BS: What scientists think about

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 24 May 05 - 04:50 PM

I am a scientist and an oft-time nekkid Doctor of Archaeology. I think about: dinner, sex, cleaning, health stuff, visual perception, non-intrusive and inexpensive ways of capturing 3D information about rock art, Belgian-dwelling guitar players and computer-y Bavarians, Eurogatherings that I missed.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 May 05 - 05:40 PM

From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor - PM
Date: 03 May 05 - 06:36 PM

If I may be so bold, ALSO Tripe

The era that Woese is talking about is presumed to have been very early, before most "species" appeared, and hasn't been much discussed, but it's not entirely "Tripe" when one considers that a few bacteria who have developed immunity to an antibiotic, when placed with other bacteria who are not resistant, have been shown to "transmit" the resistance to others in the colony. Sort of an "evolution by infection," in a process that has been likened to transmission of a disease. All bacteria in the colony who are "infected" with the new resistance will pass it on to their "succeeding generations." It is not unreasonable to suppose that mechanisms like this may have played a significant role in evolution of the earliest life – and/or near-life – forms, and may still operate in primitive forms now.

In simple life-forms, inheritence by reproduction is NOT a requirement for the expression of new life-form characteristics, or for the spreading of a "new" characteristic throughout a colony.

Darwin didn't deal with lifeforms of this kind, and the Darwinian model of evolution is simple enough that many people can grasp it as something that might happen to beings like themselves. That Darwin's theories aren't the whole story just shows we may have made some additional "progress."

John

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 25 May 05 - 09:50 AM

Am told by a particle physicist that the hottest topic in his area is the unexplained seeming ability of absolute vacuums to spontaneously generate subatomic particles.

One friend commented drily that this property obviates the need for a God-concept. If the universe itself produces matter from nothing, what's left for God to do?

A second friend replied with some disdain that observable "creatio ab nihilo" comes close to actually proving the existence of God working from outside space-time.

Instructive.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 05 - 11:14 AM

"creatio ab nihilo" comes close to actually proving the existence of God working from outside space-time.


Well, that's drawing a long bow, I submit. It may suggest that something is operating outside spacetime. But the notion that that something is (a) a VERY large old man with sparks coming out of his fingers or (b) a jealous entity who studies wee-wees in his spare time or any other kind of imaginary godhead is certainly unjustified. The phenomenon, lacking other data, could just as well be explained by Invisible Spirit-Poobahs who infiltrate all the interstivces of individual perception and neatly knit them together into a seamless space-time continuum.

Just for one silly example, of course.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 25 May 05 - 03:43 PM

I studied this here "Philosophy" stuff for years, and I still cain't figger out what "outside space/time" might be like. I think it's just moving words around. I am pretty sure National Geographic ain't got no pitchures of it.

We know...sorta.. what 'space' is, and have a kinda working definition of what 'time' is....and we know 'outside' as distinct from 'inside' when talking about where to let the dog poop. So all we do is smoooosh 'em together in a sentence and we think we've said something.

Jeeez! Where's Charles Ludwig Dodgson when you need him?

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 05 - 05:04 PM

No, Bill, that is _not_ what I was doing. Space time is governed by the rules of matter and does not, inherently, seem to admit of creation in its own domain. MAtter doesn't like the idea very much, and when you draw all your thinking out of meatspace you tend to mimic matter's style of thought. Consciousness is capable of far more than that, but not when it beleives it has to come from wetware.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: jpk
Date: 25 May 05 - 05:20 PM

howabout those of us in the mechnical trades.we like to think about the natural motion of two close coupled physical bodies and the affects of gravity upon said bodies,sometimes,maybe all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 26 May 05 - 12:52 PM

Friction, jpk, it all comes down to friction.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 26 May 05 - 12:54 PM

Ok, Amos, fine...that is_not_ what you were doing. And *if* we had a 3 hour genteel exchange of opinions on perceptual frameworks, *I* probably would still not see how you FIND anything beyond "meatspace" and "wetware", and *YOU* probably would not see the points I would make about circular reasoning, affirming the consequent and quantum leaps based on linguistic constucts.

   You know very well how to dispute exaggerated claims in traditional theological doctrine and why organized religion has some problems...but you posit concepts just as hard to grasp. I can't imagine what accepting your ...position? orientation? assertions? might mean practically, except within a framework, much like certain abstract math.

I guess my fall-back position is the old one... "The burden of proof is on the assertor"

*shrug*...The only real claim I make is that many OTHER claims I hear about are not well stated and/or not testable under any parameters that we can agree on.

(I know...I didn't need to bite this time, but you tempted me! *grin*. And you know how hard it is to resist temptation when certain ideas are flying!)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 05 - 04:06 PM

Perception, which no-one can deny is a fact, is proof that somewhere in the endless chain of stimulus and response and order of quality shift occurs. The leap from S-R on nerve channels to "I see" is not just a multiplication of quantity, IMHO, but a totally order of event.

