(Yet) Another Year End List

gordonb writes "New Scientist has yet another of those endless end-of-year lists, "13 things that do not make sense", including such topics discussed on Slashdot this year as the placebo effect, dark energy, and the ever-popular cold fusion. I know there are a lot more than 13 things that don't make sense, such as free markets, but, oxymorons aside, this is an interesting list, nevertheless."

Comments

Research mistakes or conundrums?

[dada21]

The placebo effect does work! A friend of the family is a hypochondriac (I used to be a BAD one), and always has the same cold or disease as someone else. I told her that the trick to fending off hypochondria is to gently tap the underside of her chin 5 times slowly and the symptoms will go away.

Guess what? It worked. I just made it up but I told her I heard about it on a medical show. The power of the mind is amazing, but it has taught me how easily duped we humans are. I guess this means don't trust anyone until you know what their end desire is.

This is an interesting article, but it seems common for them to say that these unknown "problems" might all boil down to bad research -- and I believe that could likely be the answer for many. "Bad research" covers all science conundrums: either you misread the results, or previous bad research gave you an incorrect theory.

Problems solved :)

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[edgr]

My sister had insomnia. I told her that I heard on a medical show on the radio that hitting oneself over the head with a hammer tends to help with sleeping. No more insomnia! I just made that up. Who said placebos don't work?

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not proving the placebo effect, because hypochondria's a mental state. The placebo effect is when a real illness is treated with a placebo, not when imaginary ones are treated with a placebo.

Think about it - there's nothing odd about make-believe cures being able to affect make-believe illnesses. It's like when you are kids, and your make-believe bulletproof vest stops your friends' make-believe bullets shot from their make-believe guns. The placebo effect is like when those make-believe bulletproof vests stop real bullets.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why homeopathic "medicine" appears to work.

Re: Research mistakes or conundrums?

[swac]

The placebo effect does work! A friend of the family is a hypochondriac (I used to be a BAD one), and always has the same cold or disease as someone else. I told her that the trick to fending off hypochondria is to gently tap the underside of her chin 5 times slowly and the symptoms will go away. I don't think it's a question of whether the placebo effect works or not. Scientists know that it works; it's just an inexplicable phenomenon. My first /. post :)

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[BushCheney08]

The key word here is 'appears'. When subjected to double-blind studies, the results of homepathic medicine are totally inconsistent, generally on the side of failing.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[DavidTC]

Both you are wrong. Homepathic medicine is a placebo, and hence it works exactly as much as other placebos. (Which is why it gives inconsistent results in double-blind tests where it's compared to other placebos. It's comparing water to water.)

However, it doesn't just 'appear' to work, it does work for the simple matter that placebos do work.

This is a known medical fact, despite the fact it makes no sense. Placebos work better than doing nothing quite often, ergo, homopathy works better than doing nothing quite often.

Of course, it's idiotic to spend that money when you can just, I dunno, pray or something.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[yurnotsoeviltwin]

A good friend of my family had throat cancer from smoking for twenty-odd years, and he is now in permanant remission after being placed on the placebo of an experimental drug program. Chalk it up to prayer, or chalk it up to the placebo effect, your choice.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

At the risk of trying to teach my granny to suck eggs, are we sure saline solution itself doesn't have properties we don't understand?
I don't see any other placebo mentioned as working.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It is you who is wrong. Water has "molecule memory." Haven't you played nethack? Like cures like. Eating most poisonous animals gave a chance of conferring poison resistance. So, mix applewood ash with the shadow of a sparrow, dilute to 1 / 10^30 the original concentration, and drink to cure the flu. IT"S TRU!!@!

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that something that provides inconsistent results is proof that it 'works'? BZZZT. Something is proven to work when it provides consistent results that are within a statistically acceptable margin of error.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

But my bullets are armor piercing, so they go right through your vest.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Nicolas MONNET]

Of course, it's idiotic to spend that money when you can just, I dunno, pray or something.

I believe otherwise; wasting money on it is probably a part of its efficiency. It's called "commitment" in social psychology.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

You omitted a third option. Remissions occur anyway, so there is no need to chalk it up either to prayer or placebo effect.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[gowen]

The placebo effect is like when those make-believe bulletproof vests stop real bullets.

The difference being that study after study shows the placebo effect to work, whereas the only extensive use of real bullets on make-believe armour found the placebo armour to be sadly ineffective...

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Leontes]

Mental illnesses are real illnesses and have hard, acute neurological expression in the brain. There is nothing "make-believe" about something that is chronic, repetitive and deeply seated. Depression is not just something that can be snapped out of, nor can PTSD be ignored into dissipating, the fear and desperation of hypochondria comes is real. These illnesses are not merely coming from a person who is playing a casual game of make-believe who needs to get a grip. Mental illnesses are the flipside of the placebo effect: It's when your make-believe bullets pierce your real bulletproof vests.

This isn't even looking at somatoform disorders (physical ailments that come from the toll of being in a mental illness). The truth is that the human mind is far more of a powerful, persuasive instrument than we are normally led to believe and the state of mentality is very much a physical rather than imaginary thing. Placebo effects likewise are not usually effective in helping such mental disorders, so the grandparent's point that it works is meaningful and should not be dismissed. Most likely, the tapping repetition forced the client to breath, and take note and prevent the panic that is prevalent in most anxiety disorders, which in turn backed the person away from their usual repetition compulsion, bypassing the worse part of her illness.

Re: Research mistakes or conundrums?

[cyborg_zx]

Hardly inexplicable.

There are only three things that can occur with a medical condition:

1) It improves
2) It worsens
3)It stays the same

The placebo effect is simply the instance where 1 occurs and substance X is credited even though substance X had no effect on the condition.

Re: Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Diomedes01]

The placebo effect is simply the instance where 1 occurs and substance X is credited even though substance X had no effect on the condition.

Yes, but the placebo effect has been shown to have a statistically significant effect on the treatment outcome. Thus, your statement that "substance X had no effect on the condition" is misleading. Patients who receive neither the real treatment nor the placebo do not show the same rate of improvement as patients receiving a placebo.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another classic dada21 post.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[renoX]

In the article they talk about pain relief by a placebo, so pain is not a totally real bullet either: pain is quite influenced by the mind even without placebo.
Once I shielded me for the pain of a dying nerve in a tooth by reading a book, and a dying nerve in a tooth is *quite* painful, granted this is quite different from a placebo more similar with the use of hynosis to shield a patient from pain during a surgery.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[CODiNE]

Hey THANKS! I feel a lot better already. :D

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Surt]

And think about it some more: there's nothing odd about a placebo curing a real illness either. The brain is highly connected to the body, and if you believe you are getting cured, there's an obvious pathway for that to have an effect. What would be surprising would be if people who thought they were receiving no treatment, but were being snuck a placebo in some way reacted differently from people who believed they wre receiving no treatment and were not receiving placebo.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

Mental illnesses are real illnesses and have hard, acute neurological expression in the brain.

Certainly some people have strong difficulties in their lives. And certainly some people have deformities or injuries to their nervous system. But the idea that "mental illnesses" such as depression have direct neurological expression is not as supported as SSRI makers would like you to believe. (Another link: here.)

Labeling psychological difficulties (other than neulogical illness or injury) is questionable. It has strong legal and social consequences that we ought to consider.

The DSM, the official defintion of mental health and illness, has its roots in a military effort to decide who was too crazy (or not crazy enough?) to be a soldier. It's critera for listed condtions are famously vauge. And who decides which condtions are "illnesses"? Just a few decades ago, homosexuality was a "mental illness" according to the DSM.

These illnesses are not merely coming from a person who is playing a casual game of make-believe who needs to get a grip.

I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should use the word "illness" to describe these states.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

The placebo effect does work!

Of course it does. My mom used to be a nurse, and they'd often "placeboize" patients whose pain meds didn't seem to be working.

The problem is, the term can cover several different phenomena:

1. Researcher/therapist bias. We see what we expect to see; I think this pill will make you stop complaining, so therefore after I give it to you I don't notice your complaints as much.
2. Subject reporting bias. We say what we believe we're expected to say. My head still hurts but I know the nurse wants me to say it doesn't, so I say my headache's gone.
3. Subject perception bias. We see what we expect to see; I expect the pill to help, so even though the same pain signals are entering my brain, they are interpreted differently.
4. Non-specific physiological changes in the subject. Some physiological change happens, but it's not due to the therapy but due to incidental conditions. For example, I go in for some placebo surgery and what really makes be better is a few days of bedrest and nursing care, not the operation. (Or mybe it's due to the anesthesia, or the general stimuation of getting cut open, not because of the specific surgery.)
5. Specific physiological changes in the subject. This is the realm of neuropsychoimmunology, where we see sort of a "feedback loop" between belief and physiological functioning. It's this level that TFA refers to.

Re: Research mistakes or conundrums?

[sgant]

You're using logic...this isn't a logical thing.

From the article: "he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared."

If you read the orginal test report, the patients didn't know they were getting naloxone at all. they just thought they were getting their morphine shot...which wasn't a morphine shot but the placebo followed by the naloxone...which made the pain appear again. This is the inexplicable part. Neither the naloxone or the saline solution should have done anything...logically. Yet they both acted as if the saline solution was real morphine.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[DavidTC]

Huh?

You don't need to 'prove' homeopathy works to the same level as other placebos. You could, but I don't see anyone running around asserting it doesn't.

Placebos work. Telling someone you are giving them some medicine to make them better can make people better, even if the medicine is fictional, and even if the disease is real. This is medical fact that has been known for decades, it is not disputable. Why it happens is unknown, but it happens.

Ergo, homeopathy, even if it works in an identical way to normal water (Which I say it does.), should logically work as a placebo.

Well, hilariously, you could do the test on me, and if you were to tell me something was a homeopathic treatment, it might not work, as I think homeopathy is a load of crap, but if you tell me it's a real medicine it would work. So in my case, homeopathy doesn't work as well as a 'medical' placebo. OTOH, there are people who it would be exact opposite, and people who placebos work better for if they are given a fake medical name, or the phrase 'free radicals' are in there somewhere, etc...

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[DavidTC]

Prayer has commitment. You have to do all the god-believing and tithing.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Evil Pete]

But if you had read the article you would have noticed that the placebo effect was blocked by the addition of naloxone a morphine blocker. All in the mind or all in the biochemistry?

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[iocat]

Spoken like someone who's never known anyone with a mental illness! What description would you use? I agree that mental illness may be over-diagnosed, or that some people may try to claim mental illness as a crutch to avoid dealing with problems, but if you've ever known someone who is actually manic-depressive, or suffers from true clinical depression, you know it's as real as heart disease.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

Spoken like someone who's never known anyone with a mental illness!

Don't tell me who or what I don't know. Among my friends and acquintances are "bipolars", "depressives", at least two "PTSDs", two who could be probably be diagnozed "multiple personality disorders", one sure and one probable "borderline personality disorders", and a few "panic disorders". Oh, and of course a few "addicts", anyone in the Baltimore area knows some former junkies. And a "co-dependant". (Some of these overlap, of course.)

A few of these people are former lovers. I've talked them through panic attacks, PTSD flashbacks, and the really really strong desire to fall off the wagon. Another was a housemate, who I visited several times after she checked herself into the local mental hospital.

And I've had clients and students with various "mental illnesses".

I myself could probably have found someone to diagnose me as "depressive", or perhaps the more trendy "bipolar", at least until a few years ago. My doctor dropped Prozac hints at me on more than one occasion. I'm feeling much better now, thanks.

if you've ever known someone who is actually manic-depressive, or suffers from true clinical depression, you know it's as real as heart disease.

The question is not whether it's real. The problems are very real. The question is whether it's useful to label problematic states of consciousness, ideas, and behaviors as "diseases" or "illnesses", or whether other ways of thinking of them may be more useful.

My frustration with the idea that these problem are disease states comes not from ignorance, but from seeing how unhelpful - indeed, sometimes harmful - the "disease model" has been for most of these people.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think his point was that they weren't real just that there isn't proof that there is a direct neurological representation at this time for many of these "illnesses". There are certainly some mental illnesses that are obvious diseases with abnoramalities that affect a persons consciousness and self-awareness. Bi-polar with dilusions, extreme depression and schizophrenia come to mind, but we use mental illness as an excuse/explanation for people who are emotional by nature, people who are mentally weak, people who are irresponsible and people who simply don't match our ideas of what is "normal" or "acceptable". We need to be careful about designating all of this as mental illness because of the social, medical, and legal issues that arise from calling these "illnesses" without a scientifically sound understanding of an underlying pathology. Some of these illnesses are simply biological diversity and natural states and to treat them as illnesses is a diservice to both the sick and the healthy. Again I don't think his point was that mental illness isn't real just that there isn't direct evidence of many of them yet and that many are mis- over- and radomly diagnosed by the money machine that is our health care system. (note this isn't a totally idictment of the U.S. system...it's currently one of the best in the "civilized world" but to ignore the influence of money on the system is simple naive)

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[khallow]

That's not proving the placebo effect, because hypochondria's a mental state. The placebo effect is when a real illness is treated with a placebo, not when imaginary ones are treated with a placebo.

Why not? We have a lot of evidence that the mental state effects the physical state.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[pureevilmatt]

Relieving a symptom(or all symptoms) of an illness is not equivalent to curing the illness.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Magic5Ball]

The placebo effect is like when those make-believe bulletproof vests stop real bullets.

If we had one of those placebos, we would be very close to solving every physics problem on the list.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[bjs555]

Glad to hear your friend is ok. This could also have been a case of misdiagnosis. A friend of mine was misdiagnosed with lung cancer 10 years ago. He was/is a heavy smoker. I don't think doctors are immune to anti-smoking hysteria.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not mistake symptoms for illness. A placebo will affect the symptoms, not the illness.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[evilviper]

In the article they talk about pain relief by a placebo, so pain is not a totally real bullet either: pain is quite influenced by the mind even without placebo.

Pain can be ignored by the mind, but I really wouldn't say pain is influenced by the mind (in any other way that that).

Maybe I'm just an exception, and not susceptible to suggestion, but I know I've had many times that something hurt a lot more than I expected, or a lot less than I expected. Obviously, if the mind had any influence on pain, that wouldn't have been the case.

Once I shielded me for the pain of a dying nerve in a tooth by reading a book, and a dying nerve in a tooth is *quite* painful,

Again, that's just ignoring pain, not at all convincing yourself that there isn't any pain there.

Placebo is interesting specifically because the suggestion changes everything. People don't feel better after getting a placebo instead of morphine if they KNOW that they are getting a placebo.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[TwentyLeaguesUnderLa]

Well, they can't just pray - they have to spend money, because a placebo only works if the patient believes it will work. So the patient has to spend the money to get something that he thinks will work...

though I suppose for someone religious, prayer would work as a placebo.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[TwentyLeaguesUnderLa]

Well, from what I know, saline solution is used as a placebo precisely because we know it does nothing and most closely mimics blood. It's used as a generic placebo for comparison to any sort of medicine, not just this one.

That said, I don't know whether there have been tests as to whether saline solution actually does nothing or whether it does something... I'd guess there were, but don't know for certain.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, what is your definition of illness? In the majority of definitions I've found [google.com], the definition either explicitly includes mental illness or includes it through generalization.

Second, why do you insist not to use "illness"? Surely you're not a disgruntled english teacher. Once problems such as depression, schizophrenia, etc. are not considered illnesses, they will not be covered by health care. The rich people of the world will call their problems whatever they want, but people who cannot afford their own treatment do not have such a luxury.

Third, I am dismayed by your claims about "neurological expression". Where do you suppose these people's problems reside? Anything that happens to the mind occurs in the brain, and any other idea should not be in a scientific discussion. If you need to know more about this, pick up Principles of Neural Science by Kandel and Schwartz.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[yurnotsoeviltwin]

heh, no, he was definitely diagnosed correctly. He actually had his larynx removed before they started him on the experimental treatment (placebo) so he can only talk in whispers now. Somehow I doubt that they'd do that on a misdiagnosis. Interesting note - he hadn't smoked a cigarette in something like six year, possibly more, at the time he was diagnosed. He got the cancer even though he had quit.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Anonymous Coward]

The DSM had a lot of problems in it's early editions. I believe the consensus in the mental health professionals community is that the current edition of the DSM is a great improvement on earlier editions, however, it is only really used for diagnosis purposes (ie. administrative/insurances uses) and with a lot of people you can't fit them neatly into the categories provided.

However, I believe that the criticisms you provide of the DSM apply only to previous editions.

Re: Research mistakes or conundrums?

[wpiman]

Maybe pure saline is a pain reliever in itself. Try a different placebo.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Domo-Sun]

I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should use the word "illness" to describe these states... The question is whether it's useful to label problematic states of consciousness, ideas, and behaviors as "diseases" or "illnesses", or whether other ways of thinking of them may be more useful.

And why shouldn't we? We have to label it something. What should we call it, "happy happy fun fun"? Sounds like you're suggesting that labeling depression "depression" gives people a victim-hood mentality and an excuse to complain, and so we shouldn't call it that.

What about schizophrenia, or diabetes, or other conditions that people would maybe have more sympathy for. Labeling those conditions can have the negative consequence of bringing people down, but would you disagree with labeling them an illness because of that?

I agree that the drug companies are trying to sell drugs and maybe some people buy into it, maybe because they're stupid or don't know any better, but I think that your disdain and lack of sympathy for those people arises simply because you have your own problems, yet had to take care of someone else's, and no one helped you out of it and you didn't have to take drugs.

Oh, boo hoo! Where's my sympathy! This is the classic non sequitur of changing the subject from the problems of others, to the problems of you and everybody, to diminish the fact that some people have problems.

However small these problems may be, compared to a quadraplegic, or someone with a "real" illness, these conditions are problems, nonetheless.

By the way. I don't know one way or the other, but how would you know the drugs don't work if you never took any?

Your position is emotional and biased and it doesn't make any sense. We have little choice but to label these conditions something.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

And why shouldn't we? We have to label it something. What should we call it, "happy happy fun fun"?

How about "problem"? A "problem" calls for a "solution" or for a way of dealing with it, and makes the person a problem-solver; a "disease" calls for a "cure", and makes the person a patient, someone under the care and authority of someone else. (I think "problems of living" is the term Szasz likes to use.)

Or if you want something fancier, how about "psychosocial dysfunction"? I kind of like how that calls out the that the problem lies between the mind and society, that "sanity" is partially a social construct.

What about schizophrenia, or diabetes, or other conditions that people would maybe have more sympathy for.

The question is not sympathy! The question of whether the term "disease" is appropriate and helpful has nothing to do with how much sympathy we have.

Diabetes is a disease, it is a condition with definite observable physiochemical markers, that's how it is dignosed. Depression is not a condition with definite physiochemical markers, it is diagnosed based on behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs. (Schizophrenia, I believe, does have some definite diagnostic chemical markers, but I'm not sure about that.)

I can have just as much sympathy for someone with troublesome behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs as for someone with troublesome physiochemistry.

I think that your disdain and lack of sympathy for those people arises simply because you have your own problems, yet had to take care of someone else's, and no one helped you out of it and you didn't have to take drugs.

I have no disdain or lack of sympathy for people with these problems. Geez. If calles a broken leg a "disease", and I say, "no, it's an injury, disease is not the right word and creates confusion", does that mean that I have no sympathy for people with broken legs?

Of course I have my own problems. And no, I chose not to take drugs. (Uh...I chose not to take those drugs. :-) ) That doesn't mean I haven't gotten help in dealing with my problems.

However small these problems may be, compared to a quadraplegic, or someone with a "real" illness, these conditions are problems, nonetheless.

Of course! That's never been in dispute in this thread! Let me repeat myself one more damn time: "The question is not whether it's real. The problems are very real."

We have little choice but to label these conditions something.

That's no argument for labeling them diseases...if we label them "Former Presidents of the United States", we've labeled them something. The question is, what is an accurate and useful label?

I agree with those who don't think "disease" isn't a good choice.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

First, what is your definition of illness?

I'l steal a page from Szasz here:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, disease is "a condition of the body, or of some part or organ of the body, in which its functions are disturbed or deranged; a morbid physical condition." Diagnosis, in turn, is "the determination of the nature of a diseased condition ... also, the opinion (formally stated) resulting from such investigation."

The core medical concept of disease is a bodily abnormality. Literally, the term "disease" denotes a demonstrable lesion of cells, tissues, or organs. Metaphorically, it may be used to denote any kind of malfunctioning of individuals, groups, economies, etc. (substance abuse, violence, unemployment, et al.).

The psychiatric concept of disease rests on a radical alteration of the medical definition. The mind is not a material object; hence, it can be diseased only in a metaphorical sense. In his classic, Lectures on Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin--the founder of modern psychiatry--wrote: "The subject of the following course of lectures will be the Science of Psychiatry, which, as its name implies, is that of the treatment of mental disease. It is true that, in the strictest terms, we cannot speak of the mind as becoming diseased."

