Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Not really a valid comparison, since there is no war between Illinois and Missouri (at least not as far as I know). Change this to a map that shows Texas as being part of Mexico, and you've got something a little closer.
That's the point of the peer review system. Certainly individual scientists will have their axe to grind, but that's why many, many scientists review and try to duplicate each piece of new work. For corruption to disrupt this process you'd have to have vast numbers of them all grinding the same axe, and if you believe that's the case, well, you're getting perilously close to the "it's all a conspiracy of mainstream science!" camp.
As for the friendly attitude towards innovation in science, well, yes, it's tough to get a truly innovative idea accepted, but I believe it should be. The mechanism of scientific progress is supposed to be weighty, it shouldn't get turned on it's ear at the slightest hint of something new. New ideas should be doubted until there is ample evidence for them. Note I don't say suppressed, they should be discussed and analyzed, but until they've been thoroughly tested, they should not be completely embraced.
Not so. This is taken from "Albert Einstein - The Human Side",a selection of his letters, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979.
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
I think we can take his own words to be the truth of the matter.
I'm probably entering this discussion far too late for this to actually be seen, but oh well...
disclaimer:I do have a physics degree, and I worked for 4 months for AECL, who design and build the CANDU reactors, but I'm not a "nuclear physicist"
Nuclear power, if done properly, is very safe. The Chernobyl accident was a combination of bad reactor design, lack of operator training, and plain stupidity.
Background info: Nuclear reactions can do three things depending on their surroundings, what we call the moderator: they can die out, they can induce a chain reaction which is self perpetuating, or they can go critical and become a run-away reaction. Nuclear power obviously wants the self-sustaining chain reaction and uses a combination of moderating fliuds and coolants to achieve this.
The Russian reactors use graphite as the moderator. This is a really bad design choice because when there is insufficient coolant, you get a run-away reaction. Very bad.
The Chernobly-4 explosion occurred because, even though the reactors were known to be unstable with low power levels, the crew decided to test how long the turbines would continue to run in the event of a main power failure. This test was to run prior to a routing maintainence shutdown, but they took the automatic shutdown procedures off line, lost too much coolant, and the reaction went critical. Then they couldn't shut it down. Plain stupidity, combined with a bad design.
Contrast the CANDU reactor (there are other safe designs, but this is obviously the one I know most about). The moderation material in a CANDU reactor is heavy water. When you lose coolant with heavy water as a moderator, the reaction stops. Power failure, the reaction stops. With a heavy water design, there is no possibility of a critical reaction as there was with Chernobyl. And you can use the uranium straight from the mine, at natural concentrations, so there is less chemical processing involved and the fuel is a naturally occuring material.
It really is the safest and most environmentally freindly choice we have today for energy production. Wind and solar are the only ones that would be better, but our technology for these things right now is far too inefficient (I read somewhere last year that you would have to cover all of New York State with solar panels just to power New York City. Not practical yet I'm afraid). With a properly designed nuclear plant, you get no air pollution, ground pollution, no interference with wildlife habitats, etc. It is expensive, but you have to chose your evils, and I'd rather pay a little more for power and avoid the environmental nastys you get with hydro or coal.
I got my physics degree with no trouble, and flunked out of my CS degree. So yes, I can believe people can get a degree in physics as easily as a CS one. Generalizations like this are what keep people from attempting degrees in what is one of the most fascinating fields there is.
Semantics. I could just as easily say "we theorize that gravity is a force as we define forces in physics, but we don't really know" And that's my point. Gravity is a name we have given to a phenomena we have observed but do not yet know how it occurs. In this sense, gravity is an observed phenomenon, and a theory, just as evolution is. To be absolutely precise, Gravity is the name we have given to the theory that we use to explain whatever it is that keeps us from flying off into space.
There is so much wrong in this post I don't know where to begin.
First off, transitional forms. EVERYTHING is a "transitional form". Every fossil we have is the transition between that which came before it and what came after. The term 'transitional form' is a creationist invention; it allows them, no matter what sequence of fossils is shown to them to say "where is the transitional between 2 and 3?" If you show them fossil 2.5 they can then say "well, where is the transistional between 2 and 2.5?" A never ending story. No matter how much evidence is displayed, they will demand more.
