How do you deal with anti-science?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Jeeves, Jan 19, 2020.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Sure! agreed. But I know which side of the coin I want to be on. And as per the question I posed to another, where would we be without science?
     
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  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Isn't a good/correct agenda desirable?
     
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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    For the person employing it? Of course. But that's sort of a tautology; everyone thinks their own agenda is correct.
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Yet an agenda [religious] is based on pure faith, while a scientific agenda demands evidence.
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    An agenda, good, bad, productive, destructive, economic, religious or political, always has a long-range (more than just a single payoff, like a laugh or a bite of cake, or a gotcha) purpose and an orderly method of accomplishing that ultimate purpose.
    In life, I have many. On forums, I don't. This is just something to do instead of work, like bubble-shooter games - an entertainment with no expectation of accomplishing any particular end; a casual contact with my species that doesn't require leaving my desk.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2020
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Right. Now you are saying "different agendas have different goals" and I agree 100%.
     
  10. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Yep, one is a guide or deliverer of knowledge, the other a soothing sympathizer to those that need it and are afraid to face the knowledge [truth] of an uncaring, heartless universe.
     
  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    So, you both agree that everyone has a long-range aim/goal/purpose for everything they do and say?
    I don't buy it. I don't believe most of us are that focused or disciplined.
     
  12. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    No, not all. But I do prefer a person who is "upfront" with his or her belief or attachment to religion and ID. Others have had the same attachment/belief but there agenda is hidden and unknown to the forum and play at attempting derision of the three big theories of science [BB. GR. Evolution] Some have recognised that situation.
     
  13. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, sure, that situation exists.
    I just don't believe everyone has an agenda when posting on - or even joining - forums. I think a lot of us, a lot of the time, just act on impulse. In cyberspace, you're not answerable for random behaviour, and for people with rigorous demands on their real life, it can feel liberating to have no agenda.
     
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  14. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    NOT posting on Scifoum

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  15. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    And no fridge to keep my VB cool on a day in Sydney town forecasted to reach 41C

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    [Already revved up the air con!!

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  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. An agenda isn't always "a long-range aim/goal/purpose." An agenda can be as simple as "I want more friends so I am going to talk to people in a bar" or "I want to have a beer so I am going to go to that bar" or "there's something WRONG on the Internet and I must try to fix it!" It's just the underlying plan or purpose to what you are doing. And beyond completely random decisions on what to do, most people do have a purpose for the things they do.
     
  17. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Yup. That's what it means. An orderly procedure of scheduled action leading to a specific intended conclusion.
    These are two quite different situations. There is no orderly procedure in talking to people in a bar. It's just a vague hopeful connection of one's desire for a drink with one's loneliness. An agenda would be if you studied the clientele of various bars, then made a regular appearance at the one most likely to attract the kind of people you wish to meet at the time of day they're most likely to show up there, and approaching them with conversational gambits designed to attract the right sort of person, then following up with subsequent pre-arranged meetings.
    That's exactly the sort of thing political and religious zealots do on forums.
    That's not yet a plan. If it becomes a plan, those people - that very small minority who are dissatisfied with the internet and the even tinier minority of that minority who feel called-upon to fix it - will then devise an agenda of how to go about it.
    (I've yet to meet one of those, and have no intention of devising an agenda or even strategy in the event that I should meet one.)
    A reason for doing it, yes. An expectation of reward for doing it, yes. A plan of how to go about it, sometimes. People signing up to forums generally had a reason and some vague expectation, but no plan beyond: "I'll look in once in a while and see if anyone says anything worth responding to." That's not an agenda; that's time-killing.
     
  18. LaurieAG Registered Senior Member

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    LOL paddoboy, up here just over your northern border the temp doesn't get much hotter than 30.9 degrees C but the humidity has been high so it has felt like a sauna for more a couple of days after 4 beautiful sub 29 degree weeks around Xmas.

