Thank you for proving every prejudice about americans right in one sentence. Oh no, wait. You forgot a "by god" or something in there. You can't be a true american. Dang, just a stupid troll, probably from some backwater bushes.
You would still need a clear sign indicating that cellphones will not work in the theater... and people like me wouldn't be able to go (I'm on call 24/7and have my phone on vibrate)
The japanese have a very elegant solution for this - they are very polite as you may know. I once spoke at a conference in Tokyo. It is quite common for meetings and conferences to deposit your cell phone outside, with the receptionist, who will handle the phones much like coats, but also pick them up when they ring, ask the caller if it is important and if it is, quietly fetch you.
There has been interesting psychological research a few years ago showing that we actually find a conversation considerably more distracting/annoying if we only hear one side of it.
I'll tell you what I really think is going to happen: I think in 10 or 15 years, we're going to look back on this time period, and be sort of aghast at how people behaved with regards to their phones.
I thought that 10 years ago.
It's a cultural thing, not a question of time. I spent a week in Tokyo a couple years ago and used the subway for most travel needs. During the entire week, I heard two cell phones ring, despite every japanese man, woman, child and probably dog having one. Both phones belonged to foreigners.
But in the west? It has improved slightly ever since everyone has a mobile phone and they're not a status symbol anymore that seem fucks need to show off by using them so everyone notices. But aside from that, I don't notice a positive trend.
The word "tolerance" comes from a latin word meaning roughly "to endure".
There are limits to what one can reasonably be expected to endure. Someone talking on the phone next to me in a normal voice? Yeah, I might find it annoying, but I can tolerate that. Or I can move two seats away.
Someone talking on the phone so loud that the entire waggon can clearly hear everything, despite train noises? Sorry, I don't have to take that. And no, I don't have to tell him that he's an asshole and that he needs to stop - that is the same argument as we all roundly reject when it comes to spam.
Just like there is a reasonable amount of annoyance I should tolerate, there is also a reasonable amount of annoyance in others that I can create. The two probably overlap, so there's a grey area inbetween where someone who feels annoyed should tell the other party about it. But there's also a clear "you are an asshole" area where I shouldn't have to tell someone that he's annoying me, because if he'd care the least bit, he'd already know that.
When your neighbours have the music on a little louder than usual, you go there and ask nicely if they could turn it down. If they open up on 11 at 3 o'clock on a workday morning, you call the police. Because one of these things they will remember the next time they want to party. (of course that is an example, your mileage may vary, especially depending on your relationship with your neighbours, some assembly required, small parts can be swallowed by children, not a toy, limited offer)
When I was still riding the train twice daily, I wanted to do exactly what this guy is doing. And I would've, if there had been a jammer easily available to purchase.
Assholes simply don't understand any other language. I've tried to calmly and friendly talk to people quite often. There is a small minority where it works. Most will tell you to fuck off, some will be more rude or more physical than that.
So pressing a button and killing their call really is a great alternative. Yeah, it'll also cut off other, innocent people. Sorry for that. Give me a way to cut off just the asshole and I'll use it immediately.
Last I checked - meaning a few minutes ago -.org was a generic TLD and PIR, the guys who handle it, make no mention of it being specific to the USA. In fact, the letters "USA" only show up inside the word "usable" in their FAQ on the.org TLD..us is the TLD assigned to the USA. I'm not entirely sure about.mil and.edu, but I am very sure that.com and.net are just like.org in this respect.
We do. It's called "the Internet". Built with our hardware, our cables, our routers, our servers, our providers, etc. etc.
Oh wait, you mean no matter how much we contributed, it is always the property of the one who invented it?
Seriously?
Ok, time to dig up all the stuff that Europe invented, say before the US ever existed, and ask you to stop using that. Start with toilets and cutlery while I look up the rest.
I stand corrected. I misread or misunderstood that part.
Yes, many natural remedies contain ingredients with actual medical value. For some reason, I understood the term more limited as in "some of the stuff that science says doesn't work really does".
Like the other guy, your examples are not anti-science or science-is-so-limited in the least.
All of these are areas where science has given us better understanding than any other approach, and is still moving forward.
We do not yet fully understand these topics, but we do understand quite a bit of it, and a lot more than we would without science. And given time, our understanding will improve.
I fail to see how any of these qualify for a general criticism of the scientific method. Just because you are still on the stairs doesn't mean that walking doesn't work or that the kitchen doesn't exist.