When you cruise down memory lane looking at pictures of long long ago in your mind, the you that is you is what sees the pictures, and is not itself a picture.

You can suppress the phenomena down into a matter-and-energy model, and it might well make you feel more comfortable of course. But it won't account for many of the experiences people have reported, and have had verified, including remote viewing, trans-lifetime remembering, and a host of other phenomena which cannot be explained through purely localized models of knowing.

But I ain't here to argue, Bill.

I just think you'll be in for a surprise sometime. :>D


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 26 May 05 - 05:41 PM

oh, I LIKE surprises! I just don't like them made of cotton candy. *grin*

"... But it won't account for many of the experiences people have reported,..." oh, sure it will!...or rather, it can. I can construct an explanation that totally accounts for all those phenomena! Of course, I can't prove I'm right...just as those who have the relevant experiences can't 'prove' they were caused by forces outside the usual space-time physics.

You can guess that I 'suspect' that "making you feel more comfortable" is a major component of some of the things YOU believe. I have tried & tried to run fast enough to look at my own 'comfort index' in it all, and though it is durn near impossible for a person to reflexively analyze their own motives accurately, I still don't feel like I have any personal stake in the answers. I'd LOVE to know...as in really, really, know....the answer. But not enough to sign up based on reports I can only shrug about.

   Every now & then I do have to repeat that my attitude is not one of absolutely denying these claims, but rather adopting a stance of formal, carefully considered doubt which demands a level of proof beyond interesting report of others....or even a couple of 'intense' experiences of my own!

(I wonder if *I* get a choice about how I come back in succeeding lives...I have a couple of wishes...)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 03:47 AM

Baby racists

The abstract to which the link goes tells the whole story. My link title is an inaccurate representation of the findings for the sake of effect.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: motco
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 04:52 AM

In answer to Laura's earlier question...

One needs to have blown up the school's cricket equipment box with home-made nitroglycerine to be a true scientist.

I didn't do that did I?

motco

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 03:39 AM

Nitrogen tri-iodide is easier, and just as effective on a cricket box, depending on who's wearing it.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Pied Piper
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 05:14 AM

Thanks for the link Wolfgang.

Silver acetylide works well too.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 07:56 AM

There has been lots of anecdotal evidence that acupuncture has some real effects, but it was quite hard to tell whether it was psycho-somatic or not.

From the patient's point of view, if acupuncture (or any other healing method) works to relieve symptoms, who cares if it's psychosomatic or not? I do understand the human need/desire to understand HOW things work, but hey, if your friend pointed to the full moon and said "Oh look -- isn't that beautiful!" would you be gazing in wonder and appreciation at his fingertip, or at the moon???

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:17 AM

And if it IS psychosomatic, then what of that? Is curing a condition by something other than the Newtonian chemical model something medicine should abhor?

So much has been written about the placebo effect, and discounting it when it raises its ugly head; but I would think instead it would be of great interest and curiousity as a documented phenomenon that cannot be explained in any standard model except as a curiousity.

After all, aside from the drug companies, if the placebo effect could be understood, wouldn't everyone do well to be able to eliminate the signficant per centage of ailments that are psychos omatic by addressing them as such?


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:43 AM

Quite right. Much of medicine is in the mind; we had a thread up above about people dying of a broken heart. Anything that works is perfectly good to use.

The only thing I object to is the pseudoscientific abracadabrian mumpsimus that some of the new- age wonder healers come up with. And when they convince people on scientifically unsupportable grounds to eschew a mainstream treatment that works in favour of an alternative one that doesn't.

We had a prime example in the UK, when (partly as a result of blundering by an authoritarian- minded government) a significant number of people stopped having their children vaccinated. This puts their own children, and still worse others, at risk.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 10:39 AM

The only thing I object to is the pseudoscientific abracadabrian mumpsimus that some of the new- age wonder healers come up with. And when they convince people on scientifically unsupportable grounds to eschew a mainstream treatment that works in favour of an alternative one that doesn't.

Mumpsimus? :-)

IMO and experience, any 'healer' who tries to convince people to forego standard medical treatment is no a 'healer' at all, but an opportunist. And a dangerous one.

That said, I really don't require or want scientific 'authority' or 'permission' or 'proof' to learn and practice alternative healing methods. I've studied Reiki and Therapeutic touch, and I've practiced Huna (form of energy work) every day for a few years now. I do know these methods work, and Huna works best of all.

I couldn't possibly give you a scientific explanation of how they work. Huna is not a chemical/ medical device/procedure with predictable, guaranteed, measurable mode of action and effect.
But I know it works, given certain mental/emotional/physical conditions which I'm discovering and understanding better all the time.

