Actually, this is a pretty thoughtful piece about Science (or the lack thereof) and public policy.
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
– jj
That was a great article. It was written over five years ago and is even more relevant today than it may have been then.
The guy everybody considers the GOP nominee for 2008 believes in Global Warming.
The world is making less and less sense.
And he is likely to destroy the coal industry because of it. That should be great for the economy.
Science has been turned over to politicians. Politicians crave power. Therefore, that which increases the power of politicians gets funded; otherwise no funding.
The scientists in the pay of politicians will defend those politicians.
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
Only under capitalism can there be science, at least for very long. A mixed economy corrupts everything it touches.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1 [/quote]
Can you please elaborate?
Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
“Can you please elaborate?”
That guy you hooked up with that said “don’t worry I just have HIV,” yeah he gave you AIDS. Sorry Freddie Mercury.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
Can you please elaborate?[/quote]
Sure. Many scientists doubt that HIV causes AIDs. They did so especially in the beginning because HIV didn’t behave like any pathogen they’ve ever encountered. For ex, epidemics don’t discriminate between black people and white people, between gay and straight. Ebola, as another example, simply slaughters just about every human ir gets into. The HIV → AIDs connection matched nothing previously.
Yet, gov’t funded scientists shouted down those who question the orthodox view, so now no one questions the HIV → AIDs model, for fear of being driven out of the scientific community.
Government funded scientific research has to degenerate in this way. A bureaucrat decides the value of research instead of the free market. That’s a death knell for true science.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
lixy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
Can you please elaborate?
Sure. Many scientists doubt that HIV causes AIDs. They did so especially in the beginning because HIV didn’t behave like any pathogen they’ve ever encountered. For ex, epidemics don’t discriminate between black people and white people, between gay and straight. Ebola, as another example, simply slaughters just about every human ir gets into. The HIV → AIDs connection matched nothing previously.
Yet, gov’t funded scientists shouted down those who question the orthodox view, so now no one questions the HIV → AIDs model, for fear of being driven out of the scientific community.
Government funded scientific research has to degenerate in this way. A bureaucrat decides the value of research instead of the free market. That’s a death knell for true science.
[/quote]
Yes, I too hate those particle accelerators.
[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
lixy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
Can you please elaborate?
Sure. Many scientists doubt that HIV causes AIDs. They did so especially in the beginning because HIV didn’t behave like any pathogen they’ve ever encountered. For ex, epidemics don’t discriminate between black people and white people, between gay and straight. Ebola, as another example, simply slaughters just about every human ir gets into. The HIV → AIDs connection matched nothing previously.
Yet, gov’t funded scientists shouted down those who question the orthodox view, so now no one questions the HIV → AIDs model, for fear of being driven out of the scientific community.
Government funded scientific research has to degenerate in this way. A bureaucrat decides the value of research instead of the free market. That’s a death knell for true science.
Yes, I too hate those particle accelerators.[/quote]
Me too! Especially since the scientists who created those accelerators traded bio weapons and nukes in order to get funding for their accelerators!
Wasn’t it brilliant of them to give weapons of mass destruction, weapons that could kill by the millions, to POLITICIANS? No capitalist would spend billions creating weapons (no profit in it) but politicians and bureaucrats sure will.
“They, who had the capacity to know better, they who gave their science over to politicians and thugs…theirs is the guilt beyond forgiveness.”
— Atlas Shrugged (from memory)
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
kaaleppi wrote:
Yes, I too hate those particle accelerators.
Me too! Especially since the scientists who created those accelerators traded bio weapons and nukes in order to get funding for their accelerators!
Wasn’t it brilliant of them to give weapons of mass destruction, weapons that could kill by the millions, to POLITICIANS? No capitalist would spend billions creating weapons (no profit in it) but politicians and bureaucrats sure will.
“They, who had the capacity to know better, they who gave their science over to politicians and thugs…theirs is the guilt beyond forgiveness.”
— Atlas Shrugged (from memory)
[/quote]
Oh, come on. The capitalist doesn’t buy weapons because he can buy politicians instead.
[quote]dk44 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Look what happened to scientists who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Yikes!!!1
“Can you please elaborate?”
That guy you hooked up with that said “don’t worry I just have HIV,” yeah he gave you AIDS. Sorry Freddie Mercury.
[/quote]
Lol.
The article was crap.
Basically it claims science should be restricted to the lab and shouldn’t have any meaning in real life. Only in the lab can we determine the value of a parameter up to three digits behind the decimal point.
Things get messy in real life, even the most basic experiments get complicated by friction, drag and so on.
So only strict, exact science is tolerated, only in laboratory environments. Biology is not an exact science, neither is medicine. Statistical evidence, let’s throw it out the window.
If we take out anything that isn’t exact, completely accurate, predictable up to three digits behind the decimal point, we throw ourselves back in the dark ages.
Some of you would have liked the dark ages.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
The article was crap.
Basically it claims science should be restricted to the lab and shouldn’t have any meaning in real life. Only in the lab can we determine the value of a parameter up to three digits behind the decimal point.
Things get messy in real life, even the most basic experiments get complicated by friction, drag and so on.
So only strict, exact science is tolerated, only in laboratory environments. Biology is not an exact science, neither is medicine. Statistical evidence, let’s throw it out the window.
