The problem you raise has nothing to do with energy conservation, which is the matter at hand. Either intentionally or by ignorance, you are drawing away from discussing how breaking energy conservation would be possible with what is an entirely unrelated issue.
The reader is not familiar with how difficult it is to guess at what is causing a particular phenomenon by looking at a do-not-touch demonstration.:-)
Re:Social or physical sciences?
on
Science Debate 2008
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"but there is nothing "anti-science" in not believing them"
There is everything unscientific about simply not believing them because you don't want to. Nor does it suffice to have no understanding of how climatology works, apply the claim "it's complicated", and then leap to whatever conclusion you happen to like.
"Which is exactly, what established and professional historians were saying about the history of Soviet Union"
This still has nothing to do with science. I'm glad you've figured out that simply listening to the establishment will not necessarily get you the right answer. Scientists don't give a shit about listening to establishment. Only if you have no understanding as to how the scientific process works can you confuse the matter and simply think that there is some cabal called "science" which makes unsubstantiated -- and likely to be wrong -- claims by virtue of authority.
"Why don't you just say it, the way king's dress-makers did -- whoever doubts it, is a moron?"
There's no doubt that you're a moron. It has nothing to do with the fact that you doubt, but the way in which you do so.
Then I misread, as that is perhaps fairly accurate for the popular conception of scientists. But comments such as the following are not really accurate and don't at all seem to be talking about the "popular conception":
"So I put it to you that, by taking a skeptical position, some of these anti-science people are in fact more faithful to the underpinnings of science than those people who arrogantly call themselves scientists."
I blame the media more than I blame scientists. Sure, we're arrogant and usually don't like people much, but most people don't have to put up with the same level of idiocy we do, either.
The common usage of "scientists" is no different than the real definition of scientists. At no point has it meant "people who say things about scientifically-based ideas", "the popular conception of scientists", or anything else you claim. Nor do definitions come "from on high". Nor does one person's opinion about what a term should mean, in retrospect, qualify. Nice try, though.
It's not a topic in a scientific debate. If it's a topic, the debate isn't about science.
As mentioned elsewhere, science doesn't make value judgements -- doesn't tell you what is right or what is good. It only tells you how the world behaves.
Here's your problem, then. You claim that a matter-antimatter problem demonstrates that physical laws do not operate symmetrically. You claim to understand symmetry breaking and how it implies conservation. Answer two things, then.
The first deals with the matter-antimatter problem. What symmetry is being broken and what conservation does not hold as a result?
The second is about the original topic, conservation of energy. What symmetry implies conservation of energy?
Now, tie the two together to explain how the matter-antimatter problem in any way suggests that conservation of energy may not hold.
If I remember correctly (which I may not), you could theoretically slow down the earth by using its magnetic field as a mediator and capture that energy.
Re:Social or physical sciences?
on
Science Debate 2008
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I made no claims about the book and did not intend to. By its title and choice of topics, it's clearly not about science. (And, as I mentioned in another comment here, there are no facts about value judgments, such as ethics. As you correctly guessed, there are no facts about bio-ethics. There is science about biology, and that is the extent of it.)
"I doubt their interpretation, because I doubt their integrity. This particular aspect of science has immediate and vast political implications, which creates bias."
This is a black-box view of research: the claim that the results of research are readily tainted by the researcher's bias. Any level of scientific training will teach you otherwise -- while data can be manipulated, putting bias on your interpretations is obvious to a large enough group of educated readers. Findings can be easily verified by measurements of your own -- which is exactly what is done.
"Climatology is not a precise science, a lot of stuff is open to interpretation"
It is much more precise than this sentence. It belies a lack of understanding about important and basic scientific principles. All scientific principles are capable of conveying to you the limitations of their accuracy. While biased and uneducated naysayers love to deny it, anthropogenic climate change has long passed into the realm of "confirmed".
My reading of this is that you don't know many scientists, have no interaction with the field, and no insight into researcher's actual behavior. It's unfortunate that apparently your education in science was given by people who are poor teachers. It's more unfortunate that they didn't teach you (or you didn't learn) to question the motivations of the politicians and pundits that fed you the second-rate bullshit you repeated above.
