BS: Cosmos

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 05:35 PM

Amazing pics, jack. Mostly formerly unknown to me.                                                         Frogprince,    Was that the best thing since sliced bread!?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: frogprince
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 07:22 PM

Cosmic Miracle !

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 03:48 PM

Carl Sagan Quotes to Inspire Us All

And for further inspiration...

33 Unbelievable Places To Visit Before You Die. I Can't Believe These Actually Exist On Earth...

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 08:53 PM

Just piss off then and stop posting. You're just indulging your sorry self now. Bye!

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: BrendanB
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 07:03 PM

Fair enough Jeri, I am duly chastened. I did not intend to act like a troll but in the eyes of some that is apparently what I am. Definitely time to leave.   (Not however to go to bar to get into a fight, the very idea!)

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 06:02 PM

I don't think I'm militant anything, but stupid is stupid, and when someone stands up for the right of stupid to be taken seriously, I think it's good to ignore them.

As for the unpleasantness, no one comes to Mudcat BS threads thinking much of any quality of discourse is going to happen. Sometimes, you can get lucky, but not very often.

People come here to fight.

They troll or they "do" the trolls, and sometimes both. I think they're the sort of person who'd go to a bar to get into a fight, but at Mudcat, they don't get physically hurt or killed, their real life reputation doesn't suffer, and they can go on indefinitely in thread after thread after thread. Every troll on the internet can come here and be sure they'll find a bunch of eager troll groupies.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: BrendanB
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 05:02 PM

'This is the shittiest post on this thread by a long chalk'

If I am correct, and using Steve Shaw's own posts as a guide, he deems that posts are only acceptable if they contain puerile invective, name calling and fatuous attempts to offend. As I have already said, A lot of his posts tell us a great deal more about him than just the words he uses. What a sad man. Bye, bye Stevie.   I'll leave you to fester in your bitterness and frustrated need for recognition.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 12:27 AM

Pete: funny how the militant atheists here dismiss us as not worth taking seriously, and then spend time deriding us.

The people pushing the falsehoods, half-truths and general misunderstandings of creationism are well-funded and put out absolute shed-loads of misinformation which, if not challenged, may well "stick" amongst some people who are not very scientifically literate.

Many of the points made are so unworthy of serious discussion that derision is a natural reaction.

A TINY percentage of scientists disagree with the theory of evolution, and almost all who do are disagreeing in areas well outside their working expertise. Those who disagree are mainly those who've been brought up in, or converted to, fundamentalist young-earth creationism and are jumping through hoops to preserve their biblical literalism against reality. They (and you?) seem to HAVE to do this because any *objective* reasoning they did would result in them having to accept the allegorical, as opposed to literal, interpretation of parts of the bible and as their entire world-view is based on literalism, this would destroy their religious belief completely.

I know there's no point arguing with you, Pete, as you always look only to creationist literature for your information. I've time and again here gone into the actual evidence against several of your assertions, whether it be "carbon dating" of diamonds or "soft tissues in dinosaurs" but all you do is say that the articles or papers I've pointed you at are "too difficult as I'm not a scientist" and fall back on your creationist websites to provide "answers" that you can quote without actually doing any real thinking.

I've pointed out on several occasions where prominent creationists (eg Gish, Snelling, Woodmorappe, Hovind etc) have been caught out using arguments that they *knew* to be wrong at the time they used them (called "lying" anywhere else) and you simply won't look at the evidence for that "because they aren't here on the site to defend themselves"!!!

I even pointed you at articles in Christian papers showing that the general claims made by RATE and other creationists re their tests on diamonds and zircons contradicted RATE's own conclusions in their actual analysis....ie saying one thing in their internal literature but letting the general public believe they've said something else (again, called "lying" by most reasonable people).

But you ignore all this. You like to portray yourself as reasonable and tolerant, but in fact you're quite clever in the way you can be snidey and slippery in the way you use or ignore arguments.

I was particularly annoyed last time I went to the Crayside session when you sang your "Mungo Man" song which is a farrago of misinformation and untruths about age determination of bones found in Australia...but I sat there and politely clapped instead of standing up at the end and explaining what a lot of bollocks it was...I really wish I had now!

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 14 - 02:28 PM

I agree Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 05:12 PM

I thought the first show of the new Cosmos was just smashing. Terrific graphics and good historical material to boot.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 11:56 AM

What Jack Blandiver said, I second the motion.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Musket
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 04:59 AM

Hi BrendanB. You wonder why I give myself hostages to fortune?

