a random element P from your set. Some belong before it, some after it, and some are equal. So that's three smaller sets. Apply the same process to the smaller sets, so they're sorted. Then put 'em together, and it's all sorted.
Quicksort is easy, compared to explaining Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity, or even giving some intuitive semantic idea of what an eigenvalue is, let alone singular value decomposition, if your listener does not know linear algebra...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
We've been reading for decades now about our lagging public educational institutions. They were sub-standard in the 80's, and now they're to that point past crisis where as a parent in all but the most affluent suburbs (and even there) I would have a serious problem sending my child to them. In New York City the high school dropout rate remains over 50%, and the facilities are so poor that classes are taught in closets, and falling masonry is literally killing students. We pay teachers here less than garbagemen; it's not just an urban problem, either, as primary school educators generally can expect to earn a fraction of what other graduate degree holders make (think attorneys, engineers, or doctors). The system's funding has been at best maintained year after year despite a burgeoning, malthusian population explosion. By now we've entered a death spiral of "reforms" and "reorganizations"; vouchers and charters (catholic school subsidy and union busting, respectively) are a perfect example, and as the conservative-liberal polemic has adopted education as one of its battlegrounds, you can't talk to anyone about it without hearing one ignorant catechism or another.
Only your teachers know the real story, which is that there aren't nearly enough of them, and getting more is tough, since as it stands right now only martyrs and discipline enthusiasts want the job.
These things have consequences.
All that separates the 1st world from the 3rd world is the schools. Without education, there's no such thing as democracy.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Who was the idiot who said, "Science vs. Religion, to the death!"
I've read the bible, and it doesn't say there is anyone up in the sky saying anything. Perhaps throughout history much of what it has said has been obscured by interpretation, but in light of this recent survey, please tell me what hasn't been obscured by interpretation (pseudoscience is roughly the same thing as science, by the majority of those surveyed).
Sun-worshiper, that is really cute.
How you denounce people's beliefs while not understanding what the are is beyond my tolerance, and so I flame you.
The first sentence in Genesis clearly states what God is: "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (the beginning and the end). Where you take that to be a man in the sky is misinterpretation of one of the oldest living histories of mankind. God is everything and all things, all knowing and all seeing, that is not His resume, that, my friend is the definition of the word "God". It doesn't matter what you call it, everything taken together has been given a moniker, and that is "God". Some people assume the bible as the word of God, and some assume it as the words of man, to me, the bible is a history of mankind, scribed by Moses, and raped by everyone who thinks they know everything.
Before the written word, there was the spoken tradition. Examples abound of oral traditions spanning many generations explaining complex philosophical problems, and providing life lessons on what is best for all. When I first read the Bible, I asked myself, what is this grocery list of names provided in Genesis, and ages of unreasonable length? Imagine, if you will, that this is part of a history, and that these ages represent clans, or philosophies, or who knows what now that time has forgotten their true origin? To me, the Old Testament seems to parallel the parables of oral traditions the world over, and to invalidate it with your pith is obsene and offensive to those who believe something moral exists in the universe, that randomness does not dictate the world we live in, and that actions carry consequences. To the end, that there is a difference between Good and Evil.
Now, I am not a spokesperson of any church. I don't care what your name for God is, if you have any belief at all above "The Universe Is Entirely Random", than you are in my camp. Perhaps your jokes aren't meant to discount a higher being, and I can accept that too, as I see hypocrisy in formal churches myself, but to say that such beliefs in a higher power are not valid is spoken without careful thought. Why the pain, why the torture, you ask? There are no answers that can be given to this question that will satisfy the pain you feel. Life is full of pain, and the fact that this design does not please you and I is irrelevant. If you don't believe God is good, than that may be your argument, but that argument does not provide evidence that God does not exist (and admittedly, my tricky definition belies this assertion, as provided by the Bible)
I've studied philosophy too, my friend, and I know that I cannot prove to you that we are not all heads in a jar being controlled by evil demons (ala Matrix, classic philosophy thought of that idea first), but despite the fact that the argument by design has holes, the pragmatic agrument has holes, and all other purely logical arguments for the existence of God have holes, I cannot, nor will I ever accept that all of these things around you, as unlikely or likely that you believe they are, have come from pure randomness (because if there is no control, nor are there any rules to the universe, than my God cannot have power, and can therefore not exist).
Perhaps, my understanding of pure randomness is naive. But from all I have gathered, I cannot percieve how something with no patterns can give rise to something that exhibits clear patterns. If randomness should govern this universe, that how can science prove anything? Science is proved on logical conclusions from a set of observations, yet if randomness governs all around us, than how can cause and effect be reality?
Wait a second, you say, I didn't say everything was random. If there is anything that is not random, than that thing by definition has rules. If a thing has rules, than that thing has a design. If there is a design, than there is "God" by my broad and all encompassing definition of the word. But wait, isn't that cheating? No. Because I never claimed to have a definition of God you could hold in your mind; I know God to be all things. So, why does God allow this, and why does God do this? These are arguments against God in the lexical sense of the concept of God, but to me, they mean nothing. To me, God owes you no explanation, because God is everything, and the sum of all parts acts with a conciousness all its own (see my rants on nationalism, etc.). That which is all things encompasses all of your questions, and posing questions to the universe as a whole is your right, but there are no rules that say you deserve an answer. In fact, if an answer was given to you, than what would you do? The final answer will never come, and that is why scientists will always have more questions to ask.
What you see and what you can imagine are on different planes. I can see that you have decided not to accept the beliefs of millions, and the fact that those millions might not know what 2+2 means doesn't mean they don't know anything at all. Aside, another observation I have made is that science and religion do not ask the same questions, but for some reason, people seem comfortable comparing the two disciplines. Science asks of a situation, "How is this reality?", and looks to explain the mechanism behind an observed phenomena. Religion asks of a situation, "Why is this reality?", and draws from our inner feelings the answers we must rely upon without support of cause and effect.
Spirituality and Knowledge do not always go hand in hand. If you feel something is not right, than you have observed that you have not been taught the entire truth; in fact, none of us have.
I don't remember the name of the theorem, but I remember (from when I used to teach Alg. 1 & 2), that it was proven that there will always be theorems that cannot be proven or derived from any existing body of knowledge.
While scientists insist that something must be proven, this overlooks the fact that science is merely a tool to understand the Universe around us. Religion and spirituality is also a tool. It is a completely different type of tool.
There is NO PROOF that ESP and other such things do NOT exist. I, personally, know several people that work as professional full time psychics. What they can tell you about a person they have never met is astounding.
Just as fundamentalist Christians knock on doors and tell people "We are right, and if you disagree with us, you are wrong and will suffer for it," people on the other end of the spectrum often do the same thing -- claim full justification for their beliefs and state that their rules for understanding the world describe everything and that there is no other possible interpertation of their evidence.
I've worked with many people involved in science, spirituality, and religion. I've always worked at keeping an open mind. I've seen no difference between Christian fundamentalists and dogmatic athiestic scients, both of whom claim only their way is right and all others are wrong.
While there may be no proof of ESP and alien abductions, there are many things science has never disproven and there is strong evidence in remote viewing (as conducted in intelligence experiments) and other "psychic" events.
Science, like religion, does not have a monopoly on Truth and does not have all the answers. It's about time scientists became open minded enough to realize there are things they do not know.
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies..." (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)
...deja vu? If this is proof of at least a limited amount of ESP then I whole heartedly believe in ESP because I've experienced deja vu dozens of times throughout my life. As far as aliens go, I think my thoughts are best summed up by a quote from a movie: "If it's just us, then it sure seems like an awful waste of space."
But when you ask them concerning God, they say "pfft. The world was created by billions of particles interacting randomly". Umm, yeah, whatever.
Funny how people would believe all these stories about alien abductions and believe what their Grade 10 Science teacher told them about evolution. Yet when you ask them to look at our world and how on earth do billions of random particles over billions of years == one human race out of a billion species capable of very high level understanding(i.e. we can build skyscrapers but dogs can't even build a dog house). Or if we follow their logic, why create new technology, when all you need to do is throw some random elements in a jar and shake it for a million years. Out will come a missile, a jet, skyscraper, and probably even a brand new Pentium 5. Sound crazy? I thought so.
i know i'll get modded down for bringing this up, but i wonder how the surveyed would respond to questions regarding the efficacy of alex chiu's rings. it is very possible that, were the questions presented validly, people may have answered "illogically" based on personal experiences, and the placebo effect. if you take a look at the immortality ring message board, there are several who have abnormally high faith in this deviant technology. i, myself, have been wearing the neos for a few months with no effect :). the general gullibility of the public, mixed with its lack of knowledge or even care for the field of science leads to abnormal degrees of trust for unsubstantiated claims, as long as they are presented impressively and from a supposed authority. it's interesting how all of this affects the public.
..to have faith without belief (and therefore without religion). Belief is something your mind expresses. Faith, to me, is just something you've experienced; something ineffable.
And beyond that, words don't really matter at all.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Ah, oops, sorry. Obviously I need to work on my reading skills...
In explaining the scientific illiteracy of the US population, the author of this article talks about the number of Americans who believe in psychic powers, UFOs and astrology. The author then writes:
This is terribly misleading writing. Unlike the previous three issues, the vast majority of scientific evidence supports the belief that the global temperatures are currently rising, and will continue to do so. While scientists may disagree about how high the temperature is going to rise to, or what factors are most to blame, the fact of global warming accepted by the vast majority of scientists. As written, the article could be read to imply that global warming, like psychic powers, UFOs and astrology, is pseudo-science.
Just had to get that cleared up. Carry on....
There are also more than 5 senses... Balance, the whole bevy of senses we group under "touch" (Temperature, pain...)...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
2.) What's 6 times 7?
Alternate questions include:
What's yellow and dangerous?
How many roads must a man walk down?
Seriously, there's a big difference between ignorance and stupidity, but I'm sure you're just kidding anyway...
c-hack.com |
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke
- passion
Psychics are like martial artists. Everywhere you go, you're going to get people that say "I know kung fu!", "I studied Ninjutsu!", or something similar. Most of them are guys who took a year of classes and can punch through a couple of pine boards. But every once in a while, someone really does know an Art.
I'm not discounting things we can't measure just because there are armies of liars, carnies, and me-toos out there claiming this, that, and the other thing. I just don't trust anyone's smugness.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I suspect that the people that use tarot cards or fall for the latest snake-oil cure (or tell you about their past lives - no one was ever middle class in a former life, they were either slave-girl to the emperor or the empress) would be doing it with or without the X files.
