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4th December 2012, 10:40 AM | #281 |
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What makes the mold green? And why do you hate chlorophyll?
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Next time someone mentions a green cow, be more skeptical. And if you don't know how, you've come to the right place. Here at the JREF forums we specialize in teaching the uninformed, uneducated, skeptic haters. But of course it only works if they want it. |
4th December 2012, 10:54 AM | #282 |
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Third request...
Be so kind as to explain: "It may be no more than a careless mistake on your part (formatting can be tricky) but the source you appear to be providing for the quote above (The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Panic. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1749) does not, in fact, contain the text you appear to be claiming that it does." __________________ |
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4th December 2012, 11:13 AM | #283 |
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I have been posting on Skeptic forums for little over a year starting (09/21/11).. I accidentally stumbled on one trying to locate a discussion on phenotypes ( Pink flamingos) to be exact . The link was pointed by someone who turned out to be a troll and I have been trying to rehabilitate him ever since.
I was on Dawkins early 2010. before I discovered the Skeptic forums. I am big on science. |
4th December 2012, 11:18 AM | #284 |
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justintime, I think that you would discover that you are vastly out of your league here. Your attempts at short shifting and semantics might work when you are arguing with a bunch of boobs on the basementtroglodytes.com forum, but on here, many of the people you will talk with are pros in the science, education, medical and legal professions (and those of us who are just regular blowhards are still rather clever) so, you think you are making points and looking smart.
You aren't All you have succeeded in doing is making yourself look uneducated, angry,biased and carrying a grudge about Sagan and the concept of skepticism so large as to cloud any fair judgement. In other words, your argument is worthless and based on conjecture shrouded in a personal animosity that negates any rational point you may have been trying to make (if one ever existed) Now, if you would like to discuss these things like a grown up, we are all ears. |
4th December 2012, 11:31 AM | #285 |
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4th December 2012, 11:31 AM | #286 |
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what are your credentials? because it doesn't appear as though you have any earthly idea what you are talking about in regards to anything...
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4th December 2012, 11:35 AM | #287 |
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You feel Sagan made the connection?
It is you who has made the connection. I think it has been explained to you that simply repeating an assertion does not make it more real. The difference between what I think and what you think is that what I think is demonstrably true. |
4th December 2012, 11:42 AM | #288 |
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Fouurth request:
In post #66, you appear to be offering the following: ...and appear to be offering the following cite as its source: It is possible that this merely represents no more than a careless mistake on your part (formatting can be tricky). However, that source does not, in fact, contain the text you appear to be claiming that it does. I do not want a simple mistake to give you the appearance of intentional dishonesty on this forum. Be so kind as to provide the actual source for the quote above. Be so kind as to explain the purpose of the link above. I eagerly anticipate your resolution of this issue. |
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4th December 2012, 12:06 PM | #289 |
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You have to understand the link and the function of the amygdala. It is obvious you did not read the link but tried a word search for a direct match.
I was looking for what the troll had to say about phenotypes and followed through with the link he provided. That is how I discovered Skeptic Forums are not the place to look for information. You have to apply logic and not jump to conclusions. |
4th December 2012, 12:10 PM | #290 |
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4th December 2012, 12:15 PM | #291 |
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4th December 2012, 12:16 PM | #292 |
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I believe in the very real possibility that there is intelligent life in the Universe other than on Earth. If I were a scientist, I would definitely be an astronomer or astro-physicist, or whatever the the actual names are and I'm sure that I would have followed in Carl Sagan's mold -he's a hero of mine. He simply used the best science available to him to look for any real acceptable evidence that might be out there.
But this type of "belief" in the possibility of alien life doesn't mean that I think UFOs are aliens or that people have been abducted by aliens. When I was a kid, late teens early 20s, I may have believed that some of these stories were real. But as I grew up and got a little wiser and more mature, I began to see through them. There is no credible evidence available -and unexplained does not constitute evidence. Now that I understand the science a little better, I see that even if life does exist out there it's probably not going to be widespread or even anywhere close enough to us to make travel feasible given what we know about physics. I understand the woos fascination with Sagan. If you have never read him or seen his show, Cosmos, then you might be fooled into thinking he was a mainstream scientist who believed in UFOs. Unfortunately for woodom, this is not the case. |
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4th December 2012, 12:22 PM | #293 | |||
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justintime
There is probably no doubt that Sagan believed UFO's were extraterrestrial in origin when he was a young man. Hell, I thought that as well as a teenager, Chariots of the Gods, The Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19, etc were all "evidence" that aliens were here on earth. This all changed gradually as I grew up, and came to the realisation that "speculation" is not "evidence". If Sagan still believed this in his 40's and 50's, then he had a strange way of showing it. For just one example, in an episode of Cosmos (04:Heaven and Hell) he had a golden opportunity to advance that belief when talking about what might have caused the Tunguska event, yet what does he say?