A combination of dangling worms and spreading ground bait. The only way to get them to bite. Far more interesting reading their irrational bollocks here. If you want facts, stick to the BBC news website. This is a haven for weird people to explore the harmless and harmful aspects of their weirdness. Look at me for instance, typing this when there is paint to watch drying and the real world awaiting my inclusion.

The people you refer to can't be shouted down anyway. They would have to understand why they are being shouted down first. One has no manners and the other no shame.

You try, buggered if I can.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:37 PM

Neil even made an appearance on the show after Colbert called Midnight. He's too cool to be a nerd, although I'm sure he needed lots of media training.

As for the retarded and retard references, bear in mind there are people here with IQ's of 82 who don't think "you're' too smart either.

The type of person whom you wished to refer to are called savants.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stu
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 08:18 AM

"and wasn't it a "retarded" who cracked the enigma code, if I recall correctly?"

An ultra-right wing religious extremist is invoking the memory of the great Alan Turing (w man he would presumably have stoned for being gay) as an argument defending creationism? Fuck me, that's beyond satire.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:12 AM

Found this on yt searching for current cosmos. Might interest some here. - Itzhak Bentov ~ From Atom To Cosmos - or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 06:34 AM

Slight thread drift, but may I correct something regarding cracking the enigma code?

I assume that both Pete and Jeri are referring to Alan Turing?

Whilst he made a huge impact in improving the efficiency of such decryptions, and many other contributions to wartime code breaking, he wasn't the first to crack enigma. Mind you, he did a few other things too*

No, the unsung Polish guy who cracked Enigma in 1932 was Marian Rejewski

"A retarded"? You really have no idea at all, do you Pete?

*Inventing Computer Science comes to mind...

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 05:29 AM

funny how the militant atheists here dismiss us as not worth taking seriously, and then spend time deriding us.

Pete, I take it very seriously because of the right-wing reactive political basis of the creationist world-view. Fundamentalism is maybe the greatest evil there is - that people believe this ineffable twaddle is one thing, that they are part of other extremes is quite another. Creationism is symptomatic of so much else - it is a reactive cultural intransigence that assumes righteousness. I can't think of anything more retarded - or dangerous - than that.

Militant Atheism doesn't exist by the way, it's just the normal default position of collective humanity when viewed as a totality, which is what we are. There are thousands of creation myths (and two quite contradictory ones in Genesis!) each part of thousands of different storytelling traditions. Not a single one of these is any way TRUE, though we might pause to ponder when one chimes in with known scientific data, like ancient Hindu cosmology as touched upon in the particularly mind-scrambling episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos I watched last night...

Carl Sagan on Hindu Cosmology

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 05:03 AM

Sadly, SRS, you can be pretty certain that pete won't follow up on your references. He doesn't actually want to know about evolutionary theory - because it contradicts the Bible. He is wilfully ignorant about science and logic too. If he knew anything about the latter he would also know if all of those 480,000 scientists simultaneously slapped their foreheads and shouted: "damn, we got it all wrong" that wouldn't mean that the biblical account of creation is automatically true!

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 11:54 PM

P.S. I left in the remark about the Gallup poll because it was a bit newer, but Gallup uses a very small sample and extrapolates, and we don't know what the question was that they asked their small sample. Their credibility is equally small.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 09:32 PM

there are a good number of scientists and well qualified that don't buy into the evolutionist story. "a good number" is meaningless, Pete. Absolutely meaningless. How meaningless?

The vast majority of the scientific community and academia supports evolutionary theory as the only explanation that can fully account for observations in the fields of biology, paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, anthropology, and others.^{[19][20][21][22][23]} One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists . . . (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists). . . give credence to creation-science".^[24] An expert in the evolution-creationism controversy, professor and author Brian Alters, states that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution".[25] A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5% of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.^[26][27]

Those little numbers are things called citations, meaning they are the source of the information compiled in this article. Go to that page, scroll down to the subhead "Scientific support" and mouse over each number and a dialog box will appear with the source. You can click on those and go read them yourself. 700 out of 480,000. 00.14 or a small fraction of 1 percent of the scientists identified as such believe in creationism. Compared with the whole this is not, in my estimation, "a good number." Of course your mileage may vary.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 08:44 PM

He wasn't "a retarded" (the word is an adjective, BTW, not a noun), he was a mathematician, and he was likely brilliant. And gay.

As an atheist, I can present evidence: I don't believe in god(s). Anybody, feel free to ask me, and I'm sure I'll say the same thing. It's an irrefutable fact.

It's as idiotic to try to have a reasoned discussion about science with a Christian creationist as it would be to have one with someone who believes the any of the other creation myths. Nobody's going to convince anybody who believes in the myth they're wrong, and the believers will never get non-believers to join them in their certainty. They don't know everything, they just want other people believe they do.

