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Bad Science Awards
KDan writes "The Bad Science Awards are out. These should put a smile on any science geek's face. Prize gems include: shrinking water molecules, anesthetic condoms, and a plan to send homeopathic AIDS remedies to Botswana."
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I think the David Hasselhoff ipod should have made the list too!!!
;-D
What else is missing?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I've just read a few of these out - the one that caused the most laughter was the 'shrinking water molecules' one. Looks like the Planck constant isn't, at least for hairdressers :-)
:-( Perhaps if science were more popular/emphasized more at school, the problem might alleviate, but there's no votes in improving the education system in 15 years time...
I'm sure the condom story will cause the most general hilarity though - shades of 'Riotous Assembly' by Tom Sharpe - which I heartily recommend if you want people to wonder why you suddenly burst out laughing...
The real issue of course is that the general public ("sheep") will believe anything a man in a white coat ("doctor") tells them. Scepticism is a vanishing but valuable trait
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I think we should grow a baby from birth in a space capsule that is rotating to mimic a gravity much greater then Earths gravity. Then when he's on earth he'll be like superman.
Or grow vegatables in 0 gravity so they can grow HUGE.
Bad science I know but it'd be fun to see the results
*DrugCheese rants*
I think anesthetic condoms are a great idea! W00t! buttsex i5 t3h r0x0rz!
where's the monkey with 4 asses?
I need new glasses - first time reading it looked like: "Prize gems include: homeopathic water molecules, shrinking condoms, and a plan to send anesthetic AIDS remedies to Botswana." Whoa.
repeat after me: creationism (or "intelligent design") is not a scientific theory. it has no predicative power, it offers no real explanation, nor can it be tested.
it belongs in philosophy, religion, psychology and/or sociology classes but not in a science class.
These should put a smile on any science geek's face.
- anesthetic condoms
- a plan to send homeopathic AIDS remedies to Botswana
Well that makes one see geeks in a whole new light..
bush's bunker busters
missle defense shield
According to TFA, Dr Gillian McKeith PhD. wins this prize for "outstanding innovation in the use of the title 'Doctor'":
Man, that's just harsh . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
"The fact that Al Quaeda hasn't attacked us again just proves that we are winning the war on terror, and that we are doing the right things to prevent it."
Oh, I'm sorry, that's not bad science, that's just really bad logic. . .
I've used these condems, and they actually worked, as described.
Trojan makes a comparable product, but instead of the goop being just in the tip, it is in the lubricant, which actually numbs both me and my partner.
Unfortunately, most places (Wal*Mart, Target) have stopped carrying the Durex product.
Can someone tell me why they put the condoms on their tongues? Or is that part of their normal testing process for bad science?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
It isn't just the people who'll gladly believe anything a man in a white coat tells them who're the problem, it's also the ones who flatly refuse to trust anything 'scientific'. The people who'll loudly proclaim homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki, therapeutic touch or whatever other bizarre quackery happens to be the fad of the moment to be the cure for everything.
w ick_a_life/ flying the flag for idiocy, but, equally, there are frankly rather creepy people like the Aetherius Society http://www.aetherius.org/ who're only too happy to peddle their own bizarre brand of crap as science.
Sure, we have wonderful scientists like Kevin Warwick: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/11/kevin_war
In short.. well, think for yourself and beware the demagogue.
Diebold
they are so scientific
Sending Homeopathic remedy for AIDS to a country is not bad science. It is murder pure and simple. You might jsut as well give them sweets and tell them it is a medicament. Oh , wait ...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
We're all so smart--let's laugh at the stupid people. I bet they wish that they were smart like us.
I've tried these, and they work . . . somewhat. The lubricant contains a local anesthetic that dulls sensations . . . for obvious uses.
I found that I didn't like them, and the dullness continued longer than desired. Secondary considerations included not being able to maintain an erection as easily (hehe, little guy couldn't feel anything, so he said "Why bother?").
Other guys could probably use them with better success. It was worth a try, but I'd not recommend them whole-heartedly.
They're the same kind of bitter, arrogant people who dare claim my MD from Hollywood Upstairs Medical College isn't a real degree.
"Jeanette Winterson, for her excellent plan to send homeopathic remedies to treat HIV in Botswana" - at least the postage should be cheap.
From the article:
However the winner was Space Tomato Number One, part of the Chinese government's "space breeding" project, where radiation in space is used to create comic book mutations and giant space plants, including tomatoes weighing almost a kilogram.
I fear we may have a new meme on our hands: In China, X is always positive.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
"In China, the radiation effect is always positive, leading to bigger and better vegetables that will revolutionise agriculture."
OK, let me get this straight. This is an article exposing products that use bad science. Yet when testing prolonging condoms they decided to first test the INSIDE of the condom on their tongue and do nothing more and then proclaim it is bad science?
I am sure someone suffering from premature ejaculation might use a different set of scientific tests and just might come up with a different result
> What about the myth of human-caused global warming?
The only people left who think it's a myth are a bunch of flat-earthers. Jesus christ, even the Bush administration believes it now. What the fuck will it take to get you away from your Hummers?
(And while I'm no fan of Kyoto, it doesn't "require China to increase" a damn thing. What, are there penalties if they don't produce enough? Bloody idiot.)
I find that the evidence for human-caused global warming is lacking, yet consensus science tends to be used to support it.
Worse yet, when someone suggests that the current global warming may be due to non-human causes, that person tends to be rediculed, attacked, or called a pawn of big industry.
Yet we don't know the natural global warming trends of the earth. We don't know how much sunlight earth received in the past, and how much it is receiving now. We don't know what the average amount of natural CO2 released is. We don't understand fluctuations in atmospheric composition. We can't even predict the weather a month down the road. In short, we don't understand what humans are doing to the environment, and how much is being effected.