...

Diseases are physico-chemical phenomena or processes--for example, the abnormal metabolism of glucose (diabetes). Mental diseases are patterns of personal conduct, unwanted by the self or others. Psychopathology is diagnosed by finding behavioral, not physical, abnormalities in bodies. Disease qua psychopathology cannot be asymptomatic. Changing the official classification of mental diseases can transform non-disease into psychopathology and psychopathology into nondisease (i.e., smoking from a behavioral habit into "nicotine dependence"). In short, medical diseases are discovered and then given a name, such as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Mental diseases are invented and then given a name, such as attention deficit disorder.

(BTW, that's not to say I agree with Szasz on everything.)

Once problems such as depression, schizophrenia, etc. are not considered illnesses, they will not be covered by health care.

Why not? If I break my leg, that's not a illness, but it's covered by my health insurace. No reason why "problems with living" or "psychosocial dysfunctions" couldn't be covered.

I am dismayed by your claims about "neurological expression". Where do you suppose these people's problems reside?

A problem may reside directly at the level of the nervous tissue; alcoholism, for example, is a change in the (IIRC) ion channels along the axon. You could, in principle at least, look at the physiology and see the pathology. (Though the pathology is rather evident when someone gets severely ill or dies from the DTs.)

Other problems do not have such a pathology. Of course beliefs, behaviors, and ideas have some neurophysiological correlation, but not so directly. For example, there's no pathology of the nervous system in holding racist beliefs, which some argue should be considered mental illness. Problems like this are not diseases in need of a treatment, but dysfunctional relationships of the person with themself, other people, and the universe at large in need of adjustment. (Non-coersively, of course, unless the person is a credible threat to the rights of others.)

It's a trite analogy, but think of a "software problem" versus a "hardware problem". The software problem has an certainly has expression within the hardware, but it's not because the hardware is broken. Of course the brain is not a stored-program computer with a clean delination of hardware and software.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[SillySlashdotName]

Placebo is interesting specifically because the suggestion changes everything. People don't feel better after getting a placebo instead of morphine if they KNOW that they are getting a placebo.

To me the most interesting part is that, as stated in the article, even if the patient BELIEVES the placebo is doing something (in this case gets saline but believes it is morphine) but the placebo is formulated to actually work in an opposite way (in this case, naxolone, a morphine antagonist - it prevents morophine from binding to receptor sites in the brain - is added to the saline solution) the placebo DOES NOT WORK.

That means that, even though the body is NOT receiving an opiate, SOMETHING is binding to the opiate receptor sites (endorphins, maybe?). When the receptor sites are blocked the placebo does not work, when they are not blocked, it does work.

That means that the body PRODUCED ITS OWN MORPHINE (or actually, something that requires the opiate binding sites in the brain to work and had the same effect on pain as morphine) when it though it was receiving morphine but didn't actually get any.

Now if we can only figure out WHAT happened, HOW it happened, and how to MAKE IT HAPPEN on cue.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[evilviper]

That means that, even though the body is NOT receiving an opiate, SOMETHING is binding to the opiate receptor sites (endorphins, maybe?). When the receptor sites are blocked the placebo does not work, when they are not blocked, it does work.

Or the answer could be much simplier... It could just be that the naxolone is having some noticable physical effect, which tips off the patient to the fact that they aren't recieving morphine.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Domo-Sun]

I don't agree and I think that it does not logically follow that by calling mental problems illnesses, or diseases, that it becomes the same thing as Diabetes. And conversely, I also think that by changing the name into some euphemistic nonsense, you do not fix the problems associated with treatment, or diagnosis.

And by the way, you're not special. Doctors will throw Prozac at just about anything, they recommend Zoloft to prevent heart attacks because there's a correlation between happiness and less heart attacks. It's easier for a Dr to prescribe a pill then to listen to your complaints, however "real" they may be.

Some people will hear the words treatment, illness and disease, and interpret it all sorts of ways. Such as an excuse to do nothing, a belief that, as they suspected, they are messed up.. Some people are obsessed with getting help from others. And still, some will pretend that these words don't exist and ignore the doctors, to try and think their way out of there problem. Maybe they'll climb a mountain or something like that, to prove how un-disabled they are, to prove the doctors wrong, and to distract themselves; or maybe they'll become a fanatic like you. But it doesn't change the facts.

Also, where is your evidence that mental illness is not illness? Lack of evidence is not evidence.

Animals that are injured will curl up and stop eating and die. This state could be what many people are caught in who are depressed. It could be difficult to reverse this state. Many injured animals are caught and not reintroduced to the wild because they don't make it.

Depressed people have depressed activity in the frontal lobes, but if that's not enough for you, let's say that tomorrow, they find a chemical diagnostic criteria for depression. If that happened, then yes, that would make you less sympathetic towards people with mental illnesses because you're treating these conditions as things the individual needs to fix themselves.

Maybe you fixed yourself, because you're such a kick ass genius, but the majority of people can't program their VCR, and you're putting all the burden of mental illness on them by calling them problem solvers. Mental illnesses generally require the help of others. I don't see anything wrong with calling mental illnesses diseases. Adding the word Mental is quite good at narrowing the definition for those who get confused.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

Also, where is your evidence that mental illness is not illness?

I address this more in this post, so I'll just refer you to that.

you're putting all the burden of mental illness on them by calling them problem solvers. Mental illnesses generally require the help of others.

Who says you can't get help in solving a problem?

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Domo-Sun]

I'm not totally sure that racism or prejudice is never a pathology? There are people who get raped and beaten or watch their whole family get murdered by some black guys, and they turn racist. And there are blacks that become racist after their church gets burned down.

This is setting up a strong memory, probably in the same way as PTSD, where a car accident initializes adrenalin, which creates a strong memory, to illicit harm avoidance. This is great for avoiding alligators, or predators, but what happens when it's over activated in an individual. This could create overly anxious and paranoid individuals.

Also, this can be set up via education and culture, which teaches you that blacks are stupid, or that you shouldn't read because that's acting white, or that gays are depraved or whatever the popular opinion is.

Some of these scenarios are social pathology, especially where people find themselves unable to cope with life due to extreme anxiety, shyness, depression, or whatever. However it was initialized.

I don't agree with your position, or your links. The brain is not a hardrive that can be erased and reprogrammed, it's a solid object that is relatively static in it's construction.

you're putting all the burden of mental illness on them by calling them problem solvers. Mental illnesses generally require the help of others.

Who says you can't get help in solving a problem?

Who says you can't be a problem solver simply because we call mental problems, mental illnesses?

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Mr. Slippery]

Also, this can be set up via education and culture, which teaches you that blacks are stupid, or that you shouldn't read because that's acting white, or that gays are depraved or whatever the popular opinion is.

Education and culture are not neurological pathologies. That's the point.

To say that ideas and opinions can be states of disease is a very dangerous conclusion. If homosexuality can be a "disease" (as it was considered just a few decades ago) and racism can be a "disease", then any beliefs or ideas or emotional states unpopular enough with the official psychiatric community can be diseases. It's defintion by social contract rather than by objective analysis.

Failing to love the State is a disease, Comrade, but we can cure you with re-education.

The brain is not a hardrive that can be erased and reprogrammed, it's a solid object that is relatively static in it's construction.

Of course it's not a computer drive. But if the brain were static than our ideas and behaviours would never change. We'd be unable to learn, and there's be no way to change the troublesome ideas and behaviours we're talking about.

In fact our brain changes every day, thank goodness.

Re:Research mistakes or conundrums?

[Domo-Sun]

Education and culture are not neurological pathologies... It's definition by social contract rather than by objective analysis.

Of course beliefs can be pathological. People join cults and do all sorts of strange things, either because they believe, or because they've been taught to believe. They send chain letters that bring down the net, they believe in auto toxic memes. I'm only talking about things that are by objective, rational analysis. I don't agree that we should never, ever judge a belief as pathological. It doesn't have to be a slippery slope.

I'm ok with people being racist, if they want, on their own, in fact, they may have a sound reason to be racist. I just don't know? The point is that sometimes, it may be pathological. It's very hard to determine this. Maybe if it's someone who became racist after a random act of violence, where racism is the result of a sort of PTSD.

Seeing or hearing blacks can evoke a discomfort that can turn into hatred in such sensitive individuals. Anger and hatred are elements of discomfort, due to the inability to control the outcome of something. Something unexpected happens, as with anything that angers us, and people can get angry, or go into a rage or a fight. It may be too much for someone to expect to never see or hear blacks, gays or whoever. This is sort of like what you see with allergic reactions, which can become pathological. But in this case, the immune system is the brain, and its adrenalin and chemical response; while the allergens are memes.

I'm not suggesting that we put a disease entry into the DSM for racism. We don't have to. We can just realize that someone can have pathological hatred and discomfort around, regular everyday people, or innocuous memes. Or however you want to put that.

Yes, our brain changes, but how on earth do you change someone into being free of shyness, anxiety, or depression. It's not as easy as you suggest. Most people are rather static in their personality and disposition.

Dear New Scientist...

[Black Parrot]

> 2 The horizon problem

> This "horizon problem" is a big headache for cosmologists, so big that they have come up with some pretty wild solutions. "Inflation", for example.

What is "wild" about inflation? Our prior experience with examination of the universe on the largest and smallest scales should warn us to expect the unexpected.

> So, in effect, inflation solves one mystery only to invoke another.

If he would take the time to read up on the topic, he would find that inflation actually solves several problems.

> 4 Belfast homeopathy results
6 Viking's methane
7 Tetraneutrons
11 The Wow signal

Get back to us when you've got more than a single example of the purported anomaly.

> 8 The Pioneer anomaly

FWIW, someone suggested last year that we may be able to winnow the proposed explanations, because they all predict different directions of the anomaly.

> 9 Dark energy

> IT IS one of the most famous, and most embarrassing, problems in physics.

Why is this embarassing?

Does that have any bearing on the science of the issue?

> 12 Not-so-constant constants

Yawn.

> 13 Cold fusion

Giggle.

Is New Scientist trying to move in on the supermarket tabloid market?

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[s20451]

Why is this embarassing? Does that have any bearing on the science of the issue?

Physicists consider it embarassing when their existing theories make predictions that are off by more than a few orders of magnitude. The apparent effect of dark energy is something like 50 orders of magnitude larger than what current theories predict. I heard a cosmologist call this one of the most spectacular failures of modern physics, even if it doesn't have much bearing on our daily lives.

I am not a physicist, please correct me if this is inaccurate ...

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[kfg]

Why is this embarassing?

Because you mistakenly think you know all the answers.

But physics isn't about answers, it's about questions, and far from being an embarassment this problem is simply a Nobel waiting for its recipient. The most famous opportunity in physics.

KFG

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any friends? You're just so annoying. (Note: I'm not even disagreeing with your points. You're just obnoxious.)

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[Artifakt]

Inflation actually solves several problems, at the expense of predicting an infinite number of unobservable phenomina (whole parallel universes with differing physical laws). By Occam's Razor, absolutely any alternate explanation to inflation is to be preferred - I can claim the Flying Spagetti Monster did it, right after He invented time travel, assisted by exactly 144,000 seraphim, whose names, in order of mightyness, start with Larry, Moe, and Curley Sue, and I've still proposed a theory that generates fewer unprovable hypothesi than an infinite number of undetectable "alternate' universes.
        That's just for Guth's original work. Hawking tried to give some more backing to it, and had to postulate an unobservable second time dimension, an unobservable imaginary property to this second time axis, and as it turned out a way to apply a whole new form of math that involved rotation, ala trigonometry, without the negative quadrents existing to rotate through (since he dropped the negative half of the regular time axis fifty pages back). Even the totally mind boggleing concept of rotating vectors through dimensions that he had already rejected as non-existant didn't actually get rid of the infinite number of unobservable predictions problem, as Hawking finally acknowledged. Hawking was roundly criticized for treating imaginary in the mathematical sense as meaning imaginary in the common sense, and has since admitted he made both that and a few other mistakes in the papers behind "A Brief History of Time". If you know of someone who has done a better job, by all means, give a link, but all the ones I've seen seem to make the untestable predictions problem worse, not better.
        That's precisely what's wild about inflation - it makes an infinite number of untestable predictions, and is still considered science for the testable ones. It does explain a few things very well (like homogeneity), so it's probably on the right track somewhere, but the real thory we need (IMNSHO) is going to explain why the universe looks superficially like the classic Big Bang model, deal with the ways the very early universe deviates from that classical model, fully (and not partially or selectively)include QM in the first few femtoseconds, and either prove that some physical constants are non-random, or show that they don't, at the least, have to be random and so don't have to spin off so many untestable predictions.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[CaptainFork]

Why is the parent modded "Troll"? Moderators should not do this simply because they disagree with the comment, or because it disagrees with their personal position. The parent does not attempt to incite a flame war and should not be modded as it has been.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the apparent effect of dark energy is actually something around 120 orders of magnitude smaller than what current theories predict.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[Decaff]

Inflation actually solves several problems, at the expense of predicting an infinite number of unobservable phenomina (whole parallel universes with differing physical laws)

No it doesn't. It simply says that any given region of the universe at the time of the big bang will expand hugely more with inflation than without inflation. In terms of unobservable universes beyond the limit of what we can see, inflation makes no difference at all. All you need is for the universe to be big enough and for expansion to be the same everywhere and continue long enough. These hidden regions are a consequence of Big Bang theory with or without inflation.

Re: Dear New Scientist...

[Black Parrot]

> Inflation actually solves several problems, at the expense of predicting an infinite number of unobservable phenomina

Is that really any different from our understanding of chemistry and gravity?

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[JohnFluxx]

How is this possibly a failure of modern physics, an embarassment, or any such thing?
It means scientists had a hypothesis, tested it against the evidence, find it doesn't fit, and keep on working on the problem. That's what science _is_! Or should be tell, for example, Isaac Newton that he should be 'embarrassed' for not getting his equations 100% right in the first place, and the same with most other scientists?

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[arminw]

....physics isn't about answers, it's about questions....

The problem is that some the answers are disliked because they demolish long held cherished philosophical viewpoints and widely held underlying assumptions. These assumptions are the scientists equivalent of religious faith. Dark energy, matter, the pioneer probes "mysterious" acceleration and Hubble's "law" are postulated to preserve uniformitarian beliefs. One such scientific tenet of faith is the invariability of so called constants, all related to each other. "Constants" such as Planck's constant, alpha and the speed of light and related others, are, in the minds of most current scientists, sacred cows that cannot be admitted to having changed, perhaps drastically over the ages of time. Many of these observed "anomalies" can be explained by simply admitting that these cherished constants may have been many orders of magnitude different in the long ago ages of the beginning of the Universe and may be even yet changing slowly. There is nothing constant about our observed Universe, so why should these "constants" not also change over time?

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[kfg]

And answer without an exlanation is not an answer, just more philosophy.

Show me the data.

KFG

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[angel'o'sphere]

I am not a physicist, please correct me if this is inaccurate ...


You are inaccurate but right.

I wonder if you know what an order of magnitude is?

The apparent effect of dark energy is something like 50 orders of magnitude larger than what current theories predict.

1
10
100 ....
1...[insert 49 zeros]...0

From the first line to the last one we have a difference of the order of magnitute of 50.

In other words, if you step on top of the tower of Pisa and drop a stone, it would not only not land in a different city, but on a different planet in a different galaxy.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[arminw]

....Show me the data...

There is no problem with the data whatsoever. It is the attempts to explain the data in the light of currently held assumptions that requires convoluted, non-existent constructs, such as dark matter and energy. It is in fact the data that is calling into question many long held beliefs. One of these beliefs is that all of the so called constants have never and are still unchanging parameters of the Universe. Abandoning such beliefs is difficult, but then the need for dark matter evaporates as a means to try to interpret the data.

About 400 years ago a Danish Astronomer first challenged the then widely held notion that light takes no time to travel any distance. Experiments done with lanterns and shutters from mountain tops "proved" that this was so. It took about 50 years and many repeated experiments, before the larger scientific community finally accepted the fact that the speed of light was finite. Even Einstein had a hard time coming to grips with some of the implications of quantum theory. Many widely held theories of science have fallen to new data. This is what makes science interesting but also obsoletes science text books faster than most other kinds of books.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[kfg]

There is no problem with the data whatsoever.

Show me your conclusion from the data.

About 400 years ago a Danish Astronomer first challenged the then widely held notion that light takes no time to travel any distance. Experiments done with lanterns and shutters from mountain tops "proved" that this was so.

No it did not. And the astronomer understood and published that it did not (and the experimenter was Italian. Fellow by the name of Galileo. Ole merely repeated the experiment with a better timepiece, further defining the minimum of the speed of light).

The speed of light is inherent in the laws of electromagnetic interaction. Change the speed of light and you must also change all phenomenon relying on electromagentic interactions. Like how your atoms stick together and stuff.

This isn't faith. It is demonstrable.

Most other constants aren't any particular deep mystery or even fundamental to physics. They are simply unit conversion factors from the Metric (or whatever other) system of measurment to the "natural" unit of the phenomenon.

Basically they don't even exist as "real" phenomena. They are side effects of using yardsticks to measure them instead of sticks of some other length.

Many widely held theories of science have fallen to new data.

Exactly.

Show me the data.

KFG

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[arminw]

.....The speed of light is inherent in the laws of electromagnetic interaction.....

No known laws or principles of physics mandates that the speed of light be constant. Its speed is highly dependent on the nature of the medium through which it propagates. That is what makes lenses, prisms fiber optics and other media do what they do. The nature of space is determined by its contents and as such affects the speed of light. When the Universe was small and dense, the nature of space was also very much different and thus the speed at which light propagates through the medium of space. Gravity bends the light near a star because gravity affects the properties of the space around the star. The gravity of a black hole is so great that the light is bent back to its source before it can ever get out of such a black hole. It is indeed true that some of the properties of atomic structure are affected by this. The nature of the light produced by all atoms is well characterized by current knowledge of quantum physics. Recent discoveries that the red shift of far away galaxies occurs in discrete quantum bands negates the idea that the red shift is caused by incredibly rapid movement of the these far away objects, but by the quantum leaps of the electron orbits of the light emitting atoms of these incredibly far away places.

Energy-matter, space-time and gravity are all interrelated and as space itself expanded, associated parameters adjusted themselves and are still observed to be doing so, albeit very slowly today. The pioneer spacecraft "mystery" is one of these evidences that cannot be explained easily if one is determined to dogmatically assert that these "constants" must not ever change.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[kfg]

No known laws or principles of physics mandates that the speed of light be constant.

Weeeeell, yes, they do, and this has been understood since the mid 1800s. It can be demonstrated in any decently equiped high school physics lab.

The speed of light is fixed by its method of propagation and only by its method of propagation.You may change the speed of light, but only by changing the nature of electromagnatism across the board. Change the speed of light and you inherently also change the speed of all electric motors; and the force which binds all molecules together.

So the question becomes is there anything that mandates whether the electromagnetic forces can't change.

More importantly, can you show any data indicating that it has; and bearing mind that such a change would effect the very makeup of physical matter.

Personally I don't give a damn. My whole point in this thread is against the idea of dogmatism of any kind.

Just show me the data.

Its speed is highly dependent on the nature of the medium through which it propagates.

No, it isn't. The speed with which light propagates through a medium is highly dependant upon the medium, but the speed of light at any given time within the medium remains the constant c. You are confusing instantaneous speed with average speed. If you drive a car at a constant 60 mph, but stop to piss every mile, your average speed will be much lower than 60 mph.

The concept of medium here means whether there is matter involved, since light stops to piss when it encounters matter. Space is not matter and does not affect the speed of light. It is not a medium. Again this is inherent in the nature of electromagnatism and only in the nature of electromagnatism.

Gravity bends the light near a star because gravity affects the properties of the space around the star.

But does not affect light's speed one iota, because gravity does not affect the electromagnetic force.

The pioneer spacecraft "mystery" is one of these evidences that cannot be explained easily if one is determined to dogmatically assert that these "constants" must not ever change.

It cannot be explained at all in any scientific manner by any means, easily or otherwise. One may postulate that some constant has changed, but one may also postulate that a giant invisible turtle is pushing them along.

This is philosophy. Simply assuming that a constant has changed in order to gain a desired result is "faith."

Just show me the data. I'd be glad to collect the Nobel by overturning all of known physics.Really, I would. Just look a few stories up from this one. I'd have accomplished something even Einstein didn't do (he refined physics, he didn't overturn it).

But to collect the data you might first want to learn something about what you're talking about, because you aren't allowed to simply make shit up for the sake of convenience.

You have to show the data.

KFG

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[s20451]

I know what an order of magnitude is. And it turns out that the error is more like 120 orders of magnitude from the perspective of the cosmological constant.

