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5th December 2012, 11:50 AM | #561 |
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Just a point on the football field analogy:
What we've searched so far, within our own galaxy, is about the equivalent of three to four square inches. |
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5th December 2012, 11:53 AM | #562 |
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5th December 2012, 11:54 AM | #563 |
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Some sceptics, having assessed the available evidence, choose to come down on the other side of the fence to the majority of sceptics on some subjects. Ghosts and religion are amongst the beliefs most likely to be considered plausible by the otherwise sceptical because, unlike things like paranormal powers and "alternative" medicines, they are not testable. I don't believe in either myself, but I can understand why some sceptics find themselves able to do so, even after applying their critical thinking skills. And as I said in the post you quoted:
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5th December 2012, 11:54 AM | #564 |
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5th December 2012, 12:29 PM | #565 |
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justin seems to be of the opinion that having googled the definitions of a few items and spending a few minutes reading he now can opine informatively and heroically on a subject many of us have studied for decades.
Yes a mechanic knowingly or unknowingly uses the scientific method in diagnosing and repairing a vehicle. As an electronic tech so do I. I am handed a piece of equipment, say a TV Camera, that the operator simply says "it doesn't work". I then investigate and find for instance, that the camera is working but for some reason no power is getting to the lens and CCD section of the camera. I hypothesize that there is an interruption in the delivery of power to that section. A secondary hypothesis would be that the DC power converter for that supply is dead but this is considered secondary since the rest of the camera IS operating. I then pull out the schematics for the camera and find that there is a soldered in fuse on the cct board lead that supplies power to the lens and this bolsters my hypothesis. Next I pull the camera apart and locate that fuse, then use an ohm meter to further test my hypothysis. Finding the fuse to be an open I replace said fuse and test again with the ohm meter (did the fuse survive being soldered in) and put the camera back together and turn it on and find that all is well again. What I DO NOT DO, is tear the camera apart and start changing parts will nilly with no thought whatsoever as to what may or may not be causing the problem which is what would be the case if one were not using a logical method to solve this. Mechanics, good ones , certainly do the same as I do. Yes some bad ones may just start swapping out parts because they have no clue as to what may be the problem and thus no way to form a hypothesis. I would submit that in such a case calling them mechanics is a bit of a misnomer since they are about as effective as a TV chef inasmuch as forming a hypothesis about the vehicle. |
5th December 2012, 12:41 PM | #566 |
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5th December 2012, 12:50 PM | #567 |
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Not really all that far from the truth. One must have an innate sense of the relationship between connected mechanical and electrical/electronic systems. However to be an actual automobile mechanic one must study the specific mechanical and electrical/electronic systems that are used in an automobile.
My son is a ticketed heavy equipment mechanic and is good at his job. He would be less effective in repairing a gasoline powered passenger sedan, and even less effective if I handed him the camera in my above example. (He may however discover that the camera body has power and that the viewfinder displays a greyish glow and deduce that whatever system converts light to electronic signals is the problem. Doing so would be application of the scientific method. In university I took History as my arts ellective in first year. In that class we were taught to use the, and I quote both my prof and the textbook, "scientifc method of history" when writing on a historical subject. In such a case one was to restrict personal opinion and instead use historical fact to bolster a conclusion. For instance there are two lines of thought on the effect of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. These were termed the "White" and "Black" history of the conquests. One line states that it was good and civilising operation in which the population was delivered from human sacrifice and crushing oppression by supposedly divine rulers, while the other states that the conquest was a horrible affliction that sent the population, those that survived the warfare and pestilence brought by the invaders, into slavery to the Spanish. However the preponderance of the historical evidence does weigh heavily on the side of the "Black" history that has the invasion and conquest as a morally reprehensible event, and THAT is application of 'scientific method" wrt to history. |
5th December 2012, 12:59 PM | #568 |
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5th December 2012, 12:59 PM | #569 |
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5th December 2012, 01:03 PM | #570 |
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5th December 2012, 01:06 PM | #571 |
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So first you claim you don't believe in interstellar travel nor ETI yet you follow that up with this:
which claims that all we need to achieve interstellar travel is to put some pressure on NASA? Your lack of comprehension of the vastness of space would be breathtaking were it not such obvious trolling. |
5th December 2012, 01:06 PM | #572 |
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5th December 2012, 01:08 PM | #573 |
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5th December 2012, 01:16 PM | #574 |
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So far J has failed to prove Carl Sagan was not a skeptic and now he appears to be demonstrating ignorance of astrophysics too
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5th December 2012, 01:18 PM | #575 |
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Justintime, you need not put science in so formal a category to claim skeptics are using philosophy more than science to draw their conclusions. And it seems you make the same mistake when you narrow the category this way, as those that think all of philosophy is either common sense or nonsense. Its the fallacy of the excluded middle, and you're really just playing a game of definitions. Its no use to anyone to argue semantics.
I have a biology textbook that uses as an example of the scientific method a person trying to figure out why their flashlight doesn't work. While this is not a formal use of The Scientific Method™ It is the same thinking process that scientists, and actually, everyone with a brain uses, because it works. The textbook goes on to say that it not such a formal method as people think, but rather a process for testing one variable at a time, to verify or not, a hypothesis. Amazing, so simple an idea and yet it has changed so much of our lives. |
5th December 2012, 01:24 PM | #576 |
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5th December 2012, 01:27 PM | #577 |
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Complete nonsense, no extrasolar planet was confirmed until 1992 and that had nothing to do with SETI. The number of detected planets has been steadily increasing over the years and with it the number of potentially habitable worlds. Given the relatively greater difficulty of detecting small rocky planets close to their star like Earth it may well be that such planets are currently under represented, though with Kepler approaching the three year mark that may well change.