You can't fix "stupid", but I suppose trying offers an alternative to other obsessive and hopeless endeavors. I have no problem with people having beliefs. It's annoying to have them think those beliefs should be considered to be given the same status as knowledge. Now, THAT'S stupid. Arguing about it is nearly as stupid, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 05:47 PM

jack blandiver thinks that creationists are retarded. methinks he is in serious denial. there are a good number of scientists and well qualified that don't buy into the evolutionist story.
don't sound very unprejudiced to me, and wasn't it a "retarded" who cracked the enigma code, if I recall correctly?
even the mentally challenged are entitled to a pov, but creation believing scientists are far from mentally deficient.
funny how the militant atheists here dismiss us as not worth taking seriously, and then spend time deriding us.
perhaps they know that there is a danger that joe public might see the poverty of Darwinist arguments if exposed to creation reasoning.
if their assertions were not philosophically driven, atheists might try presenting evidence that might support their belief instead of hurling insults......I wont hold my breath!

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 04:45 PM

Delicious piece from Brendan.......Mr Mcgrath will have to look to his Laurels in the irony department. :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 03:16 PM

The most powerful nerd in the Universe?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 10:14 AM

BrendanB, you put it very well.
I don't think it would be bad to get rid of the BS section (for now, a least) and let those who come here only to fight find some other forum to infest. Although, we might end up with a bunch of flame war threads in the music section that have to be removed.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 10:08 AM

What is the opposite of Lent?

To relent? and give in to your urges?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,BrendanB
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 07:55 AM

'Put some thought into your contributions and stop misrepresenting people'

I said your post reads like a complaint, having looked at it again I still think it reads like a complaint. I am not misrepresenting anyone, simply stating how I responded to your post. Once you have posted readers will draw their own conclusions, not only about what you say but also how you say it. Perhaps you are revealing more about yourself than you realise. Do you think that you might be a little bit in denial? In this period of Lent perhaps a little examination of conscience might be in order? As a lapsed Catholic you will understand that.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 06:17 AM

Popes at Vatican windows

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/26/22454776-angry-birds-peace-doves-attacked-after-release-at-vatican?lite

Could be a metaphor for Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 11:59 PM

They don't put on better shows here Steve. Google the 700 Club if you want to see how horrible Television can be. And that isn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 09:59 PM

Jesus, they put on even better shows. Popes at Vatican windows at Easter. High masses broadcast to the world at Christmas. Festivals of nine carols. Christingle for vulnerable kiddies. And that's just the Christians. They even had Haydn, Bach and Mozart in their pockets. They put on great shows and we just lap 'em up.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 08:07 PM

Creationists don't believe in the free market.

Or else they would know that if they could produce a show as good as Cosmos. The networks would PAY them for the privilege of airing it.

They really are seriously reality impaired.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 06:18 PM

Hmmm.I take it that the post of mine that you refer to is this one:

Well they changed their OWN names fer chrissake!! I'm not going to compound the deception of a nom de plume by abbreviating it, largely because I'm broadly sane. If that's your idea of "convention" well it ain't mine. I suggest you would do far better to target the multifarious inanities, disgusting prejudices (including misogyny and homophobia), misrepresentations (of self and others) and lies of some of the participants here rather than attack a bloke who merely falls a little short of charming at times by being a little direct. If someone is being a clot on a public forum they deserve to be called a clot. There is a particularly egregious and long-standing example on this board of a religious fundamentalist who has been indulged and who, as a result, takes the piss out of reasonable people here and beyond here all the time. That's what happens if you call a spade a manual digging implement. I've been sworn at and called names and insulted and misrepresented and lied about far more times than vice versa, in particular by the man who I assume you're trying to defend the most by asking me not to call him names, and I do not complain. And I remind you that you will never find me using the F or C words. I don't recall seeing you having a bash at the people who do that. If you are a mod (I haven't a clue) and you want to clean up this board a bit, you have far more important targets than yours truly. Steve Shaw, or SJS if you like, no p in front of surname, since 1951. Thank YOU.

