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Topic: "Scientists Say" blather (Read 81597 times)

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #275 –
Quote
Instead of science, we are left with a mélange of science, engineering, values, assumptions, and ideology.
It was always like that, there's no possibility of "Saving Science" simply because there's no Science to be saved.

What matters and what must be defended it's the so called "scientific method". The best methodology invented for assuring result's correctness. What we do with those results is not science anymore.

Note: I see the article's author presents himself as "professor of science and society at...".  That's a bad start.
A matter of attitude.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #277 –
We live in times of darkness.

Media propaganda has obscured all scientific methods. Right now, an imbecile millionaire sent a Payload of pollution, one of his cars, to space and no one says nothing against.
I would force him to eat his car trash, piece by piece.
A matter of attitude.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #278 –
Something unusual is happening with our planet's magnetic field
Quote from: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/march-17-2018-remembering-stephen-hawking-disturbance-in-earth-s-magnetic-field-and-more-1.4575653/something-unusual-is-happening-with-our-planet-s-magnetic-field-1.4579903
For the past 160 years, it's been weakening at an alarming rate. Scientists are concerned that one day, our magnetic poles could flip like they did 780-thousand years ago. 
If it happened some 780 thousand years ago, then it is not all that unusual.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #279 –
These days far too much of our routine population is caught up in entertainment and enjoying themselves so I think less thoughtful and brained than years ago. This means that scientists and space fanatics can say just about anything and damn well just be accepted. Living on the Moon or Mars as a worthy aim baloney example along with all the billions spent on would-be space capers and so on. Rubbish.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #280 –
Quote from: ersi on
If it happened some 780 thousand years ago, then it is not all that unusual.
It's not unusual, but every few hundred thousand years is probably more troublesome (for us, right now) than the every few million years it used to be. :P

Quote from: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/march-17-2018-remembering-stephen-hawking-disturbance-in-earth-s-magnetic-field-and-more-1.4575653/something-unusual-is-happening-with-our-planet-s-magnetic-field-1.4579903
Tarduno thinks this recurrent phenomena is caused by a disturbance in the Earth's outer core layer where the magnetic field is generated.
One of these days I'll be shocked to see the word phenomenon used correctly.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #281 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
It's not unusual, but every few hundred thousand years is probably more troublesome (for us, right now) than the every few million years it used to be.
Some guy somewhere said that this (weakening of the magnetic field and eventual flipping of the poles) is due to (or concurrent with) deceleration of Earth's spinning. Do you know if good scientists have measured this (deceleration) also? Deceleration of spinning would certainly make the poles flip at least.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #282 –
I know it speeds up and slows down, but I wouldn't know about long-term trends.

Speeds up and slows down

Reply #283 –
That's why I'm feeling sick today...

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #284 –
Earth's rotation doesn't speed up. Lunatic tidal forces slows it down. The magnetic field a different story.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #285 –
Quote from: jax on
Earth's rotation doesn't speed up. Lunatic tidal forces slows it down. The magnetic field a different story.
A different story as in independent from the acceleration/deceleration or a different story as in inverse relation?

I have not read it from anywhere, but I have always been under the impression that the Earth's magnetism was to do with the friction in its own layers and vis-a-vis the surrounding cosmos caused by its rotation.
 

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #286 –
Quote from: jax on
Earth's rotation doesn't speed up. Lunatic tidal forces slows it down.
I've heard it said that some earthquakes might speed up the earth as much as 3 µs per day.

Possible reference here: https://www.livescience.com/38083-earth-core-day-length-pattern.html

What I meant above is that I wouldn't know if there's been any recent adjustment to the common knowledge that the long-term trend is down. I phrased that badly.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #287 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
Quote from: jax on
Earth's rotation doesn't speed up. Lunatic tidal forces slows it down.
I've heard it said that some earthquakes might speed up the earth as much as 3 µs per day.