I'll use a table, simply because I already happen to own one, and I'm not carrying around a second device.
That said, I do prefer my books on paper. However, I take lots of notes on most books I read, and that's one thing an e-book reader has going for it. So I can't say what I'll be reading a couple years from now.
Yes, these are examples where science is incomplete and there are still many more questions than answers.
However, take anaesthesia as an example. Would you rather be put under by a medical doctor following scientific principles - incomplete as his knowledge may be - or take a homeopathic pill or have some old chinese man put needles into specific spots that he claims will remove the pain?
My guess is you'll be going with the doctor. And rightly so. True, much is still unknown, but with what we know, we are already better than chance at getting you back out.
And progress is being made. The thing is very much scientific and the scientific method is giving us more understanding than any other approach to the topic.
Which, I believe, is the qualifier missing from most of the "but science doesn't know everything!" arguments. If that is all, the argument has no content. If the science-rejecter can offer some other method that provides more understanding, I will be the first to listen.
But since that usually doesn't happen, science is still the best method available to us, even if it only knows 0.001% of a random field of knowledge.
Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not.
Name them. The ones that aren't.
Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist.
Science will gladly investigate the working treatments that you name above, I am sure of it. All of the commonly named examples have been examined - and found to be lacking.
One thing that most people aren't aware of is that the comparison against a placebo is only the very first step of investigating a treatment. It is to establish whether the thing has any effect whatsoever. That doesn't mean it will become a treatment. Because it will then be compared against the best treatments currently available. Because, quite honestly, if you already have something that can save 80% of the patients from an otherwise deadly disease, why would you want to give them something else instead that saves only 60%? (and before you yell, yes of course that is simplified, factors such as side-effects, cost, availability, etc. are also considered. That's why there are different treatments available for many diseases, because some may be less effective, but also have fewer side-effects, etc.)
I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.
Don't leave us guessing! Give us examples. Pics or it didn't happen.
There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet.
Name five.
I keep repeating myself, because there are probably 50 comments all saying that there are such things, but none of them actually say what they are.
(repost because stupid/. editor swallowed two sentences because it thinks the "smaller than" symbol starts an HTML tag)
There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science
Name five.
lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,
Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.
lots of things that science does not yet understand
Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.
Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory". The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's less than 50, the run the 2nd test on the numbers 20, 30 and 40. This gives you the greatest confidence (if they all fail, you know it's less than 10, the first succeeds, but the second fails, it must be between 10 and 20, etc.) After these experiments, they still don't know what the number is. But they are getting a pretty good idea.
So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.
Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.
Name five.
Do they really know EVERYTHING?
You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.
So here is the $1 mio. question for you:
If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?
Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?
And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?
There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science
Name five.
lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,
Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.
lots of things that science does not yet understand
Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.
Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory". The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's But they are getting a pretty good idea.
So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.
Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.
Name five.
Do they really know EVERYTHING?
You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.
So here is the $1 mio. question for you:
If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?
Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?
And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?
science insists on being able to measure stuff with a physical instrument
Liar.
Instruments are not a principal requirement for science, and many current sciences do much of their work without them (psychology, anthropology, social sciences, to name just a few).
The reason the natural sciences are using instruments is that they have reached a level of precision that is higher than human perception. Early in their days, they didn't. Newton did some of his work on optics with his own eyes, some chalk and a few pieces of wood, etc.
So science has immediately disqualified itself from judging alternative medicine
You wish.
If I put 100 emergency patients into a hospital with real medicine, and the other 100 into a church where they are prayed for daily and get acupuncture and homeopathic sugar pills, the only physical instrument I need is a bunch of coffins. And the only science I need is checking who survives and who dies.
And when it comes to judgement, it doesn't get any more specific than your fraud is killing people.
the science fundamentalists
I think you want to look up the origin and actual meaning of the word fundamentalist.
One, we know for a fact that it isn't the acupuncture or the homeo-pills or the praying or whatever that is doing anything, it is the mind of the patient. However, the placebo effect requires that the patient believes he has been given medicine, and the psychological effects are very interesting and not entirely understood, yet. Colour and size of the pills, for example have measurable, statistically significant effects. It may be that acupuncture is a more effective placebo than a pill. But - and that is the point - that doesn't make acupuncture a science. It makes it a part of medicine. Maybe all those placebo treatments should be folded into a "Placebo Medicince" branch.
