SSM Plebiscite

[PaulP]

Sorry, for whatever reason, I thought you were referring to dust particles.

Surely you can see even a small amount of irony in this ? 96% of the universe is not detectable or visible, but we are told we can see / feel its effects. We can't even see the images directly, but have to rely on reconstructions. You don't see any connection between the high priests of science feeding the correct information to the minions, information that they only have proper access to, and high priests of religion in days past doing the same ?

[LP]

Sorry, for whatever reason, I thought you were referring to dust particles.

Surely you can see even a small amount of irony in this ? 96% of the universe is not detectable or visible, but we are told we can see / feel its effects. We can't even see the images directly, but have to rely on reconstructions. You don't see any connection between the high priests of science feeding the correct information to the minions, information that they only have proper access to, and high priests of religion in days past doing the same ?

Nope none at all PaulP, and the scientists do not do the same.

Perhaps you assert that because you haven't been able to dive into the evidence directly yourself, you are relying on 3rd party opinions. I find it a bit shocking you seem to have researched in some detail yet have come out the other side favoring of the fish-slappers, the ones working in the shadows! Experts at finding correlation without causation. That is some irony!

But I get their attraction, they are the car-salesmen of pseudoscience, the ones breaking ranks are often a scientist who has lost tenure. Scientists are feeble and subject to error like any human. The crafty ones know how science works and can navigate their way through criticism by carefully avoiding the presentation of any real evidence. Experts at finding correlation without causation.

Did you know that there is a strong correlation between cheese consumption and dying from bed sheet suffocation? Spurious but true!

I'm not sure what anyone can do about that PaulP, the New Age wizards often published based on entirely incorrect premises and never support their arguments with data, they can't because the real data takes time, a lot of money and effort none of which they have. That is no accident, the wizards of cynicism work in the shadows in the absence of scientific methods or real data, they are not scientists when they behave this way even if the have earned a PhD!

Who would be the high priest of science, Sir David Attenborough?

[img width=100]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Gb5ONR3eL._UX250_.jpg[/img]

He always scares me! :o

[PaulP]

I'm not really sure why you keep coming back to New Age and religion. I am neither nor, but whatever floats your boat.

I'm safely assuming that you don't have the time, expertise or equipment to conduct every experiment yourself. I'm also safely assuming that you do not pore through the papers discussing various theories, especially where high pressure maths and physics is concerned, since it would be very difficult to understand, no ?

You have a faith and a trust that the science community will banish all falsehoods, all false prophets, all lies, all deceptions, and leave you with the facts, aka the truth ?

Still not sounding familiar ?

[LP]

I'm not really sure why you keep coming back to New Age and religion. I am neither nor, but whatever floats your boat.

I'm safely assuming that you don't have the time, expertise or equipment to conduct every experiment yourself. I'm also safely assuming that you do not pore through the papers discussing various theories, especially where high pressure maths and physics is concerned, since it would be very difficult to understand, no ?

You have a faith and a trust that the science community will banish all falsehoods, all false prophets, all lies, all deceptions, and leave you with the facts, aka the truth ?

Still not sounding familiar ?

No Paul, actually I studied as much years ago, and yes as part of that I have crunched the data and helped to draft papers under supervision, usually the boring stuff like categorising and preparing images or creating graphs and tables. Now they use Zooniverse for such tasks, not nearly blinding enough students in my opinion. That's why I gave you the SAO reference, if similar institutes can sort me out they can sort anybody out!

But perhaps start with any freely available MOOC, if you are worried about math start with The Khan Academy at whatever level sees you comfortable.

Although I don't work in that field, even if you do get a spot astronomy or astrophysics is very very poorly remunerated, I do now work in an engineering field where the use of complex numbers, derivatives, integration and other calculus is an almost daily occurrence. Of course it's all now computerised, we don't repeat by hand what we can do with a program. It's probably not just work but a bit of a hobby, like doing a crossword puzzle. I get the most enjoyment and understanding out of pen, paper and calculator even though I could program the whole lot if I wanted to. Much of the time I'm on here I'm actually waiting for a computer simulation or some other software to finish a task.

You have a faith and a trust that the science community will banish all falsehoods, all false prophets, all lies, all deceptions, and leave you with the facts, aka the truth ?

Still not sounding familiar ?

No Paul not at all, science is not a religion there is no dogma in the scientific method. Many scientific proofs show that some things are unknowable.

If someone claims to have all the answers, then they are almost certainly fake, but that is quite different from people peddling falsities! Nobody has all the answers, and not all answers can be understood with language alone.

Sciences biggest enemy is people who make stuff up, take shortcuts and substitute a work ethic with guessing or hope! Probably Donald Trump!

[PaulP]

Wow, a real maths and physics whiz, and just to add a little mayo in there, also whipping up a few simulations in your spare time. Very impressive.

I'm not sure why you can't see any similarities - they're plain as day to me.