Source for the following (emphasis mine): Physics World

Dark energy: the suspects

- Cosmological constant (w = -1)
Originally introduced by Albert Einstein, it was later suggested by Yakov Zel'dovich that quantum vacuum energy would produce a constant energy density and pressure. However, theoretical predictions yield a cosmological constant that is 120 orders of magnitude higher than the observational value. Regardless of cosmology, quantum vacuum energy exists. Whether the cosmic contribution is in fact zero, or finely tuned, is one of the outstanding challenges in physics.

Re:Dear New Scientist...

[arminw]

.....Space is not matter and does not affect the speed of light.....

The properties of space --- free space that is--- very much affect electromagnetic energy propagation, including its speed. The purpose of every transmitting antenna is to launch such electromagentic waves into space. Without getting into complicated math here, one of the properties of space that determines critical parameters of antenna design is the electrical impedance of free space. An antenna is basically an impedance matching device between the the impedance of the RF generator and free space, enabling the energy of the former to be efficiently transferred to the latter. Both the impedance and the light speed are in the formulas for antenna design. You can look this stuff up in any radio engineering handbook.

Gravity DOES affect electromagnetic waves. The gravitational field of the sun bends starlight, just as a lens, such that the apparent position of a star is markedly different if the light has gone close, past the sun on its way to us. Gravity affects the properties of space and thus matter-energy moving through that space.

NO law of physics requires any of these "constants" to be invariant over time. There are "conservation" laws of mass-energy, momentum etc, that are not violated even if the speed of light and related parameters change. In order to carry the same energy, if a bullet (photon or electron) travels faster, some of its mass is converted into energy. The converse is also true. Einstein first came up with these discoveries and they have been verified experimentally too many times to count. Space-time, gravity and matter-energy are all relative to one another and there is nothing absolute to any one of them. You can think of the speed of light as one way of describing the properties of space. Matter-energy determine the strength of gravity in a region of space. It is interesting that the equations of electromagnetism and atomic behavior all have references to c or parameters related thereto and these all contain a time dimension. The equations concering gravity however do not make reference to any kind of time units.

14. Slashdot moderation system

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows where this will wind up...

From Wikipedia:

[TeleoMan]

Why would a Wookie, an eight-foot tall Wookie, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does NOT MAKE SENSE! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does NOT MAKE SENSE! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does NOT MAKE SENSE! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests

Re:From Wikipedia:

[brentyl2]

Congratulations my friend. At the time I write this, you have acheived the only "-1 Funny" mod I have ever seen. Kudos! Now strive for that +5 Troll and you'll have the complete quantum set of Slahdot mods. :)

Inflation caused by Higgs field?

[dc29A]

FTFA: But is that just wishful thinking? "Inflation would be an explanation if it occurred," says University of Cambridge astronomer Martin Rees. The trouble is that no one knows what could have made that happen.

I was under the impression that Inflation is caused by a certain energy value of the Higgs field. Did I miss something and Higgs field is no longer the savior of Inflation?

Re:Inflation caused by Higgs field?

[Artifakt]

The Higgs Boson has never been observed experimentaly. A small number of events were recorded by the LEP experiment (CERN), and these could be interpreted as resulting from Higgs Bosons, but the evidence is inconclusive.
      The Large Hadron Collider, currently under construction (also at CERN), is expected to eventually confirm or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson with a few months of experiments once completed. At this point, we have only indirect experimental evidence. We can't test another prediction like inflation with it until some of Higg's own predictions become testable.

Re:Inflation caused by Higgs field?

[judmarc]

Bit more complicated than that -

Inflation could have been caused by a phase change in the Higgs field, but this is a necessary-not-sufficient part of the explanation for the observed features of the universe. Then one also has to find a reason for the phase change and why it happened to have the precise characteristics needed (there's some fine tuning of parameters required in order for what we see today to pop out the other end of this process).

Then there's of course the root question of whether the Higgs field itself exists, though a lot of the Standard Model would have to be junked in order for it not to exist.

Wow, even year-end lists can be outdated.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is from March.

Re:Wow, even year-end lists can be outdated.

[cblguy]

Being that this is Slashdot, that actually makes sense!

Eat meat!

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat meat to the beat

Here is one more for the list

[tcoady]

http://www.antilli.com/ - can anyone make sense of this?

Re:Here is one more for the list

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

What about Chewbacca living on [a moon of] Endor? Last I heard, THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!

Re:Here is one more for the list

[Boronx]

But X and Y have to be at different voltages, so all a Z has to do is read the voltage on the line to learn who's switch is closed. That would, however, draw some current.

Re:Here is one more for the list

[Mixel]

X and Y stand at either end of an electrical circuit. Each controls a switch. The circuit is tested: a current will flow when both switches are closed simultaneously.

For current to flow you'd need a voltage or current source. As soon as you put a source (or sources) anywhere in the circuit, it is possible to intercept the signal between X and Y. Lets say you break the conductors somewhere between X and Y and replace them with a fake circuit. Using arbitrarily small delays, you can read out the state of switches on both sides and forward them correctly to the other side.

Re:Here is one more for the list

[damium]

A man-in-the-middle attack can still be performed in this approach. Z has broken the wires and is now acting as an intermediary between signals. Z monitors both wires for disconnects and then disconnects the other end when that happens. Z then knows the state of both ends at any given time so Z knows which sequence each has chosen.

Slashdot list?!?

[zsadiq]

The thought just occured to me, that if Slashdot is gonna be posting all these 'best of the year' type lists... then maybe Slashdot should compile its own 'best of' list?

Re:Slashdot list?!?

[grub]

The thought just occured to me, that if Slashdot is gonna be posting all these 'best of the year' type lists... then maybe Slashdot should compile its own 'best of' list?

In an utopian world, perhaps. Your idea would require that the editors actually perform some higher thought processes including reading, sorting and counting.

That, my friend, is crazy talk.

Re:Slashdot list?!?

[BushCheney08]

Best dupes of the year, maybe? Then it can be filed under the meta-category of 'tripe'.

Re:Slashdot list?!?

[psykocrime]

Best dupes of the year, maybe?

Well, if anybody is actually interested in compiling such a list, check this out.

obligatory

[User 956]

"13 things that do not make sense"

Why would a Wookie, an eight-foot tall Wookie, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does NOT MAKE SENSE! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does NOT MAKE SENSE! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does NOT MAKE SENSE! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Re:obligatory

[mark0]

Chewie likes midget porn.

Re:obligatory

[falcon5768]

OMG IT MAKES SENSE NOW!!!!!!

Re:obligatory

[paco3791]

*SPLAT* Your head a splod.

Re:obligatory

[Josh Coalson]

that was funnier the first time I heard it

Re:obligatory

[Carewolf]

It's sad to see someone who first heard that on slashdot..

End of year list?

[edgr]

Take a look at the date on TFA.

13 things that do not make sense

19 March 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Brooks

Doesn't seem so end of year to me.

Re:End of year list?

[garcia]

All right, all right, it's 14 things that don't make sense then!

Re:End of year list?

[tfcdesign]

Yeah - end of 2004! ******* I think this exact page was on Slashdot before.

Re:End of year list?

[thelost]

this article should be trashed, really it should. I hate having to complain about dupes but I'm getting sick of the quality of journalism on slashdot. At the least the editors should check for dupe links in the articles before they approve them, even if they don't happen to have time to check that what the submitter has written matches the content of the article they link to.

Re:End of year list?

[Meester Nice Guy]

The article itself never says it's an end of year list. Only the /. summary had said so.

Re:End of year list?

[grolschie]

I'm getting sick of the quality of journalism on slashdot

You must be new here. Quality, Journalism, Slashdot. 3 words that do not belong in the same sentence together. Why you even have an expectation of this is beyond me. :-)

Re:End of year list?

[thelost]

it's not unreasonable to expect a website that serves news to have a reasonable quality of journalism. Slashdots is way below par, and I've been reading it for a long time and it has got progressively worse as time has gone by.

#14

[grub]

#14 - Intelligent Design and its believers.

Re:#14

[Anonymous Coward]

+5, Insightful

Re:#14

[Anonymous Coward]

14 - Intelligent Design and its believers.

Actually, this list covers things that have at least some form of supporting empirical evidence. So ID wouldn't really fit at all.

Re:#14

[Anonymous Coward]

Intelligent design. Life is so complicated that a superior being had to have a hand in it.

But just how complicated is it?

From these 13 (or 14 or 15) unexplainable things, I would say that it's just so darn complicated that it would take a whole army of supreme beings to make it this complicated. That's why I have chosen to not believe in the "intelligent designer" theory.

It's just so darn obvious that it should be plural: INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS that's the theory for me. I've printed up stickers and I'm visiting schools to label all the textbooks I can find. I don't care if the books are science, math, home ec or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This idea is too big to rest!

Er....

[Anonymous Coward]

are a lot more than 13 things that don't make sense, such as free markets,

Please try to keep the political commentary out. Slashdot is already sinking into the oblivion of obscurity, and ignorant front-page comments only serve to accelerate your lack of credibility.
 

Re:Er....

[dangitman]

Wow, someone doesn't get the joke. Did you read the words "oxymorons aide" immediately after the free market statement?

Think about it, and then tell me who is ignorant.

Dupe

[DaHat]

Not only that... it's not much of a year end list... being published in March of 05 after all.

Heck, this was even on /. around the same time 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense

Re:Dupe

[mattsucks]

Heck, this was even on /. around the same time 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense

Well, that at least makes PERFECT sense.

Re:Dupe

[AndreyF]

I always wonder about people that remember /. stories from almost a year back... especially ones like these. I usually forget what I see on /. within a couple of days.

Re:Dupe

[jc42]

... it's not much of a year end list... being published in March of 05 ...

Oh, I dunno about that. A number of societies have used calendars that start the year at the spring equinox. March 19 is real close to the equinox. And the Gregorian calendar hasn't totally conquered the world; there are still lots of people who use other calendars to date certain events such as holidays. So, depending on the author's preference in calendars, this could very well have been a year-end list.

Snide

[Dun Malg]

I know there are a lot more than 13 things that don't make sense, such as free markets, but, oxymorons aside, this is an interesting list, nevertheless."

All right! Always room for a little mindless, irrelevant editorializing, right?

Re:Snide

[Surt]

Indeed, and history has shown just how much more sense slave markets make, right?

Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Free markets make plenty of sense. Read your economics textbooks and your Wealth of Nations, and then you can start complaining about them....

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes they do. Too bad there aren't any of them.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the poster meant the words "free market", when put together, is an oxymoron. You can't get anything for free at a market! Markets are for selling things, not giving them away for free! You see, it's a play on the multiple meanings of the word 'free'.

The concept itself does make sense and has been very successful and is the cause of several centuries of growth in every aspect of society.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

They make a lot of sense for those who are already rich. All free markets increase inequality - it's an inescapable phenomenon, inherent to how free markets work. You need either regulation through taxation, or a regular reboot of the system through revolution.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Rhinobird]

I think it's time the english language adopted a couple of different words for free. One for unrestricted, like as in, liberty. The other for no cost, like non-gratis. This would clear up a ton of confusion among the idiots...maybe.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Russ Nelson]

Maybe we should call them Open Markets instead? But then RMS would start inveighing against that, saying "Free Markets are not Open Markets!"
-russ

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[CaptainFork]

It wouldn't assist Mr Stallman in his unceasing efforts to bend reality by playing with the semanics of the word. "Free as in freedom" my ass.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[The Mgt]

Perhaps you should read it yourself before assuming that it's a ringing endorsement of free market economics.
There are no genuinely free markets that I'm aware of anyway.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it make more sense to steal money from people who are earning it and give it to others?

Re: Free markets make plenty sense...

[Black Parrot]

> Does it make more sense to steal money from people who are earning it and give it to others?

a) I don't think he said or implied any such thing.

b) How much of the distribution of wealth in our society is the result of people "earning it", as opposed to some people getting opportunities that others don't? Has Bill Gates really worked any harder than the average sharecropper, or did his inherited wealth, lucky break, and stranglehold on the market give him a wee bit of a leg up?

Re: Free markets make plenty sense...

[Black Parrot]

> Too bad there aren't any of them.

I wonder what would even qualify. Can it be a free market if the government (or some other organization) regulates coinage? Outlaws putting your thumb on the scale? Outlaws cartels?

OTOH, what if the government bugs out and companies do form cartels? Is it still a free market?

What's the definition of a free market? Where do we draw the lines on this kind of stuff?

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

That little attempt by the author to attack free markets is pure neo-Marxist tactics. They give you some legitimate information and attempt to insert some indoctrination. Very annoying but thankfully most people can easily spot it.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[maxpublic]

Nah, he'd start insisting that we call them "GNU/Free markets".

Max

Re: Free markets make plenty sense...

[Ikester8]

A free market is one where participants exchange goods and services without coercion or interference, for the mutual benefit of both buyers and sellers. Minus sales taxes, most everyday purchases qualify as free market transactions.

Points to you for your observations. Goverment regulation of coinage takes monetary policy out of the realm of the free market and makes possible monetary inflation and fractional-reserve banking, both of which involve theft and fraud to some degree.

Unfortunately, cartels will always form among producers. (Nobody said businessmen are above petty corruption.) In a free market, nothing will stop collusion except the fact that such agreements are almost always short-lived, and are broken as soon as one of the participants thinks it can profit at the expense of the others, or a nonparticipant moves in and cleans up. It's the goverment-protected cartels (mostly defense contractors, agricultural interests, utilities and labor unions) that cause the most harm.

Putting your thumb on the scale constitutes fraud, and would justly be outlawed.

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[pnewhook]

I don't know why everyone has such a problem with multiple meanings of the word 'free', yet they don't confuse the ten! different meanings of the word 'shit'

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[pnewhook]

Freedom's just another word for 'nothing left to lose'

Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[identity0]

Maybe they should call them something else, like say... GNU Markets?

Too bad nothing on this list has changed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the last time it was posted on /.

Re:Too bad nothing on this list has changed...

[Splork2]

Wow, I can't believe this was posted again.

-sp

Re:Too bad nothing on this list has changed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems pretty irrelevant as an end of year list to me too. For instance, significant progress has been made this year at debunking the entire homeopathy scam as woo-woo new age wishful thinking, plus they've found out that a lot less Dark Matter needs to exist in the universe if you simply apply the Einstein equations of relativity to the problem of spinning galactic discs instead of Newtonian physics equations.

Ooo, clever

[Staplerh]

I know there are a lot more than 13 things that don't make sense, such as free markets, but, oxymorons aside, this is an interesting list, nevertheless.

Ooo... a clever way to stir the pot without seeming too trollish... Why don't we cue the requisite libertarian free-market crusader and then we can have one of those fun debates that the poster seems to be so keen on initiating?

Re:Ooo, clever

[dada21]

I specifically made no mention of anything :)

Do I get +1 ThankGodHeShutUp now?

Re:Ooo, clever

[swid27]

My thoughts exactly...I'm sure dada21 is frantically typing away his response as to why anarchocapitalism is the One True Economic Way at this very moment. :-P

Re:Ooo, clever

[edgr]

I know there are a lot more than 13 things that don't make sense, such as free markets, but, oxymorons aside, this is an interesting list, nevertheless.

Free markets make perfect sense! They are the most logical, sensible system.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Black Parrot]

> Free markets make perfect sense! They are the most logical, sensible system.

If you're on the top of the pile. Those being crushed on the bottom might reasonably feel otherwise.

Re:Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm overweight. And it's my fault. And I know it.

That makes me depressed.

Then I eat more food to feel better.

Who can make sense of that?

Re: Ooo, clever

[hsmith]

Yeah, because it isn't like everyone benefits from the freemarket system. Only the Waltons benefit from their stores. Not the millions of poorer people that are able to afford more goods and live better lives because they can afford cheaper goods. I mean, it isn't like you benefit from car companies owning their factories. It isn't like you benefit from computer manufactures creating new machines and innovating for the sake of the dollar.

no, the free market has never helped one poor person. we are so much better off due to socialism. look at all the luxuries we enjoy from that system of government!

Re:Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

Tap yourself under your chin five times before you start to eat. It will make you eat less.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Black Parrot]

> Yeah, because it isn't like everyone benefits from the freemarket system. Only the Waltons benefit from their stores. Not the millions of poorer people that are able to afford more goods and live better lives because they can afford cheaper goods.

Funny about that... The current minimum [wage] places a family below the federal poverty level, unable (as Wal-Mart's chairman put it) to shop even at Wal-Mart.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

Communism solves that problem by putting everyone on the bottom, except for the members of the Inner Party of course.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

we are so much better off due to socialism. look at all the luxuries we enjoy from that system of government!

If by that you mean Linux, I'm all for it!

Join me in this quest to turn the "free" market into a genuine open source market!

Re:Ooo, clever

[cyborg_zx]

The oxymoron, I believe, is that the idea that any market is truly free is a nonsense.

Re: Ooo, clever

[mosb1000]

"The current minimum [wage] places a family below the federal poverty level"

I guess it's a good thing that not everyone working at Wal-Mart is their family's primary income provider then. Don't teenagers and single adults with no children deserve to make money as well?

Re: Ooo, clever

[Foerstner]

1. Free Markets vs. Socialism is not a binary choice anywhere except economics textbooks.

2. I wouldn't mind at all if the pace of hardware improvement slowed down a bit. It might keep software bloat in check for once, and it would certainly reduce the amount I have to spend to keep my hardware current.

3. "poorer people that are able to afford more goods and live better lives because they can afford cheaper goods." Because quality of life is directly proportional to goods consumed?

Re:Ooo, clever

[AoT]

And we all thank you.

And I cannot stop laughing after that post.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment would be more relevant if Wal-Mart actually paid minimum wage. Even this anti-Walmart article says they pay full-time employees $6 to $7.50 an hour. (This may be too low, but it has nothing to do with the federal minimum wage you mentioned.)

Re:Ooo, clever

[dada21]

And I cannot stop laughing after that post.

That makes two of us now, heh.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

2. I wouldn't mind at all if the pace of hardware improvement slowed down a bit. It might keep software bloat in check for once, and it would certainly reduce the amount I have to spend to keep my hardware current.

And I guess the Government is the right body to make that decision? The companies give what the consumer wants; vote with your dollar.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

And I guess the Government is the right body to make that decision? The companies give what the consumer wants; vote with your dollar.

what a brilliantly fair system! why don't we vote for governments in the same way?

Re: Ooo, clever

[Coryoth]

no, the free market has never helped one poor person. we are so much better off due to socialism. look at all the luxuries we enjoy from that system of government!

It needn't be an "either or" choice. You can have a largely free market tempered with a certain degree of centralised control. In practice, in the real world, that's what we have everywhere. The only arguments are over exactly how much and what should be centralised, which certainly remains a very open question (and in my personal view has no fixed answer - it changes as the society and culture being governed changes).

Free markets are great at being adaptive, and managing to react to changes to establish new equilibria. Free markets tend to be slower to adapt however, having to wait for natural market forces to move and take effect, and can also generate a certain amount of duplication resulting in relative inefficiencies. In some ways OSS Linux distributions and MacOS X make a nice simplified example. Linux provides a free market on how to build and run a desktop operating system, while MacOS X has fairly strict centralised control. As a result Linux tends to be more flexible and adaptive with a much larger market for new ideas and components, but can be slower to completely embrace a given idea and tends to have a certain amount of duplication and incompatability between various competing components. Somewhere in the middle lies a good system (and it's worth noting that both Apple, with open source Darwin, WebKit etc. and desktop Linux with centralised projects like GNOME and KDE, lean toward a mixing of ideals).

Jedidiah.

Re: Ooo, clever

[yndrd1984]

Even at Wal-Mart, most people don't make minimum wage.

Almost every person that make minimum wage now will make more in the future (teenagers) or has made more in the past (retirees).

The poverty level is relative. The poverty level in the US would be solidly middle class in other places.

The minimum wage puts people out of work, as supply and demand would suggest (labor costs go up, so businesses use less labor). Is it better to be poor or unemployed?

Re: Ooo, clever

[dangitman]

The poverty level in the US would be solidly middle class in other places.

Which countries are you talking about? I don't think America's poor, freezing in the streets, living in trailers, etc. would be considered "solidly middle class" anywhere in the world.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Anonymous Coward]

Then what's your suggestion, asshole? You whiny "Free markets suck" bitches make me sick. If you have some great fucking idea that works better than free markets, let's here it. Well?? Exactly, you're just some whiny bitch complaining on slashdot. Your not helping anything. Nobody ever claims that free markets are utopian systems. But they're a hell of a lot better than the fucking alternatives.

Re: Ooo, clever

[Lt.Hawkins]

HOw about places like Angola, India, North Kora, etc?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2004rank.html

I guarantee that anyone making $10000/yr could live quite comfortably in most sub-saharan countries, much of Asia, or much of Latin America.