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If you have ever bothered to watch the series Cosmos all the way through from beginning to end (and somehow, I doubt it) you would pick up a theme which runs right through it, that science is about the evidence and the rigorous testing of theory with experimentation and research. He lambasts scientists who do not approach subjects with an open mind, e.g. the active suppression of the theories of Velikovsky, which while almost certainly wrong, were nevertheless his call to propose.
Unfortunately, CTs and woomeisters don't want close scrutiny and investigation by experiment, because they know that such investigation will reveal their beliefs and claims as a fraud. Its why, despite having a world full of people who claim psychic powers and abilities as mediums, NOT ONE has accepted the JREF Million Dollar challenge, because they know their fraud will be exposed... and they hate sceptics for that. |
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4th December 2012, 12:23 PM | #294 |
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It's really simple, justintime. Being a skeptic isn't about what you believe or how much of your time you spend researching a particularly topic. It's about how you believe and how you spend your time researching a particular topic.
Carl Sagan believed that intelligent life probably exists out there somewhere but admitted that because of the immense size of the universe and our limited resources, no convincing physical evidence had been found during his lifetime. He postulated a reasonable idea, explored it logically, and came to sound conclusions that weren't based on pseudoscience or fallacies. Therefore, he was a skeptic. |
4th December 2012, 12:34 PM | #295 |
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I would have looked for ETI if I was a scientist in the trained field. But I would not have done so if I were skeptical of their existence(did not believe). Carl Sagan was a Skeptic he denounced irrational beliefs.
1. What can be more irrational than looking for aliens without a spacecraft that could reach them. 2. What could be more irrational than assuming aliens could be contacted using radio telescope.
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4. What could be more irrational than writing a book on alien contact when even the remotest possibility of finding any was never realized. You have misplaced the woo. |
4th December 2012, 12:40 PM | #296 |
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The article you linked to in no way supports your statement that "Skeptic brains 'emit fear signals that can disrupt attempts at rational thought'." And you took that last bit from a book on climate change that is not referring to "skeptic brains":
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4th December 2012, 12:46 PM | #297 |
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I see. You are going to repeat your dodge of not standing behind what you post.
Follow: Here is your original formatting, quoted directly form your post #66: It is a common convention of honest scholarship that, when one purports to quote material, one provides a source for the quote (to avoid, among other things: on the one hand, the charge of plagiarism, by demonstrating that the words quoted are, in fact, another's work; and on the other hand, the charge of quote-mining, that is, taking a snippet of text out of context in order to change the clear meaning intended by the actual offer). Your formatting, above, appears to make the claim that the text from "A skeptic forum..." to "...rational thought." is, in fact, an actual direct, and unedited quote from "The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Panic. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1749". The truth is that "The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Panic. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1749" does not, in fact, mention, even by colorable implication, "skeptic forums", the "agreement" among "doubters" on such fora, "accumulated doubt", "saturation points", or "fear signals" tragically emitted by "Skeptic brain' (sic)", that can "disrupt attempts at rational thought". In fact, the article articulately discusses the role of the amygdala, with the rest of the limbic system, in conditioned rats in laboratory settings. There is an interesting, and useful, distinction suggested between the "feeling" of fear and the "emotion" of fear; there is also a brief paragraph on methods of "reducing fear and inhibiting the fear response". In other words, the text you provided is not from the article you referenced. The text you provided is not a description, precis, abstract, or development of the information in the article you cited. Your pretense that I did not read, or understand, the citation is incorrect. Your post, as formatted, looks dishonest. Logically, there are several possibilities, among them being: 1. You made an honest formatting mistake, but tried to cover it up by pretending I was not applying "logic" (as per your habit of blaming the reader for reading what you say, not what you claim, you meant); or, 2. You posted a link to an article you did not understand, hoping that no one would check your source and notice that your quote is not, in fact, described, contained, reference, or implied, much less present verbatim, in the citation you provided; or, 3. You knowingly provided a citation to an article that does not in any way support the quote you presented as coming from that article. I anticipate your explanation. Do be so good as to notice that simply repeating your accusation that I did not read, or understand, the article has been dealt with--the issue is not my comprehension, but your use or abuse of the way material is honestly and accurately quoted. |
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4th December 2012, 12:50 PM | #298 |
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Yes, he denounced irrational beliefs. Believing that life on other planets is possible is not irrational.