Two, the ethical issue. You are lying to your patient (and possibly to yourself). Whether or not it is ok to deceive someone in order to help them is an interesting ethical dilemma and doesn't have a trivial solution. But one thing is - I hope - something we all agree on: We don't want people to major in deceit and receive PhDs in fraud, do we?
The climate change doubters are currently employing some of the same strategies that the creationists have been using.
One of them is constant repetition. Instead of actually checking the facts and actually pointing to the flaws the claim are all over the place, they write stuff like yours, asking the other side to show evidence. Again and again and again and again and again.
And then, when the real scientists want to get some real science done and say "sorry, don't have time for this bullshit, I've done it a thousand times already", they claim victory because there was no proof shown.
Few scientific data is as readily available as the data on climate change. Go and get it, read it, understand it, write to peer-review journals if you find any flaws with it.
in their own little peer group/discipline/vocation/guilds
Those "little" groups are one or two orders of magnitude larger than the group sizes at which a conspiracy has a reasonable chance of working.
Also, those groups are open. All you need to do is become a scientist in one of the fields. Of course, you can't do that from your couch...
And I would argue that anthromorphic climate change is the misapplication of the natural heating and cooling cycle of the earth.
You're an idiot, a fool and a fraud. Yes, those terms are necessary.
We have very, very solid evidence that the global temperature is rising due to human influences. That part is completely scientific.
If and what to do about it, that part is political.
Yes, global warming is real. It is the rate and cause that I don't see proof for yet.
Because you are ignorant. Al Gore is right, the question is settled. It has been challenged constantly for decades, every claim has been scrutinized, and the basic answer has remained the same. Like all continuously improved scientific theories, the precise details are constantly improved, but the direction has never changed. Even studies funded by climate change sceptics for the express purpose of getting a different result have only supported the general consensus.
The question is settled as much as our current knowledge allows us to. If you don't have new facts to add, at least evolve the intellectual honesty to state the real reasons you want to close your eyes: That you don't want to support the changes to politics and economics that would be necessary to prevent catastrophic changes, because your habbits and wealth and standard of living are important to you and you don't really care if a couple million niggers and asians drown.
If you are an IT Security/Compliance office, and allow an unapproved machine on the network,
Strawman. Whether or not his setup would even work isn't the topic under discussion here. You are right that it shouldn't even be working, but that isn't the point.
Perhaps it never occurred to you that *I* am more valuable to the company than you? Who would be dismissed, you or I?
My value to the company is of no consequence in this scenario. The value listed in the risk analysis next to "prevent unauthorized access to the corporate network" is. And in any but the most trivial corporations, that value is several orders of magnitude higher than your value.
That is why the Security/Compliance Officer reports to the C-level executives, and isn't some kid stuffed away in the IT department. If your boss has a boss who talks to the IT director, then you aren't a Security Officer, no matter what your business card says.
Look, when I say "for a reason", I don't mean "I made something up". I mean there has been a risk analysis, signed off by top management, resulting in a corporate security plan, signed off by top management.
With that in my pocket, I will tell anyone of any pay grade that he can't do this. If he is a bug guy, I will add that he is, off course, free to talk to the top management if he wants the policy changed. But until then, I have the signature of the CEO that what he's doing is not allowed.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for proving every prejudice about americans right in one sentence. Oh no, wait. You forgot a "by god" or something in there. You can't be a true american. Dang, just a stupid troll, probably from some backwater bushes.
Why not walk up to them and ask them to bring the volume down?
Because we already know the person is an antisocial asshole who couldn't care less about anyone else, or he wouldn't scream like that.
You would still need a clear sign indicating that cellphones will not work in the theater... and people like me wouldn't be able to go (I'm on call 24/7and have my phone on vibrate)
The japanese have a very elegant solution for this - they are very polite as you may know. I once spoke at a conference in Tokyo. It is quite common for meetings and conferences to deposit your cell phone outside, with the receptionist, who will handle the phones much like coats, but also pick them up when they ring, ask the caller if it is important and if it is, quietly fetch you.
I don't see why that would not work for theatres.
There has been interesting psychological research a few years ago showing that we actually find a conversation considerably more distracting/annoying if we only hear one side of it.
I'll tell you what I really think is going to happen: I think in 10 or 15 years, we're going to look back on this time period, and be sort of aghast at how people behaved with regards to their phones.
I thought that 10 years ago.
It's a cultural thing, not a question of time. I spent a week in Tokyo a couple years ago and used the subway for most travel needs. During the entire week, I heard two cell phones ring, despite every japanese man, woman, child and probably dog having one. Both phones belonged to foreigners.