Re: Ooo, clever

[dangitman]

But many of the poor aren't earning $10,000 a year. And it is a strange thing to say, because we are talking about America, where it is more expensive to live. So earning $10,000 in America is very different to earning $10,000 in Africa.

"Wealth" and "class" are more related to lifestyle, anyway. Some places are very expensive to live, but the quality of life is very low, and would not be admired by someone earning low wages in a pleasant place.

Re: Ooo, clever

[yndrd1984]

Which countries are you talking about? I don't think America's poor, freezing in the streets, living in trailers, etc. would be considered "solidly middle class" anywhere in the world.

Half of the people on earth live on less then $2 a day
The HHS says that in the U.S., $19,350 is the poverty line for a family of four - over $13 per day per person
$9,570 is the poverty line for one person - $26 a day
Keep in mind that this doesn't count the welfare, medicare/medicade, emergency police/ambulance/fire service, other free services, child support, charity, etc that you might get in the U.S. but not in Sub-saharan Africa

Blue collar life may seem bad in the U.S., but it beats the heck out of subsistance agriculture during a decade-long civil war, like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Re: Ooo, clever

[dangitman]

But I'm not talking about "blue collar life" - I'm talking about poor Americans. Happiness is a relative social and cultural thing. It's not like all Africans are suffering more than all Americans. This idea seems to be yet another myth perpetuated for propaganda to instill the idea that America is a lot better than it really is.

To hear some people talk, you'd think that American streets were paved with gold and chocolate, and that living in any other country is like being in a bad part of mexico or something.

Re: Ooo, clever

[yndrd1984]

But I'm not talking about "blue collar life" - I'm talking about poor Americans. Happiness is a relative social and cultural thing.

Then you're changing the subject! The original post that I was defending was about free markets making most people economically better off - not necessicarily happier, just richer. And I was specifically talking about people at the poverty line, not the really, really poor. If you wanted to talk about materialism or rich vs happy, you should have made it clear that you were going on a side tangent.

It's not like all Africans are suffering more than all Americans. This idea seems to be yet another myth perpetuated for propaganda to instill the idea that America is a lot better than it really is. To hear some people talk, you'd think that American streets were paved with gold and chocolate, and that living in any other country is like being in a bad part of mexico or something.

I've never heard anyone go to such extreams, even in the most insane patriotic rant. But it is true that the US, and other economically free countries, have wealthier, healthier populations than countries that aren't so free. And that was the original point, just about everybody is better off when they can participate in the free market.

Chewbacca Defense

[goombah99]

Ladies and gentlemen this post does not make sense

Re:Chewbacca Defense

[WilliamSChips]

Neither do any else of dada21's posts

Re:Chewbacca Defense

[tsm_sf]

I bet he uses his other accounts to mod you down for that

Re:Chewbacca Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear to god, dada21 is the new TripMasterMonkey. Only dada21 posts like ten times as much worthless shit and is a hundred times more annoying. Hey dada21, please stop posting for a bit, OK? OK. Thx.

Placebo effect duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical.

Well no duh. Did they think it was dancing angels? We only use morphine as a pain reliever because it is a analogue of some naturally occuring molecules in the human body. And the placebo effect also tells us that there is some messaging between the brain and body and that thinking about stuff can effect that messaging. We may not know much of the details, but these articles the keep feigning ignorance of the placebo effect borders on pseudo science.

Re:Placebo effect duh

[kfg]

. . .borders on pseudo science.

Welcome to the monkey house, brother.

Now you know why I spend so much time over in the corner banging my head against the wall.

KFG

This whole article reminds me of Sagan's book

[antifoidulus]

"Demon Haunted World"(well, techincally "Science as a Candle in the Darkness") which I am currently slogging through. He discusses a lot of there same "phenomenon" such as placebos and this, my personal favorite:
IT WAS 37 seconds long and came from outer space. On 15 August 1977 it caused astronomer Jerry Ehman, then of Ohio State University in Columbus, to scrawl "Wow!" on the printout from Big Ear, Ohio State's radio telescope in Delaware. And 28 years later no one knows what created the signal. "I am still waiting for a definitive explanation that makes sense," Ehman says

Actually, earlier than even the "WoW" signal(sometime in the 60s IIRC) a bunch of Soviet scientists convened a conference to discuss how they swore they found intelligent life because they found a long, continuous perfect sine wave somewhere out in space. Turns out it was a quasar, a hithero unkown phenomena, but the Soviets made laughing stocks out of themselves by assuming first it was aliens instead of a more mundane explanation...

Re:This whole article reminds me of Sagan's book

[The Mgt]

Turns out it was a quasar, a hithero unkown phenomena, but the Soviets made laughing stocks out of themselves by assuming first it was aliens instead of a more mundane explanation

That would be 'pulsar' not 'quasar'. Pulsars were first noticed in the late 1960s and and therefore a rotating neutron star would not at the time have been 'a more mundane explanation'.
ISTR when the first one was found by observers at Jodrell Bank circa 1968 the signal was dubbed 'LGM' (Little Green Men) as they were thought to possibly be signals from extraterrestrials.

Re:This whole article reminds me of Sagan's book

[Mr. Foogle]

I wouldn't call a quaser 'mundane'. My God man where is your sense of wonder?

Re:This whole article reminds me of Sagan's book

[Mr. Flibble]

Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark is number one on my favorite books of all time. You will find that due to the way the essays are ordered, it is a bit difficult to get started, but fortunately, you can read the chapters in any order.

If you only read 3 things in the book, read the introduction, The chapter: "The Dragon in My Garage" and the Chapter: "The Baloney Detection Kit."

The rest is gravy. I did find that the first chapter on UFO's was very hard to get through, but Dragon and Baloney are the true gems of the work. There are other good essays near the end of the book as well.

Re:This whole article reminds me of Sagan's book

[Hasmanean]

> Turns out it was a quasar, a hithero unkown phenomena, >but the Soviets made laughing stocks out of themselves by >assuming first it was aliens instead of a more mundane >explanation... It was an alien signal, but not aimed at humans: quasars are just key components of the galactic GPS system.

Sceptical

[aepervius]

Firstly as somebody pointed out at the FIRST line and last lien it is writte "19 march 2005"... That is quite the start of the year. Second, as 4th position again some homeopathic non reproducible experiment, and cold fusion (13th). This rather sound like "unreproducible" research rather unexplicable stuff. I think jsut for a kicker I will have a look around to see what happenned as follow up from those... But since the only stuff we heard recently on homeopathy was the lancet(?) study, and since homeopath would jump on the gun for any study proving homeopathy works, I won't hold my breath. Probably again badly washed up test tube. I tell you, experiment on basophile are cursed :).

Free markets an oxymoron?

[Junky191]

Anyone else notice the growing trend of people finding a cute little way to troll in their submittal paragraphs? I'd think this sort of blatant trolling wouldn't be allowed by the editors, hopefully they notice this trend and start trying to reverse it.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's getting bad. There was one earlier trying to pass global warming as fact .. Yet another groupthink opinion passed as truth in the reality void that is Slashdot. "Climate change evidence will continue to mount" easy to say.. prove it. Prove that it's not a cyclical thing and 100% human related.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[thelost]

the editors are little more likely to care about trolls than they dupes, of which this story is one.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[bhima]

Well... I think he's right and it's not a troll. So one man's milk is another's garbage.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, then, you just keep drinking that man milk.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

The editors will only do something about when it conflicts with thier biases, unlike this article, which agrees with thier biases.

Re:Free markets an oxymoron?

[tm2b]

Don't be silly. Slashdot survives by the amount of traffic it drives and the amount of face time it gets for that traffic - and thus indirectly by the amount of discussion that readers get involved with. They call it "stickiness" in the web game, to talk about how much time each visitor spends on the site per visit. Discussion and community are primary strategies for achieving stickiness, and trolling is a cheap and easy way to get it.

It's pretty clear that the slashdot editorial staff wish there to be a certain amount of trolling: as long as it's not so much that readers are driven away in droves, it's beneficial to the site. It doesn't matter that the quality of the content on the site consistently goes down, so long as it's still just barely good enough to keep people coming back and getting sucked in by trolls.

mod do3n

[Anonymous Coward]

Frlom a technical 4s one of the

I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Troll)

[Caspian]

This is getting ridiculous. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed a precipitous decline in the quality of stories here (not that they were USDA Grade A to begin with), accompanied by more frequent-- and more obvious-- trolling on the parts of the "Editors".

I'm not a big fan of unregulated free markets (since I've seen what they lead to), but the editor who let a sneaky jab at free markets into the story text itself needs to be smacked. That was a troll, period. A blatant, bridge-dwelling, club-wielding troll.

No, I take that back. All the "Editors" need to be smacked. This is getting fucking ridiculous.

SlashDot: Trolls for nerds, stuff that was reported on the AP Newswire 5 days ago...

Johnny Cochran

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Chewbacca live on Kashyyyk? That doesn't make sense.

Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Tsar]

We need more journalism like this in the popular media, to teach our kids that we don't know everything, and that some frontiers of knowledge haven't yet been pushed beyond their reach.

The evolution/creation/intelligent-design debate has taken on the nature of trench warfare; the opponents believe that the least enemy victory will spell doom for their way of life, so they dig in and protect every axiom of their belief system no matter how fragile or poorly supported. As a result, young people are told that nothing in their religion's official interpretation of Holy Writ is open to question. In school they are told the same thing about the current geological, paleontological and cosmological dogma.

I'm sure that many church leaders honestly believe that if kids are encouraged to doubt and question, they will lose their nascent faith, and perhaps discourage others. Likewise many educators assume that students who doubt and question current scientific beliefs will never become scientists, and undermine others who might.

The contemptible response is that those who question religious doctrine are branded as nonbelievers, and those who question scientific doctrine are dismissed as ignoramuses. Nothing goes so far to discourage the development of the scientific and spiritual leaders of the next generation.

Healthy skepticism, not jaded cynicism, should be encouraged everywhere if there is to be true advancement in any field. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, and neither are knowledge and wisdom.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[cyborg_zx]

I'm sure that many church leaders honestly believe that if kids are encouraged to doubt and question, they will lose their nascent faith, and perhaps discourage others. Likewise many educators assume that students who doubt and question current scientific beliefs will never become scientists, and undermine others who might.

That's probably because these people are right in both instances.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Decaff]

As a result, young people are told that nothing in their religion's official interpretation of Holy Writ is open to question. In school they are told the same thing about the current geological, paleontological and cosmological dogma.

They are? When? Where? Any decent scientific education always shows that scientific view change. I would be interested to see a report of any school scientific teaching that states that any current theory is unquestionable dogma.

Likewise many educators assume that students who doubt and question current scientific beliefs will never become scientists, and undermine others who might.

No. Educators assume that students who question scientific belief on religious grounds are unlikely to become scientists. They are right.

Healthy skepticism, not jaded cynicism, should be encouraged everywhere if there is to be true advancement in any field. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, and neither are knowledge and wisdom.

These two statements are mutually contradictory, and explain why Science and religion are often mutually exclusive. Science is about skepticism. Some religion is often about discouraging skepticism and encouraging a lack of research into certain areas (such as evolution).

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Thing 1]

Others have commented that questioning science is the only way to advance science (Einstein questioned science regularly), so I'll leave that alone.

I do want to bring up that there seem to be some religions on this planet which do promote questioning and doubting, and learning about other religions. I always wondered why such tolerance didn't take over the religio-sphere, so to speak, since it should be more encompassing, more welcoming, more interesting.

But, I suppose that just plays into your point: if you teach people to question, they'll spend less time worshipping you and your beliefs. So, the most effective leaders (not "the best leaders") tend to discourage questioning in their followers, whether they are religious or military (or both). Bush may not be a good leader, but he is rather effective because he has learned to combine both religion and military; however, the Taliban learned this too and hopefully regime change in America is no more than 2 years away.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Tim Doran]

Great post. One thought:

the opponents believe that the least enemy victory will spell doom for their way of life

I dunno. This is totally subjective but I think it's more than a defensive initiative. It smells to me like a "they should do things our way" busybody approach. Especially given the "poor us, persecuted American Christians" bullshit that is so often spouted.

Food for thought.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Paradise Pete]

I always wondered why such tolerance didn't take over the religio-sphere, so to speak, since it should be more encompassing, more welcoming, more interesting.

Because organized religion is about control, not enlightenment.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Khomar]

They are? When? Where? Any decent scientific education always shows that scientific view change. I would be interested to see a report of any school scientific teaching that states that any current theory is unquestionable dogma.

I remember in a junior high science class being asked the following true/false question: Did birds evolve from reptiles? This was a straight forward, black-and-white question that left no room for doubt whatsoever, and it was indicative of the public education I received. When I questioned the teacher about this question, her response was basically "it has been conclusively proven". End of discussion. While it is true that in many (most?) university-level courses the problems/mysteries in current scientific theory are discussed, you will find very little of that in elementary, junior high, or even high school curriculum. (Of course, one could ask whether any science taught in American public schools is "decent".) ;-)

No. Educators assume that students who question scientific belief on religious grounds are unlikely to become scientists. They are right.

Not true at all. I know several people who have gone into the realm of science precisely because of their religious convictions. They believe that the Bible brings up interesting possibilities for solutions to some of the problems mentioned in the linked article. One man I know believes the the rapid expansion of the universe is indicated by the phrase "God stretched out the heavens(spaces) and established the earth(matter)". He believes that the Big Bang did happen much like scientists do today, but that it was part of the creation process. Whether or not you agree with him, it was his religious convictions that have him now performing experiments on the speed of light, and developing new theories in physics. (I wish I had a link to his research and theories, but all that is available online is a placeholder site. Hopefully I can talk him into putting up more information on that site.)

Besides, everyone is "religious". What is religion but the basis upon which you build your world view? Most evolutionists are humanists or athiests. There is no God, therefore everything must be explained by measurable, reproducable evidence -- therefore evolution. This is just as much a religion as anything else. Whether it is a more or less viable religion than another is a different question entirely, but we should not use someone's religion to ignore valid, scientific evidence that they may present. Just as creationists should keep an open mind about evidence (I love to read about new scientific discoveries even if they seem to contradict the Bible), evolutionists shouldn't take such a hard-line, egotistical view of their "religious" counterparts in their fields.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Decaff]

I remember in a junior high science class being asked the following true/false question: Did birds evolve from reptiles? This was a straight forward, black-and-white question that left no room for doubt whatsoever, and it was indicative of the public education I received. When I questioned the teacher about this question, her response was basically "it has been conclusively proven".

Well, it has! To say otherwise would be to lie; hardly appropriate for a teacher. The correct question would have been.. "If you find a bird fossil older than the youngest reptile fossil would you change your mind?". This is the real test of a scientist, not trying to get her to proclaim false doubts.

One man I know believes the the rapid expansion of the universe is indicated by the phrase "God stretched out the heavens(spaces) and established the earth(matter)". He believes that the Big Bang did happen much like scientists do today, but that it was part of the creation process.

But then he is going to be a flawed scientist, as he is always trying to put his particular interpretation on things, and has a dogma that is going to be hard to shift by evidence.

Besides, everyone is "religious". What is religion but the basis upon which you build your world view?

That is not the definition of religion at all, merely word-play. Science and rationalism are not faiths, no matter how much many would like to label them as such. They are simply points of view, and changeable.

Most evolutionists are humanists or athiests. There is no God, therefore everything must be explained by measurable, reproducable evidence -- therefore evolution.

No, this doesn't follow. A lack of belief in a God does not mean that anyone thinks that everything is explainable. No-one with a good understanding of science and philosophy would claim this - it is a false dichotomy.

This is just as much a religion as anything else.

Sorry, but I think this is just more meaningless word-play. Of course it isn't.

Just as creationists should keep an open mind about evidence (I love to read about new scientific discoveries even if they seem to contradict the Bible)

I find this hard to believe. Just by stating that you are a creationist surely means you already have assumptions. The test of having an open mind is - are you prepared to accept that a sufficient amount of evidence will cause you to stop being a creationist?

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[GoofyBoy]

>Well, it has! To say otherwise would be to lie; hardly appropriate for a teacher.

No, it hasn't been "proven". Its very hard to say there are any scientific proofs. There are lots of theorms.

The best you can say is that the current theorm is that birds evovled from reptiles is our best guess from what we can see from discovered fossils. (and I'm sure that you can add more conditions there.) But is its not proof.

So the true/false question implies that it is the absolute truth, just like religion. And not only a high-school test, but scientifc papers assume that its the truth also. Just like religion takes assumptions and treats it like axioms.

>Science and rationalism are not faiths, no matter how much many would like to label them as such. They are simply points of view, and changeable.

Look at the different world religons and sects and sub-sects. They are simple view points which are changeable.

How do you view the New Testiment? Depends on if you are Jewish or Muslim. How do you view this fossil?
Depends if your view point is from evolution or panspermia (orgin of life from other planets).

>The test of having an open mind is - are you prepared to accept that a sufficient amount of evidence will cause you to stop being a creationist?

And this is from someone who says that the current theory of evolution is proven and to say otherwise is a lie.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Decaff]

The best you can say is that the current theorm is that birds evovled from reptiles is our best guess from what we can see from discovered fossils. (and I'm sure that you can add more conditions there.) But is its not proof.

Of course it is possible to be pedantic to the level where you accept nothing whatsoever as proof, but if that is the case you get nowhere. By any reasonable standard of proof, birds have evolved from reptiles (via dinosaurs). To express doubt about that is simply to arbitrarily dismiss evidence.

Look at the different world religons and sects and sub-sects. They are simple view points which are changeable.

Sure - tell that to those who fight to the death over religions.

How do you view this fossil?
Depends if your view point is from evolution or panspermia (orgin of life from other planets).

Sorry? Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with panspermia.

And this is from someone who says that the current theory of evolution is proven and to say otherwise is a lie.

It is proven - but if there was evidence to the otherwise (such as if there was a bird fossil conclusively dated earlier than the earliest reptile fossil), that proof would have to be abandoned.

I would be prepared to change my mind in this case. Is there a level of evidence at which you would be prepared to change yours? I ask this honestly - I would have respect for someone who was identified as a Creationist who would be prepared to admit (like a good scientists) that they were may be wrong.

Re:Our kids need to see more articles like this!

[Alsee]

Most evolutionists are humanists or athiests.

False, and it is trivially easy to prove that false.

Christians outnumber athieists by far, far, more than 2-to-1, and over 50% of Cristians accept evolution.

Even multiple Popes have recognized the scientific legitimacy of evolution and stated that there is NO conflict between evolution and God. For some reason it's really only here in the US that there is this rediculous claim that evolution somehow equals atheism.

Christians who accept evolution VASTLY outnumber atheists.

evolutionists shouldn't take such a hard-line, egotistical view of their "religious" counterparts in their fields.

First note that in the ballpark of half of scientists are religious - no quotes around the word religious. Normal religious people who believe in God.

When we read "religious" in quotes as someone who rejects evolution and supports literal Biblical Creationism, using Newsweek as a source, pins that number among professional biologists and geologists at zero-point-one-four-percent.

That also indicates that about 99.7% of religious scientists in the field are ordinary-no-quotes religious people, and that only a miniscule 0.3% of religious scientists qualify as in-quotes "religious" to the extent of being radical religious fundamentalists rejecting mainstream science.

We may as well be talking about the crackpots behind the Electric Universe theory who reject nuclear fusion as powering the sun, instead saying the sun is electrically powered.

There is no genuine scientific controversy over evolution. 99.86% mainstream scientist vs 0.14% who twist or ignore the science to fit their religious desires is not a genuine scientific controversy. Even if we THROW OUT all of the atheist scientists, it's STILL 99.7% of religious scientists against 0.3% crackpots.

There is no more conflict between evolution and religion than there was between a sun-centered solar system and religion... just another area of science that didn't sit well with some people and their literal interpretation of the Bible that the earth did not move and was the center of the universe.

Evaporation and condensation explain the mechanism for rain, and optics and refraction explain the mechanism for rainbows, and nuclear fusion explain the mechanism for sunlight, and evolution explains the mechanism for the dirversity of life on earth. NONE of those fields of science in any way threatens God or claims that God does not exist.

The only issue here is that the one particular field of science not be singled out and treated differently than every other field of science.

As yet another court ruled there is nothing wrong with putting stickers in text books saying "Evolution is just a theory" is fine. HOWEVER YOU CANNOT TARGET EVOLUTION FOR SPECIAL GOVERNMENTAL TREATMENT AND UNDERMINING BASED ON THE DEMANDS OF SOME RELIGIOUS SECT.

If you want to put those stikers into textbooks on evolution, and if you want to complain about evolution being taught as a "fact" and if you want to gripe about some true-false test, then you damn well better have some legitimate purpose for other than trying to hijack the FORCE OF GOVERNMENT to push your religion on other people.

