Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes, it seems your reply is, as you have correctly recognised, full of more of the same apologetic self deprecation.

Noone said anyone was a scientific genius, neither is it true that this is a tarot card forum full of like minded folk, so why throw that kinda ultimatum out? Again, it just looks like a petty, ill thought out retort (says the guy who coined "snore, and "whatever, dick" haha)..

The thread itself didnt get up my nose at all, it was the points I owned you on above, such as just using delf deprecation in the face of evidence and biting back at people who are genuinely trying to enlighten you.

sigh worthy.

This makes very little sense and doesn't support what you say, though. By saying you 'prefer to be interested' in something sounds like either you have 'decided' on what to believe - in which case it is a conscious decision to 'believe' in something whereas you really either do or you don't. I couldn't turn around tomorrow and decide to be a Christian, for example.

So, if you have made a conscious decision to follow something, rather than just believe in it, then do you really think that following it is valid, or rather just a fashion/fad.

See, it's like the waves of 16 year old girls that suddenly decide they like wicca, and start buying spell books and dressing in velvet because they think it is interesting and individual, whereas they don't believe in it one second, but saying that they do makes them seem 'different' and kooky. I'm not saying that you follow this stuff to be inetersting, by the way, but it almost seems like the same logic - they decide to believe in something - like me waking up one day and deciding that I am now ging to believe in Hinduism - it doesn't make sense to me.


Now this just sounds silly. You asked everyone what they thought of a subject, they replied honestly and you don't seem to like the answers - if people agreed with you without actually thinking that way, or out of some kind of support or pity then they'd be patronising you, not because they are giving their actual views on the matter you requested their views on. I know it's hard to keep a cool head when your view opposes everyone else's over something you feel strongly about, but many people here feel strongly about the same subject - it just happens to be that most people here feel strongly in the opposite direction to yourself.

And to be fair, when I linked to articles debunking astrology, you said you'd prefer not to read them.

Without being critical I would actually be really interested in your views about why you aren't bothered about the evidence that Horoscopes are bull and so on - why you would prefer not to challenge your beliefs on it.

Because (quite obviously) this whole area really interests me, and so I want to understand the opposing view point.

I know my point of view is bias, but I was really, really, really into the paranormal as a child and that was what lead me into science. But I see something like horoscopes and I go "Wow thats amazing" and then I want to understand more about it.

I mean if horoscopes were true then it would be really important and benficial for the world, and we should understand them better. Because they are inherently testable you can do those tests not to disprove them but to learn more and make it better. And when they fail those tests it's sad. But it means we know more today than we did the day before.

I don't think science demeans the world or makes it less mysterious. I don't think it makes us all think the same way either. Science is based around doubt not facts. It's not arrogant it's self deprecating. Scientists get up go to work and try and prove themselves wrong. They try and find what doesn't fit. What doesn't work. Because in doing so they learn more. But being of that mindset I find it very hard to understand why people want to protect some of their interests from that sort of process.

EDIT: beaten by mimi (oh er).

I've always wondered if astrologers could do it backwards. You know, get to know a persona nd be able to tell their birthday based on their personalities. They should be able to, if it works.

Yeah, I admit that confused me.

If someone could prove something I believed in wrong, then I really want to read it. Because the thing replacing it must itself be interesting.

"When looking into something, you want to find the truth" No, really? I thought I was looking for a rabbit.
"When entering into a relationshipp expect things to change". I think that's just stating the obvious.



Well, duh. Me and 100% of the population.



No, sorry, that's all utter bollocks, and doesn't match me in the slightest.



Seriously, what?
Nope, that's all completely wrong too.

Seeing as Pluto was only discovered in 1930, that must mean that all horoscopes up to then were wrong. Thinking about it, astrologers should have been able to work out were and what Pluto was before hand, by looking at their horoscopes and comparing them to what actually happened, and then working out that they had a source of transformative energy that wasn't accounted for.

My incredibly niche and ineffective april fools post on my blog was about using the Sloane digital sky survey so that



The frustration being that 1) I could to that and 2) I could get some astrology company to pay me better than pretty much anything else I could do.

That would be awesome. You could knock up astrological charts the size of a football pitch with millions of lines and circles and squiggles all over them, like some sort of mega spirograph.

You had a headache the other week didn't you Dave? Sounds pretty conclusive to me.

Politics at work FTFY.

Fucking true that. So fucking true. But for all the fields of human endevour spoilt by human inadequacies at least science has built in checks for humans being dicks.

No way, man. Science is just another religion and holds equal weight with the others.

But, erm, seriously:

I know, it's just disheartening to see people that are otherwise so fucking smart becoming almost like rams headbutting each other into a standstill when we could all be pulling in the same direction and getting there a lot quicker.

Still, they generally get there in the end

I guess it's human nature though, in some cases it's hard to find the absolute truth and people love to argue it out, no one likes to be wrong, things taken out of context etc etc.

Science is ace. Scientists not always so much.

(And astrology bollocks, of course).

Well, yes. As a door had landed on my head. Somehow I think "walking through a kitchen" isn't what they had in mind when they wrote "clandestine activities"

Sometimes, I just fucking despair.

I'm a Capricorn. I think astrology is a load of Taurus. But it tells me I have horns. I like that bit.

I wish this had some kind of context. Not only did I get put into A&E by a door, but now I also think MaliA is despairing because of the highly unhinged door that attacked me.

I hope you're okay now, chap!

You've been waiting weeks to use that unhinged gag, haven't you?

Take note, highly trained and skilled surgeons and detectives - your noblest achievements are on a par with someone lying around breathing funny and listening to Gregorian for six or seven hours. Well done!



Tell us the truth, man. What happened to what used to be called the secret parts? The people demand an end to the secrecy! Of parts!