Possible reference here: https://www.livescience.com/38083-earth-core-day-length-pattern.html

What I meant above is that I wouldn't know if there's been any recent adjustment to the common knowledge that the long-term trend is down. I phrased that badly.
There is a mailing list which discusses just that, adjustments to time zone data and the like. Every halfway decent operating system keeps time zone data, for obvious reasons, and on NetBSD I see the occasional commits regarding changes to that. The change logs are ... interesting.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #288 –
 ersi wants to read and debunk https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11023-018-9459-4
Quote from: Neural Representations Observed
We argue that experimental neuroscientists routinely observe and manipulate neural representations in their laboratory. If a type of entity is observable and manipulable, then it exists. Therefore, neural representations are as real as neurons, action potentials, or any other experimentally established entities in our ontology.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #289 –
Quote from: ersi on
ersi wants to read
It costs 42,99 €. Almost one tenth of the minimum salary here. Science is not for the poor.
If one thousand people, all over the world, pays it, they win half a million dollars for an... article.
A matter of attitude.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #290 –
I'm already reading and debunking so that no poor is left behind. A dude with access helped out.

Edit: And the article debunked itself. I was interested in the article because someone said that the article provides a neural/neuroscientific account of consciousness by virtue of "neural representations" and that talk of "mental representations" is henceforth superfluous. In reality, the authors of the article explicitly and appropriately state that they are not touching anything with regard to mental representations, awareness, and consciousness.

"Neural representation" denotes an intermediate point in behavioural perception-reaction chain. It has nothing to do with representations in the truly interesting sense, such as conceptual thought, reflection of memory, imagination, abstraction, intentionality, etc.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #291 –
Remember the Sokal hoax that exposed postmodernism for the nonsense that it is? Now gender studies (and "grievance studies" more generally) have been hit by the same experiment. Welcome the award-winning Dog Park paper that proposed "practical applications that disrupt hegemonic masculinities and improve access to emancipatory spaces" by training men like dogs so they would not become rapists.

Full story https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #292 –
Quote from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/kilogram-forever-changed-why-mass-matters/
Compared to its copies, the tiny cylinder [of etalon kilogram] appeared to be getting progressively lighter. That, or its copies were getting progressively heavier. It's impossible say which, since Big K, by definition, is exactly one kilogram.
So, scientists say that the kilogram was having weight issues. Therefore it had to be redefined.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #293 –
I thought we'd already done that years or even decades ago? I didn't realize the kilo was such a holdout.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #294 –
And I always thought the real definition of kg was, as the article said, the mass of a litre of distilled water at its freezing point, and the etalon was just some secondary thing. Turns out the etalon was primary for some reason.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #295 –
The weight variation with time due to cleaning and contact with the atmosphere, which was something of no importance times ago, is no more adequate for modern science. Therefore the physical  object had to be substituted by a nature's constant - The Plank Constant - measured with modern instruments and opening the possibility at a nearby future to quantum instruments.

Also the ampere, kelvin and mole were substituted.
A matter of attitude.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #296 –
Quote from: ersi on
And I always thought the real definition of kg was, as the article said, the mass of a litre of distilled water at its freezing point, and the etalon was just some secondary thing. Turns out the etalon was primary for some reason.

At about 4 °C. That definition was not very practical or precise, and error-prone. The Paris metal door-stop was klugey, but more usable.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #297 –
Quote from: jax on
Quote from: ersi on
And I always thought the real definition of kg was, as the article said, the mass of a litre of distilled water at its freezing point, and the etalon was just some secondary thing. Turns out the etalon was primary for some reason.

At about 4 °C. That definition was not very practical or precise, and error-prone. The Paris metal door-stop was klugey, but more usable.
I believe the "freezing point liter mass " was the original definition. Difficult and error prone. Later, desiring more accuracy and precision, the door stop was created with its six primary copies.

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #298 –
The Real Fake News: Top Scientific Retractions of 2018 https://www.livescience.com/64353-top-retracted-papers-2018.html

None of the fake research was particularly earth-shattering. It was a boring year.

The following one is still not retracted:
Mind-Bending Study Suggests Time Did Actually Exist Before The Big Bang https://www.sciencealert.com/mind-bending-study-suggests-time-did-actually-exist-before-the-big-bang

Re: "Scientists Say" blather

Reply #299 –
Does a new genetic analysis finally reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper?
Quote from: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/does-new-genetic-analysis-finally-reveal-identity-jack-ripper
Genetic tests published this week point to Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and a prime police suspect at the time. [...] This isn’t the first time Kosminski has been linked to the crimes. But it is the first time the supporting DNA evidence has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

In other news, scientists also say the following: A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/ (Title of the paper: Experimental rejection of observer-independence in the quantum world)