Yet human caused global warming is popular because it can be used to support reform to protect the environment.
I'm all for less pollution, less waste, more recycling, and more efficiency, but lets be honest: We don't need to promote an unproven idea in order to support environmental reforms.
Just my $.02
So, it is only Republicans who object when a newspaper openly calls for the murder of a Republican president? This is what the Guardian did. I guess this means that Democrats condone the murder of their opponents. I don't agree with you.
Read a book.
How about all those people insisting evolution be taught in school, as it also "is not a scientific theory". It while having predictive power has no practical predictions you can make, Offers no true explanation for existence, nor can it be tested. Therefore I hereby nominate Evolution to be put in the philosophy religion and/or sociology class. * note: I speak here about Macro not Micro evolution, which is a fundamentally different process. Macro evolution in the biological sense requires introducing new information and complexity into the system. Micro evolution involves losing information or complexity in the system. eg. wolves, german shephards and chihuaha's are an example of micro evolution. They all exist because certain "traits" or genetic information were bred out of them. A LOSS of information. Macro evolution is going from single cell single strand of DNA to multicellular multistrand dna forms. The Addition of information. Micro is provable Macro is not.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
Given the latest failed test I'd say that the missile defense system can be called bad science.
Any suggestions for those "Performax" condoms that I currently have two of? Lasting long enough has never been a problem for me, but does anyone have any special warnings against using them?
They'd have to be able to read, and they'd have to be interested in an article making fun of bad science.
Science never suppose the existence or the inexistence of supra-human entity. It isn't a question of SCOPE, it is a question of REPRODUCIBILITY and PROOF (falsibility?). True it is entirely possible a God exists, but there is no proof either toward existence or non-existence. But using the existence of God as an hypothesis for a explanation of a phenomennon make it belong to religion/philosophy, not science. That is, unleess you can prove God exists. then it would belong to science to. Thus the argument of the original poster that creationism is not science and should not belong to biology teaching is 100% right.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yeah it's as bad as sending aromatherapy candles...
/tinfoil hat
And no, it's not funny to think of people dying because of superstitions, especially when they are doing it to themselves, to some extent. If people really want to stop the spread of HIV, they have to fight against the will to create a larger population base when the population is in a rapid state of decline.
It's an instinctive reflex to try and have many children with many partners when the infant death rates are high. That's mother nature messing with your whole culture, IMHO.
Cultures need to find safe ways to select lifemates, and embrace the need for a lifemate instead of a wide variety of partners.
There are huge problems going on in the world concerning HIV, and most of the problems are indeed related to intrinsic cultural explotation by the virus itself, almost giving it a kind of intelligence. The virus almost appears to be engineered, and I often wonder if it was...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The only people left who think it's a myth are the idiots who will drive humankind into extinction
Kyoto does not require anyone to increse their CO2 emmissions. At most, it allows them to.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
Not sure how many other people will get that, but I wanted to say how funny I thought it was.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
I half expected to find them using Randell Mill's BlackLight Process to create "Oxygen Dihydrino".
And informed scientists
Or wrong scientists.
If you don't like a Hummer, don't drive one. That simple
No, it's not that simple. That's like saying "nuclear weapons should be legal for personal use - don't like them? don't buy them". When what you do affects the health of me, my family, and everyone else on the planet, then it's not JUST your business.
If global warming were real, Chinese gas would be as nasty as American gas. But it is all politics
Chinese gas is just as nasty as American gas. Kyoto is a (bad) political response to a very real impending disaster. Stating that Kyoto is flawed does nothing to make the reality of the problem any less serious.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I don't think that skepticism isn't any less or greater that it has ever been. People will beleive what they want to beleive, no matter what the qualifications of the "experts." The fact that we are a highly competitive society also dooms education reform. As I get older I'm beginning actively wish that younger generations are less educated so I don't have to compete with them for jobs. Keep them stupid!
It might not give us the reason for the "big bang" occurring but as far as I know nor does it claim to.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Not to be a total grammer nazi, and I usually am not except for this particular issue, but when will people realize that the word "data" is PLURAL! The singular being datum. In the last two days on /. and it's linked articles I have seen "the data is.." or "no data exists..." when it should be "the data are" and "no data exist" etc.
:)
Sorry, but I have had too many prof's bitch at me for this in my scientific writing (I am a biologist) that I felt the need to nag everyone here
These things are incredibly hard to put on, especially when you need to do this quickly and/or have a large dick. It would be cool if there was a technology that would allow the condoms to be larger so that they're easier to put on, and then they'd shrink to the size because of body heat, or something.
From the article...
he also states that your skull "contracts and expands a dozen times or so each minute to push the [cerebrospinal] fluid round" your brain, along with various other amusing misunderstandings of basic medicine.
This is actually a pretty controversial area of medicine-- known as cranial osteopathy, there have been numerous studies that claim to show that the skull does have movement due to cerebrospinal pressure. Actual doctors do believe this, although as I say, it's not commonly accepted.
If anyone's interested, I'll dig up some research..
Homeopathy is based on observation and testing.
Hmm, what else shares this? Oh yeah - SCIENCE.
My wife suffered from Rosacia (a skin condition commonly known as "adult acne".) She saw three dermatologists, all of which prescribed antibiotics that worked for a couple of months, after which time the condition returned. The doctors told her this would be the only way to control it - there was no way to cure it.
A friend recommended she visit a homeopath - he examined her, and told her it was probably due to a yeast allergy. He put her on a yeast-free diet, and after six months, the Rosacia was gone.
You may call it quackery, but as they say - it's tough to argue with results.
think for yourself
You may want to take your own advice on that one.
Can you provide a citation to support this?