[LP]

Wow, a real maths and physics whiz, and just to add a little mayo in there, also whipping up a few simulations in your spare time. Very impressive.

I'm not sure why you can't see any similarities - they're plain as day to me.

No Paul just a worker bee, there are thousands of people around the burbs in every city doing exactly the same as myself day after day after day. Probably many dozen on this site alone.

You know when the kids at school asked why should they learn something they'll never use, the premise is not true, they may actually need it! Even car mechanics need an oscilloscope these days.

I'm not sure why you are so defensive, you seem to have some issues with modernity?

[PaulP]

..........

I'm not sure why you are so defensive, you seem to have some issues with modernity?

Do I ? So you think I'm a defensive anti-modernist ? That's pretty funny. I guess when you can extricate yourself from performing virtuoso calculations and simulations and being the forum know-it-all, you also moonlight as a psychoanalyst.

You Renaissance man, you. 

[LP]

Do I ? So you think I'm a defensive anti-modernist ? That's pretty funny. I guess when you can extricate yourself from performing virtuoso calculations and simulations and being the forum know-it-all, you also moonlight as a psychoanalyst.

You Renaissance man, you.

We have 806 members, there are probably 50 to 100 people on that list at least who would use something like trigonometry everyday, and I bet they would be able to read and understand a portion of many scientific papers.

They do not need to be anything special, they just have to keep and open mind.

That is the real difference between scientists and the dogmatic, one lives in a bubble bound by belief, while the other is free to explore everything with an open mind!

[PaulP]

We have 806 members, there are probably 50 to 100 people on that list at least who would use something like trigonometry everyday, and I bet they would be able to read and understand a portion of many scientific papers.

They do not need to be anything special, they just have to keep and open mind.

That is the real difference between scientists and the dogmatic, one lives in a bubble bound by belief, while the other is free to explore everything with an open mind!

I imagine that scientific papers come in a range of complexities, and some may be intelligible, and others would not.

You try and pin me down with labels - dogmatic, New Age, Religious, defensive, all of which are wrong. And your last sentence is the height of arrogance and self delusion. You reckon I'm stuck in the dark ages. I'm not the one peddling laughable junk about the free spirit of scientists, which was ridiculous decades ago . If science was open minded, it would have no issue with people like Sheldrake and their ideas. Science is a conservative, powerful institution with enormous power and prestige. It is not and does not need to be open minded. It has the eyes and ears and wallets of governments and common folks alike, and pretty much does as it pleases. As any dominant paradigm would do I suppose.

[Baggers]

Permission to dive in! Thank you.

Wow, this is good reading. I’m actually finding much info that is educational, if not somewhat bamboozling resulting in feeling a little uninformed or even dense at times, thank the gods for Google (gods... Google... is there a little correlation there?). There are some highbrow words and expressions going down here that sound so impressive, a little alienating perhaps but none-the-less impressive. Although I wouldn’t call myself a scientist I do find myself, in the main, admiring of their work and efforts.

Mrs Baggers sometimes expresses serious frustration at one area of her job… she is the HR Chief at a major (can’t reveal the nature of the foundation as it may give it away which will result in Mrs Baggers beating me with the blunt end of the dog) research foundation which funds the work of many, many scientists. This organisation is the biggest of his kind in the Southern Hemisphere. She says that working with scientists is difficult, eye-opening and very rewarding.

The difficulty is in the perceived arrogance/stubbornness and at times down right rudeness of the scientists (and they come from all ‘round the world, so little cultural bias) BUT it takes a certain kind of individual who can research and experiment for years with little ‘material’ success, so their problematic attitude/bedside manner has to be understood, not tolerated but understood. Years of being confined to labs etc and running very disciplined, repetitive tasks/tests takes a rare personality type. It’d be easy to see these folks as dogmatic and arrogant (and hence dismiss them on behaviour alone) when they insist on another squillion bucks to continue a research which is yielding little if any tangible results to date, yet, when and if successful the impact on humanity can be significant and profound – this is why they attract huge and consistent grants.

History is littered with mongrel persistent scientists who’ve laboured with myopic passion on an idea, alienated all around them and then come up with something that alters human history – Edison, Testla, Pasteur, Einstein, Dirac, Freud, Maslow… how many times did each fail or whose progress was painfully slow before the 100th or 1000th or 10000th monkey fell in place?

Think of any discovery/invention and it is likely there was an obsessed scientist (or team of scientists and assistants) hardly sleeping seeing it through. Scientists often experience greater scrutiny than any other profession, and if they fail then their funding is withdrawn and they’re in trouble (unlike politicians who can fail daily yet keep their jobs). So any wonder scientists become defensive, annoyed and obstropolous at anything else that claims instant success or unscientific criticism of their field of endeavour or claims to have all the answers!

However, without doubt, there are some who take the arrogance too far and become worlds unto themselves where anything that dares differ or not be supportive will be rejected out-of-hand. But to judge all for the errors of a few would be unfair or even stupid.