You CAN put those stikers into evolution textbooks and you CAN complain about evolution being taught as a "fact" and you CAN complain about that true-false text *IF* and *ONLY IF* you hold all fields of science to the same standard. In which case you'd have to put the same stupid stickers into textbooks saying that gravity is just a theory and complain about chemistry and the theory of elements being taught as a "fact" and complain about physics true-false questions about quantum mechanics and relativity.

Evolution has about the same level of acceptance amoung professional biologists as relativity and quantum mechanics have among professional physicists. Evolution also has the same overwhelming levels of evidence.

There is no genuine scientific controversy over evolution. All of the controversy is social controversy and political controversy.

-

EFT

[Peripherus]

> I told her that the trick to fending off hypochondria is to gently tap the underside of her chin 5 times slowly and the symptoms will go away. > Guess what? It worked. I just made it up but I told her I heard about it on a medical show. You're not the only one to come up with this: http://www.mercola.com/2005/oct/13/tapping_your_fe ars_away.htm

Re:EFT

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no!! Don't link to Mercola, he is a snake wrangling heathen to the "scientific " community.

"Free Market" (Need moderation help)

[Elias Israel]

Can someone remind me how to mark a slashdot story as -1 (Troll)?

Late addition!

[Klowner]

Women.

Re:Late addition!

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to read this:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5 ?ek20051213ks.htm

In Japan it seems that geeks are in demand now. Women is strange indeed.

test post

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a test of lame Slashdot.

Oldest. Oxymoron. Ever.

[isecore]

Microsoft Works.

More info about "cold fusion" experiments

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch this space for important papers and articels about cold fusion.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/

One of the more recent papers have a sound explanation of why the coloumb barrier can be circumvented at low temperatures.
Quite interesting.
The scientific community over there keeps growing and there are now hundreds of experiments which find seemingly "unexplainable" effects like excess temperature etc.

Uniform temperature

[Reality Master 101]

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now.

I don't get this. Maybe a Physics geek can clue me in. Why would we expect to see different temperatures? If the big bang exploded in a completely uniform way, I would expect the "shrapnel" to behave in a completely uniform way in every direction. What exactly would cause one direction to be hotter than another direction?

Re:Uniform temperature

[chill]

I don't get this. Maybe a Physics geek can clue me in. Why would we expect to see different temperatures? If the big bang exploded in a completely uniform way, I would expect the "shrapnel" to behave in a completely uniform way in every direction. What exactly would cause one direction to be hotter than another direction?

It would only then look uniform if you were are the center of it, and it all spread out from where you were.

If you were on one side, it would look hotter on the side it came from and cooler on the side it went to after passing you.

  -Charles

Re:Uniform temperature

[Ernest]

no need to be a Physicist. Heat will tend to travel from the hotspot to the cold spot. The speed this is happening is dependant on the gradient, so will tend to slow down immediately (as cold spot get hotter, and hot spot get colder), creating bel like curve (in 3D) with the center hotter than the outer edge.
Actually it's not a bel, more like a log curve, except it's not, but I don't remember the name in English.

Re:Uniform temperature

[shugyosha]

question: shouldn't the temperatures be affected by matter aglutinating in galaxies?

Re:Uniform temperature

[Bloater]

The light from the nearer horizon is younger, that light is from the horizon as it was in more recent times and so should seem to come from cooler matter.

Re: Uniform temperature

[Black Parrot]

> > Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now.

> I don't get this. Maybe a Physics geek can clue me in. Why would we expect to see different temperatures? If the big bang exploded in a completely uniform way, I would expect the "shrapnel" to behave in a completely uniform way in every direction. What exactly would cause one direction to be hotter than another direction?

AIUI, the distribution of the CMB radiation is a reflection - literally - of the distribution of matter in the universe when things cooled down enough for the universe at large to be transparent to radiation.

If the universe had been perfectly isotropic at that time, then the radiation would in fact be isotropic as well. But then we'd have trouble explaining the clumpy distribution of matter. But matter is clumpy, and the CMB ratiation is anisotropic, so we feel safe in concluding that the initial universe was not.

Then the question becomes, why is it exactly this anisotropic. Apparently our best model of the big bang says that the CMB should be somewhat more anisotropic than it is, and inflation solves the problem neatly.

When I first heard about it I thought it reeked of epicycles (for fitting observations to an arbitrary theory), but from what I've read the inflation hypothesis explains a lot more stuff than just the CMB radiation anisotropy, so it's in good graces with most of the cosmology community.

Re:Uniform temperature

[Zerbs]

well, doesn't it all depend on which direction the intelligent designer was facing when they set off the big bang?

Re:Uniform temperature

[Alsee]

It would only then look uniform if you were are the center of it, and it all spread out from where you were.
If you were on one side...

The original issue is that we *do* see it as uniform from here on earth. So what you're saying effectively grants the earth a special priviledged status as the center of the universe, chuckle.

The Big Bang was not like the "handgrenade" model you describe. According to Big Bang there was no center. Every point in the universe is the same "distance from the center" (time!) as every other point.

The best way to describe it is to drop a dimension. Instead of a three dimensional universe, imagine we live on a two dimentional surface. The two dimensional "handgrenade" model would be like having a point-like handgrenade explode in a circle into the empty space around it in that flat sheet. That's not what the big bang says.

Imagine that surface is a sheet of rubber, a huge balloon 10^50 billion light years across. The local surface of that sheet of rubber will be almost infinitely indistinguishable for a perfectly flat plane. It actually curves equally in all directions, but we can't detect it. Now imagine running time backwards and deflating that balloon. There is no "midpoint" on the surface of the balloon... no "midpoint" in our universe. You keep deflating that balloon and every point on the surface of the balloon will move closer to every other point on the surface of the balloon. Ultimately you get back to the very first instant of the universe where all of the mass and energy in the universe is squeezed together on the surface of a balloon with a microscopically small radius.

So the big bang wasn't like a handgrenade exploding into empty space, it was like the surface of an inflating balloon. The rubber itself being space, and the expansion not being an explosion into "empty space" but an expansion into the time direction. The Big Bank is an expansion of space itself, with all of the matter in the universe being carried farther apart just like dots on an inflating ballone would be carried apart by the expanding rubber.

None of which directly addresses the prior question about why different areas should or should not start out at the same temperature.

-

#2

[manavendra]

Hmm, inflation eh? Here's another wild idea - What if during the big-bang the energy released was so much that it actually *increased* the speed of light itself, till it finally slowed down and settled..? :-)

Not quite, dick-heads.

[ncurtain]

And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) suggests that something is going on.

Too thicko's unconcerned:

Homeopathy does not work in the way that "large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials" are made. What is it about that aspect of the treatment that researchers and reporters of research can't hear, read or understand?

If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry.

And no doubt there will be heartfelt, sincerest appologies all around? No sackings though.

I can remember the good old days when Chrohn's disease was relatively unknown. And the placebos used to no effect on it.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[gowen]

What is it about that aspect of the treatment that researchers and reporters of research can't hear, read or understand?

The fact that that sentence makes no sense? A cure that can't be shown to work better than placebo is the same as a cure that doesn't work better than placebo.

Your justifaction is the suggestion that anecdotal evidence is better than systematic evidence, which is what quacks have always said when the systematic evidence reveals them to be quacks.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

Your justifaction is the suggestion that anecdotal evidence is better than systematic evidence, which is what quacks have always said when the systematic evidence reveals them to be quacks.

Depends on the context. If I find that rubbing toothpaste on my toes relieves my headaches, my anecdotal evidence trumps any controlled studies showing that rubbing toothpaste on the toes of randomly selected subjects does nothing. It even trumps controlled studies showing that rubbing toothpaste on the toes caues headaches in randomly selected subjects. I'm not a randomly selected subject, I'm me, and my treatment goal is to improve my own subjective experience of health.

On the other hand, if someone comes to me about their headaches, in the absense of controlled studies showing that the treatment works, rubbing toothpaste on the toes would not be at the top of the list of things I'd suggest. (But not absent from that list - it's safe and cheap, it worked for me so maybe those controlled studies are flawed, and at the very least will help clean out toe jam, so why not give it a whirl?)

Of course, we also have to ask how much bearing that systematic evidence has on the actual application in question, how much these objective measurement correspond to the goal of improving subjective experiences of health. I always recommend this article by, and this interview with, Ted Kaptchuk.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[gowen]

It even trumps controlled studies showing that rubbing toothpaste on the toes caues headaches in randomly selected subjects. ... I'm me, and my treatment goal is to improve my own subjective experience of health.

Very true. And there's a word for something that can improve a subjective experience of health in subjects without any causal relationship.

It's "Placebo".

The placebo effect is brilliant.

Homeopathists think they're being devalued when their remedies are described as "basically [lacebo", and are wont to say "It's not placebo, it actually works!"

What they don't understand is that Placebos actually work too, and in many cases they work really well, as does prayer and even sheer bloody mindedness, both of which are cheaper than homeopathic remedies. All science can say is "The power of the mind is a wonderful thing". But that's why the baseline for real medicines is "better than placebo", which is a lot higher a baseline than "better than nothing".

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

People underestimate 'sheer bloody mindedness'. That alone has kept certain people alive for a decade.

Seriously. How many people knew an old couple where the husband was really sick, and literally holding onto life as long as the wife survived, and when the wife died, that guy pretty much said 'To hell with it' and just...died? It happened to my great-grandparents.

Pretending there is no mental aspect to health is silly, and pretending that homopathic medicine is anything but that is silly.

As for 'prayer'...we still don't have any evidence that prayer works if the patient doesn't know about it, so it's basically the placebo effect, too. (There have actually been studies of this sort done, where churchs prayed for randomly selected individuals from elsewhere, or not, but the results have been inconclusive.)

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

And there's a word for something that can improve a subjective experience of health in subjects without any causal relationship. It's "Placebo".

Ah, but who says there's no causal relationship between my toothpaste rubbing and my headache relief? Maybe in my rubbing I'm hitting an acupuressure point that changes blood flow, and the studies used a slightly different rubbing technique. Maybe I've got some rare biochemical quirk where flouride deficiency gives me headaches, and I'm abosorbing trace amounts through my skin. The unknowns are many, the knowns few.

What they don't understand is that Placebos actually work too, and in many cases they work really well, as does prayer and even sheer bloody mindedness, both of which are cheaper than homeopathic remedies.

Well, many homeopathic remedies do indeed contain substantial amounts of active ingredients.

But for those that are (exclusive of the anomalous result discussed in TFA) nothing but inactive ingredients, think of them as the same category as an aid to prayer: prayer beads, Lourdes water, a Kwan Yin statue, whatever. Prayer often involves one of these, and/or going to (and quite probably financially supporting) a local church/synagogue/whatever. Not free.

"Sheer bloody mindedness" is fine too, but is naturally rare. I can help train it if you want to sign up for some classes, but they are not free. (And yeah, it can help. Ooops, I'm being anecdotal again.)

I don't recommend or use those extremely dillute homepathic remedies myself. (I do use some remedies that contain substantial amount of herbal extracts.) But if it's working for someone, hey, whatever gets you through. (Provided there aren't dangers they're unaware of.)

But that's why the baseline for real medicines is "better than placebo", which is a lot higher a baseline than "better than nothing".

Thing is, sometimes, on an individual case-by-case basis, a placebo can be better than "real" medicine; the Demerol doesn't work but the sugar pill does. For that person, in that moment, what is "real" medicine?

My point is just this: if you're trying to answer the question "What will releive symptoms the best in this population?" systematic evidence is very helpful. If you want to answer the question "What will releive this person's symptoms the best", that one person is by defintion anecdotal.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

Pretending there is no mental aspect to health is silly, and pretending that homopathic medicine is anything but that is silly.

Just a data point: many homopathic remedies do contain significant amount of active substances. Not are dilluted past Avogadro's number.

Thanks to homopathy's being the designated whipping boy of skeptics for decades, many people seem unaware of that.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

While some of them are not divided more than Avogadro, thus, by probability, producing a few molecules of the substance in the water, this is meaningless.

Why?

Because all water has, before it starts, many more molecules of other stuff.

And hence the fact that, statistically, you have 5000 atoms of X, you also got 10,000,000 of all sorts of stuff. Poisons, additives, all sorts of crap.

Including 1,000,000 of the stuff you started with.

You heard that right. My tap water has more, for example, arsenic already in it than homeopathy will ever add to it. More arsenic floats in my nose and enters my bloodstream every day via the muscus membranes there every day than any homeopathic remedy.

Have you ever heard of 'parts per million'? You'd be amazing at the crap that's around in tiny amounts. Adding a few parts per billion does nothing, not even if you stir it with a special spoon in the special direction under the special light, or whatever hocus-pocus homeopathics are using.

And you wouldn't believe the amount of the cup you drink every time you take a sip. Plastic, glass, ceramic, metal, whatever, you're drinking it.

It is, at best, literally equivilent to handing someone a grain of salt and saying 'Put this in a glass of water and you'll get better'. If that would make you better, you'd be better already, because there is more than that much salt in the 'purest' water. (And, of course, many times there is actually no salt handed out at all.)

The argument that 'some still exist' is like refuting the claim that 'you can't blow a candle out a mile away' by the fact that, statistically, you will hit it with a few air particles. Well, yeah...but it gets hit with more than that by itself.

It is not medicine. It is a magic spell. As also evidenced by the fact that only 'believers' can make it.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

While some of them are not divided more than Avogadro, thus, by probability, producing a few molecules of the substance in the water, this is meaningless....It is, at best, literally equivilent to handing someone a grain of salt and saying 'Put this in a glass of water and you'll get better'.

No. I don't mean a few molecules, I mean that some contain active ingredients in significant concentrations, of the order of 0.1% or more. Sometimes a lot higher - this, for example, is a 10% extract of arnica that I (quite anecdotally) find useful for bruises. (An occupational hazard.)

A "1X" solution is 10% concentration. If you Google for homeopathic 1X, you'll see many products made with these high-concentration extracts.

That's not to say that do or do not work. I don't consider myself a defender of homeopathic theory in any way. But I'm really disappointed to see self-described "skeptics" continually misrepresent it. Not all homeopathic remedies are extremely dilute.

Nor is it considered, in homeopathic theory, enough to simply create a very dilute tincture, like putting a grain of salt in a glass of water; first a fairly concentrated salt water would be prepared, then that solution diluted, and so on. The solution must be "prepared", shaken in some certain way, at every step. That theory may be absolute bullshit, indeed that's where I'd put my money. But intellectual honesty requires that we criticize it as it is, not set up strawmen.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[gowen]

Ah, but who says there's no causal relationship between my toothpaste rubbing and my headache relief?

Causal relationships show up in mass studies.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard of 'parts per million'? You'd be amazing at the crap that's around in tiny amounts. Adding a few parts per billion does nothing, not even if you stir it with a special spoon in the special direction under the special light, or whatever hocus-pocus homeopathics are using.

Were you aware that the impurities in minerals that give them their various brilliant colors are measured in parts per billion (yes, billion). 1 ppb of iron can give a gem a vibrant red or yellow color. Copper can produce green or blue. I guess this all falls under your generalization that "adding a few parts per billion does nothing." Minor traces of elements can have similarly dramatic effects in other ways, too, depending on the combinations. Maybe you should go back to chemistry 101 and learn a bit more about this stuff before you start spouting off as if you were an expert.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

To accept homeopathy is to accept the 'law of infinitesimals', the idea that the smaller the dose, the better. If medication does not follow that, it is not homeopathy.

If a 10% extract of arnica cures anything, it is not homeopathy. If it was, a 1% solution would be even better, and a .00001% even better.

Is it? Feel free to test.

Just because homeopathy is gibberish doesn't mean it is gibberish to treat bruises with real amounts of arnica, although I've never heard of it. It might not work, but it is an actual substance, in an actual amount, so could indeed have an effect. It's just a standard herbal remedy.

And it has nothing to do with how you stir it, or how much water you put in it. Just because it labels itself as homeopathy doesn't mean it's following the stupid-ass law of infinitesimals. According to homeopathy, it shouldn't work at all, and the fact it does is a point against homeopathy. (In fact, if you try to buy it online, you will run into 10% solutions everywhere, and some of them call it 'homeopathy' and some don't.)

A 10% solution of something isn't homeopathy any more than a saline solution with a 1% morphine drip is homeopathy. Just because some people go 'Hey, our herbs are diluted, let's call it homeopathic' is about as iffy as calling them 'medicine' in the first place. It's not 'real' homopathy. Real homeopathy dilutes things to make them more powerful.

Homeopathy, has, as its basis, two rules: the "law of similars" and the "law of infinitesimals". The law of similars is a completely goofy way of matching medicine to diseases and people, but that's rather moot as long as the law of infinitesimals exists, which, like I said, requires the assertation that the less medication someone gets, the better it is, which has resulted in several assertations that are in violation of physics, and the ones that aren't still can't be medically active.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

Who is 'them'? Injesting a few parts per billion of minerals certain does not give people any particular color.

And I stand by the biological assertation that altering the injestion of trace elements by 0.1% does not have any demonstratable effect on humans, from the nicest vitamin to the nastiest chemical. Not even something like plutonium, which you shouldn't injest in any amount...but injesting 1001 atoms produces identical effects to 1000 atoms.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

Incidentally, Vitamin K works quite well for treating bruises. Arnica could have that in it, and you might want to try just some vitamin pills and an aspirin.

Or, for a homeopathic remedy, you can just learn over a vitamin pill and an aspirin, and inhale deeply a few times.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

'substantial amount of herbal extracts'

Actually, many herbel remedies are dangerous, so homeopathy is probably safer.

Plants, in general, are safe, and have no effect on people besides being food, but the point of herbal medicines is that they do have an effect on humans.

For example, willow bark is completely safe, it only has one active ingrediate, and we know, basically, what that does on human beings. Of course, the reason we know that is we put it in a medicine and sold it on shelves for 100 years.

OTOH, Hypericum perforatum, aka, St. John's wort, has a few active ingrediates, and we don't know how or why it apparently works, or even if it does. Because it has a bunch of active parts, it can lead to dry mouth, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, increased sensitivity to sunlight, and fatigue, which sounds exactly like any pill on TV. And it doesn't have a company standing behind it, so buyer beware.

Thing is, sometimes, on an individual case-by-case basis, a placebo can be better than "real" medicine; the Demerol doesn't work but the sugar pill does.

For that person, in that moment, what is "real" medicine?

If that happens, the Demerol is. Why? Because the point of medicines isn't to 'cure' people, it's to cause a known biological effect. If the sugar pill made things better, than that is what happens with no medicine. If the Demoral made things worse, or kept them the same, than that demonstrates that what the Demoral is trying to treat is not true.

Medicine does not magically make people better. If I were to take anti-coagulants, I could get very ill and possibly die, because I don't frickin need them, and the fact that a sugar pill would not have this problem does not make sugar pills 'real medicine' and anti-coagulents not.

If someone gets better from fake medicine, and not from real, that is not the placebo effect, where you are treating real diseases with placebos. If they were real, they would have been treated with the correct medication.

That is, instead, the 'hypercondriac effect', where placebos cure imaginary diseases, combined with the fact that prescribing the wrong medication does not help people.

And as Demerol is for pain relief, well, a lot of pain is imaginary. Or, at least, you decide to notice it, and you decide not to. (Note I am aware that real, unblockable pain does exist.)

Speaking of pain and treatment, this situation actually exists where giving pain killers can make things worse: Headaches are caused by blood vessels in the head being too large or too small. (Erm, and sinuses expanding, of course.) Caffiene, which many painkiller contain, constricts blood vessels, and hence works perfectly if the cause of your headache is that they are too large, aka, a vascular headache. However, if they are too small, it will make them worse, and in some people caffiene actually causes headaches in normal circumstances.

This is why some people swear by aspirin, in addition to other stuff, makes the blood vessels larger in your brain, and some people swear by Excedrin, which does the opposite. Because people have different types of headaches.

My point is just this: if you're trying to answer the question "What will releive symptoms the best in this population?" systematic evidence is very helpful. If you want to answer the question "What will releive this person's symptoms the best", that one person is by defintion anecdotal.

However, the fact that any random thing can relieve any certain person's symptoms does not, in fact, mean there is a 'rubbing toothpaste on forehead' school of medicine.

I have no problem with people drinking holy water, or magical water left to sit under the full moon while stirred every six and half minutes four times widdershins with a thrice-blessed stirring rod, or whatever, if that cures their problems.

I have problems with people selling it as medicine to other people.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

Actually, many herbel remedies are dangerous, so homeopathy is probably safer.

True, of course. It's also true that many modern drugs are dangerous, so homeopathy is probably safer than those too.

I don't recommend that people use either herbs or refined/synthetic drugs willy-nilly. (Practitioners of Chinese Medicine refer to herbs as "the poisons", and put their use far down the line of treatments to use.)