But in the west? It has improved slightly ever since everyone has a mobile phone and they're not a status symbol anymore that seem fucks need to show off by using them so everyone notices. But aside from that, I don't notice a positive trend.
The word "tolerance" comes from a latin word meaning roughly "to endure".
There are limits to what one can reasonably be expected to endure. Someone talking on the phone next to me in a normal voice? Yeah, I might find it annoying, but I can tolerate that. Or I can move two seats away.
Someone talking on the phone so loud that the entire waggon can clearly hear everything, despite train noises? Sorry, I don't have to take that. And no, I don't have to tell him that he's an asshole and that he needs to stop - that is the same argument as we all roundly reject when it comes to spam.
Just like there is a reasonable amount of annoyance I should tolerate, there is also a reasonable amount of annoyance in others that I can create. The two probably overlap, so there's a grey area inbetween where someone who feels annoyed should tell the other party about it. But there's also a clear "you are an asshole" area where I shouldn't have to tell someone that he's annoying me, because if he'd care the least bit, he'd already know that.
When your neighbours have the music on a little louder than usual, you go there and ask nicely if they could turn it down. If they open up on 11 at 3 o'clock on a workday morning, you call the police. Because one of these things they will remember the next time they want to party.
(of course that is an example, your mileage may vary, especially depending on your relationship with your neighbours, some assembly required, small parts can be swallowed by children, not a toy, limited offer)
When I was still riding the train twice daily, I wanted to do exactly what this guy is doing. And I would've, if there had been a jammer easily available to purchase.
Assholes simply don't understand any other language. I've tried to calmly and friendly talk to people quite often. There is a small minority where it works. Most will tell you to fuck off, some will be more rude or more physical than that.
So pressing a button and killing their call really is a great alternative. Yeah, it'll also cut off other, innocent people. Sorry for that. Give me a way to cut off just the asshole and I'll use it immediately.
Last I checked - meaning a few minutes ago - .org was a generic TLD and PIR, the guys who handle it, make no mention of it being specific to the USA. In fact, the letters "USA" only show up inside the word "usable" in their FAQ on the .org TLD. .us is the TLD assigned to the USA. I'm not entirely sure about .mil and .edu, but I am very sure that .com and .net are just like .org in this respect.
We do. It's called "the Internet". Built with our hardware, our cables, our routers, our servers, our providers, etc. etc.
Oh wait, you mean no matter how much we contributed, it is always the property of the one who invented it?
Seriously?
Ok, time to dig up all the stuff that Europe invented, say before the US ever existed, and ask you to stop using that. Start with toilets and cutlery while I look up the rest.
I stand corrected. I misread or misunderstood that part.
Yes, many natural remedies contain ingredients with actual medical value. For some reason, I understood the term more limited as in "some of the stuff that science says doesn't work really does".
Like the other guy, your examples are not anti-science or science-is-so-limited in the least.
All of these are areas where science has given us better understanding than any other approach, and is still moving forward.
We do not yet fully understand these topics, but we do understand quite a bit of it, and a lot more than we would without science. And given time, our understanding will improve.
I fail to see how any of these qualify for a general criticism of the scientific method. Just because you are still on the stairs doesn't mean that walking doesn't work or that the kitchen doesn't exist.
I'll use a table, simply because I already happen to own one, and I'm not carrying around a second device.
That said, I do prefer my books on paper. However, I take lots of notes on most books I read, and that's one thing an e-book reader has going for it. So I can't say what I'll be reading a couple years from now.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Say Hi. :-)
They use tools, yes. Heck, you could argue that a pen is an "instrument".
The GP argument was that instruments are fundamental and that science is limited because there's things we don't have physical instruments for.
Of course we use instruments. But "uses an instrument" isn't a very good definition of what science is.
Ok, now I know where you are getting from.
Yes, these are examples where science is incomplete and there are still many more questions than answers.
However, take anaesthesia as an example. Would you rather be put under by a medical doctor following scientific principles - incomplete as his knowledge may be - or take a homeopathic pill or have some old chinese man put needles into specific spots that he claims will remove the pain?
My guess is you'll be going with the doctor. And rightly so. True, much is still unknown, but with what we know, we are already better than chance at getting you back out.
And progress is being made. The thing is very much scientific and the scientific method is giving us more understanding than any other approach to the topic.