The protocol itself makes no mention of this. Developing countries are excluded from the emissions reductions targets that apply to the "Annex I" countries, but they're not required to increase their emissions--that's patently absurd. Note that China has apparently stated their intent to join Annex I soon and has been reducing their emissions anyway.
http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/achinagg.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_protocol
China is third in emissions behind the USA and European Union, they're still a developing nation, and their still managing to lower their emissions while the USA continues to increase theirs.
Then you better explain that "science" is only a pragmatic, physical explanation of observed results -- it can make no claim to being "truth".
If someone can define truth as something other than the agreement between our statements and states of affairs of objects in the world, I'd like to hear it. Everyone else in history who's tried has failed. Also, describing an explanation as only physical doesn't make it less valid. In fact, since no one has ever demonstrated that anything but the physical world exists, it'd seem that a presence in the physical world would be a qualification for anything and everything we sense and the only reality that anyone has experienced up until this point. Science may have too small a scope to understand the nature of realiy, but based on every bit of evidence any of us have every recieved (that is, our collected sensory impressions), it doesn't.
For an exercise, try thinking of a word that doesn't involve states of affairs in the world, or our intrepretations of the states of our bodies. Everything corresponds to the physical world. Your speech is vibrations in the air. Your thoughts are neurons in your brain (disagree? Overdose on DXM and then try making metaphors). Nothing anyone has ever presented has contridicted this.
Truth is a word philosophers made up before they got their act together. The only sensible definition of the word refers to the agreement of a statement with certain states of affairs in the world*. Please read more so you know what baggage words carry before you use them. These linguistic errors are the cause of 99% of misunderstandings.
*The pragmatic definition of truth as verifiability does make sense and is a worthwhile concept, but since no one ever means this when they use the word truth but pragmatists, we should make it another word.
"When what you do affects the health of me, my family, and everyone else on the planet, then it's not JUST your business."
Driving a Hummer does not impact this at all. Unless I run over you.
The current "global warming" hysteria is nothing more than altering your lifestyle for no good reason, because of bad information from those who are at best superstitious and at worst, charlatans. They used to call this type of thing "religion".
"Kyoto is a (bad) political response to a very real impending disaster"
You are lying again, with unsupported "sky is falling" claims. Looking forward to you whining about global cooling when the phony climate science fad rolls back the other way.
Tell the trekkies. Have them revise those old scripts:
Riker: Where are Data?
LaForge: Data are in the holodeck practicing comedy.
Then, we can get those who use bad grammer such as "The BBC are", when the BBC is one company (singular).
I have a Master's in physics. I try to be careful to apply the scientific method when dealing with unknown subjects. Frankly, homeopathy works. Before you criticize, I am as baffled by it as you are. There is no reason it should work, but it does. And yes, there are studies. But because it is 'kooky', it is rejected out-of-hand.
If you have not experimented and studied it yourself, how can you dismiss it?
Linux is to Microsoft what Alternative Medicine is to Conventional Medicine/AMA. Right now it is relatively a fringe movement, but beginning to make inroads that the establishment(s) can't stop. Sure, there are many things that are nonsense, but there is enough good stuff not to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. The beauty of it all, it that homeopathy is good at solving problems that conventional medicine isn't - and vice versa.
Perhaps you will say, "It is just the placebo effect". For you or for me, that could be true, but what about babies with colic? I have yet to see anything else that would work. I know many mothers who would swear by it. What about animals? People use it on pets too - though I have not.
I sound like a kook when I argue against accepted wisdom and what seems to be obvious theory, but I have seen too much success with it to laugh- and yes, I can tell when it is working and when it isn't. So, before you laugh too long, look into it. Revolutions never begin with the masses.
That said, I am far from convinced of an AIDS homeopathic, though I do know an excellent one for the flu.
If you will notice, he predicted that someone would call him a pawn of industry if he dared to present the actual facts of the situation. You proved him right with the "pollution apologist" insult.
What about all the Scientology books he's "written" since his death? Seriously, he puts out more books post-mortum than TuPac does CDs!
He appears to have no problem with it at all. However, you appear to reject in a knee-jerk fashion if it does not fit your own religion.
and spend the money on that rather than on condoms and HIV drugs...
The magic ingredient was benzocaine, a local anaesthetic, which made the judges' tongues go numb. We didn't even think about trying it on our genitals.
The fact that they did not have a problem with putting a condom on their tongues is a little worrisome.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Who created the laws of physics, and how did they become all-powerful?
They are in New Zealand too....
I am ashamed for all NZers
And besides, why should it matter? After all, in China emissions are always positive!
Psh, I've tried it. Half an hour later: hungry again.
You failed science class, didn't you? You don't assume things and then try to disprove them. You take the knowledge you have, produce a hypothesis that logically follows from that knowledge, and test it, thereby acquiring new knowledge. Just because it's impossible to disprove the existence of green hairy aliens on Alpha Centauri doesn't imply that you can claim they are there.
This is exactly his point: for "intelligent design" to be "proved" (or supported) scientifically, it must be possible to disprove it. That is, one must run tests which could have more than one outcome in order to give it scientific credibility. Of course, it could still have non-scientific credibility.
If you still want to argue, how about some classic mind-twisters: if some intelligent being created life, who created the intelligent being? How the hell did he become all-powerful?
You can make arguments like this against any cosmology. If there is no God, then what was the first event? What caused it? Why is there time? And space? Physics will never explain these. (Hint: explaining time and space as sections of or approximations to a 27-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold might (if superstring theory holds) explain why time and space look like they do, but then you're stuck explaining why the universe looks like such a manifold). The best physical explanation for a universe favorable to life is the Anthropic Principle, but even that makes rather large assumptions. Humans can't know everything, and this question is simply too big for us.
Similarly, no religion will ever explain why there is a god, or many gods.
Does this not violate the basic laws of physics as well as produce logical contradictions?
Are you suggesting that an omnipotent being would be bound by the laws of physics (or logic, for that matter) in a world it created?
What evidence do you have for the existence of such a being?