    I only run my air con to try to drop the temp down to 24 before I go to bed so I don't run it for that long. The main problem is that 2 years ago people from down south of your southern border bought the house next door and installed split cycle air con 4 meters away from my bedroom window so I cannot open those windows during the night. Previously I could get a good nights sleep at any temp up to 26 degrees by just opening the windows and running a pedestal fan (heaps cheaper than air con) but now I keep the windows shut the morning temp goes up between 26.5 and 28.5 degrees even on a 'good' night.

    More concerning is 5 months after they made their change I contracted a chronic lung infection for 12 months, that only seems to abate during winter when their air con is off. I have had 5 CT scans in a 12 month period recently along with 4 complete 2x5 day 2xAntibiotic treatments so that, after a 5 month 'remission' period my doctor has had to resort to a chest X-ray, more 2x 5 day antibiotics and a 4x4 day steroid treatment as he doesn't want to let me get too radiated or antibiotic resistant.

    So have a couple of beers for me on the Lunar New Year, starting tomorrow, as I've been on the wagon (Severe COPD, stage 3) for quite a while now.

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  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. Nothing about orderly or long range. You can have an agenda to cause chaos at a meeting, said agenda being decided five minutes before the meeting because the meeting leader said something belittling to you. With no more desired conclusion than "she pissed me off so I am going to make her life difficult too." Indeed, this may have exactly the OPPOSITE long range result than the chaos-causer desires; agendas are often poorly thought out and hastily contrived.
    Exactly. Nor is there any orderly procedure in deciding to go to a bar.
    That is also an agenda, yes.
    Of course it is. You've decided to take an action to change something you dislike.
    Agreed there. But watch any thread here; quite often, as soon as one of several people engages, their agenda is clear. JamesR is a (good) example here - he will often hammer away at someone posting illogical nonsense, posting "you said X but that makes no sense because Y. Do you have any support for X?" That's an agenda - a desire to either understand the person or, failing that, demonstrate to the person that what they said is nonsensical.

    Again, "agenda" != "bad."
     
  20. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    It actually reached a scorching 42.5C where I am on the shores of Maroubra beach. Went for an early morning surf at 0600hrs came back home, showered, got into a skimpy pair of shorts and with the air con on, relaxed for the rest of the day, watching a movie [Ad Astra] and was not intending to move for the rest of the day [other then to the fridge for a cold VB] when I hear my elderly neighbour yelling out the back. The silly bugger who is 12 months younger then me, and lives by himself, had collapsed. I dragged him inside, put him in the shower recess with his clothes still on and turned on the cold water ...he swore at me in Greek and I called the Ambos, who came in 2 minutes flat, and took over while I retired back to my rocker.
    He is OK and with me today

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    Ah yes, the year of the Rat!!!
    ps: Have you seen the Shen Yun show? based on 5000 years of Chinese culture and incredible show and effort!!
     
  21. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    We're not likely to reach a consensus on this definition. I can accept that, as i have no changing-things agenda.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    My (opposite) story -

    On one of the first jumps for the 2002 world skydiving record we went to 25,000 feet where the air temperature was -38F.

    "What's that in Celsius?" asked one of the Russians as we were getting in the plane.

    "It's - uh - about the same" I said.

    "Oh," he said. "That's cold." And this was from a Russian.

    I remember exiting and feeling that air hit me even through jumpsuit and thermals. I took a breath in, breathed out - and my faceplate went white with frost. Up until that point I had been cursing the thing because it didn't quite seal at the top of the faceplate, but now that meant I had a tiny narrow gap I could see through. Other people had to actually take their helmets off to see, which then exposed their faces to that 120mph -38F air. We never found a chart that would calculate that wind chill factor.
     
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  23. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    I'm disinclined to look into the matter at the moment, so please disregard if you don't feel like doing my "homework" for me, but... Isn't the whole wind chill factor thing entirely without a scientific basis? I mean, there ought to be a way that one can calculate such meaningfully, but isn't what we have at present--which is the same as has been used historically for however many decades--largely of arbitrary formulation?
     

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