Any healing method that works fastest and best when one puts aside all doubt, sees the goal as already accomplished and says "Thank-you!" must be psychosomatic, at least to some extent. Well, that's Huna, in a nutshell! Does that make it any less viable or respectable or worthy a method than standard medical treatment? Not in my book, anyway! I've watched it work, for me, for my family and friends, and for many other people -- as long as those conditions are met. And that's more than enough, for me.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 11:45 AM

wow...an old thread that I had traced...I guess because I was so impressed with my own analysis...

(well, actually because I wanted links to those articles Wolfgang showed us...)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 12:06 PM

Thankfully, scientists do care how things work. Firstly, though, they check to see if they work.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 12:20 PM

Check that they work? Sadly, all to often not true in medicine. ECT was introduced without anyone knowing why it should work, what sort of cases it works for, and so on. There was a famous case about 25 years ago in the UK, when a hospitals ECT machine had broken- but no one noticed for several months. Patients were treated in that period, and progress was apparenmtly perfectly normal...

Another treatment introduced without proper testing or a real theory was lobotomy.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 12:51 PM

A brief quote from a rapid search for "history of lobotomies":

It took a certain Antonio Egaz Moniz of the University of Lisbon Medical School to really put lobotomy on the map. A very productive medical researcher, he invented several significant improvements to brain x-ray techniques prior to his work with lobotomy. He also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ambassador to Spain. He was even one of the signers of the Treaty of Versailles, which marked the end of World War I.

He found that cutting the nerves that run from the frontal cortex to the thalamus in psychotic patients who suffered from repetitive thoughts "short-circuited" the problem. Together with his colleague Almeida Lima, he devised a technique involving drilling two small holes on either side of the forehead, inserting a special surgical knife, and severing the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain.   He called it leukotomy, but it would come to be known as lobotomy.

Some of his patients became calmer, some did not. Moniz advised extreme caution in using lobotomy, and felt it should only be used in cases where everything else had been tried. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on lobotomy in 1949. He retired early after a former patient paralyzed him by shooting him in the back.

---

The ice-pick tradition came later, mostly promoted by one American surgeon who developed the technique and improved it to mass-production scale.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:05 PM

A bottleinfrontame beats a frontal lobotomy any day of the week.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:18 PM

BPL, figuring out how a thing works is important, of course. Whether or not it does work is even more important. And I don't need science or scientists to know if something works or not. All I need is experience.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:31 PM

Good for you.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 01:42 PM

Yup!    :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:50 PM

"And I don't need science or scientists to know if something works or not. All I need is experience."

we talkin' toasters and light bulbs here?, or something like astrology or precognition? *grin*....makes a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 01:50 AM

Exactly how do you think it make a difference, Bill?

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 02:17 AM

Forget it -- I see now. When I watch my toaster toasting my toast, I don't need a scientist to tell me its working. But when I find myself suddenly thinking of someone I haven't talked to in ages, and a minute later the phone rings and it's them -- or when I have a strange and vivid dream only to watch it really happen later, just as I dreamed -- well geez I better not trust myself to know I've just watched 'precognition' at work. Oh no! What *was* I thinking! (thumps forehead) How could I possibly trust myself to know that anything I've experienced directly, first-hand, on a regular basis all my life does really 'work'?

Better call Dr Science!   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 08:43 AM

British researcher Ian Walker (U of Bath) has found (Journal: Accident Analysis and Prevention) that car drivers overtaking cyclists leave 14 cm more space (between them and the cyclist) if the cyclist is a female and leave 8,5 cm less if the cyclist wears a helmet.

I'm sure that's something we all wanted to know since long.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 08:55 AM

So it is safer to wear a frock than a helmet.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 10:26 AM

Actually, to follow closely the article, it is safer to wear a long hair wig than a helmet, so the safest after all may be a crash proof long hair wig.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 11:28 AM

I want to watch those researchers driving along behind cyclists with measuring devices stuck out the window....and I want to know how much space researchers allow between themselves and their targets.
;>)

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 03:35 PM

The researcher was the cyclist wearing wig, helmet or nothing, and the distance to the overtaking vehicles was measured in a very modern (no touch, no subjective element) way without the car drivers knowing or being informed later that they were taking part in an experiment.
The experimenter was twice involved in an accident with a car during his study but survived to tell the story.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 03:38 PM

I recently came across some fascinating reference to quantum-scale "back-action" presumably the counter-effect at the quantum scale of observation occurring, which somehow inherently changes the motion observed.

Wolfgang, have you read anything on this? APparently the phrase has been around since the 90's.

To put it another way, is there some inherent mechanism that guarantees the Uncertainty principle at work when observation occurs?

The concept boggles my macro-scale mind.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 10:10 PM

You probably missed this.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 01:29 AM

"Neither religion, nor politics, nor PC-thinking should prescribe what are acceptable results." 13 March 2005 Wolfgang

I realize that that is a year old- but do/did you actually mean that or is 'prescribe' a typo of 'proscribe'?


