The Religion of Scientific Game Announcements


  • BINNED

    No, I pasted. And was lazy to look for other sources.

    It's a contextual thing, I guess. In common speech people use "theory" when they actually mean "hypothesis". I don't have the time to hunt around for definitions now, but I never heard of hypothesis being separated from experiment proposal in scientific context, while conjecture is precisely that - a guess, a hunch, an educated one or not.

    There's also some differences in how some words are used in maths versus how they are used in scientific disciplines which muddy the waters a lot.


  • kills Dumbledore

    Isn't it weird how in hundreds of years Mathematicians have never managed to prove the null hypothesis?


  • FoxDev

    ...and yet another who doesn't know what 'theory' means, instead preferring to use the media's bollocks version



  • Well, you should have said scientific theory to avoid confusion. Because, as everybody knows, a scientific theory has nothing to do with the theory that we all love and know - complete opposite actually.

    Or where you aware of that? and you were just baiting for :trollface: 😛


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @RaceProUK said:

    Anything else you want to fabricate?

    I honestly don't know what you're talking about now. One thing was pointed out and you talked about a different thing (according to you).


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    That is true, and very unfortunate, particularly when the "lot of people" includes those who are supposed to be scientists. But it is actually unfortunate at all levels, since it leads people to weigh evidence equally that should not be weighed the same:

    Yep.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    On one side of the scale, we have tens of thousands of scientists who have worked diligently (in most cases for pittances of public money) to determine the truth on a subject of great concern; on the other we have a handful of scientists who do no research, no falsification, no testing, no investigation, but yet maintain all of the other tens of thousands are wrong.

    You forgot your :trollface:



  • @boomzilla said:

    ObMaddox: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

    I think any Fecebook (sic) page can be dissected like this. Fecebook is all about regurgitating the same low-quality content over and over and over and over and over. There are people using FB as their blog platform that actually create quality content, but I can count them on one hand.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    And none of them would keep doing it if there weren't demand for it.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Breaking news: Pope's relgion subsumes yet another pagan belief system, Gaia to become new God to worship:

    🐠



  • Look guys, you may not agree with what I have to say, but since the Pope is supposed to base his teachings on what God has said, He's full of it again.

    The temptation may have shifted from a forbidden fruit to cutting edge technology, but the sin remains the same: hubris.

    Ok, you Luddite. Technology will be the only thing that can save us from consuming unsustainably. If you want to get rid of tech, start with yourselves.

    Christian idea that God gave humans the earth to cultivate, not conquer.

    Then I misread.

    Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

    I get his point, but he's wrong on the comparison. We conquer and cultivate. Don't tell me we are just participants on the Earth, like the new Noah movie assumed.

    "same kind of thinking" that leads to the "exploitation of children and
    abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests."

    Except that it's been shown that keeping our children and elderly around actually boost productivity. Plus, elderly have wisdom and knowledge to glean from. People that euthanize are actually impeding the market's natural tendencies. The market can't help stupid.

    In particular, he argues that our "cult of human power" and blind adoption of technology has been a Faustian bargain, offering a wealth of benefits, but at the risk of losing our souls.

    Technology is a tool. You can use a wedge or a lever to kill someone, just like you can use a gun. But I wouldn't want to live in a world without the concept of those basic tools.

    The omnipresent digital media feeds our "information overload" and
    "mental pollution," the Pope says. Those, in turn, lead to an excessive
    self-centeredness that tends to "shield us from direct contact with the
    pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their
    personal experience."

    That's because people are already selfish and stupid. Take the technology away and these same people would be acting selfish and stupid. Just less people would know about it.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    I don't know where you live, but around here a working assumption of "flat" is not good enough for any of those, except maybe taking family pictures. Ok, the deviation from "flat" is much more due to hills than spheroidal Earth, but nobody assumes anything is flat.

    Well, I used to live in northern Wyoming, and hills do exist there as well. That's not what I meant and I think you know that.

    Take airline pilots: they have to be aware of the curvature for "great circle" navigation. Following a great circle doesn't have anything to do with the way I would navigate a car: for that, I can use a flat map, that represents the surface as flat, and it works just fine. The only time I ever bothered personally to consider great circle was when I drove from Lincoln, NE to Orlando, FL...and given the way roads wander around hills and along rivers, it hardly mattered even then.

    @xaade said:

    I am not saying that all scientists treat their knowledge as a religion. But a good majority of people who hate religion, do treat their understanding of science as a religion. And the irony is not wasted on me.