The great thing about the X files is that if anyone talks about almost any kind of psudo-spiritual-scientific bullshit you can stop them by saying - "Yeah, I saw that on the X-files too".
"Invincible ignorance" is certainly a problem. Well educated people are not trusted as messengers. Elmo is.
The Greg Egan short story "Silver Fire" is another good comment on an ignorant modern society.Look at Israel, certainly a NON atheist regime:
* Both have/had a bloodthirsty leader
* Both forcefully took new territories that were not theirs.
* Both have killed millions of a specific ethnic group. Jews for Hitler, Palestinians for Sharon.
Ironic how Israel has become just like those "atheists" that persecuted their people fifty years ago.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Evidence suggests that there must be many undiscovered modes and ranges and domains of perception. The human brain is fundamentally unable to conceive of certain profound dimensions of mathematical relationships, as the human eye is fundamentally unable to perceive light beyond a specific range of wavelength. Although, even the slightest glance of what is possible is enough to make someone be called a "visionary" (pun)
The obvious criterion to consider first is energy. All of human perception (and exceptions thereof) depend on the transference of some form of energy: light, heat, vibration, chemical energy. The next logical question is to ask is: is it possible to create a sensory mode that does not depend upon the emission, transmission, or reflection of energy? The obvious center point to this Is that one would need some medium by which to transmit information, but this is not true if one finds a way to detect information that is already present.
Consider: mass distorts space. If one can find a way to detect the logical distortion of a distant object, thereby making it possible to sense an object indirectly. Therefore, the true question is, is there an efficient by which one can detect gravity waves?
Enough rambling for now, i'm tired.Belief is not a disease. In the world, the person who quests a lifetime is as likely to figure it all out as the person who sits and accepts everything he was ever taught from birth. If accepting a certain view of the world as truth helps you get through the day and be a happy person then what is wrong with that?
A disease deblitates and damages. A religion or belief can do this (the history books are filled with this), but some of the happiest people I've ever met were "comfortable" with their beliefs. They were comfortable and thus didn't feel they had to convince me they were right. They didn't feel a need to judge others for their different beliefs. They are not anymore right than anybody else is but they are happy and what is wrong with thaat?
A certain amount of questioning is healthy, but too much questioning can be just as destructive as too much belief. What should I do with my life? Why should I do it? All these questions become very difficult to answer when you strip away all your beliefs.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I think that if we did not consider the less-possible explinations, we wouldn't really advance that far. With that sort of attitude, I doubt we would have learned things such as: The earth revolving around the sun, the earth being round, the fact that light actually travels, etc.. I can understand a bit what you mean, I am not going to sit and worry that im going to be that person that gets hit tomorrow by a car, but when it comes to things that are of a scientific/(insert whatever else here) nature we need to have a much more opened minded attitude
That's a great quote.
BG
that happened between now and then called "The Enlightenment." Just read up on Francis Bacon and Galileo to see what has fundamentally changed from the Greeks like Aristotle sitting on their duffs and saying, "This sounds reasonable."
BlackGriffen
What do Americans teach their kids at school, if not that the Earth goes around the Sun once a year?
That the Earth revolves around America.
This is such an apt comment, I fully agree. It's incredibly concise too, but just to beat a dead horse I feel I need to elaborate:
Of two previously powerful Empires in history (make no mistake, the U.S. is more or less an Empire) The Roman Empire and The British empire suffered from what is basically Ethnocentrism.
That is, that American culture is in power, thus it's citizens view the world from their position of power and conclude that: "Since we are the most powerful and influential country in the world, why bother caring about the world outside my little realm? I live in the best country in the world, and I don't need to go elsewhere to know that."
Furthermore, this leads to inward looking, and a decline of the very social forces that put an Empire into power in the first place. It happend to the Romans and The British, and probably many more.
So, I find it interesting that this "apathy" on the part of a large percentage of the American population is just a symptom of a larger problem at work: Ethnocentrism. Make no mistake - the United States will continue to be the major power for some time, probably well after everyone who is reading this comment is dead and gone. However, this attitude will eventually lead to the erosion of the foundation that makes the United States as powerful as it is right now.
(No, this is not a troll, just an observation, look this stuff up yourself.)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
People who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it and I would think the only subject that most US citizens are worse at than science would be world history.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Let's say you're a scientist. You can five of your prestigious scientist buddies go out on a camping trip and witness a strange flying object doing crazy aerobatics that defy the laws of physics. Who exactly do you tell?
The trouble with all this stuff is that somewhat fringe ideas that might be worthy of further study (what if there are really alien visitors?) are lumped together with complete idiocy.
I've got a strong engineering background, and enough college physics to understand the basics of relativity, but I question some beliefs of the scientific establishment. The sad fact is that there are likely a lot of scientists who really would like to take a serious, open-minded look at the UFO phenomenon, but the only way to examine it and keep the respect of one's peers is the weather-balloons-full-of-swamp-gas approach.
At the moment, modern science isn't capable of giving serious attention to things like the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors. Why should it be trusted to be the final word?
Here at the MPAA we believe that science, while somewhat useful, has simply got to go if we are to protect our property in the digital age. Literacy is bad enough, driving criminals to "public libraries" where they can read books as often as they want without paying anyone; teach these ethically challenged consumers how to program computers and crack codes, and we have a real crisis on our hands. Not to mention the fact that an educated, discerning public requires us to spend considerably more money and effort producing quality entertainment. We can't figure out exactly who's at fault there, but clearly some kind of theft is taking place.
A literate, educated public may be necessary for a democracy, but it is represents a severe threat to the entertainment industry. In this time of national crisis, we all need to chip in, for instance by spending 8 dollars or so to see a total piece of crap like "The Scorpion King." An "educated" person would probably stay at home reading Paradise Lost, without spending a dime to reimburse copyright holders. It's a shame that our government not only permits such acts, but tacitly encourages them by failing to enforce real, effective copyright controls (which, by the way, "science" claims to be impossible.)
Proponents of "scientific literacy" should ask themselves how they would feel if someone stole their wallets and then murdered them.
Don't be too cocky, people. ;)
1) There are 'superstitions' which have been scientifically verified in their effect. For instance, aspects of Ayurvedic medicine are being vindicated in the recent past, mostly by bio-engineering companies that take data on particular 'medicinal' rices and use it to obtain patents. That doesn't mean that Astrology is an effective tool at predicting the future. It does, however, indicate that it is sometimes profitable not to ignore information obtained by some process other than the modern scientific method. (Another one I've heard about recently, but don't have as much knowledge of - the Chinese have been using Wormwood for many years to stop tumor growth and sometimes reduce it. I'm sure google can tell you more.)
2) There are scientific givens that have been proven false. Medicine and nutrition have good examples to examine; they are peer-reviewed like every other scientific field of endeavor, and yet it shocks me at times how quickly previous 'common knowledge' was mitigated by some sort of different finding, if not outright retracted.
In a longer time frame, our concepts of mechanics have been altered since their first inception... consider that quanta follow very very different rules. It doesn't prove Newton extremely wrong, but it sure as hell indicates that Newton would have been blowing smoke out his ass if he said, "This is it, it's all done now."
3) There are conditions under which modern scientific method fails to apply. Let's assume for a moment that some condition is extremely hard to reproduce. Maybe even mathematically provably hard. We'll say it's some quantum effect or other, and it only happens under very precise conditions, some of which we can't currently measure because we don't have appropriate instruments. A thing happens, and is empirically observed, but cannot be replicated at this time. Did it happen? Of course. To say that there can be no such event would be naive at best. We have had past instances of this.
4) There are conditions which cannot be measured and re-created by scientific method, because of some inherent quality of these conditions. The irony here is this - it's a statement of faith. This can't be backed up by scientific evidence. I happen to believe it. It can neither be proven true or false, except experientially. (Think 'anecdotally.')
Now, here's the kicker: To deny point #4 suggests faith in the converse - That all conditions can be measured and re-created by scientific method, regardless of the inherent qualities of these conditions. Not to say that science is a religion, but this hints at blind faith that the scientific method can provably describe all possible states that we experience. I say 'blind faith' - 'scientific' people denying their own experience are just as unwilling to see as people denying truly empirical data.
I personally believe that scientific methodology is a tool, and a great one. We can make computers and predict the movements of gases across the universe, and we can make statements about what we should eat and how we should live if we want to be healthy. It doesn't tell us much about how we should act or what we should value, and it doesn't tell us anything about things that cannot be predicted. So scientific knowledge is useful and grand, but there are more things in this world than are enumerated in your philosophy. ;)
And yes, I believe that people can know things without scientifically acceptable reasons.
As a student studying Math I agree with your statements. The problem that I have with Science, however, is the following:
(A) Science is a human concept
(B) Humans are extremely fallable
(C) Science assumes some form of imperical evidence.
(D) Imperical evidence can be extremely deceiving (Hollywood, anyone?).
First, please don't get me wrong. I'm a full-time programmer and a part-time math student. However, we can't rely on "Our Scientific Methods" to find something like, say, an Alien lifeform. What if we have no way of measuring the matter in which they exist? Does this mean that it doesn't exist? Absence of proof is not proof of absence, and we can only proove something within our finite means of observations. (Disclaimer: I personally find no compelling evidence that supports the existance of Aliens, it's just an example).
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Which I am sure to do anyways but think about it. What are the chances of UFO's and life on other planets? Scientists in recent years have been searching our galaxy alone and still have not come up with one planet that could sustain life.
I honestly don't think we can put a figure on how much of a chance there will be of life on other planets. We have a very limited scope when it comes to these things, but we have found that life can exist in very harsh enviorments. Thinking to the picture that we all say today from hubble, id say that, in my opinion, that there is life on another planet. You say that scientists have been looking in our galaxy for life, but im pretty sure we have only *really* looked for life on the moon. We have sent a lander to mars to collect samples, and we have many questions about some of the stuff on mars, but we haven't even ruled that out yet. The galaxy is big, very big, we have much to rule out. Take a look at that picture, and there are 6000 more galaxies out there, just in that one picture alone.
Even SETI, have been scouring? the blackened abyss for just artificial radio waves, which could be signs of life existing else where, and what? Last time I checked, they found 19 possiblities that were so far decayed they were labeled... you guessed it... Possibilities.
Ive been running seti@home on my computers at work and at home for a few years now, I am all for the effort, and I feel its the best we can do with a few radio telescopes on earth to see what we can find. Are they declaring that it is the best way of looking for life out there? Nope.. but, it is one way of doing it. Just because we have not found anything yet, does that mean we should quit?