The bible. Doesn't seem to be entirely historically accurate (eg, location of the city of Ai), but it's not too far off on stuff that can be tested. Scores of prophets, most of which had pretty good prediction rates of specific events. Thousands of saints, and associated miracles (many with shady evidence surrounding them, eg the virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, but some are fairly well-documented, eg Joan of Arc). Many miracles have been submitted for testing to scientific groups, who are unable to explain the events within the bounds of science, and were convinced that something strange was going on (strange meaning supernatural, or natural but previously undocumented, as opposed to faked).
As a Christian, I'm obviously both biased toward and more knowledgeable about Christian miracles, but other religions have theirs. Nobody knows a natural explanation for tumo (Buddhist spiritual heating), although it is reasonable to believe that one exists.
Of course, one might argue that while many of these "miracles" lie outside of known science and/or probability theory, they don't constitute testable results. And most of them don't (however see tumo, studies of prayer, etc). But as I stated above, religion is not a scientific theory, and so has different standards of evidence.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Trojans sells condoms that are suppost to make you last longer.
I bought a box and they made my thingie num when I used it. It was the weirdest feeling I ever had Don't buy those.
Yes, and one of the ways China will switch to a cleaner energy source is by building very large dams for electricity. That certainly won't hurt the environment....
China is a developing nation in the eyes of the treaty only. They seem awfully industrialized to me (one of my definitions of a developed nation).
Sure, they emit less per capita CO2 than we do (or Europe), FOR NOW. But I suspect they would like to like at least as well as Europe does and when that happens, watch out.
They (can't) won't lower their emmissions forever.
And in any case, the data you quoted (from the NRDC) is incorrect. If they can't do simple math correctly, I won't bother with their other results. (Using EPA data, I estimate closer to a ten percent increase from 1996 to 1999). And the US data is much better than China data.
And regarding growth. US emissions increased 13 percent from 1990 to 2002 while GDP increased 42 percent in the same time (US EPA).
Finally, if CO2 is so bad, why allow any country who signed the treaty to increase their emissions? Probably because we don't have a very good idea on how much is too much and you couldn't get wide agreement.... And because we don't have a good idea, the US position is a good one pragmatically (maybe not ethical or moral)-if everyone else will reduce their emissions, not much reason for us to.
science is what Dehydrated Water is all about
You miss the point. You listen to too much AM talk radio. The treaty makes no distinction between developing and developed nations. China does not have a different set of rules to play with than the US. Both China and the US would have exactly the same set of obligations under this treaty. The reason things are easier for China is that China produces less emissions in the first place. If the US reduced its emissions to China's level, we would have the exact same obligations.
The US is permitted to increase its emissions under the treaty, as long as it gets the appropriate credits in trade from countries that reduce their emissions. This is the exact same set of rules under which China could increase its emissions.
The US is not being picked on because it's the US, it's rich, it's successful, or any reason even vaguely like that. The Kyoto treaty picks on the biggest polluters, without any regard to nationality or economic status.
If China polluted as much as the US, but nothing else about China changed, it and the US would be treated exactly the same under Kyoto. Get it yet?
The republicans got stuck in the creationism-thread above.
Just as it says on the packet, these things will make a man last longer - I know this for a fact.
and no I don't specifically "need" them but they can make a fun boost if you want to go into "Extra time"
"Center for Consumer Freedom" just screamed "industry front group", and sure enough, that's what it is. It's apparently run by a lobyist named Rick Berman to spread propaganda on behalf of his clients, in this case tobacco companies. He has another such group, the Employment Policies Institute, which opposes minimum wage increases on behalf of the restaurant industry, and yet another to oppose lowering DUI standards, backed by the beverage industry. So be careful who you accuse of having dubious credentials.
This is the most clever inclusion of an "I have a large penis" boast I have come across in some time.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This the original bad science .. alright then funny science awards!
Don't believe in cheap - ok not as hilarious - imitations.
What's wrong with them, and how "bad science?"
Isn't premature ejaculation a common problem for men, and the most effective cure some sort of spray that acts as to dampen sensations?
Adding this to a condom strikes me as a good idea, and less of an embarrassment to a male sufferer than having to get out a ventilator for their penis.
Was it only because the tip looked used, or something else as well?
I wouldn't call it bad science, I'd call it very good science (and good health too), just poor presentation.
I much prefer the Raven pecking open the oyster shell and liberating people to inhabit the earth.
Raven. bear and salmon THE holy trinity.
Run that up your totem pole and see who salutes.
I meant to say: ...because of the Anthropic Principle (see link) and the very simple tautology of "that which survives, survives."
The operative phrase was human-caused. That global warming exists is now generally accepted, but its causes are still wide open to debate, since we just don't know enough about how our atmosphere interacts with our local star. When we crack that problem, and factor into it all the pollution and other activities, we might be able to state for sure one way or the other. The question is should we err on the side of caution and cut back our polluting activities in case these do in fact turn out to be the problem? I'd say we should, since it would have additional benefits - but it might not "fix" global warming.
Minor nitpick - it's spelled Gandhi, not Ghandi.
My uncle has AIDS. He's known for two years. The doctors wanted to put him on HIV medications as soon as they knew.
He said no. He urged me, my family, to research every possible medicine [both mainstream and alternative] for AIDS
And we came up with a mix of different therapies.
MGN3
Immunofin
Colostrum
CCA30
Chlorophyll
We added a potent multivitamin, a specialized diet, as well exercise, meditation, and accupuncture.
He also quit smoking, stopped drinking, took up religion, and went back to school [he already had two degrees, one in accounting and one in computer science, now he's studying economics and law[
The doctors that he has seen are pretty much amazed. They count his viral load, check for other opportunistic infections and diseases, and do all sorts of tests, everything comes out great.
He feels wonderful, has very few symptoms, and happens to feel his health is greater than before he found out.