Re:Let's hurry up and get to the point...
on
Science Debate 2008
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· Score: 1
I'm certainly concerned about anti-evolutionists in charge. For one, it shows a greater adherence to propaganda and feeling than to tested fact. For another, it suggests that they will support pressuring educators to teach nonscientific opinions in the context of science education.
Incorrect. Science does not encompass opinions about what you should do with the world. It does not produce political, ethical, or moral opinions or guide your actions. It is only the study of how the world works. It can tell you (to a certain extent) the consequences of an action, but not make any value judgment of that action.
People who claim a scientific basis for their opinions are misleading you.
"And, for the record, "evolution" or even "theory of evolution" is very vague. Scientists don't agree on it universally - because there is a huge amount of data, and it doesn't all agree, and it doesn't even all fit into even the general Darwinian idea of origins. Example of fuzziness on the term "evolution" does that mean pure atheistic evolution, including a theory like the Big Bang? Does it mean Darwin's theory of evolution, the current theory of evolution, or the theory of evolution back in the 1950's? Is it referring to biogenesis?"
See -- people do have it easy. By asking whether or not "evolution" refers also to the Big Bang or biogenesis, it is easy to see that you don't know what the term "evolution" actually applies to.
Re:Social or physical sciences?
on
Science Debate 2008
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The political debate and the scientific debate are entirely separate beasts. While the measured facts may be awfully tough for you to interpret, scientists have put quite a lot of work into successfully interpreting them -- the results of which, I would bet, you refuse to accept.
Person who didn't properly study physics misunderstands nature of electromagnetic fields, thinks he invents perpetual motion device. Media makes it into a story about how big, bad "established science" laughs at him for claiming to violate well-studied principles that he assuredly does not violate.
"Off the top of my head, I could imagine that the earth's magnetic field might be used as an energy source. Some unknown affect might convert subatomic particles to energy in special situations."
Except for the unfortunate problem of "magnetic fields can do no work".
Correct. So trackers are still required to use DHT. (In your example, popular tracker are required. Trackers with small numbers of peers should be sufficient, provided that a reasonable fraction of those peers also use DHT.)
He's probably actually referring to the bootstrap problem -- if I have this torrent hash, or a torrent and client that allow DHT, how do I initially connect to the network? Sans any information at all, a client cannot get information via DHT, because there's nobody to ask.
To my knowledge, there are no nuclear reactors on satellites, only radioactive materials that are used as a power source.
Given the nature and quantity of these materials and the price of these satellites, the probability that the risk posed to the populace is anything other than "negligible" is small.
Yeah, TPB is a tracker. Listing torrents is their more-obvious feature, but providing the tracker is the more-useful one. Additionally, TorrentFreak article and Slashdot article both refer to it as a "tracker". I haven't read deep enough to see if the original order referred to it as a tracker, but, for reasons discussed already, the tracking component is what someone clever would target, as the "Google argument" doesn't work for it.
No, it can't. Both your post and the one I originally replied to show a lack of understanding of how BitTorrent works. There are 2 layers of indirection, the tracker and the.torrent file, and they are separate.
The actual file (or rather, chunk) copies are held by peers, and transferred only between peers. In order to be able to get chunks, though, you need to know who the peers are, so that you can communicate with them.
The identities of those peers are provided by a tracker. Trackers are the equivalent of BitTorrent servers -- a client contacts them and, using the BitTorrent protocol, they inform the client of how to contact other peers.
A.torrent file is a file containing all the necessary metadata about a torrent. Names of files, hashes, and how to contact the trackers for that torrent.
An indexing site, or Google, can readily provide you the.torrent file. All this tells you is how to contact the trackers. It does not contain sufficient information to actually contact peers and download the torrent.
A tracker, given a.torrent file, can actually be used by clients to contact peers for download. As such, its level of facilitation in the download and sharing process is much higher.
Both a.torrent and a tracker are necessary for BitTorrent to function. Sites providing searching or caching, like Google, can provide the.torrent -- they cannot provide the tracker. Simply having a cached.torrent file provided by Google, if the trackers it references are shut down, would do you no good.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem you raise has nothing to do with energy conservation, which is the matter at hand. Either intentionally or by ignorance, you are drawing away from discussing how breaking energy conservation would be possible with what is an entirely unrelated issue.
