The Science - Science Fiction thread

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  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    A very thoughtful and impassioned piece DarthDimi. Fine work Sir. Alas so many people in the west who should have sufficient education to know better still exist with the blinkers of religion and superstition holding them back. If there are millions in the developed world who still cling to this rubbish what hope for the those who have nothing else to believe in?

    It would be nice to think that one day mankind will evolve to a point where logic and reason are the only things that hold sway over people's minds when trying to fathom the imponderables of the universe but I doubt its something we will live to see.
  • Posts: 1,817
    This is an interesting discussion, @DarthDimi. May I be allowed to add another pseudo-science from my own field, Political Science?
    I know that Political Science - as most social sciences - doesn't have accomplishments of the natural sciences. We can't perform as many experiments as we would like, and our observations are truncated by history (there are so many counterfactuals that makes statistical analysis difficult, specially because of the endogeneity of processes and institutions and the contextual determinism.)
    But at least we try to follow the method. The problem is with the "political analysts" or the political pundits. This people appear on television or write in the papers about current affairs and most of them haven't conduct research. They have no data, no method, no possibilities of replication nor refutation. They have opinions, or worse, they have predictions! As some real research has shown, TV pundits are as accurate on their forescasts as it mere luck (they get things right 50% of the time) and many of them give controversial opinions ("Iran will attack the US" or "Obama will lose") in order to take attention from the media. This doesn't mean that people can't have beliefs about politics and society. But those shouldn't be mistaken for facts or scientific findings.
    So, beware not only of Creationists and Astrologers, also have precaution against pseudo Political Scientists!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    You all reject the reality of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
    So sad.
    :))
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited November 2013 Posts: 23,449
    A very thoughtful and impassioned piece DarthDimi. Fine work Sir. Alas so many people in the west who should have sufficient education to know better still exist with the blinkers of religion and superstition holding them back. If there are millions in the developed world who still cling to this rubbish what hope for the those who have nothing else to believe in?

    It would be nice to think that one day mankind will evolve to a point where logic and reason are the only things that hold sway over people's minds when trying to fathom the imponderables of the universe but I doubt its something we will live to see.

    Thank you and quite true, @TheWizardOfIce. Now, this observation is yet another counter-intuitive one. ;-) You see, with our knowledge in the fields of quantum and particle physics, astronomy, human biology, ... rapidly increasing and with many successful experiments and endeavours being talked about in the news with, in fact, a growing attempt from creative scientists to explain them in so simple a way that everyone including children can understand them, how come we are systematically descending backwardsinto barbaric thinking? Makes no sense, right? I mean, how come witches still get burned in some parts of the globe? How come many book stores offer more books on astrology than on astronomy? The latter continues to demonstrate and prove that celestial physics works completely independently from us, hairy bundles of weak organic material accidentally crawling around on a tiny planet in the outskirts of but one galaxy. So then explain to me how it is even possible that educated people still expect the stars to take on configurations that would somehow dictate the future of our lives. Ridiculous doesn't even come close to what this is. Worse, however, is that it's also dangerous. I consider myself fortunate that my teachers, when I wasn't even in my teens, were sober enough folk to already show us the tricks behind horoscope future telling, the reason it sounds credible when it really isn't. I found myself able to pierce through the nonsense while many of my fellow schoolmates a few years later, in high school, systematically fell for the traps of astrology.
    0013 wrote:
    This is an interesting discussion, @DarthDimi. May I be allowed to add another pseudo-science from my own field, Political Science?
    I know that Political Science - as most social sciences - doesn't have accomplishments of the natural sciences. We can't perform as many experiments as we would like, and our observations are truncated by history (there are so many counterfactuals that makes statistical analysis difficult, specially because of the endogeneity of processes and institutions and the contextual determinism.)
    But at least we try to follow the method. The problem is with the "political analysts" or the political pundits. This people appear on television or write in the papers about current affairs and most of them haven't conduct research. They have no data, no method, no possibilities of replication nor refutation. They have opinions, or worse, they have predictions! As some real research has shown, TV pundits are as accurate on their forescasts as it mere luck (they get things right 50% of the time) and many of them give controversial opinions ("Iran will attack the US" or "Obama will lose") in order to take attention from the media. This doesn't mean that people can't have beliefs about politics and society. But those shouldn't be mistaken for facts or scientific findings.
    So, beware not only of Creationists and Astrologers, also have precaution against pseudo Political Scientists!

