A year of part-time study on top of years of study to make you proficient in your subject. Even worse, in some places, the classes are of no practical value, the costs can exceed $10,000, and a year of student teaching is required. I realize that there are many states that have streamlined paths to certification for specialists who seek to teach their area of expertise, but that is not the norm. In Arizona (no jokes, please), an expert in a science field requires 30 hours of classwork in education and a year of student teaching - essentially a Master's degree in time if not in degree.
While having an advanced degree in math is not necessary to teach middle schoolers the pythagorean theorem, what about teaching high schoolers evolution, electrochemistry, or circuits? At what point would you rather have a physics major that can teach rather than a teacher who has taken some physics? How much compromise in content mastery (not knowledge) is acceptable?
The scarier part of the summary is this: "not every biology teacher was a science major". It is, unfortunately, true. Teachers can get certified to teach biology with a degree in education and a minor (or even less in some states) in biology. Contrariwise, a person with a B.S., M.S., or even Ph.D. in biology is considered unqualified to teach their subject without significant financial and time investment for certification. While I understand that not everyone who can do science or has an advanced degree can teach well, is it not better practice to at least have some path by which they can easily and practically attain a teaching position in a quick and inexpensive manner? When non-science majors with a minimum of science education are considered more qualified by the establishment to teach science than experts in the field, is it no wonder that we are lagging in science education?
While many historians may consider Lavoisier the father of modern chemistry, most chemists (I am one) consider Robert Boyle's book The Skeptical Chymist, which came over 100 years before Lavoisier, to be the turning point to modern chemistry.
Read what I said again, and this time not for what you want it to say, but for what it really says. I didn't say the courts were wrong to convict MS. My point, to put it bluntly, was that if antitrust regulations deal solely with monopolies, as the prior post stated, then MS would have been wrongly convicted, and they weren't.
As to that being one definition, please cite the one you think most important and/or relevant that disagrees with mine. That one is from Merriam-Webster's American Dictionary, for your reference.
You do have to be a monopoly in order for leveraging market share against competitors to be illegal.
You have a contradiction in terms - in a monopoly, the commodity is controlled by one entity. There are no competitors, there is no market share except 100%.
monopoly
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: \m-nä-p(-)l\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural monopolies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monoplion, from mon- + plein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Thus, in a monopoly, there are no competitors. Antitrust lawsuits specifically deal with companies that do not have a monopoly. For example, see the cases vs Microsoft, where although MS did not have a monopoly on browsers, they did leverage their market share to unfairly crowd out competition and were sued for it.
100% chance: It doesn't get published because it's not good science. No attempt at replication of results.
--OR--
100% chance: It doesn't get published because the author realizes that it's good enough for popular press (TIME) but won't stand up to the rigors of peer-review.
Disclosure: I am a teacher with science degrees (and no education degree, but some coursework and experience in science ed research).
You are correct, and, what's more, the article lacks any sort of detailed methodology and statistical analysis. Something smells fishy here. In addition, it's bad science to think that because you did one experiment of randomized trials that you have some sort of real discovery. (Yes I did RTFA and know he had many test sites, but it's one experiment) The experiment is virtually useless and lacks any real, strong validity unless and until another experimenter can re-create the results.
If the photography requirement is discarded as a reason, as you suggest, then financially GoDaddy would have to realize that any number of registrations is greater than zero registrations, which is what GoDaddy would have if they pulled out. Why voluntarily take zero income as some sort of gesture against taking less income? Bit of a cutting-nose-to-spite-face dept thing to me.
A more correct summary would be:
"This is more complicated than we are led to believe, and current reports oversimplify the problem."
So both of your options are null - the only option is to gain a more holistic understanding of the problem so we can better understand how to address it, rather than attempting to address it when we know we don't have the proper data.
I concede that I did ask questions. Those were honest questions, not points disguised as satire or questions. If there were a point I were making it is that too much attention has been focused on conclusions and not enough on data.
I do, actually, read the literature. Your implication in your title that I do not has no basis.