And [St. Johns Wort] doesn't have a company standing behind it, so buyer beware.

Any given suppliment has its supplier standing behind it. Modern drugs have companies like Merck standing behind them - buyer beware!

Because the point of medicines isn't to 'cure' people, it's to cause a known biological effect.

I am very very glad that you are not my physician. Indeed, you've pretty much put into one sentence the reason why more and more people are turning to various alternative and complementary modalities.

I want a doctor who's interest is in "curing" me, not just in causing a known biological effect in my body.

If someone gets better from fake medicine, and not from real, that is not the placebo effect, where you are treating real diseases with placebos. If they were real, they would have been treated with the correct medication.

Of course, there's no chance that what was identified as the "correct medication", simply wasn't correct, since the medical system is infallible.

Uh-huh.

My mom gets no effect from standard injections of novocaine. (I can't recall if it's that her nerve is in a weird place, or some chemical thing.) When she was young, the dentist refused to believe this: if she didn't get numb from "real" medicine, than the pain must not be "real". That put her off going to the dentist for several decades. (Her current dentist uses a different compound or a different technique that works.)

I have no problem with people drinking holy water, or magical water left to sit under the full moon...I have problems with people selling it as medicine to other people

Do you have problems with selling it? Or is it just the word "medicine" that you want a monopoly on?

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

Incidentally, Vitamin K works quite well for treating bruises.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[Mr. Slippery]

To accept homeopathy is to accept the 'law of infinitesimals'...If medication does not follow that, it is not homeopathy.

That's exactly what I mean by setting up straw-men. You're choosing your own defintion of homeopathy that is at odds with what is actually practiced, and then proceeding to rip it to bits.

If "Europe's oldest and the UK's largest manufacturer of homeopathic medicines" is making concoctions with significant concentrations of active ingredients, that's awfully strong evidence that as homeopathy is actually practiced, not all homoepathic remedies are prepared according to the "law of infinitesimals". If you want to argue, I guess you should take it up with the homeopaths who aren't following your defintion. :-)

And it has nothing to do with how you stir it, or how much water you put in it.

According to the theory (which, again, I'm not saying I believe), yes, it does. Adherents claim that the water takes on some sort of "memory" or "image" of the substance; it "clusters" or absorbs some sort of "electromagnetic vibration" at each stage of dilution.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

I don't know why you put 'law of infinitesimals' in quotes like that. It is indeed one of the two founding principles of homeopathy.

It and the 'law of similiars' were formulated at the start by the founder, Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann. They form the foundation of 'The Organon of Homeopathic Medicine' and 'Theory of Chronic Diseases', the works that introduced homeopathy to the world.

Anyone claiming to be producing homeopathic medication at 1C is flatly ripping people off. They might be idiots who know nothing about homeopathy, they might be scam artists producing extremely inefficient and dangerous(1) medication , or they might be people producing tradionional herbal remedies and calling them homeopathy.

The entire concept of homeopathy requires that you find a substance that causes the same symptons as the problem, and give it to the patient in an extremely diluted form to cause them to cure the disease. If it is not following that concept, it is not homeopathy.

1) Homeopathy claims the way to fix disaeases by causing the problem of the disease, in extemely small amounts, aka, the law of similiars. If someone is not diluting the mixture enough, than it obviously will cause the problems of the disease in normal amounts.

(Please note that my speaking from the POV of homeopathy in this post does not imply I agree with or believe any of it in the slightest.)

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

I am very very glad that you are not my physician. Indeed, you've pretty much put into one sentence the reason why more and more people are turning to various alternative and complementary modalities.

I want a doctor who's interest is in "curing" me, not just in causing a known biological effect in my body.

I didn't say the point of doctors or medicine wans't to cure you, I said the point of medicineS wasn't to cure you. Perhaps 'medications' would have been clearer there.

Because, you see, it's flatly impossble to say 'This medication cures X in patient Y' without actually testing it on patient Y who has Y. As, at that point, it's rather too later to start figuring out the exact effect the medication has, doctors do something else instead:

They figure out what causes what ailments. And not just the obvious cause..yes, something may have a viral cause, but why exactly is it messing up the liver, for example.

Then they figure out how to undo or counteract these effects. Sometimes this is easy, aka, they solve a problem by merely killing bacteria. Sometimes this is amazingly complicated, where they cause an effect by causing something in your body to do something, which in turn causes something else, which in turn does something else, and that solves your problem.

And now that they have an effect they want to cause, what do they do? They aren't magicians, they can't cause things to happen in your body. Well, this is where medication comes in. They know that certain substances, in certain, well-defined amounts, will cause certain changes, and they give the substances that cause the changes they wish to happen. (And, of course, sometimes causing effects they do not want to happen.)

That is how medicine works. It does not work as, apparently, 'alternative' medicine things it does, where things 'cure' problems. Biochemical effects fix problems, and these effects are created via medications that have been through quite a lot of testing to find out what they do at the lowest level.

Sometimes, 'alternative medicine' does have problems and known solutions. Sadly, such 'problems' are usually near total gibberish, like balancing 'humours' and fixing 'miasms' in homeopathy.

Or, to put it in a way slashdoters will get, figuring out what causes a sympton=science. Figuring out what biochemical effect a drug has=science. Putting them together=engineering.

This post got kinda long, so I will continue elsewhere.

Re:Not quite, dick-heads.

[DavidTC]

It's also true that many modern drugs are dangerous, so homeopathy is probably safer than those too.

Well, yes. Doing nothing is always 'safer' than doing something, if you are willing to exclude the problems you already have from the odds. If these problems are 'tiredness', or whatever herbal suppliments are claiming to heal today, than doing nothing is safer than doing something. (Which, incidentally, is probably what modern medicine would tell you.)

Any given suppliment has its supplier standing behind it. Modern drugs have companies like Merck standing behind them - buyer beware!

The 'supplier' of a drug is only important if you are worried about inpure drugs. It is not the least bit important in the modern world. The important thing now are the trust in people saying it is safe and useful for the medical condition is prescribed for.

Real drugs? Well, there's the drug company/inventor, usually the same people. Don't trust them, they'd sell sugar pills to cure cancer if they thought they could get away with it. There's the FDA. Somewhat trust them, although they've been fooled before. There are doctors. Trust them about 95% of the way.

Alternative medicines? Well, there's 'common knowledge'. Don't trust that at all. (Bloodletting ring a bell?) There's the FDA. Trust them that it will be safe, but they don't test effectiveness for herbal remedies. There's the practicioner, who is not required to know anything about how the human body functions. Don't trust them.

See? I don't trust drug companies, but I mostly trust the FDA to keep them in line, I trust doctors to be working for their patients instead of the drug companies, and I trust the scientific process that medicine follows to correct errors made. Granted, it sucks if the error was made on me, but it sucks if I get rear-ended while driving a Pinto, too, but the fact that problem exists does not stop me from driving my Pontiac Sunbird because a similiar problem might show up.

OTOH, if I were to ever try an alternative medication, I would be sure to do my research, because, frankly, the people selling them are not doctors. Say what you want about the drug companies, but their medications rarely contain out-and-out poisons. And doctors try hard to not prescribe a medication that conflicts with other drugs I am taking, which non-doctors cannot possibly manage, because they don't even know the way a certain thing effects the body. (Sometimes they don't know because there is no explanation, aka, homeopathy.)

Of course, there's no chance that what was identified as the "correct medication", simply wasn't correct, since the medical system is infallible.

I don't know where you got that from. I was simply pointing out that the placebo effect works on the wrong medication as much as it works on sugar pills. (Which is the reason that doctors test using double-blind.)

Ergo, if the real medicine does not work, and a fake does, there are two choices: The patient believes in the fake and not the real, or the real medicine actually caused problems.

My mom gets no effect from standard injections of novocaine. (I can't recall if it's that her nerve is in a weird place, or some chemical thing.) When she was young, the dentist refused to believe this: if she didn't get numb from "real" medicine, than the pain must not be "real". That put her off going to the dentist for several decades. (Her current dentist uses a different compound or a different technique that works.)

Like I said...a lot of pain is imaginary. You can have X amount of pain in some circumstances, and it 'hurts', you can have X*10 amount of pain in other circumstances and not notice, and you can have X/10 amount of pain in yet others and be screaming in agony. Pain is almost completely in people's head, and there are people who 'actually feel' completely psychosomatic pain, it doesn't matter how much much their nerve is dead, they can feel the dentist.

Ok... Enough with the opinions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some may pass it as truth. What's with the socialist propaganda lately? Oh wait this is Slashdot. Of course free markets don't make sense to someone that doesn't want to make sense of it. And yes it's an oxymoron when government regulates the markets, your hero your god your government.

Dark matter, or an erroneous calculation?

[Zigurd]

CERN Courier says it could all be an error in calculation: http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/45/8/8

Re:Dark matter, or an erroneous calculation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it sounds like that one has been put to bed. Somebody had better spread the word a little more effectively so that people out of the loop can stop making stuff up.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[msuarezalvarez]

Can you provide an example of a free market, today or in history?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Anonymous Coward]

5 days ago?

How can you accuse the editors of trolling when you don't even read what they posted?

Actually...Re:Free markets make plenty sense...

[rtssmkn]

there is no free market. Market is always defined by restrain, necessity and lastly also pressure. Restrain by local to global laws, neccessity to always outdo the competition and pressure that either is created by the competition on your business or by the market itself (customers) that won't pull off, ie your products won't sell or won't reach your expected numbers of sales so that you eventually have to react and redefine your portfolio of products. Lastly, there is also no free market in that all participants of the market are dependent on each other, so that there is always an active force that enforces some restrain, necessity or pressure on your business and on the market. Free as in speech it of course mostly is, not for all products though, considering legal prosecution of export of for example strong encryption methods etc. But then again, what is freedom of speech worth if there is actually no freedom? And what is more, global markets are divided by the global players, whether they be the biggest players out there or the so-called smaller businesses. And, by dividing the market and of course the market shares, everyone is interested to keep that share or increase the amount of market share. With that in mind, and the introduction of b2b, we find that free market is actually a lie in that the market it a planned market and lastly also a planned economy. Of course, the actors in that economy mostly act on their behalf, being restricted by said restrains, necessities and pressure. They act semi-free in that they decide on their behalf and not on behalf of some third party that actually defines what to produce and when. Taking necessity into account and existing business relations (b2b), you will actually find that the only freedom one does have in the so-called free market is whether or not to actually be a part of that so-called free market. And, if that is what freedom leaves us as a choice in respect to market, then freedom is void in respect to the market, it is either be in it or leave it. And, considering that when you start complaining about something, it is always: you better leave as others who seek out to keep the system as it is, will eventually drive you out of it. Just my two cents, Carsten

Cosmic Rays

[Detritus]

I'd like to see someone explain the process that created a cosmic ray (reference) with energy (51 Joules) comparable to a brick being dropped on your foot.

Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, for a 2000-hour work year, we'd all make at least one million dollars a year and we'd all be rich.

Lordy, we all be millionaires!!!!

Feel stupid now, dumbass? You should.

Raising the minimum wage doesn't make an employee more valuable to an employer. Quite the opposite. Because if a low/no-skill worker isn't worth more to an employer than what he's paid, that low/no-skill worker will remain unemployed.

Read here how increases in the unemployment rate of black teenages correlates exactly with increases in the minimum wage.

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[dangitman]

Raising the minimum wage doesn't make an employee more valuable to an employer.

It also doesn't reduce the value of an employee to an employer.

Quite the opposite. Because if a low/no-skill worker isn't worth more to an employer than what he's paid, that low/no-skill worker will remain unemployed.

But that's not what we are talking about. Raising the minimum wage will NOT raise the price of an employee above what he is worth. It will just (very slightly) reduce profits. But profits will still be made. So only someone irrational would fire employees that do useful work if the minimum wage is raised.

If the minimum wage is raised, how can the employer sack the employee? They still need that job done - and nobody else can be paid any less.

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[swillden]

Raising the minimum wage will NOT raise the price of an employee above what he is worth.

Can you support this statement?

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[dangitman]

Can you support this statement?

Well, I should qualify the statement first. I meant "moderately" raising the minimum wage. If you raise it too much at once, then yes, it could.

The point is that if an employer is making so little money from an employee that paying them a decent wage is going to kill profits - then the business was never sustainable in the first place. The idea that companies are making profits solely because of the low minimum wage is absurd. It would mean that their business is actually about making razor thin margins off bad workplace conditions - rather than selling a product or service.

I'd like to see ANY real evidence for this rhetoric that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment. Seriously. Those are the people making bold claims that need to be proved.

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[khallow]

But that's not what we are talking about. Raising the minimum wage will NOT raise the price of an employee above what he is worth. It will just (very slightly) reduce profits. But profits will still be made. So only someone irrational would fire employees that do useful work if the minimum wage is raised.

Depends if the company can lay off workers who cost more than they're worth. If they can't, then they might be saddled with unproductive workers and even become unprofitable.

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[16K Ram Pack]

Anytime you raise the minimum wage, you have to consider what the outcomes may be. When you raise the minimum wage, you reduce an employee's options to be competitive. You take away their option to take less than what the government declares as a minimum.

Outcomes could be:-

Employer replaced by machine. The cost of an employee is now more than buying a piece of software to do the same job.

Foreign subcontractor. Not subject to the same minimum wage, and with a lower cost base, the owner ships work abroad and makes the employee redundant.

Owner decides that the investment isn't worth it/they can invest better elsewhere.

Re:Raise it to $500 an hour, then!!

[dubl-u]

I'd like to see ANY real evidence for this rhetoric that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment. Seriously. Those are the people making bold claims that need to be proved.

It sounds like you already agree that a large minimum-wage increase would decrease employment. For example, if we made the minimum wage $20 per hour, you can bet that McDonald's would put a bunch more money into labor-saving devices to reduce the amount of labor needed to produce a burger. This is Econ 101: raise the price of something, and people will use less, often substituting another good.

It's also pretty obvious that dropping the minimum wage can increase employment. Consider when you drop it to zero, for example. Companies regularly take interns (and non-profits regularly take volunteers) to do scut work that they'd never bother paying anybody to do. It is also the logic behind a lot of worker retraining programs; the government will pay part or all of somebody's salary while they come up to speed in a new job. The subsidy, by reducing the cost to the employer, creates new jobs.

So you agree that a large raise in the minimum wage will cause a loss of jobs. You presumably agree that a large drop in wages can increase jobs. It sounds like your only disagreement is whether the effect appears at sufficiently small values. Or, put another way, you a proposing a novel theory that, unlike a normal market, the effect sometimes disappears for labor. Shouldn't you be the one coming up with proof for your bold claim?

As you'd hopefully expect, there's a fair bit of proof for what you're calling a bold claim. See, for example, "Do Minimum Wages Raise the NAIRU?" by Peter Tulip, Federal Reserve Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-38. He concludes that the difference in minimum wages between the US and Europe (where they are much higher) explain a lot of the difference in unemployment (which is much lower in the US).

natural nuclear reactors, built by bacteria

[rheotaxis]

This article states that "A recent analysis of the only known natural nuclear reactor, which was active nearly 2 billion years ago at what is now Oklo in Gabon..." in the question about constants. I never knew about this, so off to google. According to one web page, bacterial life-forms were involved in the process of running these reactors. This idea isn't mentioned in the wikipedia article. Well, at least the wikipedia article does mention about the alpha constant, and says, "there is no physical reason why it should be exactly constant."

Oh dearie, dearie me.

[ncurtain]

It must be a cultural thing then. You can't see because you have been brainwashed. Only thing is there must be a limit to how much your brain has shrunk or is it defying th elaws of physics.

You can not administer homeopathic remedies the way that big drug companies administer double blind experiments. Each individual recieving the medicine has to be analysed individually.

What is it about that statement hat just can't penetrate your cranium?

There is plenty of room so maybe there is nowhere to go?

Re:Oh dearie, dearie me.

[FLEB]

Time is cubic?

Re:Oh dearie, dearie me.

[DavidTC]

Please go away until you actually learn to form coherent sentences.

However, this 'And there has to be special circumstances', is exactly the kind of crap psychics got away with for fifty years 100 years ago.

If homeopathy works, it is a medicine. Medicines have demonstratable effects on illnesses and the body. If a homeopathic medicine made from X has an effect on condition Y, it should repeatably have that effect.

And, more to the point, there is no way to do a double-blind test when homeopathy 'doctors' refuse to accept others can do exactly what they are doing and end up with the same 'medicine', so patients can either be given that medicine or given water, and watched.

Or, hell, just make a big batch of it and hand it over to a hospital for the study.

And the reason they act like this is because they know that if that were to happen, it would be demonstrated that giving people pure water and telling them it's a homeopathic remedy produces exactly the same effect as giving them the homeopathic remedy.

Which isn't the least bit surprising, because homeopathic remedies are pure water. But, hey, there are places willing to do the studies, and in fact have done the studies.

And, no, the study in the article doesn't prove anything. A single study with a weird result isn't proof of anything. There have been 'guess which way the coin flip will go' studies where a person got 65% of them right, but that doesn't prove anything, because other studies have been unable to replicate them.

Of course, now that a study has gone their way, they'll be even less likely to help with research that will prove homeopathy to be a big bag of crap.

First P0st

[Anonymous Coward]

To the crowd in you loved that Don'7 be a sling BSD managed to make are allowed to play [tuxedo.org], join inU. It can be FreeBSD used to

#15

[EccentricAnomaly]

#15 - Slashdot Moderators

Do a google search on what a 'troll' is... from the wikipedia:

The main motive for a user trolling is to disrupt the community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls".

It does not mean someone you disagree with or don't like. The point of moderations like "Troll" and "Flamebait" is to remove noise from the signal, not to try an bias the signal towards your own sensibilities.

The post above is a lame joke and not a troll... the earlier post arguing with the list by saying inflation isn't a bad theory isn't a troll... if only slashdot had a -1 Curmudgeon...

Anyway, if you don't like my comment here, moderate it as OffTopic, not as a troll or flamebait or whatever. Many of us have marked Trolls to be extra negative, but moderator abuse is making this a useless feature as someone will down moderate a +5 post by labeling it a troll just because it is pro-microsoft or pro-drug-czar or pro-copyrights or whatever....

Re:#15

[xtieburn]

If saying something that is inflamatory and has absolutely no relevance to the article isnt a troll what the hell is.

People getting marked down for good pro-MS posts in a thread about MS are one thing. People getting marked down for making bad Intelligent design posts, in a thread with nothing to do with intelligent design is another.

Re:#15

[EccentricAnomaly]

I thought it was just a lame joke... but if it is to be modded down, it should be OffTopic or possibly FlameBait This doesn't appear to be designed to generate a heated discussion (which is a key part of the definition of a troll).

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll ...this quote sums up the troll definition nicely:

An ideal troll would generate much heated discussion and posting without further intervention from the troll.

Re:#15

[fyngyrz]

if only slashdot had a -1 Curmudgeon...

Surely you must have meant "+1 Curmudgeon", right?

Have you not read any H. L Mencken, possibly the world's most notable English-speaking curmudgeon?

Mencken's Creed:

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Re:#15

[pnewhook]

Mencken's Creed:

(bunch of nonsense)

Wow. Not a single belief of his is true. Must suck to wake up every morning realizing this. Never mind. Just looked him up and he's already dead.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even gotten a mod point in months? Myself and several co-workers all have excellent karma and used to get regular mod points. Nothing for months now. And my posts regularly get vindictively and childishly modded- like a simple answer to someone's question being modded "Overrated" without first being modded up.

Slashdot is dying if not already dead. It's so riddled with brain damaged ideology it's sad. But then again all of geekdom has degenerated into a morass of Leftist claptrap, conspiracy theories and policy wonks.

It's a joke, not a troll.

[Flying pig]

Taken at face value the term "free market" is an oxymoron, because a market is a place where things are bought and sold and so cannot be free in that sense. "Fair markets" or "Information-neutral markets" would be more correct, but there is no direct connection between information neutral markets and freedom: the term itself is loaded politically. In any case (and someone won a Nobel prize in economics for showing this) free markets are rarely free in reality because the large players always seek to make them asymmetric.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[CaptainFork]

If it's a joke then I can't find the punchline. Either the words "free" and "market" are oxymoronic when juxtaposed or they aren't. It merely states the political opinion of the submitter and as such in my opinion the story should not have been accepted (and yet I suspect that's why it got accepted).

For your information, the term "free market" refers to a market in which pairs of individuals are free to conduct transactions at whichever price they choose.

For example, the software market is a free market because I can offer you a licence to use my software for a price upon which we agree.

By contrast, if for compatibility reasons I am forced to use GPL code in my software I lose my freedom to sell it to you for a price acceptable to us both because you can get it for free, and I lose my freedom to agree terms with the author becuse he has probably signed it over to the socialist FSF organisation. The FSF defines "free" as "free from anything that goes against Stallman's communist agenda".