To put it simply you have things totally backwards. |
5th December 2012, 01:58 PM | #578 |
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"Political correctness is a doctrine,...,which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end." "I pointed out that his argument was wrong in every particular, but he rightfully took me to task for attacking only the weak points." Myriad http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=6853275#post6853275 |
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5th December 2012, 02:01 PM | #579 |
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I've always believed that cluelessness evolved as an adaptation to allow the truly appalling to live with themselves. - G. B. Trudeau A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. - Kay, Men in Black. Enjoy every sandwich. - Warren Zevon |
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5th December 2012, 02:12 PM | #580 |
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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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5th December 2012, 02:14 PM | #581 |
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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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5th December 2012, 02:26 PM | #582 |
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5th December 2012, 02:26 PM | #583 |
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Originally Posted by Dave_46
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5th December 2012, 02:28 PM | #584 |
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5th December 2012, 03:00 PM | #585 |
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5th December 2012, 04:35 PM | #586 |
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Worse... Chicago doesn't exist yet. First, you have to go there and build it.
I'm laughing so hard at Justin's troll failings, but this really gets me... A SS ship rated to cover a light year in ~6000 years (if he did his math right). The next star system is ~4 LY. The edge of the Milky Way is tens of thousands of LYs away. The nearest (dwarf) galaxy is tens of thousands of LYs beyond that (if it's even along that path) And the nearest major spiral galaxy (Andromeda) is a bit over 2 million LY away. Then the distances start to get really large. Justin... you're so far ahead of the actual scientists, you better come up with something impressive real quick. |
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---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. |
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5th December 2012, 04:40 PM | #587 |
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5th December 2012, 04:46 PM | #588 |
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Keep your questions terse, and your answers terser. Wait, "terser" is a word, right? |
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5th December 2012, 05:10 PM | #589 |
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Justin, you need to give these guys the benefit of your knowledge and insight...
http://www.tauzerofoundation.org/ They can't succeed without YOU! |
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---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. |
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5th December 2012, 06:05 PM | #590 |
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5th December 2012, 06:05 PM | #591 |
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Justintime
You really have utterly no idea about Carl Sagan. The fact that you state that you couldn't watch Cosmos all the way though says more about your lack of attention span that it does about Sagan and an obsession that you imagine he might have As for his biography, there is only the official one on his website http://www.carlsagan.com/ "Biography CARL SAGAN was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the American space program since its inception. He was a consultant and adviser to NASA since the 1950's, briefed the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon, and was an experimenter on the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to the planets. He helped solve the mysteries of the high temperatures of Venus (answer: massive greenhouse effect), the seasonal changes on Mars (answer: windblown dust), and the reddish haze of Titan (answer: complex organic molecules). For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ( "for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates"). He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences (for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare…Carl Sagan has been enormously successful in communicating the wonder and importance of science. His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent achievement"). Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. A Pulitzer Prize winner for the book The Dragons of Eden: Speculations of the Evolution of Human Intelligence, Dr. Sagan was the author of many bestsellers, including Cosmos, which became the bestselling science book ever published in English. The accompanying Emmy and Peabody award-winning television series has been seen by a billion people in sixty countries. He received twenty-two honorary degrees from American colleges and universities for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment, and many awards for his work on the long-term consequences of nuclear war and reversing the nuclear arms race. His novel, Contact, is now a major motion picture. In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." Dr. Sagan's surviving family includes his wife and collaborator of twenty years, Ann Druyan; his children, Dorion, Jeremy, Nicholas, Sasha, and Sam; and grandchildren. Not a mention of UFO's or SETI or extra terrestrials. He discussed these things but they did not take up a great amount of his life |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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5th December 2012, 06:25 PM | #592 |
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My boss and I once had a discussion on survival in the Mojave, after a particularly memorable incident drove home the fact that I don't know how to do it. He's paleo/archaeo, so he had a very good background in the topic. One of the things he mentioned is that in the ancient past, people ate pretty much anything they could get their hands on in these regions--and when someone die, they were smart enough to say "You know, I'm not gonna try that".
It's extremely brutal, but it IS the scientific method in action. Hypothesis: This is edible. Test: Eat it. Results: live, get sick, or die. The interpretation phase is, of course, left to those how opted to not engage in the experiment in one of those cases. |
5th December 2012, 06:28 PM | #593 |
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Our latest troll has no use for facts, but I, and many others here, appreciate your post.
I knew surprisingly little about Sagan's impressive body of work prior to reading several postings in this thread. He is certainly a candidate for the, "if you could invite any 3 people from history to dinner..." question. |
5th December 2012, 06:32 PM | #594 |
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As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. - Voltaire. |
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5th December 2012, 06:49 PM | #595 |
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Perhaps the misunderstanding comes from the name SETI chose for itself. Search implies doing something active; all SETI actually does is listen, which is a pretty passive activity. It would be like "searching" for your misplaced keys by sitting on your couch and looking around.
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5th December 2012, 07:06 PM | #596 |
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5th December 2012, 07:20 PM | #597 |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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5th December 2012, 07:30 PM | #598 |
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Some years ago I saw a TV panel discussion hosted by Magnus Magnussen. The three panelists were Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Arthur C. Clarke. These would be my three dinner guests.
PS: The discussion was recorded back in the 1990's I think, but looking back at those three, who would have thought that Stephen Hawking would be the only one still living today. |
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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5th December 2012, 07:32 PM | #599 |
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Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive? ...love and buttercakes... |
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5th December 2012, 07:42 PM | #600 |
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