However, since you do claim that there are examples of my points (of which I never made any specifically) being addressed, please provide citations of the literature you have read.
As to topography and water table being irrelevant, I suggest you research the capacity of something like a karst topography or karst system like that which exists in Florida and holds massive amounts of water underground.
Your post has an air of attempting to put me in the category of so-called "deniers". Make no mistake, I am on neither side - I am exactly as I said I am - sure of the trend, but unsure of what part we play in it (though I am sure we have a part).
I understand that, however, several references have been made in this thread to melting sea ice - that is the only issue I chose to address.
However, if you want to consider land-based glaciers, you must also consider the topography of the land, its ability to hold a water table, and various other factors which I, not being a geologist, don't have the knowledge to assess.
To refocus on my point, though, the sea ice argument presented several times above is bunk. Your reference to glacier melting is a complex issue, far beyond the reach of climatology alone as a science and quite interdisciplinary involving climatology, geology, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology.
Long story short, do I believe that the planet is warming? Yes. Do I think that we are the largest factor in this trend? I'm not sure. Some data support that hypothesis, some don't. It would be sheer folly to say that we don't have some sort of contribution but the real question that those interested in the political and societal implications should be asking is what portion of the overall trend are we responsible for, can we reverse it, and if we can, is it feasible? Remember that we are talking about geological time, chemical space and scale, and biological adaptability - things which humans aren't equipped to readily understand without significant training.
And on the off-chance that someone claims that we should trust climatologists implicitly (fat chance on this forum), I suggest you pick a few and look at their CVs to see how strong their background is in all three of the traditional hard sciences, because they'd need to be pretty d**n well versed in all of them and a genius to boot in order to comprehend the complex forces they're trying to forecast.
I have a very simple proposition that might shed some light on the argument about sea ice melting and cities going underwater.
Take a clear plastic disposable cup and fill it to any level you desire with water and any amount of ice cubes (4-5 would be plenty) you desire. Mark the level of the water. Let the cup sit out (covered if you really wish) until the ice melts. Mark the level of the water.
The results should surprise you, if you think that melting sea ice will put Florida and NYC and other low-lying areas underwater.
Quote: You are, in actuality, trying to disprove the presence of a higher power through observation.
I never said I was trying to disprove the presence of a higher power. You assume because I am a scientist that I have no faith. I gave absolutely no evidence for that assumption - it was made entirely from your prejudices, validating my hypothesis that you are not a scientist.
Some people find it insulting to think that they may have come from monkeys.
I find it insulting to think that God could not and would not create the elegant, self-sustaining and self-improving biological systems that science has revealed to us. Ask a biochemist about the accuracy, speed, and elegance of DNA replication and DNA translation. The system is more perfect than anything - bar none - that man has created.
I find it even more insulting to think, as young-earth creationists do, that God would just create everything and yet to man, whom He has blessed with reason and tasked with responsibility, give mountains of evidence to show the existence of this beautiful system and yet not actually have it exist.
- Sol
In refutation of your premise, though, truth is not relative. We are relative to truth. The square of the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle is equal to the sums of the squares of the other two sides: truth. Objects fall with the same acceleration due to gravity, and in a vacuum, the same speed: truth. Was science a pursuit of a relative truth, then there would be no need for a refinement of theories (please do not assume the vulgar definition, theories like the theory of gravity, or EM wave theory), we would just "perceive" the truth to fit what we had always though.
Let's poke some holes in your argument though, even though I'm sure you won't be back, it may serve as an amusement for slashdotters and a deterrent for more of your ilk with their recycled arguments.
1)Your first argument that in order for a theory to be considered valid that it must be proven "not false" is patently untrue.
When a scientific hypothesis becomes a scientific theory it is because all evidence to that point provides overwhelming support for the hypothesis. Redefining what science is not a justification for an argument, and invalidates most of your following reasoning. A theory is a theory not because experiments prove it "true" or even "not false", but because experiments have failed to prove it false.
