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Author | Topic: Counter-Intuitive Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||
dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Years ago I saw a sample test question from a poll measuring scientific literacy. It showed a spiral track and a marble rolling down it, about to come to the end of the spiral track whereupon it would roll off into free-fall. 3 or 4 pictures provided the possible answers. The one picked by the most respondents showed the marble falling in a spiral trajectory, having "remembered" its previous motion on the spiral track.
And in one class, a West Coast Swing teacher did something spectacular-looking and counter-intuitive. He was teaching the guys to do a 270 fan turn -- we step into our supporting foot and bend that leg while keeping our other leg straight and describing a circle as we rotated on our supporting foot. It's a slow turn meant to take up two or three beats, as I recall. The second time he demonstrated it, he started out in a slow turn, but then he pulled his fanning leg in, which sped up his turn, and then extended it back out to stop his turn; instead of a mere 270, he added an extra 360 to his turn and did it in the same time as our mere 270. Of course, he was just using conservation of angular momentum, like a skater would do, but to most in the class it was magic. It even took me a moment to figure out what he had done. In fact, it's fun to watch a dance teacher try to explain why certain techniques work, such as turns and spins. Some of them try to explain it scientifically while they really have no understanding of the physics involved. Soy maestra de baile! Nada es sencillo!("I'm a dance teacher {so I know that} nothing is simple!") Geraldine Chaplin at the end of Hable con ella (Talk to Her)
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9197 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
What there seems to be is one person sayign something stupid on FB, and everybody thinking this represents a real creationist position. But it is not one person on Facebook. It has already been shown that the same has been posted here on this forum. Amazingly, just because you have not heard something does no t mean that it hasn't happened. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 762 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
And in a slightly more science-y incarnation, I was told by an educated chemical salesman that his pastor had told the congregation that the Earth was Very Special because it has the most perfectly circular orbit of any planet in our Solar System, Praise Be!
Except it doesn't, as 20 seconds' Googling will tell you. But my salesman didn't Google it and really, really didn't want to believe me when I told him "not so." So half the Baptists in Abilene likely still think our orbit is less eccentric than Venus's or Neptune's. The other half probably were asleep for that part of the sermon.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Similarly, what had gotten me started researching solar-mass-loss claims was an email a young creationist had sent me:
quote: I gave him a rather thorough response in which I took each and every part of those claims seriously and demonstrated what complete crap it all was. For example, instead of an arithmetic progression (as he attempted by multiplying by the number of years), the mass loss he was describing would have been geometric. After first presenting the 1972 and 1991 masses of the sun, I demonstrated that those two published values did not differ by a factor of 19. Then I explained about geometric progression:
quote: To make a long story short (as I said, I gave him a very thorough response, more for my own benefit than for his, since most such creationists would either never respond to my thoughtful responses or damn me to Hell for eternity for "hating God", but this one was refreshingly different), he answered back, amazed at how incredibly wrong that claim had been. He was a high school kid who had just gone to a Christian summer camp. I had asked him for the source of his claim and he said it was one of the camp counselors whom he would never see again. I advised him of the importance of verifying all claims. Now, I'm sure that most creationist writers would not have come up with such a claim -- well, kinda sure -- , but a lot of the creationist movement is grassroots and filled with all kinds of claims being spread mouth-to-mouth. Like the game of "telegraph", each time the "message" is repeated to the next person, it changes a bit. That claim that the sun loses half its mass each year might have originally been that half the sun's mass is contained within its core, which is correct. Of course, I'm only guessing that's how it had originally started. What's written is only a small part of the crap that's out there, that gets deposited on our doorsteps here.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Oh why not look at something that's completely bat-shit? And of course Kent Hovind played a supporting role in it.
EXACT ILLUMINIST TIMETABLE FOR PRODUCING ANTICHRIST HAS BEEN REVEALED TO CUTTING EDGE MINISTRIES! at http://www.cuttingedge.org/NEWS/n1260.cfm We know that we could view Jupiter as a failed star in that has about a tenth of the mass needed to start a thermonuclear reaction in its core (one source they cited was that its mass is 1/80'th of what's needed). So they wondered whether it could be ignited by a "huge nuclear device", namely the nuclear generator on the Galileo probe, which was set to crash into Jupiter (and actually did). This, they were convinced, was an Illuminati plot to turn Jupiter into a star, thus heralding in the AntiChrist. They asked astronomers whether a "huge nuclear device" could ignite Jupiter and got responses such as this:
quote:Which they could not understand. But then they finally got a "straight" answer from a Christian "scientist" named Kent Hovind: quote: Which brings us back on-topic. It appears that to the scientifically illiterate, all of science is "counter-intuitive". Of course, we know that NASA had given them the straight skinny, that is all about the ball of gas having enough mass to drive up the temperature of the core to the point where nuclear fusion can occur. But the intuitive answer is that a star burns just like a campfire burns, by combining chemically with oxygen. That intuitive answer is also completely wrong. The irony is that in his seminar tapes, Kent Hovind would repeatedly boast to his audience that he understands all the math and science because he taught both subjects for 15 years. He might have also mentioned that it was in a high school. But I don't think he mentioned that it was in a Christian school that he had founded and was running. And it was this "scientific expert" who thinks that a star burns by combining hydrogen with oxygen. But for the real batshit, check out that cuttingedge.org link. It'll make Buzsaw look completely sane.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Years ago I saw a sample test question from a poll measuring scientific literacy. It showed a spiral track and a marble rolling down it, about to come to the end of the spiral track whereupon it would roll off into free-fall. 3 or 4 pictures provided the possible answers. The one picked by the most respondents showed the marble falling in a spiral trajectory, having "remembered" its previous motion on the spiral track. Curvilinear Motion in the Absence of External Forces: Nave Beliefs About the Motion of Objects
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of anything like it. What there seems to be is one person sayign something stupid on FB, and everybody thinking this represents a real creationist position. Well, it's a position of real creationists.