Your post is littered with quality quantification.
The reader is not familiar with how difficult it is to guess at what is causing a particular phenomenon by looking at a do-not-touch demonstration. :-)
"but there is nothing "anti-science" in not believing them"
There is everything unscientific about simply not believing them because you don't want to. Nor does it suffice to have no understanding of how climatology works, apply the claim "it's complicated", and then leap to whatever conclusion you happen to like.
"Which is exactly, what established and professional historians were saying about the history of Soviet Union"
This still has nothing to do with science. I'm glad you've figured out that simply listening to the establishment will not necessarily get you the right answer. Scientists don't give a shit about listening to establishment. Only if you have no understanding as to how the scientific process works can you confuse the matter and simply think that there is some cabal called "science" which makes unsubstantiated -- and likely to be wrong -- claims by virtue of authority.
"Why don't you just say it, the way king's dress-makers did -- whoever doubts it, is a moron?"
There's no doubt that you're a moron. It has nothing to do with the fact that you doubt, but the way in which you do so.
Then I misread, as that is perhaps fairly accurate for the popular conception of scientists. But comments such as the following are not really accurate and don't at all seem to be talking about the "popular conception":
"So I put it to you that, by taking a skeptical position, some of these anti-science people are in fact more faithful to the underpinnings of science than those people who arrogantly call themselves scientists."
I blame the media more than I blame scientists. Sure, we're arrogant and usually don't like people much, but most people don't have to put up with the same level of idiocy we do, either.
The common usage of "scientists" is no different than the real definition of scientists. At no point has it meant "people who say things about scientifically-based ideas", "the popular conception of scientists", or anything else you claim. Nor do definitions come "from on high". Nor does one person's opinion about what a term should mean, in retrospect, qualify. Nice try, though.
It's not a topic in a scientific debate. If it's a topic, the debate isn't about science.
As mentioned elsewhere, science doesn't make value judgements -- doesn't tell you what is right or what is good. It only tells you how the world behaves.
Here's your problem, then. You claim that a matter-antimatter problem demonstrates that physical laws do not operate symmetrically. You claim to understand symmetry breaking and how it implies conservation. Answer two things, then.
The first deals with the matter-antimatter problem. What symmetry is being broken and what conservation does not hold as a result?
The second is about the original topic, conservation of energy. What symmetry implies conservation of energy?
Now, tie the two together to explain how the matter-antimatter problem in any way suggests that conservation of energy may not hold.
That's correct.
If I remember correctly (which I may not), you could theoretically slow down the earth by using its magnetic field as a mediator and capture that energy.
I made no claims about the book and did not intend to. By its title and choice of topics, it's clearly not about science. (And, as I mentioned in another comment here, there are no facts about value judgments, such as ethics. As you correctly guessed, there are no facts about bio-ethics. There is science about biology, and that is the extent of it.)
"I doubt their interpretation, because I doubt their integrity. This particular aspect of science has immediate and vast political implications, which creates bias."
This is a black-box view of research: the claim that the results of research are readily tainted by the researcher's bias. Any level of scientific training will teach you otherwise -- while data can be manipulated, putting bias on your interpretations is obvious to a large enough group of educated readers. Findings can be easily verified by measurements of your own -- which is exactly what is done.
"Climatology is not a precise science, a lot of stuff is open to interpretation"
It is much more precise than this sentence. It belies a lack of understanding about important and basic scientific principles. All scientific principles are capable of conveying to you the limitations of their accuracy. While biased and uneducated naysayers love to deny it, anthropogenic climate change has long passed into the realm of "confirmed".
My reading of this is that you don't know many scientists, have no interaction with the field, and no insight into researcher's actual behavior. It's unfortunate that apparently your education in science was given by people who are poor teachers. It's more unfortunate that they didn't teach you (or you didn't learn) to question the motivations of the politicians and pundits that fed you the second-rate bullshit you repeated above.
I'm certainly concerned about anti-evolutionists in charge. For one, it shows a greater adherence to propaganda and feeling than to tested fact. For another, it suggests that they will support pressuring educators to teach nonscientific opinions in the context of science education.