2) If your blue watermelon example were a proper scientific hypothesis, it could be disproven, because a requirement of a scientific hypothesis is that it must be disprovable (and not necessarily provable). Add in your hypothesis of why it turns red when opened, and you have a true scientific, disprovable, hypothesis. (I'd open it under argon because if that were the case, rapid oxidation would most likely be the cause).
3) Quote:If evolution be not true, the only explanation for the appearance of varied life on the planet is intelligent design.
A scientific hypothesis or experiment does NOT pose an ultimatum like this. Science is not an either/or endeavor. It is a pursuit of truth, with each experiment leaving a puzzle piece.
4) Quote:Evolution states by addition of new traits (new organs, new anatomy)....since detrimental or beneficial mutations are only alterations of already existing traits, and can not account for an increase in the number of traits any given life form possesses.
I'm going to take a red car, and over the process of 10000 coats paint it slightly darker red each time. At the end,it will be black. I will then show you a picture of the original car. Will they look the same?
I also point you to the origin of mitochondria in eukaryotic cells. Any microbiologist or decent microbiology text will show that they were obtained, rather quickly, by endocytosis, and altered by the cell to work for it.
4) Quote:Evolution theory would predict that the process of gradual change and increase in traits is an ongoing process, and therefore should be observable in todays living animals and plants
It is very convenient how you leave out bacteria, which have been proven over and over again to evolve on an observable timescale.
5) Quote:A kind is the original prototype of any ancestral line
I won't even go into how uncouth it is to define your own terms in an argument. However, as evolution is a slow process (and you use it in your argument and thus cannot come back and say that you disagree), where would you draw the line of a "prototype"? The transition of species from a common ancestor is a gradient, not a series of steps.
6) My final argument.
Quote:If no such common ancestor can be found and confirmed without bias
That one statement says more than enough.If someone's logic trumps your own, you will cry "bias". Quite simply, that makes it "not false" that you are not a scientist.
Slashdot Mirror
A year of part-time study on top of years of study to make you proficient in your subject. Even worse, in some places, the classes are of no practical value, the costs can exceed $10,000, and a year of student teaching is required. I realize that there are many states that have streamlined paths to certification for specialists who seek to teach their area of expertise, but that is not the norm. In Arizona (no jokes, please), an expert in a science field requires 30 hours of classwork in education and a year of student teaching - essentially a Master's degree in time if not in degree. While having an advanced degree in math is not necessary to teach middle schoolers the pythagorean theorem, what about teaching high schoolers evolution, electrochemistry, or circuits? At what point would you rather have a physics major that can teach rather than a teacher who has taken some physics? How much compromise in content mastery (not knowledge) is acceptable?
The scarier part of the summary is this: "not every biology teacher was a science major". It is, unfortunately, true. Teachers can get certified to teach biology with a degree in education and a minor (or even less in some states) in biology. Contrariwise, a person with a B.S., M.S., or even Ph.D. in biology is considered unqualified to teach their subject without significant financial and time investment for certification. While I understand that not everyone who can do science or has an advanced degree can teach well, is it not better practice to at least have some path by which they can easily and practically attain a teaching position in a quick and inexpensive manner? When non-science majors with a minimum of science education are considered more qualified by the establishment to teach science than experts in the field, is it no wonder that we are lagging in science education?
I'm with you up to the point where "effort" and "protesting" became rioting.
While many historians may consider Lavoisier the father of modern chemistry, most chemists (I am one) consider Robert Boyle's book The Skeptical Chymist, which came over 100 years before Lavoisier, to be the turning point to modern chemistry.
Read what I said again, and this time not for what you want it to say, but for what it really says. I didn't say the courts were wrong to convict MS. My point, to put it bluntly, was that if antitrust regulations deal solely with monopolies, as the prior post stated, then MS would have been wrongly convicted, and they weren't.
As to that being one definition, please cite the one you think most important and/or relevant that disagrees with mine. That one is from Merriam-Webster's American Dictionary, for your reference.
You do have to be a monopoly in order for leveraging market share against competitors to be illegal.