Which, I believe, is the qualifier missing from most of the "but science doesn't know everything!" arguments. If that is all, the argument has no content. If the science-rejecter can offer some other method that provides more understanding, I will be the first to listen.
But since that usually doesn't happen, science is still the best method available to us, even if it only knows 0.001% of a random field of knowledge.
others are placebos so advanced that modern medicine may take decades to catch up
The combination of "placebos" and "advanced" scrambles my head. Are you sure you know what the placebo effect actually is ?
Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not.
Name them. The ones that aren't.
Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist.
Science will gladly investigate the working treatments that you name above, I am sure of it. All of the commonly named examples have been examined - and found to be lacking.
One thing that most people aren't aware of is that the comparison against a placebo is only the very first step of investigating a treatment. It is to establish whether the thing has any effect whatsoever. That doesn't mean it will become a treatment. Because it will then be compared against the best treatments currently available. Because, quite honestly, if you already have something that can save 80% of the patients from an otherwise deadly disease, why would you want to give them something else instead that saves only 60%?
(and before you yell, yes of course that is simplified, factors such as side-effects, cost, availability, etc. are also considered. That's why there are different treatments available for many diseases, because some may be less effective, but also have fewer side-effects, etc.)
I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.
Don't leave us guessing! Give us examples. Pics or it didn't happen.
There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet.
Name five.
I keep repeating myself, because there are probably 50 comments all saying that there are such things, but none of them actually say what they are.
(repost because stupid /. editor swallowed two sentences because it thinks the "smaller than" symbol starts an HTML tag)
There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science
Name five.
lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,
Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.
lots of things that science does not yet understand
Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.
Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory".
The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's less than 50, the run the 2nd test on the numbers 20, 30 and 40. This gives you the greatest confidence (if they all fail, you know it's less than 10, the first succeeds, but the second fails, it must be between 10 and 20, etc.)
After these experiments, they still don't know what the number is. But they are getting a pretty good idea.
So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.
Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.
Name five.
Do they really know EVERYTHING?
You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.
So here is the $1 mio. question for you:
If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?
Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?
And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?
fundamentalists scientists
You really want to look up "fundamentalist".
There are lots of things that work without the benefit of science
Name five.
lots of things that science is not yet able to measure,
Do you mean "measure" or do you mean "quantify"? Because measurement is not as important in science as many non-scientists believe. It is important, yes, but not so important that you couldn't do science without.
lots of things that science does not yet understand
Depending on your definition of "understand". Do you mean entirely, completely, know-everything-about? Then yes, pretty much everything falls into that category. But on almost everything that scientists have ever bothered to have a few looks at, we have at least a general idea of how it works. And - that is the important part - we are continually improving them.
Science basically works like this: Imagine the fact, law of nature or whatever you have is a number between 1 and 99. Instead of writing a book about how god made the number 42 special and everyone who says otherwise needs to die, scientists will figure out an experiment that tells them if the number is less or greater than 50. It takes ten years to build. They still don't know very much, but now they have a better idea than anyone else. Turns out it is less than 50, so the religious fanatics who wanted to kill all the scientists when they started the experiment may be right. Of course they now celebrate their "victory".
The scientists continue to work, and manage to come up with an experiment that can tell them that the number is +/- 10 of any number they choose to test. It is horribly expensive, so they only get funding to run it three times. Since they know it's But they are getting a pretty good idea.
So yes, we have many fields where we still don't know what the number is. But in almost all of them, we are much closer to it than guesswork, and on many, we already know the first 20 decimal places and are trying to figure out the 21st and 22nd.
Then why can't you accept that some real things may exist outside of the bounds of current scientific dogma.
Name five.
Do they really know EVERYTHING?
You don't seem to have any issues using a computer connected to a global network, neither of which has come into existence through homeopathy, praying or interpreting ancient mystical texts.
So here is the $1 mio. question for you:
If you trust scientists enough to put your life into their hands every time you take a plane - because, just in case you didn't know, planes don't fly because of acupuncture or Genesis - then what is your criterion for picking the areas of your life where you trust science, and where you doubt science?
Based on what wisdom and higher understanding do you decide which things fall into the bounds of science and which ones don't?
And, the $10 mio. bonus question: What does it take to convince you that you are wrong?
fundamentalists scientists
You really want to look up "fundamentalist".
science insists on being able to measure stuff with a physical instrument
Liar.
Instruments are not a principal requirement for science, and many current sciences do much of their work without them (psychology, anthropology, social sciences, to name just a few).