ESP? Depends how you mean it. The ability to sense and talk with the dead? Or the ability to pick up on others thoughts? Or read minds, etc.... Why not in all honesty? I mean for those of you who are strict Darwinists or Evolususts or whatever the hell you are called. (Atheist?) Could human minds evolve to another level? To actually pick up on other human brain waves. Fuck the idea of talking to the dead. Bullshit... but the real ability to actually one day communicate through ones thoughts. I believe it. I wouldn't callit esp, nore like a psyonic-network. More like a wireless lan. So long as you are in range you can communicate. (that would be damn cool) Im really not too sure what you are trying to say here, and I doubt that people who belive in evolution are the same who think that we can talk to the dead. I myself believe in evolution of some sort, I don't think that some 'god' snapped his fingers and we are here, in fact i think its absurd. I read the rest of your post and its not worth me really trying to reply to it all. I saw a couple points at the end that need some comment i think..:
Besides... here are two more interesting arguements that cause science to fail.
1. Why is it that when scientists calculate the movement of the Big Bang they can calculate it down to like 0.0^63 1 of a second but after that all functions of Quantum Physics and the math they use break down and don't work in the calculations and they are still trying to find a way to calculate it further? Seems kinda funny to me. (Saw that on UWTV)
Well, I would say because the big bang was something that is pretty hard to figure out, but I think its a better representation of what went on then thinking that in 7 days the world was created or whatever (and im sorry if thats wrong, but science is offering a 'more complete' explination of all this then religion does). Humans have been trying to learn about the outside world for only about 4000 years maybe (sorry if the numbers wrong, but its not a large one) and we have only started scratching the surface in the past 100 years. Have a lot to learn.
If there is no God. And we are all evolved from ameoba and what not. In all honesty, if science is right and blah blah blah, when we die. Like a computer our mind will just turn to blackness. Nothing. A void. Not thought processes, nothing. Seems to me, that would suck. then again it couldn't realy suck because I wouldn't know it.
Well, from this statement, id say you probably fall within the percentage of amercians who have no clue. Your trying to say that you believe that we did not evolve from ameoba's and whatnot because if we did, and we died, it would suck because there would be nothing going on. Im sorry, but reality doesn't work based on how much things suck, the only thing that 'sucks' changes is people's attitudes.
So, to sum this up, and im sorry to say it, but you have a real closed mind. Im not trying to label this as being bad, I feel sorry that you have such an outlook on how things operate, but its your life and your mind =).
If only the rate were as low as 60%
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
[boggle]
More people read horoscopes every day than the Bible. What on earth does that prove? Popularity of a belief is not any sort of proof of its validity. Disagree? Look at the results of the study that headlines this topic. Half the people think that antibiotics kill viruses.
As for your documented proof of the existence of a man who could heal the blind, it's one book. I can come up with plenty of books that "prove" almost anything, from the Tooth Fairy to the "fact" that by the close the the 20th century the entire world will be part of the Soviet Empire.
A fact is not something written down and passed on like a giant centuries-long game of telephone. A fact is something that can be or has been independently verified by disinterested parties to the satisfaction of all observers.
There may be plenty of reasons to believe in God, but wrapping Him in the language of science is demeaning to both Him and you (mainly you).
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
#1, along with the others are offered as evidence, not proof.
;-)
On that note, #1 is still valid... each day SETI makes it less likely that there are any intelligent aliens in this neighborhood of space. If life (and intelligence) are anything but ultra-rare, we should have heard something by now.
Though, who knows if radio technology is common. Maybe most species skip past it rather quickly. Maybe #1 is as weak as #8.
So, right off the top I see predicate calculus ("P implies Q" and "for any X such that..."), set theory, trichotomy (either A, B, or not (A or B)), partial ordering, random/stochastic variables...I thought the point was to do it without using math?
-- MarkusQ
...regarding the 'evidence' (or lack thereof) for psi talents, the existence of UFOs, etc.
Would those who truly do have paranormal talents be more likely to publicize(sp?) -- and prove -- the existence of such? Or would they, not wanting to risk being turned into lab rats and tabloid celebrities for the rest of their days, tend to keep a very low profile? Perhaps even by the time-honored technique of hiding in plain sight?
If there really are extraterrestrials among us, as some claim, do you really think they'd advertise themselves as such?
My point is this: Can ANY of us say, with absolute 142% certainty, that psi talents are hogwash and trickery? That aliens don't exist? That things like parallel universes and traversable wormholes CANNOT exist?
Of course not. To do so is to invite the eventual tripping of a large 'Murphy switch' that will prove the sayer wrong. HOWEVER -- neither can any of us, as far as I know, say for certain that such things DO exist.
That's the beauty of all the mysteries in Life itself: We Just Don't Know! Even after we discover something new, it takes decades or even centuries to learn all the various things we can do with it (Example: Electricity).
Here's the real kicker. Our science can only DESCRIBE an object, event, or living thing, in terms defined and limited by our perceptions and comprehension of that which we call 'mathematics.' It cannot, in any way, DEFINE the total nature of that object, event, or living thing.
In other words: Calling a large creature that breathes air, and spends its life in the ocean a 'whale' simply applies a convenient label that we, as a race, comprehend amongst ourselves. It in NO WAY DEFINES the true nature of that whale. How can it? I don't think any of us are deities.
In summary: Take that survey however you want to. Personally, I think it's hilarious!
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
There isn't an answer for everything. Maybe there never will be. "I don't know" is a valid answer sometimes. That doesn't mean I make something up to fill the gap, it means that we accept that we don't know how something works.
Calling on faith every time there isn't an answer from science is a cop out. Don't know why? God did it.
Modern religion has constructed themselves very intentionally to avoid making scientific predictions, that's why they're still around. How many people you know that worship Jove or think that that group of bright lights in the sky control the oceans?
Good thing that there are curious people (even quite religious people can be curious) that stive to know. They look for the answers.
I think more of that is the fault of the journalists than the scientists, though a lot of scientists are quite guilty of it too.
The problem, of course, is that scientists tend to see the question "what is it good for, practically?" as an assault on all scientific research funding, and so the question puts them in paranoid mode where they want to make it sound as applicable to ordinary life as possible. Who's going to fund the scientist who's quoted saying "There's no obvious practical benefit to random people's lives that I've discovered -----"?
Which is ironic, considering that the degree to which a scientific discovery captures the imagination of the public seems to be independent of whether or not it has practical applications. Some do (eg. artificial intelligence) and some don't (eg. black holes).
And then there's the journalist (or more likely, editor) selection effect, that the more sensational the story seems, the more likely it is to be printed.
So while that's an essential goal, I'm not sure how you go about doing it in practice, aside from making sure that you personally don't get carried away in any public statements you make.
(on a more surreal note, that's the second time in the past 12 months I've seen someone mention science paparazzi...)
[TMB]
Acutally, most religious leaders, worldwide, accept the truth of the theory of evolution. (The Pope does, for example, as does the Anglican hierarchy.) The United States is exceptional here, but even in the US a large number of religious leaders accept evolution. For some examples, see Voices for Evolution .
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
That should be "induce". Induction is what happens through correlation. Deduction happens through valid logic and is 100% certain. Math uses deduction, science uses induction.
Bzzzzt, you're wrong ;-)
;-)
As Einstein famously postulated, "The same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference
for which the equations of mechanics hold good."
This has been widely regarded as _the_ supposition upon which all science rests. Basically, Einstein was specifying what so many scientists naturally assume, ie that the laws of this universe are everywhere uniform, which when understood in the context of 'frames of reference' gives a special stature to the role of observer. Stated another way, special relativity, and by extension all science, relies upon the fact that independent observers tend to observe phenomena according to uniform laws.
Now understand that this _is_ supposition. It is a matter of faith for scientists to assume that this is correct. This idea can not be proven anymore than a scientist can prove that He/She didn't just plant all this abundant evidence for evolution
Actually, anyone who has experimented a little with psychotropic drugs can assure you that the length of a meter is _not_ uniform in _every_ reference frame.
So you see, it's faith all the way down!
No, science is not "just another religion", and I'm sick of hearing it slandered that way. It's true that a minimal number of things have to be assumed in science (e.g., the cosmological principle), but that does not make these assumptions tenets of "faith". If there was sufficient evidence that one of these assumptions was wrong, it would be (eventually) discarded. What religion can claim that?
Here's a simple phrase you can use to distinguish science from religion:
Religion searches for evidence to fit its convictions. Science searches for convictions to fit its evidence.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
There's a huge difference between an assumption, and a matter of faith: reversibility. An assumption can be rejected in the face of contrary evidence; faith cannot.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
The reason I always thought the pyschic hotlines were obviously fake is the fact that they don't call you right before you try to call them, that and the fact that they have to ask you for your name and birthday.
In thirty years your country will be nothing against the military and economic might of a billion chinese consumers
Right... and of those billion chinamen only 60-80 million i believe have any economic buying power right now at all... do you really think china can survive allowing all members of thier society to reach 1st world nation levels of living? and still maintain communism? Ha thats a good one! and if they do revolt or whatever it will be... they will come the the US & EU for help on buildin thier society...
We have a government that promotes fraud in all areas of business, politics, medicine, and religion, so it's not unexpected that the population should lack all skepticism or any sense of the value of science.
--Blair
- Why is the sky blue?
- What makes the colors in a rainbow?
Now let's see how many teachers can answer those two simple questions.It would be very intersting to see a slashdot 'vote' of the result by country.
A transistor is a very fast little valve with three connectors. One is a large pipe leading in, one is a large pipe leading out, and one is a tiny little pipe that controls the flow through the large pipes. When no electricity is going into the tiny little pipe, the large pipes don't allow any electricity through. When electricity is going through the tiny pipe, the large pipe lets a lot of electricity through. So this makes it useful as an amplifier, because just a little bit of electricity - a weak, quiet signal - can control the flow of a much larger amount of electricity through the large pipe, producing a louder version of the same signal.
That wasn't too hard. I guess you can call "much larger amount" math but by that time you've more or less included any definition of anything.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
it says "serious" math. It depends on your definition of seriousness. For me Quicksort only uses trivial math. Nothing worth being called "serious" at all.
If there is no possible way that we could observe this matter even in principle, then yes, it does mean it doesn't exist. If something is completely unobservable, then there is no possible way it could have any affect on the universe. If it cannot have any effect on the universe, than the word exist is meaningless when applied to it because the existence or non-existence of it doesn't produce different situations.
This is part of my reasoning against the existence of anything supernatural, because anything we can observe is natural and anything we can't observe doesn't exist.
