"Ahead of us lie dangerous times" | AWESOME SPEECH by top UK scientist

[inkadu]

GaryM wrote

Now this is worrying if it's true. I mean, this is the country that produced Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection) and Charles Lyell (The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man) and there are increasing numbers of people believing in Creationism?

Maybe, but you're still ahead of the game in Britain.

I was just reading some Dawkins and some Dyson, and from this admittedly statistically insignificant sample, the Brits are more on the ball. Dawkins, a brit, goes after his american colleague SJ Gould, for some sloppy rhetoric that plays to creationists. Freeman Dyson joined us in the US in 1957, and he was talking about reconciliation between religion and science, "they are different ways of knowing." Dyson then goes on to wag his finger at scientists for being "arrogant" in the creationism debate and says that scientists have made things worse by not showing more sensitivity.

From that, I could also come to the theory that Dawkins rocks and everyone else sucks. Dyson was a huge dissapointment. I've been hearing his name but I couldn't get through all the handjobs to religion in the introduction of "Infinity in all directions."

Perhaps the reason Americans don't care so much about climate change is that it has been picked up by corporations, though. If people see ads about what petrol companies are doing to prevent global warming, maybe they feel like it's under control and can justify spending more money on a bigger car.

Americans just don't care in general. And we're easily confused. And most petrol and car companies spend a few million promoting some new developmental product that they're never going to market, then spend multiples of that money advertising it... and that's not to mention the disinformation campaign about global warming in the 90's... seems to have settled down now that GW is in the white house and they don't have anything to worry about.

logarithm wrote

Not that I like Nazis, nothing could be further from the truth, but I am curious if there is a relationship between the gradual dwindling of our national technical capabilites as all those old German scientists die off.

My pet theory is that consumer goods are completely irreparable and emminently replaceable. I think of Feynman's childhood fixing tube radios and television sets. Probably a good many more people used to work on their own cars, when they were user-serviceable. But televisions and computers are not something you want to be screwing around with. My OVEN recently broke. The only way to repair it was to buy a $200 control card. All digital. Nobody's learning anything on the way to engineering school these days.

My other theory is that with the demise of the slide rule, people don't have an intuitive understanding of complex mathematical concepts. But I'm not a mathemetician, and don't know how to use a slide rule...

UnknownUser wrote

everyone should have enough base knowledge to know the solar-system is helo-centric, the universe is expanding but all positions are remaining the same, and some basis of relativity...

Education is kind of pointless. At the end of a year on European history, my teacher called up a student and asked her to point to Italy on a map of Europe. She couldn't do it.

But I think you're a little confused. The heliocentric theory is taught in elementary school. A gentleman's version of relativity? I don't think that's taught at all until you get to college. part of it, of course, is the educational model. My physics classes were all about maths, and if there wasn't an equation behind a principle, we didn't learn it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to make mathematical heads or tales of relativity theory back then (much less so now), so it probably wouldn't have been taught. Or maybe not. I have some dim memories stirring in the back of my head. Formulas with ridiculously small constants that would be insignificant as they approached e... why don't you put up a thread about what people understand? even a poll, to get quick and dirty overview?

And, for the record, I also have an intense dislike for the Nazi.

lurker wrote

Hey Pan,
Don't worry about global warming. You've got a mini-ice age problem to deal with.

The Article wrote

The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Sometimes I really wonder if you have a great sense of humor, or are just a particularly stuborn idiot.

whoneedscience wrote

Sometimes I really wonder if you have a great sense of humor, or are just a particularly stuborn idiot.

I read that part. My post was a bit of humor. Anyway, if global warming can produce cooling then I'm for it -- I think.

[Choobus]

what in the name of buggery are you on about Lurker?

The Quarternary Science Review just published a study by some Swiss researchers. Their conclusion was that the impact man has made on the climate is incredibly small. You can check this article (yes, it's from Fox News): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177380,00.html for more info. Haven't been able to find the study online yet.

I also recommend reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052...lance&n=283155