The reason the natural sciences are using instruments is that they have reached a level of precision that is higher than human perception. Early in their days, they didn't. Newton did some of his work on optics with his own eyes, some chalk and a few pieces of wood, etc.
So science has immediately disqualified itself from judging alternative medicine
You wish.
If I put 100 emergency patients into a hospital with real medicine, and the other 100 into a church where they are prayed for daily and get acupuncture and homeopathic sugar pills, the only physical instrument I need is a bunch of coffins. And the only science I need is checking who survives and who dies.
And when it comes to judgement, it doesn't get any more specific than your fraud is killing people.
the science fundamentalists
I think you want to look up the origin and actual meaning of the word fundamentalist.
There are two issues here:
One, we know for a fact that it isn't the acupuncture or the homeo-pills or the praying or whatever that is doing anything, it is the mind of the patient. However, the placebo effect requires that the patient believes he has been given medicine, and the psychological effects are very interesting and not entirely understood, yet. Colour and size of the pills, for example have measurable, statistically significant effects. It may be that acupuncture is a more effective placebo than a pill.
But - and that is the point - that doesn't make acupuncture a science. It makes it a part of medicine. Maybe all those placebo treatments should be folded into a "Placebo Medicince" branch.
Two, the ethical issue. You are lying to your patient (and possibly to yourself). Whether or not it is ok to deceive someone in order to help them is an interesting ethical dilemma and doesn't have a trivial solution.
But one thing is - I hope - something we all agree on: We don't want people to major in deceit and receive PhDs in fraud, do we?
The climate change doubters are currently employing some of the same strategies that the creationists have been using.
One of them is constant repetition. Instead of actually checking the facts and actually pointing to the flaws the claim are all over the place, they write stuff like yours, asking the other side to show evidence. Again and again and again and again and again.
And then, when the real scientists want to get some real science done and say "sorry, don't have time for this bullshit, I've done it a thousand times already", they claim victory because there was no proof shown.
Few scientific data is as readily available as the data on climate change. Go and get it, read it, understand it, write to peer-review journals if you find any flaws with it.
in their own little peer group/discipline/vocation/guilds
Those "little" groups are one or two orders of magnitude larger than the group sizes at which a conspiracy has a reasonable chance of working.
Also, those groups are open. All you need to do is become a scientist in one of the fields. Of course, you can't do that from your couch...
And I would argue that anthromorphic climate change is the misapplication of the natural heating and cooling cycle of the earth.
You're an idiot, a fool and a fraud. Yes, those terms are necessary.
We have very, very solid evidence that the global temperature is rising due to human influences. That part is completely scientific.
If and what to do about it, that part is political.
Yes, global warming is real. It is the rate and cause that I don't see proof for yet.
Because you are ignorant. Al Gore is right, the question is settled. It has been challenged constantly for decades, every claim has been scrutinized, and the basic answer has remained the same. Like all continuously improved scientific theories, the precise details are constantly improved, but the direction has never changed.
Even studies funded by climate change sceptics for the express purpose of getting a different result have only supported the general consensus.
The question is settled as much as our current knowledge allows us to. If you don't have new facts to add, at least evolve the intellectual honesty to state the real reasons you want to close your eyes: That you don't want to support the changes to politics and economics that would be necessary to prevent catastrophic changes, because your habbits and wealth and standard of living are important to you and you don't really care if a couple million niggers and asians drown.
If you are an IT Security/Compliance office, and allow an unapproved machine on the network,
Strawman. Whether or not his setup would even work isn't the topic under discussion here. You are right that it shouldn't even be working, but that isn't the point.
Perhaps it never occurred to you that *I* am more valuable to the company than you? Who would be dismissed, you or I?
My value to the company is of no consequence in this scenario. The value listed in the risk analysis next to "prevent unauthorized access to the corporate network" is. And in any but the most trivial corporations, that value is several orders of magnitude higher than your value.
That is why the Security/Compliance Officer reports to the C-level executives, and isn't some kid stuffed away in the IT department. If your boss has a boss who talks to the IT director, then you aren't a Security Officer, no matter what your business card says.
Look, when I say "for a reason", I don't mean "I made something up". I mean there has been a risk analysis, signed off by top management, resulting in a corporate security plan, signed off by top management.
With that in my pocket, I will tell anyone of any pay grade that he can't do this. If he is a bug guy, I will add that he is, off course, free to talk to the top management if he wants the policy changed. But until then, I have the signature of the CEO that what he's doing is not allowed.