    Thank you, @0013, for these wise words. Yes, I couldn't agree more. And you should know one other thing. When someone on USA television talks about immanent terrorist attacks, people on the other side of the globe, like where I live, immediately call in sick and stay home from work to 'prepare' for those attacks. Or it influences their financial decisions and we notice how pessimistic reports impact the stock market. A few days later, it turns out to have been nothing but deliberate fear engineering by one or two people, but it had impacted many more.

    You pointed out a weakness of many predictions which I like to call out when people throw that nonsense in my face. Where's your method? Show me your numbers. Let's see evidence for some of those deducible 'facts'.
    chrisisall wrote:
    You all reject the reality of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
    So sad.
    :))

    I have pictures of it on my wall, next to those of bigfoot and the Roswell landings. ;-)

  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    edited November 2013 Posts: 16,328
    chrisisall wrote:
    You all reject the reality of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
    So sad.
    :))
    Not cool @chrisisall. [-(
    430px-Squirrel_Mario_NSMBU.png
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    @DarthDimi I'm not quite sure your idea of barbaric idiocy still winning ground. Yes, some religions still expand, but at the cost of what? If it's othr religions, then not much is lost. Yes, more and more bookstores sell books about reading the stars, but there's a good reason for it. Scientific books get published less and less, not because science is losing ground, but because scientists use the internet to stay up to date, not books (I work in an organisation with many scientists and we're closing down our library).

    All in all to cut a long story short: the internet gives idiocy a way of spreading faster, as it does to science. Thus shifting through our inforation overload is harder to do, especially to those who're untrained to do so. As you so rightly stated: education is the key. And where many countries in the west start failing in that field, many under developed countries are aiming exactly on that: proper education to all. India has shot a rocket to Mars I understand. Science will prevail, but maybe not in the ways you'd hoped.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    I read you, @CommanderRoss, and you are certainly correct about science having a good time on the Internet. However, in my profession I come across many misconceptions among people, educate people even, concerning science and pseudoscience. You wouldn't believe how many people actually accept pseudoscience as waterproof science.

    Also, you're right that other parts of the world are focusing more on science than we are. That doesn't comfort me though. ;) Why can't we move on along with them? Work together in the field of astronomy for example? Taking a step backward frightens me to be honest. :-)
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    Well I met people like that too. One former collegue was a brilliant information architect. But somehow he also believed water has memory. That homeopathetic kind of nonsense. I still can't believe such a brilliant mind would follow such nonsense.

    ota51.jpg
  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26325934

    Could be classed as sci-fi but it did it happen - so not sci-fi but sci-fi in its nature??
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    Interesting, @forgotmyusername! Thank you. :)
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Wow, that's very cool!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Thanks for sharing. Here is another, have you seen this?

    http://viewzone2.com/milkywayx.html
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Hey Earth, dis ain't your galaxy no more... :O
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Exactly, we are aliens one and all.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Good work, @chrisisall! Guess I should have given that other site a better look. Scientific journalism is just as trustworthy as political journalism it seems.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    Tough morning... Had a bit of a falling-out with an astrology believer.

    She was all like

    astrologers.jpg

    I was more like

    tumblr_n2f0vutP901t5fphqo1_500.gif
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    hahaha one of those monday's, is it Darth? It's always nice to know there are people who prefer mistery stories over experimentation. I say time for some psychology classes..
  • Posts: 7,653
    The new cosmos series has arrived in the lowlands, one week behind the US and they show it at 22.00 at Sunday night. And thus missing the chance to educate a whole generation of teenagers. :(
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    hahaha one of those monday's, is it Darth? It's always nice to know there are people who prefer mistery stories over experimentation. I say time for some psychology classes..

    Yeah. The stars do position themselves in such a way that they tell us, mere Earth people, about our future. Oh, and never mind that most twins fail to experience the very same day, despite them having the same date of birth, sometimes even within a minute from each other.

    I hate astrology. Many so-called newspapers fail to mention science apart from a small column hidden on page so-and-so between celebrity news and sports, yet they publish astrology as if it actually means something. I don't mind provided that people realise it's crazy talk. Unfortunately, not everybody understands that. It's written in a newspaper after all, and so it must be true.
    SaintMark wrote:
    The new cosmos series has arrived in the lowlands, one week behind the US and they show it at 22.00 at Sunday night. And thus missing the chance to educate a whole generation of teenagers. :(

    Yes! I noticed. I hope I can get my hands on the DVDs as soon as they're released.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449

    Impressive! I'm enthused. :-) Thank you, @forgotmyusername!!