Incorrect. Science does not encompass opinions about what you should do with the world. It does not produce political, ethical, or moral opinions or guide your actions. It is only the study of how the world works. It can tell you (to a certain extent) the consequences of an action, but not make any value judgment of that action.
People who claim a scientific basis for their opinions are misleading you.
"And, for the record, "evolution" or even "theory of evolution" is very vague. Scientists don't agree on it universally - because there is a huge amount of data, and it doesn't all agree, and it doesn't even all fit into even the general Darwinian idea of origins. Example of fuzziness on the term "evolution" does that mean pure atheistic evolution, including a theory like the Big Bang? Does it mean Darwin's theory of evolution, the current theory of evolution, or the theory of evolution back in the 1950's? Is it referring to biogenesis?"
See -- people do have it easy. By asking whether or not "evolution" refers also to the Big Bang or biogenesis, it is easy to see that you don't know what the term "evolution" actually applies to.
The political debate and the scientific debate are entirely separate beasts. While the measured facts may be awfully tough for you to interpret, scientists have put quite a lot of work into successfully interpreting them -- the results of which, I would bet, you refuse to accept.
So, to make a point about scientists, you have an example concerning historians. You're familiar with which field is which, right?
The majority of scientists do not, in fact, work for the government.
Real scientists know that a closed demonstration means nothing.
Person who didn't properly study physics misunderstands nature of electromagnetic fields, thinks he invents perpetual motion device. Media makes it into a story about how big, bad "established science" laughs at him for claiming to violate well-studied principles that he assuredly does not violate.
"Off the top of my head, I could imagine that the earth's magnetic field might be used as an energy source. Some unknown affect might convert subatomic particles to energy in special situations."
Except for the unfortunate problem of "magnetic fields can do no work".
As far as you know or not, it is not possible to generate energy from nothing.
You did manage to grossly misunderstand symmetry, though.
Correct. So trackers are still required to use DHT. (In your example, popular tracker are required. Trackers with small numbers of peers should be sufficient, provided that a reasonable fraction of those peers also use DHT.)
He's probably actually referring to the bootstrap problem -- if I have this torrent hash, or a torrent and client that allow DHT, how do I initially connect to the network? Sans any information at all, a client cannot get information via DHT, because there's nobody to ask.
Depends on what you mean. Will they start providing closed-source or otherwise IP-encumbered drivers? No.
To my knowledge, there are no nuclear reactors on satellites, only radioactive materials that are used as a power source.
Given the nature and quantity of these materials and the price of these satellites, the probability that the risk posed to the populace is anything other than "negligible" is small.
Yeah, TPB is a tracker. Listing torrents is their more-obvious feature, but providing the tracker is the more-useful one. Additionally, TorrentFreak article and Slashdot article both refer to it as a "tracker". I haven't read deep enough to see if the original order referred to it as a tracker, but, for reasons discussed already, the tracking component is what someone clever would target, as the "Google argument" doesn't work for it.
No, it can't. Both your post and the one I originally replied to show a lack of understanding of how BitTorrent works. There are 2 layers of indirection, the tracker and the .torrent file, and they are separate.
.torrent file is a file containing all the necessary metadata about a torrent. Names of files, hashes, and how to contact the trackers for that torrent.
.torrent file. All this tells you is how to contact the trackers. It does not contain sufficient information to actually contact peers and download the torrent.
.torrent file, can actually be used by clients to contact peers for download. As such, its level of facilitation in the download and sharing process is much higher.
.torrent and a tracker are necessary for BitTorrent to function. Sites providing searching or caching, like Google, can provide the .torrent -- they cannot provide the tracker. Simply having a cached .torrent file provided by Google, if the trackers it references are shut down, would do you no good.
The actual file (or rather, chunk) copies are held by peers, and transferred only between peers. In order to be able to get chunks, though, you need to know who the peers are, so that you can communicate with them.
The identities of those peers are provided by a tracker. Trackers are the equivalent of BitTorrent servers -- a client contacts them and, using the BitTorrent protocol, they inform the client of how to contact other peers.
A
An indexing site, or Google, can readily provide you the
A tracker, given a
Both a
(PEX and such complicate matters.)