2: There is no conflict between evolution and the 2LOTD. Those who claim there is have obviously never taken a thermodynamics course. The earth is obviously not a closed system as it constantly obtains energy from the sun, and radiates heat into space. Those who claim that "human's cannot have evolved from amoebas because they are more complex and that violates the second law" whould look at the similarity between that and the statement "snowflakes can not come from water because snowflakes are more complex" to see the stupidity of that arguement.
Third, we have seen evolution happen in out lifetimes. See the talk.origins FAQ for details, I'm not going to list all of them here.
Finally, a basic concept that shows me you are definately not a scientist. You don't "prove" anything in science. You gather a body of evidence. A thing is considered true if there is a substantial body of proof, such that it would be perverse to not believe the theory. Creationists are fond of saying "well, evolution is only a theory." Gravity is only a theory, too, but you probably don't try to convince people to fly.
Sorry about the OT post, but dammit, he hit one of my buttons.
Nobody is suggesting that the teacher should have been teaching university level material. The concern is that, because they haven't kept up to date, the material they are presenting is dead wrong. If a chemistry teacher can't even get the number of elements correct, what makes you think they understand the subject well enough to teach the difference between s and p orbitals?
Obviously students are not going to be learning the standard model of particle physics in high school (for example). But the teacher should at least know what it is and be able to give a good basic explaination of it if a student asks.
Part of the reason teachers don't care, or don't seem to, is that very often they are being forced to teach outside of their area of expertise. (In Ontario at least.)
I remember in high school having a history teacher who was an english major in university, and I know someone who was a physics major and is teaching pre-university chemistry, even though they never took chemistry after high school. When there is a shortage of teachers in a certain area, the administration has to hire a teacher whose specialty is "close enough" rather than hire a professional in that field who is not a teacher. So of course they aren't up to date in the field.
Not only is it possible, it has been done. This particular technology is not new. Almost 10 years ago, firefly genes were grafted into tobacco plants (I believe it was at the University of Waterloo, but I'm not positive about that). I saw pictures taken of these plants in 1991. I'll try to come up with the journal cite for it.
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Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Not really a valid comparison, since there is no war between Illinois and Missouri (at least not as far as I know). Change this to a map that shows Texas as being part of Mexico, and you've got something a little closer.
That's the point of the peer review system. Certainly individual scientists will have their axe to grind, but that's why many, many scientists review and try to duplicate each piece of new work. For corruption to disrupt this process you'd have to have vast numbers of them all grinding the same axe, and if you believe that's the case, well, you're getting perilously close to the "it's all a conspiracy of mainstream science!" camp.
As for the friendly attitude towards innovation in science, well, yes, it's tough to get a truly innovative idea accepted, but I believe it should be. The mechanism of scientific progress is supposed to be weighty, it shouldn't get turned on it's ear at the slightest hint of something new. New ideas should be doubted until there is ample evidence for them. Note I don't say suppressed, they should be discussed and analyzed, but until they've been thoroughly tested, they should not be completely embraced.
Albert Einstein, for instance, was one of them.
Not so. This is taken from "Albert Einstein - The Human Side",a selection of his letters, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979.
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
I think we can take his own words to be the truth of the matter.
I'm probably entering this discussion far too late for this to actually be seen, but oh well...
disclaimer:I do have a physics degree, and I worked for 4 months for AECL, who design and build the CANDU reactors, but I'm not a "nuclear physicist"
Nuclear power, if done properly, is very safe. The Chernobyl accident was a combination of bad reactor design, lack of operator training, and plain stupidity.
Background info: Nuclear reactions can do three things depending on their surroundings, what we call the moderator: they can die out, they can induce a chain reaction which is self perpetuating, or they can go critical and become a run-away reaction. Nuclear power obviously wants the self-sustaining chain reaction and uses a combination of moderating fliuds and coolants to achieve this.
The Russian reactors use graphite as the moderator. This is a really bad design choice because when there is insufficient coolant, you get a run-away reaction. Very bad.
The Chernobly-4 explosion occurred because, even though the reactors were known to be unstable with low power levels, the crew decided to test how long the turbines would continue to run in the event of a main power failure. This test was to run prior to a routing maintainence shutdown, but they took the automatic shutdown procedures off line, lost too much coolant, and the reaction went critical. Then they couldn't shut it down. Plain stupidity, combined with a bad design.