Feh. It could just mean that 60% (or a portion of 60%) were wise-asses. In highschool I was asked to take part in an official poll on gambling. Being a wise-assed punk I of course answered falsely as if I had a real huge gambling problem, even though I never so much as bought a lottery ticket. I asked my friends later that day, and they all lied on the survey also.
Sure enough, about a year later I was watching the news and saw a "shocking report on teenage gambling problems."
_______
2B1ASK1
Maybe you shouldn't read Discover, but rather read more accurate (that is a relative phrase) magazines such as Scientific American, Nature, or Science News. And before everyone yells at me, I do realize they aren't always the best journalists, but IMO they are the best pop science magazines (as opposed to real scientific journals, which are too specialized, too dry, and mostly too damned expensive for the general public).
human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals(true/false).
If this were a question "science" was willing to ask on an empirical level, then it might be worth putting in a pole. Till then, this pole seems to be saying 53% of Americans have had bad philosophy shoved down their throat and accepted it. Of course, 53% is pretty close to even odds on a true/false question.
Do scientists ever learn?
Not about some things...
You want my opinion? Three words: Education, Education, Education! The Irish Constitution, like the US Constitution, mandates freedom of religion, and I take that to mean that people are free to do without religion. So, why are schoolchildren taught to believe in unprovable assertions? From theistic religion to aliens and ESP is but a short step, if you do not have a grounding in scientific principles.
(this is not a
Just to play devil's advocate, do you now reverse your belief in Einstein's first postulate and accordingly, the entire discipline of science in light of the pyschotropicly induced non-uniform meter... :-)
Like it or not, your belief in science is a product of your faith that the basic assumptions of science are correct. Obviously, it can not be scientifically proven that these assumptions are correct, so we are left with the _faith_ that they indeed are. Now, we can feel smug in this faith because of our astounding success in predicting the behaviour of the physical world, but I submit that it's still faith nontheless.
(I'm not going to post a link to one bookstore and thus give it more hits - your own favorite bookstore should have it.) Alternatively, if your attention span doesn't allow for the absorption of an entire book, at least go and rent "Contact". After all, if there weren't other civilizations out there, it would be an awful waste of space...
(this is not a
Yes, there are such things called inductive proofs in math, but those are still deductive processes. Deduction is the process of taking facts that you know to be 100% certain and, using valid logic, creating other facts that you know to be 100% certain. Induction, on the other hand is the process of taking a bunch of examples, and generalizing from them. Induction can never be 100% certain. Rigorous mathematical proofs can only use deductive processes. Mathematicians, however, can and often do use induction to guess at things which they then try to prove through deductive means.
Unfortuneately, that's not the USA we live in...
First of all, the `silly stories' in question include instruction to test things out for yourself, and only keep the bits that work.
Secondly, the archaeology in the silly stories is better than outside them, and has been for nigh on 2k years.
Thirdly, said silly stories happen to frequently predict the future (from the writers' POV) with pinpoint accuracy, and also record fulfilments of some earlier predictions.
Fourthly, physical copies of texts from before 2k years ago have been found, and despite claims of babelfishing, they're still accurate.
Fifthly, to believe in evolution, you have to lay aside critical thinking. Really! Ask Steve Gould and the other punkeekers to show you why Darwinian evolution doesn't work, and he will. Ask their Darwinian opponents to show you why punkeek doesn't work, and they will. End of story. No Creationism, `silly stories' or even Intelligent Design, required so far.
Now: get a life to replace your broken opinion! (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You must understand that the weirdest theories today don't come from people who believe in UFO's [and such]... the strange ones come from Quantum Physics.
Have you ever read into that material? Many of it is pure theory, and some could never be studied in our own lifetime [if anyone's].
The idea of what is real science compared to what is fake is a very thin line.
Now that I have thought about it - this poll makes me think there are people out there that do still dream. Not everyone is a scientist, but maybe one of the people who believe in UFO's will come up with a new idea for interstellar travel.
But of course there is a side of me that refuses this hope and realizes we stopped building schools ten years ago and have since mainly built prisons.
Personally I don't believe in ESP [fakes] psychic powers [some maybe] or UFO's [duh]. But it won't be science that will save us in the end [imho].
Hell, many people don't believe in Global Warming because their president said to ignore it...
Of course I'm talking to people who worship LoTR. No where in the books or the movie did I see a nuclear reactor. [I love LoTR, don't hit me with sharp sticks]
Get your Unix fortune now!
Explaining why it's fast without maths is somewhat harder...
Quantum phenomena are MICROSCOPIC (actually sub-nanoscopic) phenomena
Superconductivity, to name but one, is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon. So are superfluidity of liquid helium, lasers, Josephson junctions, Bose-Einstein condensates, the photo-electon effect, and numerous others (such as all of chemistry).
In the world of GIS(Geo-Information Systems, basically hardcore maptech), there exists such a thing as a Datum. Datums are constant values that are used to determine the precise latitude and longitude of a location. The most common datum was developed in the 1920's; it had to be revised sixty or seventy years later because advanced satellite technology had accuracy that surpassed what was possible with 1920's mapping methods. Datum error only introduces a few hundred meters of distortion, but GPS is good enough to tell you what side of the street you're on. More accuracy was required -- at the expense of breaking the previously absolute standard of Latitude and Longitude.
So, why would I bring up this incredibly boring piece of geek trivia, in a discussion bemoaning the lack of science knowledge among the general population? Simple:
When was the last time somebody threw themselves off a bridge because they couldn't get a datum?
--Dan
Read the questions -- unbelievably vague and broad. Of course most people would answer as they did. The article cites widespread belief in "pseudoscience" -- a poorly defined term in itself, but one which is construed to include many things which are simply in their infancy scientifically-speaking. So if you ask me whether I believe that somewhere someone possesses some sort of mental ability which might be described as "psychic," I'd say yes, it's quite probable. Ms. Cleo is a different story.
My point here is that the story sensationalizes a poorly constructed study (a poll, really) which supports a view that many who are "scientists" hold. Much like other poorly constructed studies have produced gems like cold fusion. The irony is poignant and staggering.
Of the way the theories are presented and the kind of evidence used to support them. It all gets back Karl Popper's method of strong inference. Basically what it's about is that few things in science can be proven absoultley true like we can with mathematical proofs, they are just shown to be true with evidence. So we need a good system for testing this. Basically, to be a good scientific theory you need to meet the following criteria:
1) The theory must be falsiable. This means that you need to have conditions which would prove your theory false, and you need to test those. Alsong those lines you need to search for alternate explinations and test those too.
2) The theory must be empirically testable. You have to lay out, in clear detail, what you did to test this theory and it needs to be robust. Talking to a few people and getting anecdotal evidence is not robust, setting up a double blind experiment that carefully tests what you are studying under controlled conditions is.
3) It must be repeatable. You need to carefully document how you did what you did, and then another scientist needs to be able to replicate that work. It can't be something that only works sometimes, it has to be a completely repeatable process.
Now if you theory satisfies those conditions, it's a good scientific theory. If you then run the tests and find that the evidence supports your theory and not one of the alternates, does not falisfy it, you are then doing well. You might then test it again, or you might go an publish a paper. Then, other scientists will try and repeat your test. If they can, it lends creedence to your theory. If they can't you'll have to work on figuring out why not and perhaps revising it or throwing it out.
Basically what we have is a system for carefully testing theories to see if they are indeed good explinations of the world. Now this doesn't mean that everything not yet proven by science is wrong, scientists don't claim to know everything (there would be no research going on if they did), however it does provide conditions that need to be satasfied ebfore we acept something as scientific fact.
The reason for this is that if we take pseudo-science explinations, we start to have tons of unproven, and often wrong, things that are being taken to be fact. If you were to accept pseudo-science methods and say that anything which you heard a fair amount of anecdotal evidence about was true, you'd be trying to hold tons of differnt contradictory beliefs because some people are going to tell the opposite story of others. The rigor of the scientific method allows us with a great dea of certianty to claim something is true.
This is the problems with things like ESP claims and so on, they always fail when put to a well designed test. A good example which, unfortunately, I can't find a reference for right now was a test for people that claim to be able to feel your aura. A young girl designed a simple test for this at it's most basic level. What she did was have the aura readers place their hands through a partition, so they couldn't see to the other side. the girl would then hold her hand over one of their hands. They were then asked to record which had her had had been over. The result was no different than if they had been guessing randomly (50% correct).
It is not evident (to me, anyway) that theories about evolution and creation are really even scientific theories, because they're not directly testable, though they are based on scientific understanding of underlying physical processes which are separately testable.
I presume that you're saying that evolution is not testable, on the basis that it's all already happened, and we're just looking at the evidence left behind.
That would be fair enough, if it were not for the fact that we are still witnessing evolution in action, and so it can be observed.
There is the example of moths during the Industrial revolution, where the soot produced by the factories killed the lichen on the trees, and stained the bark. The moths had been white prior to this happening, which was good camoflage when sitting on the light coloured bark --- once the trees changed colour, the lighter moths were easy targets for the birds, and so the moths very quickly evolved to be black --- same species, different colour.
The factories have since cleaned up their act (or shut down) and the trees have lichen again, and the moths have evolved back to being white.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Coincidence is not all that surprising.
In fact, when you analyse most of these things, it's often surprising how few coincidences happen.
Once you calculate in the number of songs you think of in a day, and the number of opportunities you have to hear songs, and the fact that you will tend to think of songs that are in some way prompted by some external influence, and the people that choose the songs to play on the radio are likely to have some of those inputs in common with you, you might come to the conclusion that it's not that surprising after all.
Also, we tend to forget all the times when the coincidence didn't occur, because that is simply not memorable, so over time we are left with a biased series of memorable coincidences.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Oxygen (the gas we use when we breathe) is actually a posionous gas that life on earth has evolved to reley on. If oxygen is breathed at very low pressure it can kill you.
Yes - this is called suffocation. What (I think) you are trying to say is that oxygen can cause central nervous system toxicity at high pressures.
Life on this planet has evolved to the appropiate temperature, which ranges from penguins and polar bears is constant freezing conditions, to certain lizards and scorpions who survive in boiling dessert conditions.
I've never had a lizard or a scorpion in any dessert I've ever eaten. Oh - you mean desert...
I still don't know what the point of this fact is.
The building blocks of life on this planet are Amino Acids and proteins. These can be created from methane(Carbon and Hydrogeon), Hydrogeon-Cyanide(Carbon, Hyrdrogeon and Nitrogeon), Ammonia(Nitrogeon and Hydrogeon) and Water (Hydrogeon and oxygeon) which can be found on many planets.