One of his friends, also with AIDS, is dead. He was on drug cocktail for one year and a half, he died in a hospital with a drip of AZT going.
However, I doubt this is what they are sending to Africa. The diet is one of the most important parts of the treatment. The supplements are expensive [bottles of CCA and Immunofin, etc, can run around $50 each] and some of the supplments you really have to search around for [example, MGN3 was banned by the government, no longer in production]
Of course, I know lots of you "Science geeks" will laugh and say it's a lie, but you'll start seeing nutrition and natural remedies coming back a lot in this drug society..
The Chinese news agency Xinhua stated that, "in China the radiation effect is always positive, leading to bigger and better vegetables that will revolutionise agriculture."
I can hear the jokes already..
In China, the Slashdot effect is always positive.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Isn't changing theories (or hypotheses) a pretty fundamental part of scientific method?
If you steal this sig, the only people who will profit are professional criminals.
Be a grown up. Admit you don't know. Science does not tell us. I can with equal validity assure you that the first event was the Easter Bunny laying a cosmic egg which then underwent the big bang (but I can't prove it because the big bang messed up the evidence.) If you don't like it, I can tell you about the big turtle at the bottom of the pile of turtles that holds the flat earth out of the sea being the one that started it all. I've got a sacred book scrawled on a pack of chewing gum which came to me via dictation from on high while in a trance as I stared at the neon sign of a Dairy Queen.
If you abandon evidence as the precondition for belief, then we cannot differentiate between the hundreds of creation myths from the peoples of the earth and all their belief systems. The maturity of the scientific world view is to recognize the limits of what we know, and accept them as such. Science is unique in that it doesn't claim to have all the answers it exhibits complete humility before nature, and asks only to know what can be revealed by patient questions. A god of the gaps, that retreats at each advance of science, is scarcely a credible beast.
What caused it? Why is there time? And space? Physics will never explain these.
God did it ok... if that explains it for you... It does nothing for me. Let's take the question apart. What do you mean by "why?"
When we ask why an avalanche happenned, I think I am going to be happy with an answer which talks about heavy snow, warm temperatures, and a loud mouth in the valley. That "why" is answering a physical mechanism. Saying God did it, does not provide me with much guidance as to how to predict or avoid getting avalanched on in the future. Science provides a pragmatic and useful answer. (100% solution: only go in the summer.)
Sometimes when we ask why, we are trying to discern the intent of an entity. Why did the lioness attack the antelope? We could say that God had decided that the antelope's time on the earth was at an end. On the other hand, we could look at the lion's actions over a period, and determine that the lion was running low on calories and required sustenance to continue living and protecting her cubs. I find the latter answer more satisfying.
So if you are asking the first sort of why question, which goes to mechanism. Then Science will provide the answers. If you are asking about intent, then you are turning the question on its head, because only a being could have intent. So asking why presupposes that there is a god in the first place, and is perfectly circular. .
If you are going to quote the bible, then I will ask you to reconcile it with the Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Buddhism (Tibetan or otherwise), Taoism, Shinto, The Koran, the Torah, and all our knowledge of at least the Norse, Roman, Greek and Egyptian Pantheons for a start. There are more Wiccans, Moonies, and Jedi knights living today than there were christians living when the bible was written. If you begin quoting stories, then you have to take all the stories there are, not just a couple that are culturally closer to you. Saying "but God only wrote this book" (as opposed to the other folks who claim the same for their sacred writings) is not convincing. Science has a ready reconciliation mechanism avialable: Show us evidence, reproducible results, and predictive hypotheses. If you throw out that requirement, and decide to start believing stories, then there have to be good, solid reasons for why we need to literally believe Cain And Abel, but not The Three Little Pigs, or the seven labours of (the demigod) Hercules, the Trojan war, or the Merchant of Venice, though I adore them all.
Religious folk seem to think they can cherry pick from the entire heritage of the earth to only refer to western civilisation, to pick only the bible as sac
But I don't think so. I think they view the evidence, think very hard about it, build their climate models carefully, review other published ideas in the field, and that over the last two decades this has brought them to the consensus that man-caused global warming is real and that there will be around 3 degrees C +/- 1 degree C of increase in global mean temperatures over the next century (unless there are reductions in human greenhouse gas emissions).
See, for some basics written for general readers, www.realclimate.org
Your whole "it's just a theory, they haven't proved it yet" argument is the same crap that creationists trot out against evolution (falsely) and that tobacco companies trotted out for years against the "smoking causes cancer" scientific consensus.
Climatologists have proved it to their satisfaction. You got evidence they're wrong, submit it to a refereed journal in the area. If it's not good enough to be published in such a journal, then it's not good enough.
And if you think your evidence is good enough but that there's a vast conspiracy of scientists plotting together to prevent the truth ever being published in any scientific journal, then say so explicitly and reveal yourself as a crank.
Sean
PS: and regards your specific claims, of course we have evidence about how much sunlight the earth has received and how much C02 there was in the past - do you think that we take core samples for the fun of it? And of course our evidence is not 100% complete in all ways - that's how science works. Nor is predicting the weather a month from now the same problem as predicting overall long-term climate trends - so why do you conflate them?
I just wanted to second the Tom Sharpe recommendation. Like a perverted Wodehouse. I picked up the recommendation on the Usenet ~10+ years ago and would like to return the favor: if you want to risk having a Depends Moment, read Sharpe.
...if I wanted to read garbage like that, I'd go to \.
How about modding this "troll" rather than "insightful"? It has succeeded in totally derailing the discussion, as it was no doubt designed to. The next several hundred posts are in response to this off-topic remark and ignoring the FA, which is from a British newspaper where this isn't an issue at all.