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[Paradise Pete]

Taken at face value the term "free market" is an oxymoron

Only if you use the wrong definition of free. I'd say it's closer to a pun than an oxymoron.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[Rutulian]

The FSF defines "free" as "free from anything that goes against Stallman's communist agenda".

Uh huh. Well, you are free to write your own implementation of that code "required for compatibility" making yourself free of the GPL. You are also free to buy a non-GPL license from the FSF. Sounds like a free market to me, by your definition. Oh wait, I get it, a free market is only "free" depending on the point of view of the observer. Sounds pretty oxymoronic to me.

And since when should the editors censor articles just because of a political, albeit satirical (*woosh*), comment?

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[Dun Malg]

Taken at face value the term "free market" is an oxymoron, because a market is a place where things are bought and sold and so cannot be free in that sense.

Cripes, man, you do know that when they say "free market" they mean "free as in freedom" rather than "free as in beer", don't you? A free market is (theoretically) an unregulated market. It's only an oxymoron if you're not particularly literate, or being intentionally obtuse in order to make a snide comment.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[swillden]

Well, you are free to write your own implementation of that code "required for compatibility" making yourself free of the GPL.

He's even free to read the GPL code to learn how it works, facilitating his construction of his own implementation. Try that with most commercial software, even software that you can buy a source code license to.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[khallow]

"Fair markets" or "Information-neutral markets" would be more correct, but there is no direct connection between information neutral markets and freedom: the term itself is loaded politically.

Er, no. There's no implication of fairness or being information-neutral in a free market. To give an extreme example, if I'm the only one who can sell immortality, then a free market means my ability to price as a monopoly is unencumbered.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[CaptainFork]

Well, you are free to write your own implementation of that code "required for compatibility" making yourself free of the GPL.

Ever head of lock-in? One in three articles on Slashdot criticises MS for devious practices that result in lock-in. Yet you imagine that GNU could never do the same thing. Here's a free clue: encouraging lock-in is their raison d'etre!

You are also free to buy a non-GPL license from the FSF

Wrong.

Oh wait, I get it, a free market is only "free" depending on the point of view of the observer. Sounds pretty oxymoronic to me.

The term "free market" has a certain definition and I have explained why the market for GPL software is not a free market. If you didn't understand my explanation you should think harder (but be careful not to burst your brain) instead of whining "that's just your opinion i'm not listening la la la". And please look up the word oxymoron in a dictionary.

And since when should the editors censor articles just because of a political, albeit satirical (*woosh*), comment?

The story was both off-topic and inflammatory. But not funny or satirical (look up the word satire in a dictionary). As such it would be due for moderation to -1 and most readers choose not to read at that level. The story is also technically incorrect about when the list was published, and since the list was really published over 6 months ago, hardly qualifies as "news". Furthermore, Slashdot rejects submissions frequently and without giving reasons; if in your opinion this is censorship then it happens all the time at Slashdot already.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[CaptainFork]

All of the design ideas in GPL software are copied from commercial software anyway, so there's no point. That's why RMS supports software copyrights but rejects software patents: only his code is his own; his algorithms and ideas are copied from other people.

In fact, unoriginality is a common trait among socialists. They think creativity (like wealth) drop from the sky in fixed amounts and should be distributed in a controlled manner. In fact both of these things are created by people and the key is to encourage people to keep creating them. By outselling the commercial Unices from which it stole all its ideas, GNU/Linux is doing a good job at stamping out that creativity.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[swillden]

All of the design ideas in GPL software are copied from commercial software anyway, so there's no point.

You haven't looked very hard at OSS software. Linux is a hotbed for development of new OS ideas, KDE contains tons of unique and original features, all of the most innovative and interesting networking and security tools are OSS (well, not in the anti-virus space; OSS people don't tend to solve problems they don't have)... I could go on and on.

Sure, there is plenty of duplication -- there *must* be, in order to produce a fully-functioning Free software infrastructure. There's also plenty of original work as well, including some that would never be done in a proprietary setting, just as there's lots of original work done in proprietary software that would never be done in OSS. Different sorts of innovation require different kinds of environments.

In fact, unoriginality is a common trait among socialists.

Is it? I don't know many socialists.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[Rutulian]

The term "free market" has a certain definition and I have explained why the market for GPL software is not a free market. If you didn't understand my explanation you should think harder (but be careful not to burst your brain) instead of whining "that's just your opinion i'm not listening la la la". And please look up the word oxymoron in a dictionary.

Not getting the point...let me simplify it for you. The "market" for GPL software is just as free as for proprietary software. That is, I own the copyright on the code and can therefore charge whatever I want for it. If somebody wants to negotiate a lower price, they have to find another implementation with the functionality they need somewhere offered at a different price (sometimes trivial, ex: a text editor, sometimes not so much, ex: an operating system). So in other words, it is not free, even by your definition. The supplier sets the price (in the case of GPL software the price is to release your own code), and the potential buyer either pays the price or goes elsewhere. There is no negotiation until there are sufficient alternative implementations that the buyer is not "locked-in" to one supplier.

Btw, oxymoron (n): conjoining contradictory terms (as in `deafening silence')

Another one would be "honest politician" which is kind of funny. The article poster believes "free market" is also a funny one, not because a free market cannot theoretically exist, but because they don't exist for various reasons.

The story was both off-topic and inflammatory. But not funny or satirical (look up the word satire in a dictionary).

How can a story be off-topic? It is the topic. Inflammatory...maybe. No more so than a snide comment about intelligent design, though. Funny is relative. I found it funny as did many other Slashdotters. You did not, so what.

satire (n): Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

Added note: often used as a form of political commentary. See "Praise of Folly" by Erasmus or "Candide" by Voltaire.

Perhaps you need to go back and read the dictionary some more.

Slashdot rejects submissions frequently and without giving reasons

Rejecting a story for whatever reason, a dupe for example, is just that, rejecting a story. Rejecting a story because you don't agree with the political point of view of the poster is censorship. The article should have been rejected because it was a dupe, not because of a side comment by the poster.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[CaptainFork]

Linux is a hotbed for development of new OS ideas -- All copied from *BSD

KDE contains tons of unique and original features -- Just copies the features (and bugs) from Windows GUI

all of the most innovative and interesting networking and security tools are OSS -- Actual algorithms from research papers that are public domain, not GPL

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[CaptainFork]

Not getting the point...let me simplify it for you. The "market" for GPL software is just as free as for proprietary software.

I recommend you begin reading comments before you reply to them. I indicated that the GPL inhibited the free market process when users are forced via lock-in (eg comatibility requirements) to incorporate GPL code which forces their proprietary code to be released under GPL too. It's called a viral license and it's anti-competitive. Don't worry, you'll understand it one day when you can't get a software job that pays and RMS controls everything that happens in your computer.

The article poster believes "free market" is also a funny one, not because a free market cannot theoretically exist, but because they don't exist for various reasons.

So you now claim the submitter knew that the term "free market" is not an oxymoron. This differs from your earlier explaination. Would you like more time to get your story straight?

How can a story be off-topic?

It was submitted under the category of science, yet contains the submitter's worthless political opinion.

Perhaps you need to go back and read the dictionary some more.

The story was neither ironic, sarcastic nor witty.

Rejecting a story because you don't agree with the political point of view of the poster is censorship

Look up the word "censorship" in a dictionary.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[swillden]

All copied from *BSD

In the first place, that's not true. Linux has many features that the BSDs don't, particularly in areas related to performance, but elsewhere also. To take one example, consider libusb: It was developed first for Linux, then ported to FreeBSD, then to other BSDs (including Darwin) and has now been adopted by Solaris.

In the seond place, you're arguing against yourself, aren't you, given that the BSDs are OSS? Or are all of the good *BSD ideas from the time when it was semi-proprietary?

Just copies the features (and bugs) from Windows GUI

Right... Windows has kioslaves, categorized menus, DCOP... and those are just the ones that come to mind which are unique to KDE as compared to any platform, not just Windows. If you want to compare strictly to Windows, the list is much longer.

Actual algorithms from research papers that are public domain, not GPL

I'm talking about tools, not algorithms. Certainly many (not all) of the algorithms were first seen in published papers; that's equally true of proprietary software. But the best implementations of those ideas are Free.

Re:It's a joke, not a troll.

[Rutulian]

So you now claim the submitter knew that the term "free market" is not an oxymoron.

That's not what I said at all.

Don't worry, you'll understand it one day when you can't get a software job that pays and RMS controls everything that happens in your computer.

I obviously understand it quite a bit more than you do because you are making stuff up and being rude in an effort to defend your position. I disagree with you because I think you are wrong not because I am stupid. Deal with it. Look up the word "troll" in the dictionary.

This time I will say it as clearly is I can and then I'm going to give up. The GPL does not inhibit the free market process. Copyright inhibits the free market process. The licensing (not selling) of intellectual property is inherently not a free market system. The lock-in you refer to is what makes it not a free market system, and it has nothing to do with the GPL. You can be just as easily locked-in to, say, a proprietary database and be forced to pay non-negotiable exhorbitant prices to a company for licenses.

Re:#2 well.. its supposed to take all the energy

[donald954]

in the universe to accelerate past the speed of light, so if the entire universe were to explode I guess that qualifies. Not to mention that initially everything was in a quantum state so the standard model didn't really apply at the beginning, after all, its when the rules of the standard model imprinted on our universe.

but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Russ Nelson]

The trouble with that joke ("I went to the free market but nothing was free") is that some idiots say that there is no such thing as a free market. In essence that's true just as there is no such thing as an object at absolute zero. Markets are never "free"; they are always more or less free than other markets. As you observed, markets which are more free produce more wealth for the participants than markets which are interfered with to achieve some nominally desirable purpose like equality or justice.
-russ

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Rutulian]

markets which are more free produce more wealth for the participants

EDIT: markets which are more free produce more wealth for some of the participants

A truly free market is like a sport without any rules. The winners are the people with bigger bats. It encourages participation to an extent; there is more to gain for the people who succeed. But eventually it bottoms out as people realize they don't really want to lose their arms wrestling with the 800 lb. gorilla who, without any competition, suddenly has no incentive to be nice to anybody and starts running around burning houses down.

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[evilviper]

Where can I adopt one of these mean, arm wrestling, large-bat weilding, pyromanical, 800 lb gorillas?

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Anonymous Coward]

But eventually it bottoms out as people realize they don't really want to lose their arms wrestling with the 800 lb. gorilla who, without any competition, suddenly has no incentive to be nice to anybody and starts running around burning houses down.

The government IS an 800 lb. gorilla. Everybody else is is a chimp at best.

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Russ Nelson]

Sorry, your EDIT is wrong. You can see this by comparing the poor in societies with free markets to the poor in societies without free markets.

And your second paragraph is also wrong. In a truly free market, the participants will create rules. Do some research on "law merchant". Or don't, but you'll continue to post nonsense.
-russ

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Russ Nelson]

I'm glad to see you express the idea that we have everything to fear from the people with guns, including the people nominally protecting us. For many people, their worst enemy is their own government. We have it good in democratic countries. Non-free governments have killed hundreds of millions of their own citizens (documented fact, not statistic pulled from my butt).
-russ

Re:but some idiots say there is no such thing

[Rutulian]

Ummm...you are contradicting yourself. The more free a market is, the fewer rules there are. In a completely free market, there are no rules. Aside from the usual "Thou shalt not steal," I consider those rules for society, not for markets. If you are trying to draw a distinction between rules made by governments to regulate markets and rules made by markets to regulate markets, I don't see the difference.

Sorry, your EDIT is wrong. You can see this by comparing the poor in societies with free markets to the poor in societies without free markets.

Nonsense. You are blithely ignoring hundreds of other variables in making such a comparison. The tremendous growth in world economies over the last century has been with pseudo-free markets, which says to me that the (mixed economy) system works. Drawing the conclusion that a "more free" market would result in even better growth is erroneous logic.

Hey Stupe this is a Dupe!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Stupe this is a Dupe!!!!!!!!!!

Our understanding is far from complete

[canuck57]

9 Dark energy

IT IS one of the most famous, and most embarrassing, problems in physics. In 1998, astronomers discovered that the universe is expanding at ever faster speeds. It's an effect still searching for a cause - until then, everyone thought the universe's expansion was slowing down after the big bang. "Theorists are still floundering around, looking for a sensible explanation," says cosmologist Katherine Freese of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "We're all hoping that upcoming observations of supernovae, of clusters of galaxies and so on will give us more clues."

I wonder if they should re-examine this. Perhaps the universe is overall static in size. Much like the conservation of energy...

Perhaps it is our world and solar system that is becoming smaller and thus the universe "appears" to be getting larger. As space dust deposits minute amounts of dust on earth, it increases our gravity and thus affects time. We do know time and gravity have a relationship, and thus maybe we are missing the obvious.

Re:Our understanding is far from complete

[Bolen]

Perhaps it is our world and solar system that is becoming smaller and thus the universe "appears" to be getting larger.

So, does that explain why early mammals and dinosaurs are mostly much bigger than living mammals today? :-)*

*Note to humor impaired: Observe the smiley.

Fractals

[Anonymous Coward]

Fractals...not uniform, but they provide a repeating pattern. Fractals occur in nature quite a bit, why not in the big scheme of the universe?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[psykocrime]

I'm not a big fan of unregulated free markets (since I've seen what they lead to),

An unregulated free market didn't lead to Microsoft, because we don't *have* an unregulated free market
in the United States. In a real unregulated market, without things like patents, and the bazillions of dollars worth of government restrictions and regulations required to start a business, there would be a lot more competition for MS. It would actually be much harder for monopolies like MS to become overwhelmingly powerful in a real free market, because it would be much easier to set up shop and compete with them on a level playing field.

Of course some people say that there would be no innovation without patents... I contend that such an assertion is not true, and that the lack of artificial government granted monopolies (patents) would result in a constant "arms race" situation where companies would be forced to innovate constantly or die. Look at how military technology advances... the US is forced to constantly work on developing better battle technology exactly because there is no way to prevent our competitors from using what has already been invented. I mean, it's not like we could patent the nuclear bomb and keep Russia, China, India, Pakistan, etc. from using it...

Give us a real free market sometime, and let's see what happens... until then it's all just speculation, because we damn sure don't have anything approaching a free market now.

Viking results and Martian life

[Chemicalscum]

Gilbert Levins labelled release (LR) results from the Viking expedition, indicating the presence of microbial life on Mars makes more and more sense. The arguements against it from the chemistry experiment on the expedition don't hold up. The experiment used a mass spectrometer (MS), the set up was designed by Klaus Bieman one of the most distinguished mass spectrometrists in the world. When they got negative results and the biology experiment got positive results, they were not going to accept it and they carried out an organized campaign to discredit the LR results proposing all sorts of experimentally unreproducible hypotheses to show that the LR results were a false positive.

Well I am a chemist and a mass spectrometrist who in my youth used to regard Bieman as an almost godlike figure. Well he was wrong. The MS results were of limited sensitivity. The most likely form microbial life in Martian soil would take is to be dormant spores waiting for the rare periods when liquid water becomes available. These spores could be in a very low level in the Martian soil well below the level that would produce sufficent quantities of organic compounds to be detectible by MS.

The LR experiment is very sensitive. Levin was able to use it to show the presence of microorganisms in Antarctic ice cores, which could not be detected chemically, but which could be confirmed by the standard microbiological procedures of plating out. Lunar rock from the Apollo mission gave no false positives in the LR experiment.

All the recent results from Mars probes showing both evidence for the existance of liquid water on the surface of Mars in the past and for evidence of the presence of water now, all serve to support the claim that the original Viking biology results provide a strong indication that microbial life is present on Mars. There is a case to answer. Now is the time for NASA to invest in sending a chiral LR experiment to Mars to further investigate and hopefully come up with some conclusive answers.

Re:Viking results and Martian life

[Rudisaurus]

The MS results were of limited sensitivity.

That could well be said of most MS publications/releases of late (e.g. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory /912840.mspx)

Re:Viking results and Martian life

[khallow]

I disagree. The LR experiments is sensitive to a false positive from chemically reactive soil. Unfortunately, I have to side with the opposition. These experiments aren't sufficient. We don't understand Martian soil and geological chemistry well enough to claim existence of life.

The chiral test sounds intriguing, but Martian life (if it exists) might not be chiral or might be able to digest equally fast despite the chiral differences. Since we're on the subject, how about including temperature or isotope profiles. For example, it is known that Earth life is most active in a band (the hard upper limit is the boiling point of water at the pressure in the cell). OTOH, reaction rates of non-living chemical processes usually increase over a broad range of temperatures. So if the reaction rate declines when the temperature passes a threshhold, then that could be an indication of life.

Mod parent up!

[khasim]

The only way to question science is via the scientific method.

hmmmm . . .

[yRu_sew_StewPid_0x3f]

Did anyone else notice that the "WOW signal" occurred the day before Elvis was pronounced dead?

Re:hmmmm . . .

[smart.id]

Of course not, because everyone knows that Elvis isn't dead.

Mistake in Horizon Problem

[Tango42]

"That may not seem surprising until you consider that the two edges are nearly 28 billion light years apart and our universe is only 14 billion years old."

28 billion? Closer to 100 billion if my memory serves me - they forgot to take into account expansion. Journalists shouldn't guess scientific data...

I figured out the 2nd one

[CODiNE]

From the article...
Over the past decade, however, the University of Tokyo's Akeno Giant Air Shower Array - 111 particle detectors spread out over 100 square kilometres - has detected several cosmic rays above the GZK limit. In theory, they can only have come from within our galaxy, avoiding an energy-sapping journey across the cosmos. However, astronomers can find no source for these cosmic rays in our galaxy. So what is going on?

Bird droppings.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[bashbrotha]

then you should check out digg.com. like slashdot, but better. the people are the editors, and generally, it just doesn't suck.

MOD PARENT DOWN! Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm SO SICK of this endless "dupe article" trolling. If you want to bring up the quality of this site, how about either commenting on the article, or shutting up.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Dude, just wow. What color is the sky in your simplistic world?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[yndrd1984]

White, it's overcast today. Why?

You apparently disagree with the other post, which is fine, but what makes his viewpoint "simplistic"?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[yndrd1984]

Couldn't agree with you more.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Anonymous Coward]

Myself and several co-workers all have excellent karma and used to get regular mod points. Nothing for months now.

I think it's because you refer to yourself as "myself" rather than "I." Myself is retarded. Stop it. Myself am going to post this now.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Black Parrot]

> Of course some people say that there would be no innovation without patents... I contend that such an assertion is not true, and that the lack of artificial government granted monopolies (patents) would result in a constant "arms race" situation where companies would be forced to innovate constantly or die.

The US drug companies are always on television telling you how important their profits are to continued research, but outside observers say they spend 10x as much on advertising as they do on research.

Placebos: powerful or powerless?

[tgibbs]

If you read the older literature, it seems that placebos are very powerful treatments for many conditions, with a substantial fraction of subjects showing a positive response to placebo. The effect of placebos has been attributed to patient expectation. Some studies showed that patient expectation could override known pharmacological effects of drugs; patients given a stimulant but told that it was a sedative exhibited signs of sedation, and vice-versa. On the other hand, modern studies (e.g. this study suggest that placebos have rather small effects aside from pain (probably via release of endogenous opiates) and psychiatric conditions.

However, modern studies with placebos are done very differently than the early studies. In the old days, experimenters simply lied to the subjects and told them that they were receiving an active drug. This is no longer considered ethical, and subjects in modern studies must sign a form indicating that they are aware that there is a possibility that they will be given an inactive placebo. Given that the ethical issues preclude the replication of the early studies, this is a question that may never be entirely resolved.

A related issue is whether it is ethical for a physician to lie to a patient and give them a placebo. Modern ethical standards impose an obligation on the physician to be honest with patients, which--if placebos really can have beneficial effects--may be an obstacle to optimum treatment in circumstances where no better treatment is available. I've heard of cases physicians recommending herbal or homeopathic treatments, since in such cases they can honestly tell their patients, "Some patients find this helps." This is not quite the same as being able to say "This is a wonder drug; it will definitely make you feel better," but offers a compromise between the obligation to be honest and the obligation to offer the best therapy available.

U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party

[Futurepower(R)]

On topic, since the discussion was started by the Slashdot editor: U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party.

Cold Fusion

[Veteran]

The fundamental idea behind cold fusion is the same as that for Muon catalyzed fusion - reduce the size of deuterium atoms and the nuclear attraction can be increased to the point that fusion occurs.

Palladium will hold more deuterium per unit volume than the same volume of liquid deuterium will. This means that the nuclei are closer to each other than they are in liquid deuterium. With the proper molecular structure of Palladium this increased density is enough that the deuterium will fuse. This does not require any 'new physics' to explain.