Proteins are built of amino-acids, so proteins aren't really a building block per se. Amino Acids are one of the building blocks of life on this planet, and the constituents of amino acids are certainly ubiquitious. Nucleic acids are another key building block. But why do you assume that other life elsewhere uses proteins and amino-acids? I'd expect other life to be based on carbon chemistry (being the only element that forms chains with itself) but there is a huge range of chemistry available it would be extraordinary if it was DNA and amino-acid based. (Extraordinary for one of two reason: either life can only follow the DNA path, which would be very interesting; or it can follow other paths, but hasn't, which implies some common origin - possibly some panspermia type mechanism, or some sort of catalytic prelife process that tilts the odds vastly in favour of amino-acid/DNA organisms).
So what a lot of astornomers are looking for at the monent is planets, so at alter point that they can study these to see if they have the required elements to create/support any life, the chances of finding another planet with the same temperature range and air composition of earth is highly improbable.
Indeed, the presence of an oxygen containing atmosphere is a very strong indicator or life (the converse is not true - life existed on earth for millions of years before blue-green algae started starting polluting the place with nasty oxygen).
The temperature range is not that important - have a look at extremophiles in general and (my favourites) tardigrades in particular to have some idea of the flexibility of life. Remember these are organisms which developed on one planet.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But a teaching credential is different. Basically, a teaching credential means taking some classes on "how to teach," and on subjects like how to deal with the needs of minor students, and the legal obligations of teachers (e.g. reporting knowledge of molestation). The requirements for a teaching credential differ for the age group being taught, in a fairly logical way, at least in California. (See the links, below.)
I have a B.A. degree in journalism, plus a J.D. (law) degree, plus a number of years of respectable work experience. I'm confident that I could probably get a job teaching college classes if I wanted, and for a couple years I even taught a class in the local school district's "adult education" program. But I absolutely believe that I would need special training to be qualified to teach to children.
What is disturbing to me, is that school districts are permitted to hire uncertified teachers, who can continue employment for up to five years while making NO effort toward certification. Until recently, these 'teachers' could be dropped into classrooms without ANY training (some were even permitted to skip orientation sessions), and when they "timed out" in one school district they could simply start the clock again in another school district.
And where did this happen most often? In inner-city schools, where the obstacles are so plentiful that we need the very best-trained teachers.
What is involved in getting a teaching certification? Spend one summer at a local college's intense program, or night school for a couple nights per week for two semesters or three quarters. Read, do the homework, pass the exams.
Nobody pretends that it is difficult to get a teaching certification: the classes can be easy, the exams a breeze. It is only "difficult" for those who want to cut corners and try to teach kids without ever learning "how kids learn" and how to deal with situations that arise in the classroom setting.
I occasionally think that I'd like to teach, but I really don't think I have the energy or stamina. Start my first class at 8am? Teach five 50-minute classes per day, with an average of 35 students per class (175 students!). Deal with career teachers and petty bureaucracy? Survive the intense emotional needs of children? Grade papers and exams while watching TV every night? Maybe I could teach one or two classes per day, or better yet nine to twelve hours per week of classroom teaching time (like a college professor).
Teaching is a very difficult job, and we don't pay teachers very well, hardly even a living wage unless they "play the game" of seeking out a master's degree in education and survive many years in a school district to work up the pay ladder. Yeah, they get 8 to 10 weeks of summer vacation, and maybe they work fewer hours than some of us who've ridden the dot-com roller coaster, but they are doing something we all agree must be done -- and done well -- and it is a job I know that most people couldn't do very well.
Some links:
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
I was not saying that Science is not important. Obviously, many Scientists would disagree with that! What I'm saying is that it is not relevent to people who are not Scientists (those outside of academia).
For example, how many Americans know how to fix a car? Not many, I would guess. Why? Because there are people who do that, called Mechanics. This doesn't mean that Mechanics are not important, because cars do break down. But no one worships Mechanics and few people study car repair as a hobby, and that is okay.
So why is it that Scientists then for some reason get all upset that not everyone finds their chosen occupation interesting, or feels the need to study it? What ever happened to "live and let live"?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
but it appears to me that the question about evolution was poorly constructed. From the article, they asked a true/false question with the assertion, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals". As a logical individual, I would have to answer false to this, since they didn't ask if I believed their assertion, but whether or not their assertion was true. (Remember that evolution and creationism are theories, not facts). Answering false isn't exactly correct either, since either hasn't been disproven, but answering false seems less incorrect than answering true. I would also answer false to "Were humans plopped down on earth exactly as-is". I can't prove either assertion, so I can't logically say either is true or false.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
But then that side rolls on around to the low side again, and the falling accumulates on the original side until it falls over. Prove that wrong without mathematics.
That's a great explanation, but without mathematics you can come up with multiple conflicting explanations of a phenomenon, and until you quantify it, you have no idea which, if any, is right.
Well, I guess that explains why the Greeks are still around, then.
Er... Wait... The Greeks aren't still around... Maybe they figured out a way to "drop" something from orbit! Those rascally ancients - you never know what they're going to come up with, next!
Education is the silver bullet.
d) Only scientifically-inclined people respond to this sort of survey.
Many women's menstrual cycle -28 days in length, give or take- synchronise with the lunar cycle. Does our sense of acceleration extend to detecting, "knowing" the phases of the moon? Unconsciously?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
HA! Guess what, scientists are people too. So peer review is subject to a lot of other abuses besides the ones you mentioned. Such as supressing a competitor's work so that you can finish your own. Or keeping it out of the "best" journals for personal reasons. Or being politically savvy so that substandard work gets published in high profile journals. And it gets worse when considering peer review of grants, where there is actually money on the line.
Peer review may be the best system we have, and I have had both good and bad experiences with it. But like any other system, it is definitely subject to abuses and the "club" mentality.
Actually, this is a reasonable request. The way you explain quicksort without math is to build a physical model, and then do a walk-through of hwo the code would execute. To you, with the way you think, that might be clumsy. But it would communicate in a way than an innumerate person could understand.
I have found that I need to accept that about 1/4 of all people are basically, rather than just functionally, innumerate. That the only way that they can handle numbers is with a sort of kinethetic muscle twitch reasoning. This can be more accurate than one would expect, remember our basic idea of how numbers work comes from babylonians who did arithemetic by juggling weights on a balance (which is what the "=" represents: a pair of scales). But it doesn't deal exactly with large numbers. OTOH, it's a lot quicker, which often more than repays for the loss of exactness.
Gyroscopes are a more difficult problem, I admit. OTOH, it's been so long since I worked out the exact way that a gyroscope stabilized itself, that I probably don't know any more. So that's probably why I can't imagine how to create a useful physical model.
N.B.: Models won't reach everyone. But they will reach almost all people who are innumerate. (The ones who are both innumerate and not reachable by models probably aren't interested in gyroscopes anyway. They would be more interested in motivating people to achieve goals. And it you wanted to explain gyroscopes to them it would need to be in terms of motivations and goals... I couldn't do that, as that an area where I am quite weak myself.)
Also: patterns of thought are independant of intelligence. Some innumerate folk are quite intelligent. And some quite intelligent people are totally incapable of motivating other people. People have a strong tendency to only notice the kinds of intelligence that are commensurate with their own, but there's always at least one variety that isn't. (It's the invisible bedrock on which ones own mind is built. Picture a hand trying to bandage itself, or an eye trying to see itself. Now imagine an axiom trying to justify itself... [no circular reasoning!]
The language depends on the compiler (or interpreter).
The compiler depends on the bootstrap compiler.
The bootstrap compiler depends on the assembler...
But at some point we must switch from logic to hardware.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
it says "serious" math. It depends on your definition of seriousness. For me Quicksort only uses trivial math. Nothing worth being called "serious" at all.
I have yet to encounter any "trivial math"; as far as I've seen, it's all serious if you look at it hard enough. For example, arithmetic may seem trivial, but in the hands of Whitehead & Russell it turns out to be serious. All they were trying to do was put simple arithmetic on a sound logical footing, yet they (with Godel, etc.) wound up challenging notions like "proof" and "truth"--fairly serious consequences for such a trivial topic.
-- MarkusQ
Your own argument would destroy you!
...
(A) You are a human
(B) Everything you think you know is a human concept
(C) Humans are extremely fallable
(D) You make countless assumptions in your everyday life: inference, distinctness, existence,
Either you have fooled your self, or you are a Madyhamika Buddhist.
I don't feel destroyed, yet I accept all of those premeses (premisses?).
Also, I don't believe that I'm any sort of a Buddhist at all, though I would be open to argument on that point. But, e.g., I don't have any desire to be a vegetarian. And while I prefer a peaceful solution, I'm not a total pacifist. (And therefore the US govt. would say they have the right to decide who I should kill, except that they decided I wasn't healthy enough to be made to kill people.)
And, FWIW, I also consider mathematics to be a human endeavor, and thus also falible.
Were I to be a Buddhist, I would probably choose to be one of those who only accepted the "original teachings". But I don't even accept the eight noble truths. E.g., I don't accept that everything is suffering. (To me that seems to be an improper and unsane use of the verb "is".) Now if what had been said was "When you examine any experience, you can find a connection to suffering in it.", then I would have no trouble with accepting it. But it would tend to lead to a very different set of deductions than that which tend to be made from the short form which is usually given as "the red letter version".
So I don't think I'm a buddhist, but this is the decision of a human, and therefor falible. So I might be wrong.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Buddhists don't believe in one god, unless it's themselves. No wonder it's so popular with the rich elite.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That's a bit different for a justification for a High School text being the same as a sixth grade text.
I didn't get ANY measurable science instruction at school until I got to High School. Seeing what others got during elementary school, I consider myself fortunate. I was able to choose what to learn from all the books in the library, instead of being force-fed pablum be some teacher who was required to teach it but didn't understand it and sure didn't like it.
Most teachers should be forbidden to teach science. They don't know any, and will only infect kids with their ignorance and uncaringness. I've seen it happen repeatedly. (Recovery is possible, but it takes the attention of an interested and sympathetic teacher. And needs to be snuck in as something other than science. Otherwise they'll know ahead of time that they don't like it.)
I had some teachers who tried to kill my interest in math that way. I feel quite fortunate that I was able to resist them. And quite angry with a) them for trying, b) the school system for allowing (coercing) them to try.