The problem with not believing in God is once you get to the point where it can be proven, its too late. Therefore, the logical conclusion is to believe in God. - Pascal's Wager [wikipedia.org]
Glad to see a fellow believer in Zeus. Or is that Odin? No, it must be a fellow believer in WICCA, the only naturalistic religion.
See, this is the result of dumbing down the definition of "begging the question". You don't recognize a circular argument when it's in front of you.
You must give me all your money or you will go to Hell. See "Pascal's wager" for why. It will clearly tell you that since you MIGHT go to Hell if you don't, you might as well do "it".
Can a programmer recognize a recursive algorithm when he sees it?
You'll need a whole HELL of a lot of class time:
1) Christian 'Genesis' / Sumerian creation myth
2) Chinese creation myth
3) Norse creation myth
4) Egyptian creation myth
5) Simulation ala 13th floor / eXistenZ
6) Simulation ala Matrix or Metamorphasis of the P I
7) Benevolant aliens
8) Aliens using us for food or labor
9) Our own species which used very advanced technology to ensure it's own existence by going back in time...
I could go own. Lots of well thought out theories.
Oh wait, you just meant parts of #1. Well, that's not very fair is it?
Evolution is the best answer we have that doesn't make a whole lot of assumptions or is based on verbal lore. I think we should focus most of our class time on that.
When something else comes up that seems to be a better explanation that is both testable, demonstratable, and useful, I'd gladly replace evolution.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think I have a better example.
Seriously. Seems to me that kind of thinking is what a sore loser crybaby would come up with...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
... I can't find the fucking reference.
Anyway, its about some kind of squirrel or rodent in Australia, and that the specices was originally one (from mito-DNA evidence), but now one population has differently shaped tails, different feeding patterns, and they can no longer interbreed.
They are consider seperate species in their genus.
The populations got seperated during a food shortage across some gorge, which widened through erosion over the course of like a few thousand years, and now they can't access each other.
Maybe it isn't Australia, and that's why I can't find the reference. Arrgh.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
"However the winner was Space Tomato Number One, part of the Chinese government's "space breeding" project, where radiation in space is used to create comic book mutations and giant space plants, including tomatoes weighing almost a kilogram"
Ironic for an article about bad science to confuse mass and weight!
It is true that scientific theories and hypothesii
Hypothesii? Hypothesii??
I'm afraid I can't keep reading until you provide me with a corrected transcript.
(I'll let someone else refute the rest of your nonsense...)
The SCI.SKEPTIC faq/Creationism
The Skeptical Creationism Website
And much more at: Google, You Fool!
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
This is not a personal attack; that's why I'm posting as me, and not as an AC. I, too, have read Battlefield Earth, and I cannot, for the life of me, see this book as anything but Science psychofantasy. Compare Hubbard, if you dare, to Asimov, Bradbury, or Heinlein: the differentiation of underlying literary focus is staggering. The three good men whom I mention as counterpoint to Hubbard all used SF as a device to further their plots; Hubbard used it as a way to describe Scientology without giving away information he wanted people to PAY for. Automagical dissemination of information to mentally-challanged humans was the closest thing Hubbard had (well, that and the telepotation ... ) to science, and supposedly this information feeder caused Johnny Two-Guns to become John Rambo, John Wayne, and George Washington combined, as well as some Chuck Yeager, Issac Asimov, and L. Ron Hubbard. I am not being snobbish or elitist. I just cannot classify Battlefield Earth as anything more than a poorly written introduction to the precepts and concepts of Scientology. You are correct in stating that there is no OVERT mention of Scientology, but if you created a skeletal outline of the development of Johnny and the concepts he grows to have, you would probably have a document that would be similar to a "Begginer's Guide to Scientology". Again, I'm posting as myself to establish my points as non-troll. I hope that you take them in that fashion.
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Not really. The definition of "science" I've been taught includes a requirement of falsifiability. If something lacks any way it could be proved to be false (philosophy, modern religion, etc), it cannot be subjected to scientific methods.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
And just *what* do you plan on doing with those monkeys, young man!?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
This is GOOD science. They'll have women telling stories about you.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
And therein lies your fundamental flaw.
Religion is not supposed to be "tested". "God will not be tested."
You misunderstand the Scientific Method. These "personal experiences" are not reproducible, not testable, (not measureable), can not be independently observed and verified, do not make predictions which produce results etc. etc.
Many people go around shouting, "I'm a Cristian!"
Many people also go around shouting, "I'm a Scientist."
People may believe things if you shout about them enough, however that does not make them true or false.
Stick Men
There's an interesting psychology experiment (read here on slashdot) where they put you in a room with two strings dangling from the ceiling. You're asked to tie the strings together. Holding one sting, you can't reach the other one. With out cutting or taking down the strings, how do you do it? All you have to work with is a pair of pliars. (BTW, even with extended reach of the pliars, you still can't reach the other string.)
[spoiler alert]
I've heard that one before, although it involved a PDA instead. Tie the pair of pliars to the end of one string, and set it swinging so that - when holding the other string - you can reach the swinging string. Now catch the swinging string and voila!
Black holes are where God divided by zero
That TuPac was a scientologist, and that he attained OT1 too!
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Take a look at their web site:
Bio Ionic Professional Hair Care System utilizes technologically advanced Natural Ion Complex to deliver natural negative ions to the hair. Natural negative ion energy is powerful enough to break water molecule clusters into micro-fine particles (atomization) and penetrate the hair shaft. That means moisture balance is restored and the hair cuticle is sealed.
So they've dropped their claim to be shrinking water molecules.
Of course they've already shown themselves to be full of hooey.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Maybe this idea should be stressed in school: http://www.flat-earth.org/
If you discount the terrorist leader Saddam Hussein and his vast "Republican Guard" terrorist army, yes there were not terrorists there. I guess those guys meant diddlysquat in Iraq. Abu Nidal, one of Saddam's guests? I guess he was a peaceful Nobel prize winner.