What does require some work is why these reactions don't release neutrons like hot fusion does. In hot fusion the nuclei can only get rid of their increased energy by 1. radiation 2. emission of particles. The energy and momentum conservation laws don't allow option one in deuterium fusion. Those same laws require 2 particles be emitted since one fast moving particle could not conserve the pre impact momentum of the colliding atoms. In cold fusion the helium nucleus can and will get rid of its extra energy by means of the increased electric field imparting kinetic energy in the form of heat into the palladium matrix. As a result the helium nucleus does not need to emit a neutron to conserve momentum. Once again, no new physics required.

I have read that part of the reason for the difficulty of duplicating the original experiments is that metallic palladium has 16 or so different atomic structures - only one of which will support cold fusion.

I have also read that there is a fairly easy way to overcome all of the difficulties of the experiment: put Palladium dust into deuterium gas at about 5000 PSI. The extra pressure on the metal evidently moves the nuclei a little closer together causing the container of deuterium to heat up and stay hot from continued fusion events. This was discovered by a Japanese researcher.

Re:Cold Fusion

[cinnamon colbert]

the day after pons and fleischman had their original press conference, my boss comes in, and says, well, they don't look like bullshitters, but I talked to some guys who know about this (my boss was an mit prof, so when he said guys who know, i think it was serious) and they said, pons and f are off by 23 orders of magnitude.....

So, the thing is, the amount of energy required to put two deuterium atoms next to each other is ENORMOUS like really big, so ...

the other way to look at it is that after 16 years, we still don't have a confirmed case, whivch says a lot

Wasn't the Homeopathy result confirmed to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

merely the Placebo effect?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/26/health/w ebmd/main797796.shtml/

Belfast expermient

[nasorenga]

As noted earlier, this article is from March, making it a mystery why it is presented as a "year-end list". Apart from that, it boggles the mind how New Scientist could include the Ennis "Belfast" experiment on the list of unsolved mysteries, without even mentioning the "Horizon" experiment that thoroughly debunked it several years ago. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopat hy.shtml

Re:Belfast expermient

[wes33]

The "horizon report" has absolutely nothing to do with the Ennis histamine experiment. Nothing whatsoever! As the story about Ennis notes, no solid experiment has ever confirmed homeopathy. But Ennis's work stands as a mystery, no matter what you might think about homeopathy.

Re:Belfast expermient

[JohnFluxx]

Ennis's work isn't a mystery, it's just flawed. Google for when Ennis tried to replicate the results in a proper way, when checked over by Randi. No results at all. And no one else has replicated it under proper conditions. Ennis was just sloppy.

Re:Belfast expermient

[nasorenga]

The "horizon report" has absolutely nothing to do with the Ennis histamine experiment.

... except that it was an unsuccessful attempt to reproduce Ennis' result, with the difference that the experimentors were not allowed to know which tubes contained the histamine dilute, and which contained ordinary water. True, the effect described by Ennis' is not thereby explained, but the mystery is no longer how "water memory" is possible. The remaining question is just how the experimentor's knowledge of which solution is which could influence the outcome of the experiment. This may be worth investigating, but it hardly qualifies for the top-13 list of unexplained phenomena.

Re:Belfast expermient

[16K Ram Pack]

I once OD'd when I skipped my homeopathic medicine.

Re:Belfast expermient

[hartman]

I thought Ennis's experiment was double blinded, and was also carried out in four different labs (kind of like a simultaneous replication, although I'm sure that doesn't count as scientific evidence of replication). Also, I've read that the Horizon experiment was very different from Ennis's and therefore does not invalidate her research. See http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/media/2020_enn is.php which purports to be an email from Ennis to the Horizon researchers listing discrepencies. If this is authentic (and I have no way of knowing if it is or isn't) it would also seem that the Horizon experiment could never demonstrate an effect as the basophils would have been "killed off". A more balanced report of the Horizon results is included in the New Scientist here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18624940.300 .html Overall... I think we still need to await better science for more definitive answers one way or the other.

Sigh...

[Black Parrot]

Four replies, none of which address the argument.

Claim: Free markets make perfect sense! They are the most logical, sensible system.

Counterclaim: If you're on the top of the pile. Those being crushed on the bottom might reasonably feel otherwise.

Counter-counterclaim: [sarcasm] Yeah, because it isn't like everyone benefits from the freemarket system. Only the Waltons benefit from their stores. Not the millions of poorer people that are able to afford more goods and live better lives because they can afford cheaper goods.

Counter-counter-counterclaim: [paraphrased, for the benefit of those who missed the point] Some people can't even afford to shop at Wal-Mart.

Are you people unaware that people go hungry in the USA, which prides itself as being the richest, freest, fairest nation in the world?

Do you really think an unconstrained market would improve their lot?

Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?

Re:Sigh...

[Busy]

Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?

Everyone deserves to live a good life. Everyone deserves to have things. Everyone deserves to be treated well. Everyone on slashdot deserves a girlfriend, or at least some hot sex. Everyone deserves to live to an old age. Everyone deserves a happy childhood. Everyone deserves not to die in a war. etc.. etc...

Can you see what I'm getting at? My point is depressing so I don't want to take it any further. (It's still valid though)

Re:Sigh...

[yndrd1984]

The following is brought to you by SARCASM(tm), the fun way to make an argument!

Are you people unaware that people go hungry in the USA, which prides itself as being the richest, freest, fairest nation in the world?

Are you unaware that people get hit by cars, even is places that pride themselves on safety?

Do you really think an unconstrained market would improve their lot?

Do you really think lettin people drive over 55 on the highway will prevent injuries?

Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?

Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?

The point is that free markets may not provide a utopia, but most people are better off when they have more economic freedom. The fact that a few don't benefit is tragic, but do you know of any system that's better?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Apotsy]

Have you ever read the comments on digg? The level of stupidity is absolutely stunning. That place is a cesspool.

The great thing about slashdot is that, despite all the idiotic stories, there are usually some good comments explaining what's wrong with each story. Alterslash will usually pick a lot of them out for you automatically. If you want both, plus a little bit of del.icio.us thrown in, there's always diggdot.

Free markets make sense to me

[Anonymous Coward]

But then again, I'm immune to the placebo effect.

I'm rating you -1 Didn't get the joke

[dangitman]

It's pretty rich to complain about a drop in standards when you are too stupid to get a joke. Let's replace the submitted oxymoron with another:

Military Intelligence

Would you have reacted so bitterly if that was the joke that was used? Knowing slashdot, sadly, there probably someone out there who will come out and argue, in all seriousness, about the intelligence of the military, and how their uncle was a genius at Mil Intel.

Dumbest post title of 2006

[piotrr]

The title is completely irrelevant to the content of the message, incorrect because it is not about a year's end list, and it begins with a parenthesis. It's just horrible.

It's an interesting article, too, or I wouldn't even bother saying this.

Moderation of parent

[Millenniumman]

The parent was moderated -1, Funny . Does this not suggest that the moderators are against humor? I guess the moderators could be saying that that the post was -1 because it was offtopic and funny because it was funny, but shouldn't the moderation number correspond to the reason? Added to this someone who posted the exact same thing after this got modded 4, Funny . Will this be modded 5, Offtopic?

Re:Moderation of parent

[Millenniumman]

Oh, now I understand. He has really bad karma. And he's been modded up.

5 Dark matter + 9 Dark energy

[Nom du Keyboard]

Same thing, and both explained by String Theory. The missing matter/undetectable energy are strings that have not yet coalesced into recognisable matter and energy. It's simply unformed stuff that we can't detect yet.

Now wasn't that easy?

5 Dark matter + 8 The Pioneer anomaly

[Nom du Keyboard]

Obviously related. Galaxies aren't spinning property, and Pioneer spacecraft aren't flying properly. These two items are obviously related, and don't deserve to have two separate items in the list.

Along with realizing that Dark Energy and Dark Matter come from the same explanation (see previous post), we'll have this list whittled down to a much more reasonable 10 Items before you know it. After all, who has ever heard of a Top 13 list?

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[swillden]

In a real unregulated market, without things like patents, and the bazillions of dollars worth of government restrictions and regulations required to start a business, there would be a lot more competition for MS.

When you say "without things like patents", I assume you also mean "without copyrights". In that sort of a market, there would be no competition for Microsoft, because there would be no Microsoft, since their whole business model depends upon enforcement of copyrights. It is perhaps possible that software companies could use contract law rather than copyright law to prevent wholesale redistribution of their products, but that would lead to a very inefficient market, since the transaction costs would be very high.

Also, if we're throwing out IP law, trade secrets have to go, too. That means that even if a software company were able to function by selling software bound up with contractual restrictions, there would be no law beyond employment contracts that could be used to prevent employees from stealing a copy of the source code and selling it to competitors, and definitely no way to prevent those competitors from selling the software as their own once they managed to acquire it, by hook or by crook.

Without copyright, I don't think the software-for-sale industry could exist.

Would that be a better world? It's hard to be certain, but I actually think it wouldn't be, and I work within the software services-and-support industry. I think we need software-for-sale, too, as well as Free software, BSD software, public domain software, etc. There are places for all sorts of structures, and copyright gives us the basic tool used to build them.

I'm pretty libertarian, and I'm pretty unhappy with the badly unbalanced state of IP law in the US and most of the world, but doing away with it entirely is a bad idea, IMO.

PLEASE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop Posting articles from New Scientist that are from 6 months back!

The placebo effect and health nuts.

[TheNarrator]

I was reading about the Placebo effect and though, all those vegans might be on to something.

Yet another reference to "yet another list"

[insignificant1]

Yet another article (not the source article, but the post to /.) to make reference to the fact that there is yet another list at the end of the year. How long does it take those who disclaim their conformity to realize they are conforming by disclaiming their conformity, and to start disclaiming their disclaimers?

Aw, crap... am I being original, either? Slippery slope, folks.

So quit disclaiming and say what you gotta say.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[khallow]

Trade and barter among primitive people often was. And the market distortions (eg, extortion or theft) were pretty straightforward failure modes.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[khallow]

I can't probe the intent of the grandparent, but I think there's obvious differences between copyright and patents.

I have some of the answers!

[ylikone]

1 The placebo effect
The power of the human mind is amazing in what it can manifest by just concentrated thought alone. This will become more evident in time as research is done into it. It will also explain healings, premonitions, so-called ESP, etc...

2 The horizon problem
They will eventually find out that time is not a constant... it is currently changing speed very slowly, and possibly changed very fast close to the big bang.

4 Belfast homeopathy results
Once again, just more proof of the power of the human mind to manifest impossible results.

5 Dark matter
There is no dark matter. Our understanding of gravity is just wrong.

6 Viking's methane
Created by microscopic organic material that survived the trip from earth aboard the Viking module.

8 The Pioneer anomaly
Once again, we do not properly understand gravity yet.

9 Dark energy
Our understanding of time/gravity is not complete and is not the same in all places and moments in the universe.

10 The Kuiper cliff
Yes, there are more large planets in our solar system that have not yet been found.

11 The Wow signal
The signal was terrestrial and mistaken for one coming from space.

12 Not-so-constant constants
In different places and different moments in time, nothing is guaranteed constant.

13 Cold fusion
Cold fusion is possible, but the conditions required to create the reaction keep changing because of reasons we do not yet understand.

Now let's hope Slashdot preserves my theories so people of the future can see them come true. They will call me a prophet.

The 14th thing that doesn't make sense...

[pookemon]

The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine.

Step 1: Take 10 molecules of the histamine - place in a sterile test tube. (Carefully so as to not drop and lose any molecules)
Step 2: Take another test tube with 100 ml of deionized water.
Step 3: Throw away the first Test tube - just leaving a test tube full of deionized water
Step 4: Administer the deionized water to the patient

The concept of diluting a solution to the point where it "probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule" sounds like absolute hokum to me. Even with a VERY small amount of the original substance you would need to dilute the solution to a point where you had the histamine "concentrated" into one part of the solution, which you then separated from the "clean" part. And for an "imprint" of the substance to be made on the water molecules they would have to "bump" into the substance, and then move into the "clean" part of the solution (which could happen - but really?).

IMO this is actually a case of more evidence for the placebo effect

Re:The 14th thing that doesn't make sense...

[man_ls]

The finding is interesting because it was replicated on a level far lower than the placebo effect could operate on -- individual immune cells removed from a nervous system to influence them.

So, even controlling for the placebo effect, it still does *something*. It could be that the cells are responding to traces of histimine smaller than the sensors could detect, however.

Re:The 14th thing that doesn't make sense...

[16K Ram Pack]

The killer for me was asking a supporter to explain why this "water memory" happens with certain chemicals that are benign but not with those liable to kill me, like lead, mercury or arsenic.

It's quite probably the most cranky medicine out there because it doesn't just lack proof, it even goes against logic.

I've had discussions with a homeopath who after I confronted her with it being a psychological effect suggested that that was just fine, as long as people got better. May as well give people Evian and tell them it's snake oil.

Re:The 14th thing that doesn't make sense...

[pookemon]

Not a good idea - Evian would cost too much, better to use tap water. ;)

Tachyons ( Re: Uniform temperature)

[klic]

As I understand it, the math really says "nothing MASSIVE travels AT the speed of light", because infinite energy is required for mass to move at that exact velocity. However, infinite energy is not required for particles that move faster than the speed of light, though admittedly they might be impossible to directly measure or detect. Since tachyons cannot be measured directly, speculations about tachyons tend towards metaphysics. The same is true of inflation and other theories, measurements become quite indirect. However, tachyons can explain multiple problems (uniformity, acceleration, and galactic rotation, perhaps even deep space variations on solar G) that are now explained by multiple theories.

Posit some form of tachyon with imaginary mass and real kinetic and intrinsic energy, so that their energy follows E=(iM)C^2/sqrt(1-(V/C)^2) . If V>C, the square root denominator is imaginary, but iM is imaginary also, so the result is real energy, curving spacetime and sometimes exchanging energy with other particles, vaguely like normal sublight massive particles. If the average kinetic energy of these tachyons was the same thermal 2.7K as normal matter, they would be zipping around at very high multiples of the speed of light. In events where they gained energy, they would slow down, and they would speed up if they lost energy. If we assume that most of the tachyons have an imaginary mass of the same magnitude as a real proton, then their median (not average!) speed would be something like 800,000 times the speed of light in deep space.

Galaxies are not deep space, but rather deep gravity wells - falling into such a deep gravity well will add quite a bit of energy to a tachyon, and slow it down substantially. It will still zip through the galaxy in a few months, but it will linger, and increase the local concentration of mass-energy, affecting rotation rates. However, it will not slow down very much extra at all in the vicinity of a "mere" star or planet or benchtop G measurement experiment, so tachyons will be impossible to detect in the lab, and will have small local effects in solar systems. So these tachyons behave something like Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.

Next, the number of tachyons captured in the galaxies and their overall effects will vary in deep time - tachyons with hotter median energy will linger more often in more closely spaced galaxies closer to the big bang. This may have an effect on the mechanics of expansion, and appear as acceleration effects in the expansion of the universe (mad hand waving here - I might have blundered on a sign error).

Lastly, very near the moment of the big bang, when all the massive unbound quarks are zipping around at high relativistic thermal velocities, we might expect the tachyons to move around at "low" relativistic thermal velocities as well. Particles moving at speeds just below and just above the speed of light will be much more likely to interact directly than particles in very separated velocity ranges. The closely coupled tachyons could flatten variations in thermal energy well beyond the the limits of light speed.

Admittedly, this is all wild speculation, and as I am unable to do the proper mathematics I probably have no business making such speculations. I don't have any good idea of how tachyons could interact with anything besides their effects on the curvature of spacetime, or even the details of their adiabatic cooling as the universe expanded. I don't think tachyons would interact much with each other, or with light, or with other force exchange particles, except through gravitational curvature. And I am very uncomfortable positing something I cannot directly measure.

But hey, this is Shashdot, the home of the halfbaked opinion. So I can get this off my chest, perhaps to be found someday by some physicist looking for loonytoon ideas to use for target practice.

Playing Powerball lottery to fund a Mars payload

[Latent Heat]

Forget NASA. My plan is to play Powerball, and if I win a 100 million+ jackpot, to put a call through to Gilbert Levin to see what it would take to place a life-science payload on the surface of Mars. It is a long shot to win at Powerball and also a long shot to discover life on Mars, but if successful, Gilbert Levin will get a Nobel Prize and I will go down in history as that idiot who spent his lottery winnings on a Mars payload.

The one problem with life on Mars is the Gaia Hypothesis. We are supposing that life on Mars is hanging on by a thread -- the Gaia Hypothesis argues that life modifies its environment to perpetuate itself, and if there really were life on Mars, it would be pretty unmistakable.

home opathy is impossible

[cinnamon colbert]

The idea that water molecules can retain an image of a solute is rediculous.it flies in the face of just about everything we know about water. that is why i think that homeopathy is the part of human thought that is MOST in contradiction to science; it is far, far worse the Intelligent design or religion or belief in the free market (that thrown in just for flamebait, but true nontheless)

How did they figure that?

[Solandri]

Funny about that... The current minimum [wage] places a family below the federal poverty level, unable (as Wal-Mart's chairman put it) to shop even at Wal-Mart.

Based on HHS figures for 2005 a single person is in poverty if he earns less than $9570/yr.

$5.15/hr * 40 hr/wk * 48 wk/yr = $9888/yr (assume 2 weeks unpaid vacation, 2 weeks unpaid holiday/sick)

For an average family of 2 adults, 2 children, the poverty level is $19,350/yr.

2 ppl * $5.15/hr * 40 hr/wk * 48 wk/yr = =$19776/yr.

I suppose you could argue that not all families have both parents working. But if they're in poverty and they want to get out, they both pretty much should be working.

US Census poverty thresholds are very close to the figures the Dept. HHS gives. Mind you, personally I think the minimum wage should be increased; but the above back-of-the-envelope calcuation does not support your assertion. The real problem seems to be that people in poverty are only able to find/hold part-time jobs, and thus aren't able to rack up 40 hrs/wk, 48 wks/yr. But it seems to me that's more likely to be the fault of the individual (can't find extra work, don't want to work so many hours) than of businesses.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[swillden]

I can't probe the intent of the grandparent, but I think there's obvious differences between copyright and patents.

Agreed, but since Microsoft's position in the market owes nothing to patents (Microsoft didn't even bother acquiring patents until very recently, when they realized that patents might be an effective weapon against FLOSS), I suspect it's more likely that the poster conflates all IP into one big nasty ball of badness.

The best is the overlapping of point 1 and 4

[angel'o'sphere]

In point one we learn: surprise, placebos DO work!
In point four we learn: oops, homoepathy works.

And suddenly, also in point 4: however, if you make a test and compare placebos with homeopathy, the homeopathy has not a higher success rate ...

LOL, I only can say.

angel'o'sphere

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[evilviper]

Of course some people say that there would be no innovation without patents... I contend that such an assertion is not true, and that the lack of artificial government granted monopolies (patents) would result in a constant "arms race" situation where companies would be forced to innovate constantly or die.

It is much, MUCH, MUCH cheaper to copy the work of someone else, than to fund the research necessary to discover/develop the concept in the first place. So, if it costs only $10 million to develop (a tiny ammount) something like practical hydrogen extraction & storage methods, and it only costs your competitors $1 million to appropriate your newly developed methods for themselves, you'll be out of business. Period. Trade-secrets only work so far, and keeping new developments secret is necessarily bad for the advancement of science.

Look at how military technology advances... the US is forced to constantly work on developing better battle technology exactly because there is no way to prevent our competitors from using what has already been invented. I mean, it's not like we could patent the nuclear bomb and keep Russia, China, India, Pakistan, etc. from using it...

That works precisely because this is not an entirely free-market system. It works because we won't buy Chinese imitations of American-designed weapons. They would be a lot cheaper! Defense is not a profit-making industry, so it doesn't follow the same rules. Each country IS going to develop their own technologies, even if they can BUY them cheaper elsewhere.

I think we can agree on extensive reforms of the patent system, but doing away with it entirely is a horiffic idea.

What year ends in March??

[FishinDave]

This is no end-of-year list. It was published in March!

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the defintion of simple, for one. Only one thing is needed to fix all ills: a free market. It's a religion, not a well reasoned point of view. Everyting is fixed by one thing, like I said, simplistic.

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Busy]

Jadedness is what happens when your ideology runs out ;)

Re:I'm hereby moderating this entire SITE (-1, Tro

[Busy]

Well, the defintion of simple, for one. Only one thing is needed to fix all ills: a free market. It's a religion, not a well reasoned point of view. Everyting is fixed by one thing, like I said, simplistic.

in response to...

Give us a real free market sometime, and let's see what happens... until then it's all just speculation

???

I'm not taking a side on the free market issue, because I don't care about that today. I just want to point out that it doesn't sound like he's promising it will fix all ills. He's just saying it might be nice and it's worth a shot. Sounds like a fair enough point.