Teachers should only be allowed to teach in subject areas where they are knowledgeable and interested, though enough interest can substitute for nearly any amount of knowledge. At least in a sufficiently small class.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I reject the Quran and Hadith as reliable sources because of inconsistencies and contradictions in the text. The Judeo-Christian scriptures, on the other hand, have a high level of agreement between MSS and it is easy to form a conclusion based on them and other witnesses, such as Jewish historian Josephus and secular ones such as Tertullian.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
you just have to know how to read it. Note that the last item on the line is "Needs Work" not "poor" or "horrible". The survey to me is quite clear -- there is only 3% of the people (those who choose "Needs Work") who have any clue about science. The rest have not had enough education in science to know that one's scientific understanding always "Needs Work".
Today's science very much is a belief. Do you know how long it took for the idea that dinosaurs were warm blooded to be accepted? There was a lot of evidence around for it, it was even suggested by quite a few "crackpots" but it took a pop film for the idea to catch on.
The sad truth is that today's science very much rejects ideas that do not fit into the established mold of "this is how things are". The ideals of science are sound, but it's implemenation by society today is more like a religon.
The fact is, science (obviously) hasn't explained *everything* yet. So what it hasn't explained, people are free to believe whatever they want. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If something is completely unobservable, then there is no possible way it could have any affect on the universe.
You're correct, bt that's not what I'm saying. Our current set of "known constants" and methods of measurement is finite. Just because WE can't observe something doesn't make that something completely unobservable. It just makes it unobservable by US (at least for the time being).
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This survey, and the /. response is typical of the kind of chauvinism that many "ordinary" people reject. And rightly so. The survey is not reflective of any useful "truth", it was designed to make a point. Fund more science. A worthy goal, but these are unworthy scare tactics. And the response here smacks of technocratic elitism. Clearly, many do not understand that some of the respondents are in open rebellion against an orthodoxy that is being shoved down their throats. The orthodoxy of the technocrats (that's us). This orthodoxy is as pernicious and intolerant as any it replaced.
A good example of this orthodoxy is evolution. For many, the idea that we evolved from amoeba is no more fantastic than the idea we were created whole by a superior being. If you understand the time scales, and the mechanisms, evolution is self evident. But that level of understanding is utterly useless to most people, and so they don't bother to learn it. Even many well educated people who accept evolution. AND WHY SHOULD THEY? They file the conclusion and a few facts and forget the rest. What then are they left with? Try an interesting experiment. Take a devils advocate position and argue against evolution with some of your well-educated friends, preferably not engineers. When they run out of logical arguments, the fun starts. See how much faith underlies their "rational" beliefs, and how panicky they get when their faith is challenged.
So asking a question on an allegedly scientific survey like "do you believe in psychic powers?" is ridiculous. Its a dumb question. Can I prove psychic powers exist? No, not at all. But I believe my wife is faithful to me and I have no evidence for that either. (Readers insert witty comment here). Actually, based on my own experience, I have better evidence of psychic powers than I do of the big bang or relativity. You can do a scientifical experiment yerself. Can you tell if someone is looking at you? Many people can. They don't actually think about it, but if you look at someone intently, they will frequently snap their head around and look back. This is anecdotal, but consistent. Consistent enough that there should be an explanation. The technocratic explanation is that either A) the phenomenon does not exit, or B) there is a straightforward explanation, but I am ignorant of it. But the phenomenon does exist, and there is no known explanation for it (at least in physics). I am not A) delusional, or B) ignorant, so the orthodoxy and its minions (us) must be wrong. What else is it wrong about?
In the middle ages, they believed that bleeding poisons from the body would help people get over illness. In the early 1970s, the Cambodian Army used the modern weapons they received from the US to shoot at the dragon that was devouring the sun (a solar eclipse). And it worked! Ask yourself, what do we believe today that is so stupid our great grandchildren will laugh at our folly? Unless you have an answer to that, stop sneering at the "ignorant" 60% out there. They may understand the world better than you do.
No I'm not a grad student, and thank you for your belittlement ;-).
Knowledge is not necessarily truth
I think this is what I'm trying to say. Sometimes Science is treated as a religion in that "since Science doesn't say so, it is the Truth". For example, you mention that no scientist can prove that there is no God, yet, most scientists will say that there is enough scientific evidence to point towards that truth. So, maybe in my uneducated state I don't fully understand what science is supposed to be, but science is used all the time (in my experiences) as the "end all" to seeking truth.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
> You don't always have the luxury of setting up tests for your hypotheses. Sometimes all you get are observations of events that occur on their own. I for one am not willing to be hit by a bus just so someone can interview me for an NDE if I happen to survive. But that doesn't discount the evidence.
Very true. However, evidence gained in this way needs to be much more convincing to be as valid as a repeatable, controlled experiment because there are so many variables involved. Therefore, I'm willing to accept this sort of evidence, but there has to be more to it than to something "hard" (I put that in quotes because so few of us can agree what the term really means, but suffice it to say that I mean "gathered in a controlled, repeatable experiment").
> No, I don't expect to convince you or anyone with one event, but there are thousands like this. And they are coming more frequently from established healthcare professionals who have every reason to keep them hidden for fear of damage to their careers.
There are two points of contention here. First, from whom does the anecdote come? Unless it comes directly from the doctor himself, you're presenting a fourth-party anecdote (you said that author said that doctor said that blind woman said...) and frankly, that doesn't carry very much weight. Where's the doctor's report on the whole thing? Which brings me to my second point: why would this doctor think that relating this event could possibly jeopardize his career? He could easily relate the story without implying any belief in what she said, if he's worried about being labelled a mystic. So, all in all, this particular anecdote fails most of my "rule of thumb" tests:
1.) Does it violate any currently accepted physical laws? (Nope)
2.) Does it rely solely on someone's recount (is it completely hearsay)? (Yes)
3.) Is there some reason it's not repeatable? (Yes)
4.) Is is consistent with Occam's Razor? (Not Sure)
5.) Does it require fallacious assumptions or "belief" to be valid? (Not Really)
6.) Is it statistically significant? (No)
7.) Does it require that its participants do, say or believe extraordinary things? (Yes)
So, we're not doing very well in our count. Two misses is a symptom of failure in the scientific method, and we've got three (and a half, if number four is a "not Sure"). Of course, these are rules of thumb, and there are many ways in which something completely valid can fail this test, but it's a good first indicator of a problem. In case you're wondering, the not-obvious answers are:
3: Not repeatable isn't a show-stopper, but since it's a rule of thumb it's allowed.
4: A separate-from-body "soul" is not usually going to be the simplest possible answer, but there could be other forces at work, or perhaps there really are souls, so I say "Not Sure".
6: Notwithstanding your suggestion to "thousands of reports", this is one event, and without being presented with any others I must so judge.
7: This is actually because I find it confusing that doctors would think that reporting this sort of thing would be hazardous to their careers. As I said above, this doctor didn't have to profess believing this story to report it, and would IMHO be remiss in not reporting it, if only to assist a psychologist or psychiatrist if treatment was needed by this woman (nearly dying can be very disturbing and often people require counseling for it).
> I have an instinct to eat and avoid death. I do not have an instinct to read.
It could be argued (and often has) that humans are driven by instinct to "figure things out" (to learn) since learning has long been a very good survival mechanism. The fact that you had to learn to read doesn't make the desire to do it non-instinctual. It's just a more efficient way to learn (like language and other forms of communication) so you use it.
> No. My version of an open critical mind doesn't discount what it cannot explain simply because it seems far-fetched.
Again, true, but by your post your open critical mind assumes instead of discounting, which is better than ingoring but has its own pitfalls. To wit, here are your own words, from the same post, no less:In one, you say not to disbelieve the extraordinary, and in the next you disbelieve something as being too incredible! These statements directly contradict one another, and point out where the assumption bit you. You assume that consciousness is too complex to be grounded in elecrochemistry, simply because you cannot comprehend how it can happen. That's a logical fallacy that you need to avoid.
> I'm telling you to neither deny nor accept -- simply to consider.
You are obviously a very thoughtful person, and you put forward good points, so I say this without insult, and with the greatest respect: you should consider your own assumptions more closely. I have run afoul of such assumptions before, so I know they can be subtle sometimes, but with practice it's possible to discover that being critical of one's own argument is (ahem) critical to critical thinking.
Virg
This is funny. If you meant to do it, well done. If you didn't, you just made the best accidental joke of the day.
Virg
What exactly is causation? The best formulation I can come up with is that the state of the universe in one moment is related to the state in the previous moment. It turns out that this is only true on average. Ever hear of virtual particles? You can literally have mack-truck anti-mack-truck pairs appearing and disappearing on short enough time scales. The uncertainty principle requires it to be so, in fact. It just so happens that this "quantum foam" averages out over long times and large distances.
As for repeatability, the uncertainty principle screws that up, too. Consider double slit diffraction of an electron beam. Strictly speaking, if repeatability and particle theory are correct, then it should be just like pouring sand through a pair of slits. Strangely, it turns out that it's just like putting a wave through the slits. Even if only done one electron at a time, there will still be "bright spots" and "dim ones." Thus the experiment is only repeatable on the average over a large number of particles.
BlackGriffen
*Uh, not true - as the "explanation" states this is mearly popular scientific theory and NOT a fact.
The word 'theory' is misused by the general population. In common use, it's used as a synonym for 'hypothesis' or 'good guess'. In a scientific context, 'A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena' is the definition.
These 'theories' are as close to 'fact' as it gets.
Just follow the day, and reach fo
Find me a version/translation that isn't written AFTER Dante's Inferno was published, which was 1314. King James Bible was, as I recall, 1611. Plenty of room for, if not actual revision, then definately some interpretation of old concepts with current world-views.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I once worked for an education-based .com. As part of our product :-)
we had a news service. It was mandated that we include horoscopes
as part of it. I bristled arguing that we should set a standard of
excellence valuing what we put out for content, but those objections
were brushed aside. Why? Kids liked horoscopes and it would
drive page views. (A co-worker was bold enough to point out that
so would porn or gambling and suggested we pursue partnerships
in those areas so as to incorporate them into our business model
Turns out that several of the people in charge of this decision also
where into astrology. Hmmmmm.
A survey done at Harvard commencement a few years ago had roughly
one-half of graduating seniors equating astrology and astronomy.
The engineering department at my graduate school didn't require
calculus of their undergrads until *junior* year!
Can anyone help me find the data to support this stat I read a long
time ago: it is easier to build a new athletic facility than it is to
upgrade an existing library or science lab? Also, there's the fallacy
that monies large athletic departments take in fund academic departments.
I've never actually found one situation where this has been true.
I do know one researcher whose overhead on grants was so large that it
basically funded the entire English department.