What's irrational about that? How is that irrational? Sagan didn't do that. Everyone who writes science fiction is irrational? |
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4th December 2012, 12:51 PM | #299 |
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Justintime, please answer the following questions:
1. Why is it irrational to think that life may have evolved elsewhere in the universe? 2. Why is it irrational to investigate the possibility that some of that life might, like us, evolve to the point that it develops the technology to broadcast communications using radiation emissions? |
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4th December 2012, 12:58 PM | #300 |
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So, what is your belief that you feel we don't have the ability to test?
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4th December 2012, 01:04 PM | #301 |
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What a sadly simple-minded misconception. Skepticism is not a refusal to believe. It is a reservation of judgement pending solid evidence. SETI researchers didn't believe or disbelieve in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. They wondered if they might be detectable and made observations.
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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4th December 2012, 01:13 PM | #302 |
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The thing about the Drake Equation is that it primarily demonstrates that even if each of the values inserted is extremely low, the odds are pretty good that there have been/are/will be lots of civilizations that develop to the point, and survive long enough, to be able to broadcast for at least a little while.
Maybe such civilizations, if they exist, would be so rare that they would arise so far apart in time, and so separated by distance, that they have no chance of detecting the emissions of previous civilizations. But maybe they are much more common. Or maybe some are able to survive for a very long time, and thus are able to wait around until another infant civilization evolves and emits some artificial radiation that will eventually reach them and be recognized as a sigh of intelligent life. |
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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4th December 2012, 01:21 PM | #303 |
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and the odds are the distances are so extreme, that even if the moment you heard a transmission and pinpointed it's source ,AND had a near light speed rocket standing by, by the time you reached your destination, the civilization would have perished either by natural or self destructive means.
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4th December 2012, 01:27 PM | #304 |
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there's your problem right there.
Being skeptical is not a belief. It is actually reserving judgement until evidence comes in. If you don't search because you don't believe, then you're not a skeptic, you are a closed-minded believer ETA: The justintime argument is identical to the ones the Creationalsits use--"Since I don't believe in evolution, there is no point in searching for evidence of it, and since I don'tbelieve in it any way, any evidence for it is wrong"
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4th December 2012, 01:48 PM | #305 |
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You are one confused person.
I made a statement explaining how the Skeptics accumulated doubts reach a saturation point then panic and fear creeps in. I then posted a link to show The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Panic. The amygdala deals with fear and panic. It is the part of the brain that responds to fear. |
4th December 2012, 01:52 PM | #306 |
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4th December 2012, 02:19 PM | #307 |
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Originally Posted by justintime
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Science isn't all hugely expensive particle accelorators and multi-billion dollar labs. A lot of it is still a bunch of people walking around looking at stuff. And none of that addresses how your average person-in-the-street is restricted from applying the scientific method. They do it all the time. Let's say your break lights are out. You realize that your headlights work. You also realize that your car starts. That rules out the electrical system, battery, alternator, etc. You look at the light, and it appears fine. Then you find the wire that's loose. That's the scientific method at work. You've formulated a few hypotheses, and tested them. Eventually, you got the right one. It's a simple version of the SM, but accurate none the less. And it's something everyone with a car problem has done. As for skepticism, I'm astounded by your inconsistency, justintime. You say skepticism doubts everything, but you implicitely exhempt that doubt from doubt! Not all doubt is reasonable or rational. Some doubt is manufactured, and some is self-serving rationalizations. And a skeptic that doubts their own doubt must necessarily come to SOME conclusions.
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4th December 2012, 02:26 PM | #308 |
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4th December 2012, 02:29 PM | #309 |
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ahh, but in that article, they aren't referring to skeptics are they? No they are referring to people who deny AGM based on political and/or ideological reasons (or claim that AGW is promoted for those reasons) NOT because they have evaluated the scientific evidence and come to that conclusion.
So your attempt to pigeonhole skeptics has been smited. care to try again? |
4th December 2012, 02:36 PM | #310 |
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I agree. Of course, that doesn't mean that we should just not bother looking for them.