If we take out anything that isn’t exact, completely accurate, predictable up to three digits behind the decimal point, we throw ourselves back in the dark ages.
Some of you would have liked the dark ages.[/quote]
You read it wrong. It says science does not depend on consensus. The dark ages comment is very appropriate because we are in our own dark ages of only politically correct science being acceptable.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Wreckless wrote:
The article was crap.
Basically it claims science should be restricted to the lab and shouldn’t have any meaning in real life. Only in the lab can we determine the value of a parameter up to three digits behind the decimal point.
Things get messy in real life, even the most basic experiments get complicated by friction, drag and so on.
So only strict, exact science is tolerated, only in laboratory environments. Biology is not an exact science, neither is medicine. Statistical evidence, let’s throw it out the window.
If we take out anything that isn’t exact, completely accurate, predictable up to three digits behind the decimal point, we throw ourselves back in the dark ages.
Some of you would have liked the dark ages.
You read it wrong. It says science does not depend on consensus. The dark ages comment is very appropriate because we are in our own dark ages of only politically correct science being acceptable.
[/quote]
Just for the record, the Dark Ages were called the Dark ages because there are very few documents from that area.
[quote]orion wrote:
Just for the record, the Dark Ages were called the Dark ages because there are very few documents from that area.
[/quote]
True. The people also had mostly forgotten how to express themselves in writing. The ability to form concepts almost disappeared.
I read somewhere that court historians couldn’t write a physical description of Charlemagne. They didn’t know how to express themselves, so they copied a description of a Roman Emporer from 800 years before!
[quote]orion wrote:
Just for the record, the Dark Ages were called the Dark ages because there are very few documents from that area.
[/quote]
They were the Dark Ages because the sun was dim and there was no global warming.
Complete trivia: Charlemagne was illiterate (and pretty proud of it too). To sign a document, his scribe would make an elaborate rubric with a diamond in the middle. Charlemagne’s signature was a check in the diamond: Charlemagne's Signature | ClipArt ETC
The real reason it was called the Dark Ages was because nobody saw any relevance for learning, hence it was deemed impractical.
Ignorance is not just being unable to read and write, it is the attitude towards thinking itself… And sending them to college doesn’t seem to help either.
– jj
[quote]jj-dude wrote:
The real reason it was called the Dark Ages was because nobody saw any relevance for learning, hence it was deemed impractical.
– jj[/quote]
Sounds like life in the ghetto nowadays. Kids see no connection between education and a good life.
I’m interested in the role of language in how advanced a society becomes. The European languages seem to me to be more future oriented, to make those who use those languages use their imaginations more and predict outcomes from actions. This leads to enhanced concept formation.
Could the secret to the global dominance by European nations be traced to language and the ability to think abstractly? Perhaps Europeans colonized and defeated indigenous peoples around the world simply because their language allowed them to think at a somewhat higher level.
Why, for example, didn’t Morocco conquer France, instead of the other way around? (Just funning, Lixy!)
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
The real reason it was called the Dark Ages was because nobody saw any relevance for learning, hence it was deemed impractical.
– jj
Sounds like life in the ghetto nowadays. Kids see no connection between education and a good life.
I’m interested in the role of language in how advanced a society becomes. The European languages seem to me to be more future oriented, to make those who use those languages use their imaginations more and predict outcomes from actions. This leads to enhanced concept formation.[/quote]
Disagree. Any human language is sufficient. If the vocabulary needs extending that is easily enough done (e.g. Russian in the 18th & 19th century which cognated huge numbers of technical terms from German and French.)
I think I know the reason for European dominance of the world and you’re all going to hate me for saying it, because you won’t believe me.
Violence.
But not the way you think. Western countries have extremely low incidence of violence compared with most other countries. The Western solution to societal violence was to turn it over to the State as a monopoly. This means that you don’t have to stay armed to the teeth, post guards at your family compound and get caught up in un-ending family/honor feuds. If someone steals your car, the cops go get him, not you. Indeed, taking the law into your own hands in the West is every bit as much of a crime. In other cultures, not avenging your family would be a crime.**
This has freed up people in the West to make large-scale institutions (courts, universities, research facilities) which can make long-term investments. Most developing nations have deplorably high rates of violence. We have villified violence in our own society (that is a good thing) and have such a low tolerance for it that any incidence is cause for alarm, but the simple truth is that, for the most part, violence is not a daily factor in our lives.
Countries that do not have a strong central authority to manage violence will descend back into it, because in many instances it is the most rational choice (if the other side arms, you’d be foolish not to and you are safest if you shoot before they do.) This is the lesson of failed states everywhere (Rawanda, Somalia). Moreover, this flatly contradicts the prosaic Rousseau-ean attitude that man’s natural state is one of peace. Do you realize that in many hunter-gathers tribes 3 in 5 adults die of murder? Our rate of 4 per 100,000 seems, well, a tad lower.
This is not to say that the issue of state violence is an easy one as evidenced by many police states and their notorious abuses, simply that the entire issue almost can’t be discussed, since anything other than blanket condemnations for everyone are viewed as endorsing violence (I’m a pacifist myself, I’m just trying to understand how we did away with violence as much as we have.)
Cheers,
– jj
** This has come about largely since the 16th century. A good historical view of this can be found in the works of Shakespeare, where the issues of family honor vs. morality (e.g. Romeo & Juliette) as well as the role of the nascent state and violence figure quite prominently.