We're racing towards a new Dark Ages. One interesting metric I read
for this is loss of language. Apparently the working vocabulary of people
in the US has dropped by some huge fraction (I don't remember what - more
than 25%) over the last 50 years... When I read that, I like, go to my friend,
"wow - like who did they ask?" and he goes "like that must be in the Middle Ages
or something." And then I'm like "Yeah, no one talks like in the Middle Ages anymore."
:-(
I'm immediately marked as wrong because of one single phrase.
If you knew better you would know that science doesn't rely on "belief" but on reproducibbility and practical disproof/proof of theory.
Perhaps you should take a better look at how scientists react when confronted with a large body of sworn testimony of hundreds of highly trained individuals--people who are quite capable of identifying airplanes, satellites, meteors, weather balloons, and lightning. Said evidence would stand up in any court of law. Don't you think it at least warrants some open-minded scientific investigation?
Science, like anything else, is affected by belief. When people *believe* something to be untrue, they sometimes ignore reasonably solid evidence.
I'm not saying we have been visited by extraterrestrials. I suspect that we have, but that means nothing--just like if I were to suspect we haven't.
Take a look at disclosureproject.org. There's a lot of stuff in that testimony that can't be explained with lightning, weather balloons, secret aircraft, meteors, or swamp gas. And those people deserve better than to be dismissed as kooks and liars. Even if there are no extraterrestrials, there's definitely something going on that we don't know about, and that alone is worth the effort of serious research.
P.S. If anyone has any solid, verifiable information discrediting the Disclosure Project, I'm all ears. It just seems like it'd be a pretty hard thing to fake.
> Until there is evidence of either, they don't exist. That's how science works.
That's not even close to correct. The scientific method is a way to try to determine the likelihood of a given event or phenomenon, not to prove or disprove to absolutes. Any scientist who thinks in absolutes is being a bad scientist. The correct way to describe it is this:
"If there is no hard evidence to be presented to support ESP or alien abductions, it is rational to assume they don't work as advertised."
That's as close to an absolute as you want to get, as a scientist. To say that ESP doesn't exist (and that people are never abducted by aliens) only puts you in a position to assume something that may not be accurate. Remember the watchphrase, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Virg
Heh...never thought of it that way. That would explain why the stereotype is that only "rednecks" and "hicks" and other "stupid/ignorant" stereotypes ever report being abducted - evidently, all the SMART ones who were abducted passed the tests and were kept.
Of course, the test thresholds may not be too high. After all, we're talking about a group of space aliens who supposedly have the technology to travel interstellar distances and fly around mostly-undetected by modern Earthly technology (except, of course, for the occasional space-alien crash in the middle of nowhere), but yet end up resorting to anal probes and hacking up cattle as their research methods...
You'd think a super-high-tech group of beings would have thought of dragging out the Computerized Tomography equipment or something instead....
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
How would that make us special? We just are. It wasn't until Freud and Jung that people accepted on a mass scale that ailments could lie in the mind/psyche as well as the body. How long will it be before we learn that there is yet another layer beyond the mind?
... Mind ... Spirit ... ???
Body
The thing that amazes me is that people will absolutely insist there is only the body. Then, someone shows them the mind,
Who are these people who only believe in the body? If you're thinking historically, the general thought process was that a person is composed of a body and a spirit. Then we began to learn about the brain. We're still trying to phase out the 'spirit' concept. Most people hear the word mind and sort of mash both spirit and brain into the definition.
and they say, "Okay, I accept I was wrong about the body thing. There is a mind. But there's nothing beyond the mind. I'm positive!"
Spare us the dramatics. Skeptics don't typically wander around with a puffed-up chest, saying "There is only the body and the brain, and that is that!" We say "What is this 'spirit' you speak of and how can you show that it exists independently of the brain?" If the idea of a spirit has been set up so that it's impossible to disprove, it cannot stand on it's own merits. If there has been damage to the physical brain and it affects the spirit, how do you know that there's nothing other than the brain?
Any idea that can't get past the balony detection kit is probably balony.
At each step they admit they were wrong and revise their beliefs, yet they fall right back into insisting their new theories are correct
Yes. This is known as "science". When better evidence comes along we take up new ideas. Some people refer to it as progress.
Example: The idea of black holes is currently being challenged by that of gravastars. Both fit most of the data, but debate will continue over it perhaps indefinitely or until the evidence for and logic behind one has swayed over most if not every mind in the relevant fields.
beyond all doubt and that there is nothing else.
Beyond all doubt? Of course not. But there are an infinite number of fictional scenarios that have about the same amount of evidence behind them that can make this doubt grow to any rational size. If there is no evidence whatsoever for a phenomenon, it's my policy not to believe anything. We should accept what we can describe and verify. Anything else is beyond the bounds of science and not obligated to be subject to scrutiny -- they're someone else's beliefs, after all.
Here's a general rule to go by: Does it make you feel good to believe it? Is it what you want to believe? Then double up on your skepticism. If people are making large profits off of it, double it again. We need to be very careful. The people we fool the most easily are ourselves.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Very well put; somebody needs to mod that up. BTW, the grandparent post gets extra points for it's nice use of educrat JargonAcronyms (TM).
Chris Mattern
About use of the term 'scientifically proven': I agree. When I said that I was only pointing out that these assumptions are completely outside the realm of science. They are by definition a priori.
;-) When you take any axiomatic/dogmatic system of belief whether it be science, math, or religion, and drill down to the root of the system you will be left with nothing but faith. This is just supreme skepticism. It can not be proven to me that I will die, nor have I been shown any evidence, other than circumstantial, that I was born, yet I have faith that these are true.
I would also agree that there is nothing but faith, hence my declaration that it is faith all the way down
You said, "Remember faith is that which is believed without evidence." I would say that if you explore any 'evidence' deeply enough you will find pure faith. Cheers!
I do not think I am confused at all. You are not considering the implications of the first postulate of special relativity. It is much more than a didactic tool to teach special relativity. What I said was true, it is widely regarded, and if you look into it you'll see why, as _the_ basic assumption upon which _all_ science is based.
You said, "The one assumption a scientist makes is that what his senses are telling him is "basically" accurate." This is part of what the first postulate is saying, just much more rigourously. It is imperative for the scientist to believe that the laws which govern physical phenomena are everywhere uniform and do not change from observer to observer. This is what the first postulate specifies.
You said, "When/if observations start contradicting this assumption, the model will be changed." If this were shown to be false, then the whole cookie crumbles and we live in a magical unscientifically explainable world. The model would indeed be changed, but science would no longer be the tool we use to verify and shape that model.
As a molecular biologist I run into this level of scientific ignorance on a regular basis. Everyone I talk to about my work assumes I'm either cloning embryos for their organs, producing genetically-engineered food, sequencing the human genome, or trying to cure Ebola - whatever they've caught most recently on the nightly news. They talk about how unethical it is to do any one of the above, ignorant of anything more than the few catchphrases & soundbites they caught or how such research is done, and even more ignorant of the fact that the scientific community had spent the past 2 decades warning ethicists & politicians of their discoveries in order to get them to get in front of the issues & prepare people morally & politically for these things that seem now so sudden. The entire perception of science suffers from Mad Scientist Syndrome, perpetuating the belief that we have to clamp down on what these crazy scientists can & can't study, or else we'll end up in some world out of Gattaca.
The main problem is that mainstream science reporting is usually done by journalists with no scientific background who add hype to their stories to increase readership, dumb them down to a 5th-grade level (or lower) to make them "more accessible", or are themselves so intellectually ill-equipped to analyze their subject that their reporting makes no sense. Even old, august science & technology magazines like Scientific American are noticeably dumbing down their articles. Reading the LA or NY Times' "science" section just brings me to tears. It's become all tech gadget reviews and featherweight feature articles that, in their journalistic quest to "voice both sides" of an issue like if global warming, fail to convey the balance of scientific opinion on the subject, currently running at about 99% agreeing that it is occurring, in favor of "equal time". Either that, or fluff like profiles of brave cancer patients & shit. When there are so many real issues out there the public needs to be informed and educated on, this level of reporting is almost criminal.
A good portion of the blame rests as well on the silence of good scientists too, who often shun writing or speaking for public consumption for fear of risking their reputations or funding by creating a forum for disagreement. But I feel it's mostly scientific reporting in the media that's keeping people stupid, along with the Dick & Jane level of science education in schools. Then again, how can you teach kids about scientific thinking when they have trouble with math & english? It's all a great big fuckup that needs to be addressed.
For fuck's sake, pay good teachers WELL, and I'm talking at about above $50K to start - that way we'll get good people. Insure quality in schools, not with the current rampant test, test, test and test again bullshit & writing your congressmen, but with your own personal attention, time, work, and yes, even your money if you can at your kid's school. Pay close attention to your kid's studies. Complain about slack teachers who let kids skate through. Do it now. You can either wait 10 years for your kid to be done with school before the government gets around to fixing things, or you can be part of the solution yourself. You scientists, go to the schools, talk to the science teachers. They want your help. They want you to help them show kids what science is like. Same thing for you accountants with math, and you writers & journalists with english. It's your job too, and if your local school is failing kids you should bear part of the blame. Have a sense of pride and community dammit.
Argh. Sorry. Rant over.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
> Okay. Find me a scientist who'll agree that
> The world is a flate plate on a turtle's back
I have here the chief librarian of a *very* prestigious University who will testify to that very fact:
"Ook. Ook ook ook."
Er, I may have to get an interpreter...
Chris Mattern
BTW, he says you forgot the elephants...
Show us the evidence, otherwise go troll somewhere else.
I'm not trolling. Everything is faltered through preset language, orientation and other's views of reality and I have no way of knowing if that orientation is valid or not, because as of yet I have no way of stepping outside of it. That is why the most important part of finding the solution is also finding a new sensory mode (breaking into a new paradigm) a new way or perceiving reality.
I left being a teacher to my wife (someone has to earn money instead).
... there are lots of silly laws. This goes beyond silly to viscious.
....
But the point I was really pushing was that teachers shouldn't teach where they weren't interested. This does more harm than not teaching at all. In a small enough class, it's possible to substitute interest in the student for interest in the subject. But this isn't always an option. And even when it is, some teachers don't care. This is a direct attack on the children, and should be considered so by society.
If you say that the laws require this to be done
I'm not claiming that the school administration gives teachers much choice. There's enough blame to distribute all the way up. And I'm not claiming that schools should teach everything. Just that if they can't teach it, they should admit it instead of ruining the future.