Contrast the CANDU reactor (there are other safe designs, but this is obviously the one I know most about). The moderation material in a CANDU reactor is heavy water. When you lose coolant with heavy water as a moderator, the reaction stops. Power failure, the reaction stops. With a heavy water design, there is no possibility of a critical reaction as there was with Chernobyl. And you can use the uranium straight from the mine, at natural concentrations, so there is less chemical processing involved and the fuel is a naturally occuring material.
It really is the safest and most environmentally freindly choice we have today for energy production. Wind and solar are the only ones that would be better, but our technology for these things right now is far too inefficient (I read somewhere last year that you would have to cover all of New York State with solar panels just to power New York City. Not practical yet I'm afraid). With a properly designed nuclear plant, you get no air pollution, ground pollution, no interference with wildlife habitats, etc. It is expensive, but you have to chose your evils, and I'd rather pay a little more for power and avoid the environmental nastys you get with hydro or coal.
I got my physics degree with no trouble, and flunked out of my CS degree.
So yes, I can believe people can get a degree in physics as easily as a CS one.
Generalizations like this are what keep people from attempting degrees in what is one of the most fascinating fields there is.
Semantics. I could just as easily say "we theorize that gravity is a force as we define forces in physics, but we don't really know" And that's my point. Gravity is a name we have given to a phenomena we have observed but do not yet know how it occurs. In this sense, gravity is an observed phenomenon, and a theory, just as evolution is. To be absolutely precise, Gravity is the name we have given to the theory that we use to explain whatever it is that keeps us from flying off into space.
There is so much wrong in this post I don't know where to begin.
First off, transitional forms. EVERYTHING is a "transitional form". Every fossil we have is the transition between that which came before it and what came after. The term 'transitional form' is a creationist invention; it allows them, no matter what sequence of fossils is shown to them to say "where is the transitional between 2 and 3?" If you show them fossil 2.5 they can then say "well, where is the transistional between 2 and 2.5?" A never ending story. No matter how much evidence is displayed, they will demand more.
2: There is no conflict between evolution and the 2LOTD. Those who claim there is have obviously never taken a thermodynamics course. The earth is obviously not a closed system as it constantly obtains energy from the sun, and radiates heat into space. Those who claim that "human's cannot have evolved from amoebas because they are more complex and that violates the second law" whould look at the similarity between that and the statement "snowflakes can not come from water because snowflakes are more complex" to see the stupidity of that arguement.
Third, we have seen evolution happen in out lifetimes. See the talk.origins FAQ for details, I'm not going to list all of them here.
Finally, a basic concept that shows me you are definately not a scientist. You don't "prove" anything in science. You gather a body of evidence. A thing is considered true if there is a substantial body of proof, such that it would be perverse to not believe the theory. Creationists are fond of saying "well, evolution is only a theory." Gravity is only a theory, too, but you probably don't try to convince people to fly.
Sorry about the OT post, but dammit, he hit one of my buttons.
Nobody is suggesting that the teacher should have been teaching university level material. The concern is that, because they haven't kept up to date, the material they are presenting is dead wrong. If a chemistry teacher can't even get the number of elements correct, what makes you think they understand the subject well enough to teach the difference between s and p orbitals?
Obviously students are not going to be learning the standard model of particle physics in high school (for example). But the teacher should at least know what it is and be able to give a good basic explaination of it if a student asks.
Part of the reason teachers don't care, or don't seem to, is that very often they are being forced to teach outside of their area of expertise. (In Ontario at least.)
I remember in high school having a history teacher who was an english major in university, and I know someone who was a physics major and is teaching pre-university chemistry, even though they never took chemistry after high school. When there is a shortage of teachers in a certain area, the administration has to hire a teacher whose specialty is "close enough" rather than hire a professional in that field who is not a teacher. So of course they aren't up to date in the field.
Not only is it possible, it has been done.
This particular technology is not new.
Almost 10 years ago, firefly genes were grafted into tobacco plants (I believe it was at the University of Waterloo, but I'm not positive about that). I saw pictures taken of these plants in 1991. I'll try to come up with the journal cite for it.