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Technology Spontaneously Combusts In Sicily
Zacronos writes "According to MSNBC, ever since mid-January, various electronic devices have been spontaneously combusting in the now evacuated town of Canneto di Caronia, Sicily; at this point, the fires are almost daily. The town has been disconnected from the larger electrical grid and was hooked to a generator, but that, too, caught fire. Even unplugged items have succumbed. Nothing seems to have burst into flame except where there is someone present to witness it, but the police no longer suspect a prankster -- after witnessing wires catch fire without cause. Scientists have yet to explain the phenomenon (although unproven theories abound), leading many people to look to supernatural causes."
I find this a good example of those phenomena that science can't yet explain. I'm often amused by science types that say something is impossible because it doesn't fit any current theory.
Seems to me any true scientist should always be watching for observations that don't fit the known theory, as they are indicators of a nedd for further refinement.
Sadly, scientists, like most people, are more interested in being right, and tend to look for confirming evidence, sometimes to the detriment of their conclusions.
Before you flame me as an anti-science zealot, let me confess that I'm a science guy as much as your average geek, and I think science is responsible for most of the good changes of the last few centuries. I just think that when we hold too tight to our theories, we leave the realm of skeptical science and enter the world of blind faith.
BTW, I have no plausible explanation for the spontaneous fires. But I am confident that someone will come up wih one that doesn't invole a tinfoil hat.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."--Arthur C. Clarke
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
It may be "magical" but it isn't "supernatural" or "paranormal". That is, just because you don't understand something should your first assumption be that "this can only be explained by rejecting all previous knowledge and making something up".
And I find the lack of citations from any of the alleged scientist disturbing. The press is in a sad state indeed.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."--Anon.
Corollary: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced." ;-)
[TMB]
What is magic, if not simply something we do not (yet) understand?
An excuse for not understanding something.
Rather than being bothered to actually try and understand something you just shrug your shoulders and say "magic".
It all reminds me of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips:
Calvin: Dad, what makes the wind? Dad: Trees sneezing. Calvin: Really? Dad: No, but the real answer is a lot more complex.
Magic/Myth/Religion are all ways to explain the world to those who can't bother to be interested in the actual truth.
Life is too short to proofread.
Why do you think some of the most religious people are often absolute morons, and many intelligent, well-educated people often aren't highly religious? Idiots need an explanation for everything, intelligent people seek answers and do not believe in what they cannot prove to themselves.
You know, I used to think that, too. Then I realized that there are an awful lot of really smart people that are extremely religious, too. Albert Einstein, if I recall correctly, was a devout believer. Isaac Newton, when he was developing calculus and his theory of gravity, was trying to understand God.
It is the desire to understand God that has driven virtually all of scientific history, from Galileo to Planck, and only recently has science been transformed into only the desire to undersand our world. And even then, anyone with half a brain would see that we're really juyst trying to understand what God has given us, if you believe in God (see below). Of the viewpoint that I'm trying to expouse in this paragraph, I can't think of anything that can articulate it better the the end of the movie Contact.
I have come to the belief that religion is not about whether you can explain it or not, or even if it makes sense. If it had to make sense, there wouldn't be any Mormons or Scientologists. But all it really requires for belief in God is exactly that -- belief.
I for one do not actually believe. But I can see the draws to belief, and they are so strong that I sometimes have think twice about my reactions. Am I particularly bright? I don't think so. But neither do I think I'm really dumb.
So what's my point? Well, I guess it's that the part of your post I'm quoting was idiotic and immature, born of a sense of moral superiority for your beliefs and contempt for the viewpoints of others. I used to be the same way; only recently, I saw the errors of that way of thinking, and have become more tolerant and open-minded towards people who beilve in God, Allah, Krishna, Zeus, Ra, or whatever faith you believe in. The rest of your post, on it's own merits, I belive to be accurate; however, in light of the point you were trying to make, is wholly inaccurate and inadequate as to what religion actually provides a society.
After all, after everything is said and done, you can't DISPROVE God; absence of proof is not proof of absence. Since you can't disprove it, you have to take into account that God is possible. Belief in God is just as credible -- not more than, and not less than (and that's the key point) -- as my belief that God does not actually exist, and is in fact a creation of our own minds.
Although maybe one of these days I'll be proven wrong. I look forward to that day.
Responses are welcome; this is the biggest area that I spend idle moments thinking.
weylin
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....
There's a few reasons. Firstly, there people are sitting in a hotel and tired of it, hoping daily that this isn't the day their family home (or entire town) burns to the ground. They're desperate for an answer and not in the mood to spend a few years investigating this interesting phenomenon.
Next there's the fact that to most people, technology itself IS a sort of magic. Just press that button and invisible forces spring into being to make the cup of water boil. Even if they take the nuker apart it still looks like magic. Just one moving part, and even that doesn't have to be there (but the heating will be less even without it).
If you look at the way many people without technical knowledge interact with technology, it's just a bunch of 'invocations' that they have learned will do something useful (usually they learned it from a book of a techie). For all the meaning it has to them, they might as well be burning incense and shouting arcane latin phrases. They know that when the incantations don't work, there's this 'reboot' that can restore order. That's why you see business DSL customers rebooting the router when the email doesn't work (but the web does) and rebooting their PC didn't fix it.
Sometimes, when there's no harm in it, I find it better to let people do those things while I figure out what the problem is. It lets them feel less helpless and occasionally, they stumble over the solution.
You'll also note that the local priest along with the residents did decide to let the scientists have the first crack at the problem.
'We don't know yet' is a perfectly valid answer right now, but it doesn't get them back into their homes. It doesn't help that things bursting into flames for no discernable reason is a recurring theme in movies about the supernatural.
It doesn't help that scientists aren't always all that scientific when presented with observations thay cannot explain. Too often, important phrases like "this is just a guess, but" get replaced with "I'm absolutely certain that" whenever coincidence is about to be invoked. The correct pronouncement would be "I have no idea whatsoever", but scientists don't like to say that either.
Add on top of that all of the 'scientific' pronouncements like 'eggs are bad for you', 'any wine is bad for you', 'oops, no, some wine is good for you, and so are eggs, but avoid fat at all costs', 'oops, people are getting fatter on low fat diets', etc, etc, and people start to think that the 'scientists' are just making things up too. They make the mistake of confusing various pseudoscientific nonsense from the FDA, NIH, and the AMA (or their own regional equivilants) for science. I call it pseudoscience because collectively they have a habit of stating working theory (complete with conflicting evidence) as if it were fact and flatly denying the existance of plainly observable phenomena when the correct answer is clearly "We don't know".
If we can't get scientists to abandon dogma and various forms of mysticism, how can we expect it from laymen?
what makes you think my religion, the religion of the oldest know civilized people is not right?
If he substituted "Buddha" and "Tao", would it make a difference?
You are condemning him as a "nut-job" just because he used two key-words specific to his religion. You sound Jesusphobic.