You have a contradiction in terms - in a monopoly, the commodity is controlled by one entity. There are no competitors, there is no market share except 100%.
monopoly
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: \m-nä-p(-)l\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural monopolies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monoplion, from mon- + plein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Thus, in a monopoly, there are no competitors. Antitrust lawsuits specifically deal with companies that do not have a monopoly. For example, see the cases vs Microsoft, where although MS did not have a monopoly on browsers, they did leverage their market share to unfairly crowd out competition and were sued for it.
100% chance: It doesn't get published because it's not good science. No attempt at replication of results. --OR-- 100% chance: It doesn't get published because the author realizes that it's good enough for popular press (TIME) but won't stand up to the rigors of peer-review.
Disclosure: I am a teacher with science degrees (and no education degree, but some coursework and experience in science ed research). You are correct, and, what's more, the article lacks any sort of detailed methodology and statistical analysis. Something smells fishy here. In addition, it's bad science to think that because you did one experiment of randomized trials that you have some sort of real discovery. (Yes I did RTFA and know he had many test sites, but it's one experiment) The experiment is virtually useless and lacks any real, strong validity unless and until another experimenter can re-create the results.
If the photography requirement is discarded as a reason, as you suggest, then financially GoDaddy would have to realize that any number of registrations is greater than zero registrations, which is what GoDaddy would have if they pulled out. Why voluntarily take zero income as some sort of gesture against taking less income? Bit of a cutting-nose-to-spite-face dept thing to me.
Oy. Just oy. A tip of the hat to you guys - and some great aprilfools posts on the front page too.
A more correct summary would be: "This is more complicated than we are led to believe, and current reports oversimplify the problem." So both of your options are null - the only option is to gain a more holistic understanding of the problem so we can better understand how to address it, rather than attempting to address it when we know we don't have the proper data.
I concede that I did ask questions. Those were honest questions, not points disguised as satire or questions. If there were a point I were making it is that too much attention has been focused on conclusions and not enough on data.
I do, actually, read the literature. Your implication in your title that I do not has no basis.
However, since you do claim that there are examples of my points (of which I never made any specifically) being addressed, please provide citations of the literature you have read.
As to topography and water table being irrelevant, I suggest you research the capacity of something like a karst topography or karst system like that which exists in Florida and holds massive amounts of water underground.
Your post has an air of attempting to put me in the category of so-called "deniers". Make no mistake, I am on neither side - I am exactly as I said I am - sure of the trend, but unsure of what part we play in it (though I am sure we have a part).
I await your citations.
I understand that, however, several references have been made in this thread to melting sea ice - that is the only issue I chose to address.
However, if you want to consider land-based glaciers, you must also consider the topography of the land, its ability to hold a water table, and various other factors which I, not being a geologist, don't have the knowledge to assess.
To refocus on my point, though, the sea ice argument presented several times above is bunk. Your reference to glacier melting is a complex issue, far beyond the reach of climatology alone as a science and quite interdisciplinary involving climatology, geology, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology.
Long story short, do I believe that the planet is warming? Yes. Do I think that we are the largest factor in this trend? I'm not sure. Some data support that hypothesis, some don't. It would be sheer folly to say that we don't have some sort of contribution but the real question that those interested in the political and societal implications should be asking is what portion of the overall trend are we responsible for, can we reverse it, and if we can, is it feasible? Remember that we are talking about geological time, chemical space and scale, and biological adaptability - things which humans aren't equipped to readily understand without significant training.
And on the off-chance that someone claims that we should trust climatologists implicitly (fat chance on this forum), I suggest you pick a few and look at their CVs to see how strong their background is in all three of the traditional hard sciences, because they'd need to be pretty d**n well versed in all of them and a genius to boot in order to comprehend the complex forces they're trying to forecast.
I have a very simple proposition that might shed some light on the argument about sea ice melting and cities going underwater.
Take a clear plastic disposable cup and fill it to any level you desire with water and any amount of ice cubes (4-5 would be plenty) you desire. Mark the level of the water. Let the cup sit out (covered if you really wish) until the ice melts. Mark the level of the water.
The results should surprise you, if you think that melting sea ice will put Florida and NYC and other low-lying areas underwater.