To the Revealmobile!

I don't mind Astrology. If that's what some people choose to believe, I'm happy to let them.

I loathe astronomy though, it's a fucking waste of money.

Not meaning to pick on you or anything, others have pointed out that 'science doesn't work like that', but that's quite a common misconception people have. I blame in part our poor secondary school science teaching, which reduces "science" to rote-learning of facts and a few feeble experiments. Heck, even the science A-level I did was mostly about regurgitation of facts, and only a slight look into scientific methods in the limp coursework project.


Ah, that's because homeopathy was available on the NHS long before NICE existed. As in 60 year ago.

Why's that then? I'm sure others can do a better job of explaining it's worth.

But without it we would still think that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, Galaxy and Universe.

We wouldn't understand how gravity works.

We would never have got to the moon.

Probably wouldn't have any sattelites (which means no GPS, no global communications, TV etc)

Malc

I thought he was trying to be ironic.

I thought that too.

Over Tea I just converted that first post of mine into a youtube video to see how iMovie works - cos I've been thinking about making little videos on topics once the thesis is done. I might post it if I feel brave.

Aww, go on.

You though wrong. I'm not even sure how it could be construed as irony.

I don't think all space technology is a waste of money, nor do I think it can all be attributed to astronomy.

I do thing that spending billions of dollars to study the movement of celestial bodies and what not, is a waste.

But they might spot a meteor coming towards us. Then can warn us then so we can send oil drillers into space while we all hide under tables.

I think anything decorative and non-functional is a waste of money in a world with finite resources. Sometimes I'm watching bargain hunt or 'shit in the attic' or whatever it's called, and ponder for a moment what the human race could have accomplished by now if we hadn't spent the last hundreds and thousands of years manufacturing tasteless pointless tat that fills houses everywhere. Just imagine if we'd spent all that time and resource on something that was actually worthwhile. Boggles in the mind.

A common thought by people who play MMOGs.

You won't be laughing when I can fly a totally awesome ship that blows your non-existant character apart, bitch.

As somebody (I don't know who) once said, if we could channel the energy we put into porn movie titles, we
could probably cure cancer.

I wouldn't want a world with no cancer and punlessly titled porn.

Fair enough really.

My own view is that science just is worthy, and that you don't know the good that can come from science till maybe decades have passed. When Queen Vic funded Faraday's work into electricity it was a novelty for a huge period of time, and now it's transformed the world. It seems dangerous to consider science of no 'value' when you don't know where it will lead.

That and I think Astronomy, by probing the big questions of where we come from, and how we came to be holds an important role in rising the collective culture of the planet. A good case can be made that the green movement came about it direct response to one apollo spacemans first photograph of the entire earth filling a lense.

That and astronomers helped invent the internet.

But the question of whether science is worth investment by the public is a good one.

With great trepidation and fear. Here it is:



I just wanted to see if I could in principle make a video for youtube that had a voice over and some interesting things to look at, so used that first post, just to have something to say. It's just that maybe after my thesis I'll spend a bit of time doing one properly, so any advice would be nice. Remember I only spent an hour on it. And most of that was working out how iMovie works.

I sound like a 12 year old

This would be a terrible place.

On the other hand think how much better porn would be if the billions put into curing cancer was spent on it. I'm sure Scarlett Johanson has a price. And I'm willing to take a chance....

I see your point, but what's the point of anyone living if we're only ever allowed to make and use things that are useful?

There's no room in that world for a two foot kit kat. Or video games. Or wome(Stop that, stop that right now - Ed).

Well the definition of 'useful' is subjective. You could argue pointless, ugly tat makes people happy and thus serves a worthy purpose. But I think again about the whole production process, hundreds of factories using thousands of tonnes of non-renewable raw materials, working day and night, belching out smoke and CO2 to the detriment of the environment as a whole, and all you have to show for it at the end is a hideous telletubby ornament, or similar.

Yay!

Or a copy of FIFA 9,233.

I reserve my scorn and "why the fuck are we wasing skilled people on this" feelings for utility items that are already as useful as they will ever, ever need to be. Toothbrushes, say, or razors, or shoes or hoovers. Those people could be designing something worthwhile - we don't need razors with sixty-two blades and a torch, or a marginally more effective hoover. The only decent improvement with either would be something that literally does everything for you while you sleep or read a book, and the technology for that is far beyond us now, so can't we just bloody drop it for a few decades and get them working on seat belts or better prosthetics for amputees or something?

I don't think they are wasting their time.

Their efforts may be motivated by a perceived need, rather than a genuine one, but the research is funded as a direct result of their findings being implemented in products that gives their company a competitive edge.

An off shoot could also be that the research has further reaching implications that have a wider benefit.

A draw back of this though, is companies protect their investment by patenting everything (which is understandable) which can stifle further advancement.

No. We have a free market economy, which means the focus of companies and hence researches (well, commercial ones anyway) will always be dictated by the desires, and not the needs, of the population. And the middle classes will always spend money on lawn ornaments.

This wastes a load of effort on trivia, as you have pointed out, but the only alternatives to this free market is some sort of centralised control of either what people buy or what they are sold. In other words, basically, the alternatives start with the letter C and end with the fall of the Iron Curtain.

I was just whinging about how obviously stupid it is, but come off it. There's not a choice between multi-billion dollar sharp stick industries and stalinism. This is the real world, not a propaganda cartoon.

If it means that Tiger Woods, Thierry Henry and Roger Federer will stop fucking stalking and assaulting me, I'll buy it.

CthefalloftheIronCurtain?? Is he some sort of Demon?

Certainly is, he plays poker with Cynothoglys and Shudde M'ell on Thursdays.