Kindly note the emphasis. I do not complain. I often fart in the general directions of, but I do not complain. No moderator could ever tell you that I've ever gone offlist to complain about anything or anybody. I do not whinge then get told to fight my own battles, because I don't fight battles. I state my case and call a spade a spade and a twat a twat because there is no other way to deal with fools. Putting the record straight on patently unfair practices is not complaining. I am not victimised and I can't be bullied because my transaction with this place is entirely tangential to my normal life and is predicated only on what time I have available to come here, which is severely limited. I don't live over my keyboard like Jack The Sailor, etc. This place is somebody else's gig, not mine. Go on, whinge on and get the whole bloody place shut down if you can. Alternatively, put some thought into your contributions and stop misrepresenting people.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,BrendanB
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 06:01 PM

I am as irritated/frustrated/gobsmacked as any rational person by people like pete from the seven stars link (lack of capitals a courtesy to him). I also find other posters tedious/irritating or quite simply irredeemably stupid but I do not feel the need to hurl abuse at them. In his post at 20 March 14 02.01 Steve Shaw claims not to complain even though that whole post reads like a complaint. I really want to respect Musket (I warm to what I perceive to be his views) but to this uninformed outsider his posts too often read like a hostage to fortune. I would love to read a forensic demolition of akenaton's and K of H's posts but it does not seem to have happened so far. I repeat, in the field addressed by this thread I am relatively uninformed ( However, in relation to pete the mere fact that my mind is open to rational argument makes me a great deal more informed than him).
I know that one prolific poster on this and other threads relating to science/evolution/atheism will be desperate to tell me to contribute to the debate or butt out (and anyway whatever I say he knows more and better than me. This will be implied rather than explicitly stated) who the hell am I to pontificate etc. etc. etc.
I am a learner, and an observer - and now a commentator. I used to contribute regularly to below the line posts before I tired of the abuse and pointless acrimony but having had a rest I can cope with a bit of abuse. (SrS please take note, most grown ups can handle foul mouthed -or even non foul mouthed - insults). My view, and that is all it is, is that as a courtesy to the OP contributors to a thread should address the topic of the thread and not use it to pursue their own agendas. Attack the stated views, not the person. If they are truly obnoxious demonstrate it by reference to their postings, convincingly. You live in the same world as them and the apparent desire of some posters to vomit hatred all over a thread - even if they then claim they are above such behaviour - contributes nothing to civilised debate.
I recall one of my first posts as a callow newbie receiving what I considered to be a vituperative response from JtS. In fact, he showed me not to look for courtesy on Mudcat. An irony I feel.
I have no axe to grind, I come to Mudcat to be informed, challenged, even outraged. But sadly the best stuff is now all above the line and intelligent debate below the line has given way to an awful lot of egoistic posturing and a desperate need to be seen to be right. Maybe it is time to close the BS section - float it off as a forum for hardline theorists and hobby-horse jockeys.
I trust I have said enough to mildly irritate almost everyone, now you know what it feels like.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 12:10 PM

Good decision SRS. Any chance of re-opening the Darwin's Witnesses thread so that the discussion that saught refuge here can return to where Bill D, Troubador and DMcG (when he returns from holiday) can find it? This thread is supposed to be about the Cosmos programmes.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 12:04 PM

Who Was Carl Sagan?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 11:44 AM

They are combined and this is open. The name calling and the trash talk are the problem. Police yourselves by ignoring people who start it and they'll quit. Threads typically close when they have devolved to name calling, personal attacks, and bickering.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 08:40 AM

Sort of liking the general drift here...

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 08:27 AM

A pump, a heat exchange unit and a basic concept of thermodynamics.

Piss easy.

Creationism? Buggered if I can understand irrational bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 07:25 AM

" ... the vapour canopy theory is not widely held among creationists now. shock, horror....they too can revise in light of fresh knowledge!"

You mean, pete, that they frantically make stuff up in a vain attempt to hold back the tsunami of scientific knowledge. Face it, your ludicrously rickety structures of 'absolute truth' (whatever that is), based on nothing more than some dark age myths in an old book, have long since been swept away!

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 07:02 AM

It always amuses me that peole who cannot explain how a fridge works can have views about the origins and evolution of the universe, life and everything else.

Much fun hey?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 06:48 AM

Pete - I just posted this on another thread, I'll repost it here least you get the impression I'm in anyway sympathetic to your hideously noxious & woefully reactionary cause. Creationism is the mindset of the retarded. That it persists in any shape for form into the 21st century is only evidence of the very worst sort of shit humanity is capable of and the means it uses to justify it. The true wonder of the Cosmos is entirely Godless. You can prove that much by going out and looking at nature.

*

Theories only exist until the available evidence, or understanding of that evidence, changes. It's a process, a tradition if you like, ongoing, born of peer-reviewed dialogue within the rigours of the scientific community. Evidence & understanding of evidence for the 'Big Bang' is evolving all the time & there are many models for how the 'Big Bang' fits into an over-all scheme of universe expansion, single, multiple, but all these models are mutable and must be answerable to reality. It is not a 'belief' - is is born from what is real and known and observable.