Please disregard my mistake in placing my signature at the beginning of the final paragraph. My apologies. - Sol
Quote: You are, in actuality, trying to disprove the presence of a higher power through observation.
I never said I was trying to disprove the presence of a higher power. You assume because I am a scientist that I have no faith. I gave absolutely no evidence for that assumption - it was made entirely from your prejudices, validating my hypothesis that you are not a scientist.
Some people find it insulting to think that they may have come from monkeys.
I find it insulting to think that God could not and would not create the elegant, self-sustaining and self-improving biological systems that science has revealed to us. Ask a biochemist about the accuracy, speed, and elegance of DNA replication and DNA translation. The system is more perfect than anything - bar none - that man has created.
I find it even more insulting to think, as young-earth creationists do, that God would just create everything and yet to man, whom He has blessed with reason and tasked with responsibility, give mountains of evidence to show the existence of this beautiful system and yet not actually have it exist.
- Sol In refutation of your premise, though, truth is not relative. We are relative to truth. The square of the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle is equal to the sums of the squares of the other two sides: truth. Objects fall with the same acceleration due to gravity, and in a vacuum, the same speed: truth. Was science a pursuit of a relative truth, then there would be no need for a refinement of theories (please do not assume the vulgar definition, theories like the theory of gravity, or EM wave theory), we would just "perceive" the truth to fit what we had always though.
Two seconds on google shows this is a copy-and-paste almost 9 months old. Original content, please.
http://talkingtotheists.blogspot.com/2008/05/story-thus-far-noted-youtube.html
Let's poke some holes in your argument though, even though I'm sure you won't be back, it may serve as an amusement for slashdotters and a deterrent for more of your ilk with their recycled arguments.
1)Your first argument that in order for a theory to be considered valid that it must be proven "not false" is patently untrue.
When a scientific hypothesis becomes a scientific theory it is because all evidence to that point provides overwhelming support for the hypothesis. Redefining what science is not a justification for an argument, and invalidates most of your following reasoning. A theory is a theory not because experiments prove it "true" or even "not false", but because experiments have failed to prove it false.
2) If your blue watermelon example were a proper scientific hypothesis, it could be disproven, because a requirement of a scientific hypothesis is that it must be disprovable (and not necessarily provable). Add in your hypothesis of why it turns red when opened, and you have a true scientific, disprovable, hypothesis. (I'd open it under argon because if that were the case, rapid oxidation would most likely be the cause).
3) Quote:If evolution be not true, the only explanation for the appearance of varied life on the planet is intelligent design.
A scientific hypothesis or experiment does NOT pose an ultimatum like this. Science is not an either/or endeavor. It is a pursuit of truth, with each experiment leaving a puzzle piece.
4) Quote:Evolution states by addition of new traits (new organs, new anatomy)....since detrimental or beneficial mutations are only alterations of already existing traits, and can not account for an increase in the number of traits any given life form possesses.
I'm going to take a red car, and over the process of 10000 coats paint it slightly darker red each time. At the end,it will be black. I will then show you a picture of the original car. Will they look the same?
I also point you to the origin of mitochondria in eukaryotic cells. Any microbiologist or decent microbiology text will show that they were obtained, rather quickly, by endocytosis, and altered by the cell to work for it.
4) Quote:Evolution theory would predict that the process of gradual change and increase in traits is an ongoing process, and therefore should be observable in todays living animals and plants
It is very convenient how you leave out bacteria, which have been proven over and over again to evolve on an observable timescale.
5) Quote:A kind is the original prototype of any ancestral line
I won't even go into how uncouth it is to define your own terms in an argument. However, as evolution is a slow process (and you use it in your argument and thus cannot come back and say that you disagree), where would you draw the line of a "prototype"? The transition of species from a common ancestor is a gradient, not a series of steps.
6) My final argument.
Quote:If no such common ancestor can be found and confirmed without bias
That one statement says more than enough.If someone's logic trumps your own, you will cry "bias". Quite simply, that makes it "not false" that you are not a scientist.
- Sol