In fact, the terrorists ruled before Saddam's aggression forced the US to fight back. Iraq used to be about 100% terrorist ruled. Now they only control dwindling pockets.
Yes, all the enemies of our Dear Leader GW Bush are TERRORISTS (tm). All despots, dictators and other figures on our bad side ARE DIRTY TERRORISTS WHO WERE PROBABLY INVOLVED IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS SOMEHOW, SEE THEY ONCE HAD A TERRORIST LIVING IN THEIR COUNTRY, SEE? WHY DON'T YOU LIBERAL TRAITORS GET IT?
I mean it's not like the US has ever harbored terrorists, right? (of coarse not, they ain't terrorists if they be killin' commies!)
The various flavours of Creationism rely on the infallibility of the Bible - the Bible says that it is true, thus, it is true.
If, however, he has to tweak the Bible in order to fit its words into established reality, via the mechanism of "mistranslation", then the Bible becomes fallible, and EVERY word in it is suspect.
The Bible is either the correctly transcribed, perfect word of God, or it is not. If it has to be "corrected" to match known reality, then that is a strong argument that perhaps the wiser course would be to study that reality and ignore the obviously flawed book.
Incidently, you have a flawed assumption of your own in there. Evolution, simply stated, is a process whereby organisms use sexual reproduction to pass inherited traits to their offspring. If those traits promote some sort of reproductive advantage, they tend to survive and get passed along to the next generation. If those traits provide some sort of reproductive disadvantage, then they tend to be culled before they can be reproduced and passed along.
This is a necessary side-effect of the way DNA and sex works.
But there is no "direction" to evolution. Evolution does not "seek" "higher" forms.Instead, the pressures of evolution tend to select organisms who are better survivors in their particular environment.
If your environment is an underwater hot mineral vent, you are probably better off as a microbe or a worm than as a bird or a monkey. And if those vents suddenly shut off, the selective pressures of your new environment will probably work against you rather than for you.
So your underlying assumption that "evolution moves to a higher state" is false. Evolution seeks no such thing. Evolution seeks to adapt organisms to their environment - HOW that happens is strictly a matter of chance.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Come on, admit that you WANT this to become a meme to live forever as the author of it. And yet, disguise it as "i fear we may have..." But hey, memes are not created just when YOU decide it, are they.
I don't have a sig.
The thing people forget is that geocentrism is part of the old testament, much like creationism. (Ps 93:1 "the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.", 1 Chr 16:30 "Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved." a few other verses). The phrase "the earth moves" is what makes heliocentrism in conflict with the Bible. Galileo was under (loose) house arrest for 20 years because of this, and his last words are reportedly "but it [the earth] moves" (in Italian, of course).
So if creationism is documented in the Bible, so is geocentrism (or any other theory where the earth does not move). In the meantime, I'm joining the protest at the Red Lobster (Lev 9:10-12 "And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you."
What you are talking about is bad logic. You can't take a theory and test it by looking for its outcome. If A implies B, and B is found, that can *not* lead you to conclude that A is valid. All it means is that A *could* be valid. There could also be an X than implies B. You don't know that. Ther testing of the thoretical outcome of a theory does not prove it, it only "does not disprove" it.
Isn't teaching creatism the same as reverse evolution?
Seriously, we're replacing sound science with fuct fiction. In my (somewhat politically incorrect) opinion, anything with religious ties should in general be banned from schools. Religion is a private thing, and should not be taught or spread through public means, resources or institutions.
Freaking nutjobs.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
> As soon as a supernatural element is involved, science is incapable of determining the truth and is the wrong tool to use for it.
This is very true, as it pushes the argument out of science into philosophy. But if you think that this ends the argument, then I ask you to tell me why any particular supernatural element is any more valid than any other. That's where the parent of your post stands when he says that not every guess is as good as any other. While it's possible that the Bible has the right Genesis story, it's also possible that some other supernatural element is correct, and there's nothing in your theory that can refute it. This makes it possible to re-simplify the argument back into the realm of science by saying, "I won't assume that Biblical Creation is any more right than other supernatural idea, so I'll conditionally reject them all at this time." Then you can explore options that don't require a supernatural element and see what comes out.
Virg
"You are obviously not familiar with British English, where entities comprised of multiple people are referred to with a plural. E.g., the police are conducting an investigation"
That is incorrect and illogical. The C in BBC after all stands for company, not companies. Should we say "he are an actor" because this man, whomever it is, is a collection of cells?
"The Police" is a different sort of term; a plural. It does not apply to this discussion. Here is how it goes:
"The police are..."
"The police department is...."
"The Big 3 are...."
"Ford Motor Company is...."
"The BBC is..."
China is a developing nation in the eyes of the treaty only. They seem awfully industrialized to me (one of my definitions of a developed nation).
CIA Factbook article on China
CIA Factbook article on USA
The CIA Factbook doesn't seem to have an entry for the EU as a whole, but their GDP per capita appears to be in the ballpark of $20k-$30k and growth rates appear to be in a similar area, small percentages centering around zero.
China is radically behind what we would normally refer to as the "developed world" in per capita GDP and apppears to be growing faster than our economy. That seems to fit a reasonable definition of "developing".
This article is a hoot. It contains the phrase:
... The Chinese news agency Xinhua stated that, "in China the radiation effect is always positive, leading to bigger and better vegetables that will revolutionise agriculture."... /.ers RTFA, would be destined to replace our aging "In soviet Russia, the government [verb of your choice] YOU!" joke.
Which, if more
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I would be willing to give a fair reading to your friend's theories. Does your friend have a name? Where can I find a writeup of this analysis? I find that the "I have a friend..." argument is badly overused, so I put you on the spot to provide particulars.
Virg
Only abstinence is being taught in schools, so people have no idea what to do with condoms, besides smuggle drugs.