This is us, humanity, out there, looking at ourselves in the context of infinity, not pondering a load of fairy stories we dreamt up in the darkness to come to terms with our ignorance. We are embarked. We've been embarked for some time now.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/new-big-bang-evidence-also-hints-that-we-may-exist-in-a-multiverse

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 06:31 AM

I expect this will be short lived too.
yes a very eloquent post from stilly expressing nothing more than her interpretation of data and unproven notions.
and the scientific definition of "conjecture" is   ?.

by the way - the vapour canopy theory is not widely held among creationists now. shock, horror....they too can revise in light of fresh knowledge!

Subject: BS: Cosmic Closure
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 04:45 AM

Oh no! Stilly River Sage makes an amazing post then goes and closes the bastarding thread! Someone take these powers away from her before she destroys us all - she'll be deleting herself next...

*

ANYHOO - just wanted to say that I discovered continental drift as a kid whilst looking at a map o' the world on the classroom wall and seeing how it all 'fit together'. My theories were later confirmed by science - or rather the teacher who applauded my reasoning*.

I also invented the peanut butter & jam sandwich (jelly for those Stateside), the diving bell and several recipes for porridge & crumpet toppings from which, if I were more shrewd, I could no doubt make millions. But what care I for the short term gains of capitalism which are steadily destroying this planet for want of a bit of good sense & future vision? I'm too happy munching crumpets & supping porridge as I watch my Carl Sagan's Cosmos DVD boxset.   

I watched episode 9 last night which he begins with the immortal line: 'If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.' What followed blew my tiny mind in a state of smiling & quietly gibbering wonderment. How gratifying it is to live in a mutable & entirely Godless cosmos!

* In the Creationist Mindset of course the continents were torn apart by God after The Flood - the oceans sunk deep, the mountains raised high to accommodate all that water which came from the Vapour Layer around the earth in its Pre Fall Garden o' Eden state, the Earth Mark 1 if you like. By putting the words Biblical Flood Date into Google you can find the following...

...the year in which the Flood came was 1656 AM (Anno Mundi – "year of the world"). From the rest of the Old Testament and other well-documented historical events we understand that creation, as calculated by Ussher, was about 4004 BC. So with a little more math we can calculate the second date.

Calculated BC date for creation:         4004
Calculated AM date for the Flood:         - 1656
Calculated BC date for the Flood:         2348
Current Year (minus one2):         + 2011
Number of years since beginning of Flood:         4359

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 07:11 PM

Continental drift is an interesting one. I can remember when it was looked on about as being on a par with theories about flying saucers and the Loch Ness Monster.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 06:29 PM

Pete, there is no answer that will satisfy you, so why ask? Why hang around on a thread about science? Your god doesn't leave a fossil footprint record, but the signs of the remarkable change and duration involved in the planetary (and beyond) natural world are everywhere - and clearly shown to be not attributable to "one hand" in an overarching dismissive seven-day wonder.

Carl Sagan started a conversation that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is continuing. I think Tyson has the harder job, because he must bring more people up to speed on the state of science today, after decades now of weak and watered-down textbooks in Texas and other bible-belt states. Do you watch the program and consider how amazing it is that we have learned so much about our world, or do you tsk tsk at the story you don't believe? Or are you somewhere in between? You'll accept that witches don't curdle milk but don't want to believe in continental drift or evolution or modern signs of an out-of-balance atmosphere causing global warming? What do you accept about the disposition of the world in scientific terms?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 05:41 PM

Sick shit.

I'd say something but whilst suck shit remains in public view whilst those doing a public duty and challenging it gets deleted, my view of moderation cannot be defended through the voluntary and well meaning amateur approach.

Sorry but this is serious legal shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 05:01 PM

stilly - the first sentence was referring to your words, the second was my opinion. apparently an opinion you wish to police.
so , what is the scientific definition of "conjecture".
or is it a case of the word stretched to mean whatever you choose it to mean?
thesnail- fundamentally different question.....how so?
and if the above does not deign to reply, does anyone else know what the difference is......?

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 03:44 PM

Yep, Stilly. I missed the first one (saw the second) and just happened upon this showing of it. I DO remember the Sagan version, but I probably missed some of those, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 03:39 PM

The program has been on for two weeks already, on FOX on Sunday and Natl Geo the next night, and I suspect National Geographic will replay the earlier ones. I noticed that FOX replayed the first episode from Sunday, March 9, on the following Saturday, March 15. There is a huge investment in this type of programming, they need to play it more than once to get their money's worth from it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cosmos
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Mar 14 - 03:31 PM

I came into this thread because the first episode (I believe) of the new series is on NatGeo right now. I hope the show heralds a surge in "smart".