It is not irrational to believe that intelligent, technologically advanced life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, but while there is no direct evidence to support this, the building blocks of life do exist throughout the universe no matter where we look. It is now thought that gravitationally captured planets outnumber stars in our galaxy by several to one. Even conservative estimates are that there are an average of four planets for every star, meaning that the are some 800 billion planets in the galaxy. Even if only, say one in 100,000 are the right composition and size and in the "Goldilocks" zone, that is still 8 million potentially life-bearing planets in the Galaxy. IMO it would be absurd to believe that we were the only ones to develop advanced technology. Assuming that to be correct we can make a couple of scratchy calculations to show how close they might be. Ignoring depth, our galaxy has an "area" of about 8 billion square light years. With 8 million potential life bearing planets, that comes out to about 1000 square light years per planet, giving us about 18 light years between planets. The chances are reasonable that a technological civilisation might be quite close, and on that basis, it is not irrational to listen for them (note I said "listen for" not "communicate with") in order to find some direct evidence. |
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4th December 2012, 02:37 PM | #311 |
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So, what we've established here isn't that justintime didn't cite his sources properly because he made an honest mistake or didn't know any better, rather that he didn't cite his sources properly because he was attempting to be dishonest about what they actually say. And that his dishonesty didn't work due to the critical thinking of some of the sceptics in this thread.
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4th December 2012, 02:40 PM | #312 |
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*high fives everyone and sticks tongue out at the heathen!* lol
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4th December 2012, 02:43 PM | #313 |
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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4th December 2012, 02:47 PM | #314 |
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Keep your questions terse, and your answers terser. Wait, "terser" is a word, right? |
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4th December 2012, 02:49 PM | #315 |
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Full agreement from me. But counter to justintime's baseless assertion that Sagan claimed to be certain of the existence of alien civilizations (or his fallacious assertion that a true skeptic is a disbeliever who would claim certainty that they don't exist and thus never conduct the search) is the fact that SETI researchers fully acknowledge the possibility that we won't be able to detect anything, for any number of reasons.
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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4th December 2012, 02:56 PM | #316 |
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The scientific method is primarily used in the natural sciences. The scientific method is subject to peer-review for possible mistakes before publication. Mechanics are not subject to scientific scrutiny. You are confusing a logical approach, the mechanics experience and other task with that of the strict discipline scientist are bound to to maintain the integrity of the scientific method.
I have never seen a mechanic apply scientific method. He knows what is wrong and without even thinking fixes it. He relies on his knowledge and experience. Unlike a scientist who has to build a hypothesis and verify with frequent test if his hypothesis is correct at the same time following some strict guidelines so the results can be repeated. |
4th December 2012, 02:56 PM | #317 |
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Justintime, could we have your thoughts on the following questions:
1. Why is it irrational to think that life may have evolved elsewhere in the universe? 2. Why is it irrational to investigate the possibility that some of that life might, like us, evolve to the point that it develops the technology to broadcast communications using radiation emissions? |
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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4th December 2012, 03:05 PM | #318 |
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Originally Posted by justintime
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It's amazing. Nearly every single sentence you've typed is wrong. |
4th December 2012, 03:07 PM | #319 |
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You don't seem to understand that the scientific method is exactly what a mechanic uses (and also peer review)
I shall demonstrate Person A brings in a car that's making a wobbling noise, the mechanic asks questions to determine an initial system diagnosis (what part of the car can he eliminate from his "source" options) (this is akin to eliminating the possible variables in a science experiment) He then fires up the car, drives it himself so as to familiarize himself to the "sound" the person has relayed to him. Then he uses his experience and knowledge to isolate and recognize the problem then make the repairs. (just like a scientist who wants to know why something is the way it is,isolate the 'something" study it's behavior, introduce a variable, observe the results) He may also, consult other mechanics before making the repairs to verify that his diagnosis is accurate (peer review) and thus doesn't waste time chasing worthless data down the rabbit hole. Then the customer returns, drives the car, notices the sound is gone. Is relayed the information of the cause (like a study is relayed in a journal) and happily pays and goes home. The 2nd stage of review is the aftermath of the repair, if the "science" was practiced properly, the repair should solve the issue and the sound should not reoccur, if it does come back , then the initial stage can be said to have been "proven false" and further review of the information by the original mechanic is required. (this is like what happens when you publish a paper, the initial peer review merely states that the data was gathered in a verifiable and repeatable manner. The science community at large will get to work and give the final "grade" on the paper based on how often it is cited by others and also if any further papers are published refuting the original claim) so mechanics use the scientific method. I use it everyday when doing baseball analysis. I'm not a 'pro scientist" but I MUST follow the scientific method if I want my statistical analysis to have any value. |
4th December 2012, 03:11 PM | #320 |
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Wow! That is incredibly wrong. Unless your mechanic is psychic, he can't "just know" all the time. There are any number of presented problems that will require the application of the fundamentals of the scientific method. My cousin is an ASE Master Mechanic who works for a Volvo dealership. If a car gets towed in with the problem, "will not start", there are hundreds of possible causes. He uses his experience to know what the most likely causes are, but then he forms an hypothesis and tests it by making an alteration to the element that he thinks might be the cause. If it has no effect and the car still won't start, he moves on to another likely system.
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Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
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