    @xaade said:

    Those people that see faith in opposition to science, have merely developed another form of faith.

    Okay, I get your point now; and agree with it, too.

    @boomzilla said:

    You forgot your :trollface: .

    Now I was very careful to keep a neutral factual tone, which means I wasn't fishing. (Believe me, though, I'd have tried to reel in a bite.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Now I was very careful to keep a neutral factual tone, which means I wasn't fishing.

    Then let me ask, what topic did you have in mind, and would you please justify your characterization?



  • @boomzilla said:

    @CoyneTheDup said:
    Now I was very careful to keep a neutral factual tone, which means I wasn't fishing.

    Then let me ask, what topic did you have in mind, and would you please justify your characterization?

    • tetraethyl lead versus brain damage
    • sunshine rays versus hard radiation
    • ozone hole versus chlorinated hydrocarbons
    • acid rain versus sulfur coal
    • driving speed versus accidents
    • marijuana harmful testimony
    • vaccines versus autism
    • cell phones versus brain damage
    • bisphenol-A versus human health
    • phosphates versus lake eutrophication
    • fracking cannot be causing earthquakes
    • fracking cannot be causing water table poisoning
    • harmful effects of electrical power grid fields
    • internet harmful to society
    • comics cause violence
    • electronic games cause violence
    • solar energy has no value
    • takes 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef
    • colony collapse disorder can't be caused by pesticides
    • uv-light mosquito traps catch mosquitoes

    That's what comes to mind right off. In every case, on one side or the other, has been a handful of pseudo-scientists (or even just one) who are handed a ton of money to challenge every assertion made by responsible scientists; to bury them in legal challenges; to confuse the issue.

    You'd think that after a dozen or so of these "disputes", people would get wise and look for the money angle or at least the credibility angle but they don't seem to. Instead, they go with whichever position makes them more comfortable, even if it's the shill's side. More often if it's the shill's side, because the shill's side is usually tailored specifically by paid image consultants, to make people more comfortable.

    Oh, yes, I forgot...

    • climate change

  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    That's what comes to mind right off.

    OK...I might quibble in a few cases.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Oh, yes, I forgot...

    climate change

    Ah, there it is. That one I know doesn't fit this narrative, so 😡.



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    Take airline pilots: they have to be aware of the curvature for "great circle" navigation.

    Flat maps can be used for great circle navigation (air, sea or land is irrelevant, except for obstacles). One merely needs a map with a suitable azimuthal projection; suitable projections have been known for at least 1000 years.



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    Okay, I get your point now; and agree with it, too.

    I'm terrible at communication, seriously.



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    fracking cannot be causing water table poisoning

    Oh that one is easy.

    If procedures are followed properly and the intake is properly shielded, then it won't happen. But often they cheat here.

    OTOH, the chemicals used in fracking have also naturally leaked into the water table in history without the presence of fracking.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    You'd think that after a dozen or so of these "disputes", people would get wise and look for the money angle or at least the credibility angle but they don't seem to. Instead, they go with whichever position makes them more comfortable, even if it's the shill's side

    Except that in many of these issues, there are shills on both sides.

    Take green energy.

    Top Democrats are heavily invested in payoffs if their policies take effect. Invested in solar power, invested in carbon credits, and so forth.

    Top Republicans are heavily invested in the traditional energies, and stand to lose if Democrat policies take effect.

    Both are willing to stretch science to support their side.

    So it really becomes a battle to hide your side's shills, and often the Democrats do a better job of it. Mainly that's because their side supports change, and people don't take the time to determine faults in change, but the status quo has existed a long time, and therefore we've had time to tear it apart.

    So there is inherent confirmation bias when you propose change, because, by default, you always have more time to pick apart the status quo. And of course, without being able to readily see new policies take effect, you can't compare them fairly.

    Take Obamacare, where it was often said, "It works in Europe". However, what got implemented here, isn't anything like what exists in Europe, or anywhere else. So, there's confirmation bias there. A Canadian asked me why I was against socialized medicine, because I should want to change what's not working here. I asked him, do you have the same level of lawsuits that we have? He said, no. I said, then how do you know if what works in Canada will work here, and how do you know the reason why things aren't working here?



  • @xaade said:

    In particular, he argues that our "cult of human power" and blind adoption of technology has been a Faustian bargain, offering a wealth of benefits, but at the risk of losing our souls.

    Fuck my soul, I want ice cream.



  • @xaade said:

    If procedures are followed properly and the intake is properly shielded, then it won't happen. But often they cheat here.