This is a part of what makes "teaching to the test" so vile. Nobody can be interested in "teaching to the test". You just can't. But this is what a hugh number of students are forced into. This will do nothing but convince them that they hate education. (School too, but that's traditional. This will be much more intense.)
It's also blatently unfair to school districts that have an unusual number of students whose first language is other than English. It's also blatently unfair to school districts that have a large number of handicapped students. It's also unfair to
But above and beyond those matters (which can be corrected by clever scoring systems) it's unfair to anyone who is a student. Period.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I agree - any math can be investigated deep enough to become serious enough for research purposes if you look at it hard enough.
:)
However for algorithms like Quicksort, if we just want to use it, and prove that the algorithm works, its complexity, etc. The math can be "trivial" to a lot of people - that is, when we assume a lot of axioms and theorems and don't look at the proofs of them. (most of these assumptions are compatible if they're from the same system - and for most problems we can ignore Godel's (in)completeness)
If we insist on doing everything from scratch, even things like multiplication would require pretty "serious" math.
I can understand what you are saying unfortunately ignorance can have a lot of inertia. But i think teachers can still help alot. When you toutgh those kids about antibiotics they did not forget everything when their parents told them germs dont exist. I am sure they still kept those things in the backs of their minds.
So i definately think that teachers can help, even if the parents are resisting.
Good post. I just wanted to add one thing. (-:
Oxygen (the gas we use when we breathe) is actually a posionous gas that life on earth has evolved to reley on. If oxygen is breathed at very low pressure it can kill you.
Yeah. There are many bacteria still alive today that are killed by oxygen. These are called anaerobic bacteria. These include such useful bacteria as e. coli (can't digest without it!), and sewage-eating bacteria. As well as not-so-usefull bacteria like tetanus and the bacteria that causes Botulism. Pretty much any pathogenic bacteria that does not infect the respritory system is anaerobic.
Archaebacteria are the extremophiles you hear about all the time. They live in hot springs, volcanic areas, anywhere extreme. Some can even form protective endospores when conditions are unfavorable and drift dormant for millions of years in space! Archaebacteria are thought to be the most primitive and first form of life on earth.
A lot of people think bacteria are always bad. E. Coli is vital for digesting food. Of course, it you get shit on your hands containing E Coli and then contaminate your food with it, you could get violently ill. Cheese and wine are owed to bacteria. Sewage and oil spills are broken up by bacteria. Stapholococci bacteria prevent your skin from being infected, oddly enough. Most of the world's oxygen is from photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, as well.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I found the CNN write up to be interesting, but I'm wondering about the study methodology. How did they choose their sample? What sort of answers were allowed? Anyone know where I can get more indepth info?
For instance, CNN mentions that a substantial percentage of Americans read the local astrology column on a regular basis. Does this mean that those people belive in astrology? Or does this simply mean that a substantial percentage of folks read the astrology column for the same reason that I read the personals column of the local rag when I get a hold of the hardcopy version -- entertainment. I don't plan on calling anyone, heck, most of the papers I read on any sort of regular basis don't have anything resembling a 'poly-transmen seeking similar' section, and I know well enough that the vast majority of those in the 'seeking men' or 'seeking women' sections aren't going to react positively to, well, me. But I read it because it amuses me to see what other humans say about themselves, and I read the astrology column for the same reason, because it's a way to gather information on more 'normal' humans.
Or, another place where I'd like to see methology is the "ESP exists" question. I am well aware of the view of mainstream scientists' views this topic. I'm aware of quite a bit of research on it. I believe that for the most part they are correct. I also have a friend who has the most uncanny knack for showing up for homecooked dinners at my household, where both the time and content of dinner ought to be used for a rand function. How does he know to get on the road a good hour before we even realize that we're not going to order out or do leftovers or skip dinner altogther (very common)? Granted, this is nowhere near telepathy or spoon bending, and there may be a very logical explanation we have all overlooked (but some pretty intelligent geeks have been pondering this for seven years, you'd think we woulda figured it out by now). I don't *know* that is ESP. The most intellectually honest position I can come up with on that and a few other things that I am personally aware of is "I don't know." And that is my position.
Was "I don't know" an option?
This is the problem I see with the state of science in this country. Not only do people not have the first clue about the scientific process, but they also haven't got a clue about the difference between a fact and a theory. There's an argument that can be made that this starts out in school: how many of us remember hearing "It's a scientific fact that..."? But it's seen in media and in general conversation as well.
Science is made up of theories, some are more widely accepted as others, but all could be invalidated or significantly revised if data is found that contradicts them.
And those theories are only as good as the data they are based on. How many people noticed the glaring jump in logic on the astrology issue in the CNN writeup -- that since n% of people read the astrology column, that same n% must believe in astrology? How many people wondered if the same jump in logic was found in the study themselves?
The root of science is not found in being able to parrot the theory of relativity, or even being able to understand it at some level. The root of science is found in critical thinking, it all grow up from there.
If we *really* wanted to improve science knowledge in this country, we'd encourage everybody, esspecially children (it's far easier to learn this as a child) to learn to think critically. As a society we are rather unprepared to do this. Most americans don't know how to think critically, thus they cannot teach their children this skill. Even if we could do so, a critically thinking populous would undermine our government and our economy. While I think that both would probably be replaced by something better, since government and corporations have the most control over the resources in this country, and government has the most control over resources going to education, and those in power now have nothing to gain and everything to lose from changing the current government and economy, I doubt that this will change anytime soon.
As an individual I can learn to think critically, I can value intellectual honesty, and I can encourage my children and any other children and adults I come into contact with to do the same. And so I encourage everyone who reads this to do so. But that's all I can do. I don't know if this is ever going to be useful in a widespread manner, but perhaps it will be useful to others as individuals (and perhaps you'll find that it sucks. Often I do)
Ok, this is starting to get annoying... What I am talking about has _nothing_ to do with EM fields or Maxwell's equations.
Stated yet another way the postulate states, "The laws of physics are the same in any inertial frame, regardless of position or velocity." This is a basic a priori assumption without which science becomes untenable. If you do not understand that then there is no reason to further discuss this.
You're confusing the "scientific establishment" which the previous poster refers to with "science". "Science" is a method of gaining knowledge. Scientists are people who try to use science to learn. But unfortunately, they're still people, and are subject to human flaws such as irrational beliefs, egos, religion, etc. Did you know some scientists actually follow a religion? As a rational person, I really can't understand this, and I have no idea how they reconcile the two, but it happens. So how is it these scientists, who are part of the scientific establishment, can believe in some supreme being who wants us to kill other people who don't follow the same religion, but are so quick to dismiss the idea of non-supreme beings visiting Earth? 100 years ago, scientists also scoffed at the idea of humans flying.
Science is great, but many of the people practicing it are morons, and follow it about as well as other people follow their religions' moral values.
One point that I'd like to extend, although you're closer to right than I am with the reactions of others to our good doctor. You stated:Now, you are right to assume that some will think of one or the other, but there's a third, and the doctor's presentation could point people in that direction: (c) The doctor relates what the woman said, and does not make any comment on whether it was really an OBE or just her say-so.
Perhaps just a nit, but it needed picking in this case.
Be well.
Virg
Thank you, and I accept your handshake. One thing I'd like to note is that, in this application of Occam's Razor, the concept of a soul complicates that particular theory, but since OR only suggests percentages, we have to consider the theories as a whole; that is, the theories do not fit "A vs. A+Soul" and so that one thing alone may not be sufficient to decide which is simpler. In this case, based on the report only, I can't find any answer as to why she was able to describe the pen (discounting other theories like getting the pen picture from someone else's perception via telepathy, which is complex in a different way) other than "lucky guess" or "coincidental resemblance to a pen she saw when she had her vision" or possibly "doctor is fudging or outright lying", any of which add a good chunk of complexity to the equation themselves.
Food for thought, at least.
Virg
I understand that you were confused about the EM reference, but I specifically stated that the postulate has been _extrapolated_ to cover _all_ physical laws... And I'm not talking about human theories such as Newton's, rather it is a statement about the very nature of our universe, ie that this universe obeys some definite patterned behaviour and that these patterns do not change from observer to observer / location to location.
;-)
BTW, you mentioned that Newton's theories only held for non-accelerating reference frames... You are correct, but another word for that is an 'inertial' reference frame, which is covered in the principle of relativity quoted above
What I am trying to get across here is something else, namely Einstein, knowingly or not, was detailing a basic assumption that we have now recognized as being indispensable to our view of nature/science. If the laws of this universe were non-uniform and had a random, unpredictable variable embedded into _the_law_itself_ (read: the law itself actually changes) WRT observers/location then the whole scientific method would necessarily break down.
Undoubtably. The vast majority of those would be starting from a philosophical position of materialism, which of course blinds them to a wide range of investigation.
It's worth noting that many materialist archaeologists still regard the Bible as an extremely accurate source of archaeological facts; their dissenting brothers are often in the position of allowing their philosophy to override any pragmatic judgement of the dataset.
Before starting in on the examples, it's also worth noting that NT texts have been found dated (by concrete and well-proven benchmarks like style, materials etc) to within less than a decade of the events they report.
There's a reasonably clear exploration of the issues at Apologetics Press. There are many others (Google is your friend), but most of them are either totally lightweight or get bogged down in blow-by-blow descriptions of whether certain pluralisations and word divisions in the Masoretic text agree more closely with the LXX or these scrolls.
No, on two counts.
First off, the `details' that they are arguing about are foundational and mutually exclusive. At most one of them can be right, and in that case evolution by the other method will not work. It is possible that they are both wrong; in fact, if you listen to their debate, it is certain that they are both wrong.
Second off, the place where they do agree is not `the fundamentals' but `the fundamentalism' - they both assert that materialism is the only arena for discussion. Because of this, neither of them will attack the other's fundamentalism in public. The same holds true between disciplines as between factions within a discipline. In less public circumstances the bankruptcy of that position becomes more obvious. It's akin to the idea of watching Popes declare each other to be antiChrist, in detail, during the Greast Schism(s).
Another thing to bear in mind is that this zone of evolutionary `detail' is just one of the many levels at which materialism, and evolution in particular, is demonstrably and completely infeasible.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Who the hell marked above as "troll"? Hit-and-run Coward!
It *is* on topic that so many technologies get shoved down our throats due to practicioners who put on an air of "science" or at least an air of objective acedemics.
These actions affect real tools and real products. At least laymen who beleive in ghosts don't get together and shuv Ghost Oriented Programming down everybody's throats by discrediting and killing alternatives with clever but misleading cliches and toy examples.
Table-ized A.I.