  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    But you know, DarthDimi, this is just fantasy. The earth is not older than 5,000 years old. We have all been brainwashed by science long enough. Don't you know about the Young Earth theory? Scientists just guess and then lie to us, inflating each other's opinions, and the media spout these fantasies like fact or something.*







    :-t
    *Note: The above was just written with EXTREME SARCASM. Which can be very hard to detect from just text (don't you agree?). I don't mean a word of it. Unfortunately, one of my oldest and dearest friends does, I think, truly believe that.
  • Posts: 1,817
    My next research project: Some people choose their candidate months before the election day, some others the week or even the same day of the elections. Who are those people? Are they different in terms of age, sex, ecc.? And why the pick their candidate at different times?
  • DarthDimi wrote:

    Impressive! I'm enthused. :-) Thank you, @forgotmyusername!!

    God moves in mysterious ways.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited April 2014 Posts: 23,449
    Have people gone mad? (Rhetorical question.)

    For a quick idea of what's going on: follow this link.

    Some lunatics prefer that we go back to the Middle-Ages. No doubt through religiously inspired motivation or ignorance (which is sometimes the same thing) it would appear that already more than a million people have signed this ludicrous petition against stem cell research. Of course one million out of many hundreds of millions in the EU seems to be a neglectable minority, but a million or so signatures is officially enough to have the European Commission take this nonsense into consideration.

    Stem cell research is very important. It holds the key to a cure for even the worst diseases, to making the blind see again and so on. Even then, we learn so much from it on a strictly theoretical basis alone. I'm willing to bet that most people who sign this petition don't understand the first thing about science, and thus about the universe, life, us. They tend to be overprotective towards unborn life. Still, embryos aren't exactly massacred for the sake of this research.

    Furthermore, what's more inhumane? To use stem cells from embryos for this research, or to let billions of people rot away because of some disease that might be defeated as a result of the many successes this type research continues to provide?
  • Posts: 7,653
    The religious folks always have faith in something unproveable, and the chance of improving live they tend to leave up to their deity even if none of them have a trackrecord that shows they give a shit.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Same as when vaccinations are deemed ungodly, and health care workers are blown up. Polio is making a comeback now because of that.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    I am all for stem cell research; I think it is very important.
    I'm also a Christian, so I want to say just please keep in mind that not all "religious folks" think that stem cell research, or science, is bad.

    I have not studied it, but my impression is that a lot of the reaction against having vaccines is in error and has caused many people. especially children, to be vulnerable again to many diseases, including measles and polio. That kind of attitude seems to get blown up quickly, especially when you have "celebrities" touting that kind of thinking.
  • SandySandy Somewhere in Europe
    Posts: 4,012
    I've been away from this thread for waaaaay too long. I haven't read many of the post (I'm lazy and I know it) but I plan on contributing to the debate from now on. Just a couple of comments for now.
    I think the problem is not in religions but in their dogmas. There are those religious people who have an open view of things and the others who are blinded by what they believe in that they can't think outside the box.
    The stem cell (SC) question is the eternal misunderstanding. It's a mixture of people who thing it's the source of all evils and others that it's the answer to all problems. It's neither. The fact is that so far nobody really could make them work properly. One thing is for sure, if SC research is halted a lot of other research areas are halted as well because if there is one thing stem cells are good for (at the moment at least) is as a tool for other basic research areas. What scares a lot of people regarding SC is that a lot of it is done using embryos so people have this idea that embryos are being killed. I won't go into the discussion of when does life start but let me just say that the embryos used to retrieve SC are non-viable, they will not develop. If they can be used for something useful then I think it's great because they have a purpose. Better than keep them frozen ad eternum in N2. Couples undergoing IVF are usually very generous and donate their surplus/non-viable embryos to science but if a law passes not allowing them to be used there is nothing we can do about it.
    This anti-vaccination thing is one of the most stupid and dangerous movements nowadays. So many diseases almost eradicated are coming back for pure and simple ignorance. And it's not just those, it's also people who are in danger groups who refuse the flu shot, or parents who are afraid to have their daughters take the HPV vaccine because of the supposed side effects, etc. Social networks, unfortunately, help spread this sort of nonsense. Fortunately good people counter-attack with actual solid information but some people prefer to believe in nonsense than in science.
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