Wolfgang, in speaking of 'baby racists', that article doesn't seem to address what I would consider an important question: What if a white baby were being reared by a black or other colored mother? Would the baby then identify itself as coloured and prefer that shade of skin?

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 01:33 AM

Non responsive, Rapaire. Wolfgamg?


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 02:05 AM

Biblical scholars were rocked today and are now scrambling to find another explanation when it came to light and was factually proven that the first two people God created were Adam and Steve rather than Eve as has always been the model in Genesis. It seems that Eve was simply a procreative addition to the creation and not a central player.

In a related story, Jerry Falwell is on life support at a Virginia hospital after his head exploded.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: freda underhill
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 03:08 AM

Ebbie

re What if a white baby were being reared by a black or other colored mother? Would the baby then identify itself as coloured and prefer that shade of skin?

I know a white Australian woman who, with her husband, went to the Central Australian desert and lived a tribal aboriginal life for over a dozen years. Her daughters were brought up as part of that community, speaking the indigenous language as their first language and English as their second.

Both daughters were accepted as part of the indigenous family and consider themselves aboriginal. Now adult, one now works in an art gallery in Alice Springs, central Australia, where her language skills are used to liaise between the gallery owner and local indigenous artists. She is still very identified as an indigenous person.

I have a friend whose stepfather was an indigenous Australian. When she grew up she married an indigenous Australian, so I guess she understood and preferred a man similar to the one who was her actual parent, if not her biological parent.

freda

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 12:29 PM

Ebbie,

(1) I meant prescribe as I have written, so if that makes no sense here it is not a typo but bad English.
(2) They had not that control group but from the findings of the article they would predict that the white child (in a black environment) shies away from the (unfamiliar) white faces.

Amos,

Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All is the last I have read. There are different positions. Many physicists simply use the quantum framework for predictions and do not interpret the results, for the interpretations can sound weird.

But in our daily lives, we operate in completely different dimensions. As a German physics prof once said: He could be treated as a wave just as the particles and could be found to enter the lecture hall by two different door at the same time. However, one had to wait many many powers of ten longer than the time since the Big Bang to have a good chance to watch this happening.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 02:56 PM

A phyiscs prof was brought to court for running a red light. He pled not guilty and his defense was the red-green shift. The judge was enthralled by this rather esoteric but plausible explanation, until a student the prof had just failed pointed out how fast the prof has to be going for the red-green shift to work....

White (i.e., Caucasian) parents have brought up children of color, just as women of color have raised caucasian children. The children seem to identify with love and caring, not skin color.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 04:51 PM

Thanks, WOlfgang. I sympathize with the Professor's impatience! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Bert
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 01:44 AM

What if a white baby were being reared by a black or other colored mother? Would the baby then identify itself as coloured and prefer that shade of skin? ...

I was working on a remote site in Iran for about six months and was the only white face there. When I eventually went to a bar in town there were a few English guys there; they appeared quite foreign to me.

Also many white babies were wet nursed by black slaves in The South.
I have heard it said that that is one of the reasons white slave owners took black slaves as lovers. They associated black women with love and nurturing. Perhaps I shouldn't have limited that to The South. Didn't Jefferson do the same thing?

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 06:31 AM

In recent years, more and more human behaviours that once were thought to be learned are found to have a genetic component.

Hereditary family signature of facial expression (The link may not work for you)

The way a person expresses anger, sadness, concentration,... in her face runs in families even in congenitally blind family members. The (first time) investigation of congenitally blind family members rules out the old interpretation that the facial expressions concomitant to emotions are picked up visually.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 06:49 AM

The musculature of the face is complicated, and as selection would be almost entirely sexual (i.e. do you like someone's face enough to have sex with them), genetic variation ought to be passed on.

That's not the same as saying that there's a 'gene for a smile', as the complex of genes that produces the precise muscular configuration of the face may well express itself elsewhere in the body- and that could be subject to such competetive selection as humans are exposed to these days.

It's also interesting that the facial expressions themselves (as distinct from variations in them) are transmitted genetically- it's not long since anthropologists (who? can't remember) proposed that the smile was itself a modification of an aggressive expression, but if the congenitally blind use it, it must be programmed.

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Crystal
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:32 AM

Why have my cells all died? How, when I clean EVERYTHING in the fume hood with ethanol did they get a fungal infection. Why after 2 years of infection free cell culture work have I had two infections in as many months???!!!

Why me??!!!???!!!

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 10:07 AM

Someone drank the ethanol and replaced it with water?

Subject: RE: BS: What scientists think about
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 02:29 PM

SOme scientists think about how many posts it takes to reach 100, and over how much time. From 8 Mar to 17 October (7 months, 9 days, approximately) divided by 100 provides the answer.


A