> Likewise, to argue that the process of evolution was able to produce the advanced, intricate life forms we have now from elementary particles simply on the basis of chance is highly problematic at best. The probabilities required to make macroevolution successful as a completely undirected process simply do not work within the time period allowed for how long we currently understand the age of the universe. You need to posit some sort of extraterrestial involvement (as suggested in the recent PBS Nova Origins program) or a theory of multiple universes to make it all work.
I've been reading your posts and I find you're very articulate and very intelligent about your points, but I've just had it with you.
You're being an idiot.
You're being an idiot.
There. Do I have your atention now? Good.
Your view of the theory of origins is broken. It's badly broken. Basing your argument on it makes you look like a buffoon, and your posts show that you're not. Please pay close attention, because many people like you assume that your view of how evolution works is the way it works, and it's wrong. Read this carefully, because it's going to force you to change your argument to compensate. I'll address your errors one at a time.
> Likewise, to argue that the process of evolution was able to produce the advanced, intricate life forms we have now from elementary particles simply on the basis of chance is highly problematic at best.
I highlighted the error. Neither macro- and micro-evolution rely on chance as the driving mechanism. Sure, chance plays a role, but only insofar as natural selection allows for adaptation. Evolution adapts, and maladaptation tends to die off. To show natural selection at work, Consider a box with 1000 pennies. Shake it, then take out a fistful. Throw back most of the heads, and pile the tails outside the box. Now, chance will change how many you throw back, and how fast the pile moves from the box to the stack, but eventually, the outside force (your choosing tails preferentially) will tilt the population to the pile. For a more extreme example, show a page of text to a person. Give them ten minutes to memorize it. Make them recite it, then shoot them if they fail. Soon, one of three things will happen. Either you'll have a smaller population that can do it, it will turn out that memorization is genetic and so your population will spring back, now full of good recitalists, or you'l eventually kill everyone off.
The point is that the mechanism for change is evolution, which incorporates a certain amount of chance. But the driving force of evolution is natural selection, where the environment itself decides which traits allow survival and which cause extinction.
> The probabilities required to make macroevolution successful as a completely undirected process simply do not work within the time period allowed for how long we currently understand the age of the universe.
I agree, but the highlight above shows that this is just a reiteration of your first error. Macroevolution isn't a completely undirected process. Saying it is doesn't make it so.
> You need to posit some sort of extraterrestial involvement (as suggested in the recent PBS Nova Origins program) or a theory of multiple universes to make it all work.
Once you grasp the first error in your view, this becomes rather less necessary. I don't rule them out (nor do I rule out God), but like Biblical history I tend to find it less likely than the theory of origins.
> What then requires the most faith?: believing in the God of the Bible --- or in unproven, materialistic, and speculative scientific theories?
Belief in God requires more faith. If I find a credible alternative to the theory of Origins, I don't have to worry about a crisis of faith, I'll just toss it by the wayside. I have no vested interest in evolutionary theory, i
Except that where acupuncture appears to work well in an area where science still understands very little, homeopathy appears to fail miserably and in direct contradiction to well-established and understood scientific principles.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
> The Bible is either the correctly transcribed, perfect word of God, or it is
not.
Let me clear up some straw men. You may still snort at what's left, but the confusion will be lessened.
In Christian doctrine, the Bible is inerrant, which is a stronger form of infallible. The Pope is infallible according to Catholic doctrine, but not inerrant.
To be more precise, the Autographa of the Bible is inerrent. The Autographa is the original untranslated message before any copying or translation. (There is a "King James Only" cult that claims that certain translations are inerrant, but I will ignore them since they typically can't even tell you which edition of the Authorized Version they are talking about.)
As a consequence, investigating the transmission (copying) or translation of the text are legitimate theological pursuits. Textual criticism investigates the transmission, and is a very interesting subject. In general terms, the Hebrew texts are very accurate copies - the scribes employed checksums on every line, but we have relatively few of them. The Greek texts are rather sloppy copies, with errors introduced on nearly every copy. However, we have many thousands of these from which the original text can be deduced with high certainty by arranging them in a tree.
At this point, you may be wondering what good inerrancy is when you can't see the actual document that is supposed to be inerrant. But wait, we aren't done yet. Even if you were present when God spoke to Israel from the mountain, uncertainties will arise from imperfections in the listeners perception and understanding of the words.
If you think about it, human language does not enable perfectly error free transmission of thoughts and ideas from one person to another. Some people take this to an extreme, and pretend that nothing we say is ever really understood at all. This can be a quite humorous concept, as readers of Lemony Snicket can testify. It is equally foolish to pretend that our individual perception and understanding are perfect. The truth is, that we *do* understand each other - but sometimes there are misunderstandings. If we treat each other with humility, we can clear up the misunderstandings as we discover them.
The same thing happens with Scripture. The inerrancy of Scripture is important for the authority it confers, not because it turns every reader into a Delphic Oracle. When you are trying to improve your understanding of it, you might consider the translation, the transmission, or your own mental misinformation. However, all this is sourced in the Autographa. Simply writing your own version takes you out of the realm of orthodox Christianity (for instance, many current leaders in the Episcopal church are no longer orthodox because of their recent stance that "the Church wrote Scripture, the Church can rewrite Scripture").
The bottom line is, the Bible is inerrant, but quoting Scripture doesn't make your argument automatically true and correct.
"In China, the radiation effect is always positive."
Well in all of their scientific documentation, things get bigger, meaner, have more teeth, breath radioactive fire, do neat kung-fu moves, and have a tendency to level Tokyo, New York, and Kyoto.
But as documented in an obscure scientific journal, this effects disappears after 2 hours. So eat quick before the martial arts hero (who did it because he was in search of his long-lost father) kills the killer tomatoes!
And to top it off, Killer Tomatoes 2 is out. (-;
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.