    Yeah, a screwed-up cement bond job can very well be a recipe for a contaminated water table, even in the absence of hydraulic fracturing.

    @xaade said:

    Except that in many of these issues, there are shills on both sides.

    Take green energy.

    Top Democrats are heavily invested in payoffs if their policies take effect. Invested in solar power, invested in carbon credits, and so forth.

    Top Republicans are heavily invested in the traditional energies, and stand to lose if Democrat policies take effect.

    Both are willing to stretch science to support their side.


    QFT! The shills battling back and forth do a fantastic job of obscuring more measured voices in a debate, which, when coupled with soundbite-ism, makes it almost impossible for measured arguments to have an effect on public positions, as they are by necessity longer-form than the positions of the shills, and also draw little financial backing.

    @xaade said:

    Except that it's been shown that keeping our children and elderly around actually boost productivity. Plus, elderly have wisdom and knowledge to glean from. People that euthanize are actually impeding the market's natural tendencies. The market can't help stupid.

    QFT as well -- kicking your most experienced and knowledgeable employees out the door is a great way to lose your edge at what you do best, as a company. (I'm personally very, very grateful that I have some old hands to learn from :) especially in a company with a history as rich as my employer's.)



  • Good news!

    You can keep both!



  • @Jaloopa said:

    Isn't it weird how in hundreds of years Mathematicians have never managed to prove the null hypothesis?

    That's because NULL means the value is unknown. Could be anything, so there's not really much you can prove about it.

    Filed under: I knew mixing mathematics and SQL would come in useful one day


  • BINNED

    just to add one more reason:

    It's useful, the predictions made by science are useful, new theories make things more accurate (and more useful) but older theories are still applicable within their scale. Do not travel with speed near the speed of light and Newtonian physics is all you need.


  • BINNED

    @xaade said:

    Because faith is trying to explain things we cannot falsify, like WHY we exist. Not what brought us about existing, but whether or not there is a reason for us to exist.

    Not always, all sort of faithful try to explain all sort of problems with it (many times even against proven scientific facts), also WHY is a stupid question to ask here.



  • @xaade said:

    I am not saying that all scientists treat their knowledge as a religion. But a good majority of people who hate religion, do treat their understanding of science as a religion. And the irony is not wasted on me.

    +1



  • Depends.

    Are we talking about trying to use science to determine social issues?

    Because, science is only going to tell you what is effective, not whether or not it is ethical.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @xaade said:

    However, what got implemented here, isn't anything like what exists in Europe, or anywhere else. So, there's confirmation bias there

    How is it confirmation bias if there's no previous implementation to confirm? There may well be some form of motivated reasoning, but no confirmation bias

    @Scarlet_Manuka said:

    That's because NULL means the value is unknown. Could be anything, so there's not really much you can prove about it.

    No, no, no. Dereferencing the NULL hypothesis is undefined behaviour, so a compiler can legally prove it or not prove it



  • @Jaloopa said:

    @Scarlet_Manuka said:
    That's because NULL means the value is unknown. Could be anything, so there's not really much you can prove about it.

    No, no, no. Dereferencing the NULL hypothesis is undefined behaviour, so a compiler can legally prove it or not prove it

    Ah, but I'm using an extended-arithmetic compiler, which allows me to operate legally on many things that are traditionally considered undefined. But the only legal result of operating on a NULL is to return another NULL, so when we're working with the null hypothesis we can only generate circular reasoning proofs.

    Have we mangled this enough yet?


  • BINNED

    @tarunik said:

    QFT! The shills battling back and forth do a fantastic job of obscuring more measured voices in a debate, which, when coupled with soundbite-ism, makes it almost impossible for measured arguments to have an effect on public positions, as they are by necessity longer-form than the positions of the shills, and also draw little financial backing.

    ASDESIGNED_WONTFIX



  • @Jaloopa said:

    How is it confirmation bias if there's no previous implementation to confirm?

    A tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that
    confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.

    They have preconceptions that it will work based on the fact that what they think they're doing is similar to what's been done in Europe. But it's not similar at all. I can tell these guys didn't read the proposed laws at all.

    It's telling when doctors are saying no. Insurance companies are saying yes. The FUD was that evil insurance needs to be put in its place. And the result is doctors leaving practices and less incoming doctors.



  • It's going to be like China, where they hated the rich so much, they put idiots in as doctors and made the doctors into janitors.

    Then when the idiots were mucking it up, they'd cry to the janitors for help.

    Only in America, there will be no janitors, because the Hospital can't afford to pay them $15 an hour.


Log in to reply