http://www.otakara-island.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php The main reason I believe in God is because the Universe is so perfect, do you know that if the Earth was a few inches closer to the sun, or a few inches further there would be no life here? I mean, it's all so perfect, cant be a coincidence. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010061103... Why is our planet the only one in our solor system with life? The sky is blue with beautiful clouds, some one had to create it. If you look into our body you will find a cell, which has DNA which has a code. All that coudlnt have been out of thin air, God created us in his own image.Our planet is like in th emost perfect spot, just a few inches closer to the sun and it would be the end of us, just s few feet away and it will be ice age. All the answers are around us. Open your eyes, which he created for us to see clearly with 3D. And all the colors of the raint bow. Atualize seu navegador | Facebook The real knowledge has to do with Allah and His creations. SubhanAllah if we were just a few inches closer to the sun we would burn, likewise positioned a few inches away from it we would all freeze to death. Just completely shocking but people go on with their days as though all of this wasn't carefully designed and computed. http://www.topix.com/.../world/lesotho/TTIJTA65LGGDGI8MK/p12 Did you know hore if the earth could move just few inches closer to the sun we would all burn to death? If it could move aware by just few inches it would get so cold that we would all freeze. But that doesnt happen. Why? Do you think it just doesnt happen without the reason? No. God created them to stay like that... and nothing or nobudy can no nothing to change that http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/...e/29/webschool/fndtns01.html Science tells us that if the earth were only a few inches closer to the sun, all water would eventually vaporise, and a few inches farther, it would freeze. And those are just the people who said "a few inches closer to the sun".
It's a bit like the old ''If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys ?''. Let's go for the double:
Page not found | Writing Forums By the way, what is keeping the earth in place? A few inches closer to the sun and we'd all be meeting our maker or not. Why haven't humans evolved into another species after at least 2 thousand years if not thousands more? Why are there still monkeys walking around if human beings have surpassed their ancestors in genes? Because if I've never heard it before, and it's blatantly stupid, then chances are it wasn't ''claimed and insisted on'' by a ''parade of creationists'' ... Either that or you've lived a very sheltered life.
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 4744 days) Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
That the pressure on the inside of a hot air balloon is the same as the pressure outside the balloon.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of anything like it. What there seems to be is one person sayign something stupid on FB, and everybody thinking this represents a real creationist position. As Dr. Adequate demonstrates in Message 52, there are several creationists who say something even more stupid (I think), that varying the earth's orbit by only a few inches would either burn up or freeze this planet. And over the decades, I've seen many creationists make the same claims, though I don't remember them giving actual distances like Dr.A's quotes. For that matter, the only times I've even seen creationists refer to the earth's distance from the sun, it has been to make the claim that varying it even slightly would make it uninhabitable. I cannot say that I have ever seen a creationist make a reasonable statement on this subject. I am not surprised that you are not familiar with this claim. As I recall when you first joined this forum, it was your first foray into discussing creation/evolution. You come from a different culture and a different language. While I know that there are US-type fundamentalists and creationists in Canada, they are apparently more prevalent in other provinces. You have not been exposed to the rhetorics and claims of actual real-life creationists, unlike us who have had to deal with them directly for several years, even decades, either on-line or in person or both. You're kind of like the new soldier who's just been shipped to the overseas war zone: all you know is what you've been told back state-side, so you find unbelievable the accounts told to you by long-time veterans about what it's really like in the trenches. We are no telling you wild stories. We are telling you what really happens.
It's a bit like the old ''If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys ?''. Sure, you'll encounter it once in a while on the internet, but does anyone really think this is an actual argument you can find in creationist litterature ? I felt the same way about that particular old canard. It is so utterly ridiculous that it must a strawman exaggeration. Nobody could be that stupid. So when I first heard actually used in earnest, my jaw dropped. And I've heard it a few more times as well. Around 2002, Answers in Genesis published an article in which they listed several claims that they wanted creationists to stop using. "Why are there still monkeys?" was one of those claims, so even they could see it being used often enough to motivate them to say "Stop it!". The sad truth is that there is no claim too stupid for creationists to want to use. They don't understand any of the science. Now, I've been a big fan of science all my life, as I think you have been as well. I cannot imagine anyone being so abymally ignorant of the most basic science, and yet I repeatedly see evidence of it from creationists. Not from all of them, but from most. It boggles my mind, as I'm sure that it does yours, but it happens. Now as for the "creationist literature". What exactly is that? There are books and magazine articles, many of which are written by creationists who do have some education, some even having something to do with science -- ie, some have degrees in a science (does food science really count?) and several have degrees in some form of engineering. Most of those would be unlikely to use such a blatantly stupid claim. Such claims are mainly being generated and circulated and recirculated about on the grassroots level, by the vast body of creationist followers. But then you have a lot of self-publishing going on, especially on-line. Anyone can put up a website or run a blog or post on a forum. Which means that those grassroots followers are publishing their own claims and versions of claims, including such rubbish as "Why are there still monkeys?" and "if the earth's orbit were off by inches ... " (not that they would know to use the subjunctive there). Isn't that part of the "creationist literature" now? The more respectable literature had extremely little quality control and all this self-publishing has absolutely none. Anything goes, any claim can be made, no matter how false, no matter how blatantly stupid. And other creationists will gobble it up and regurgitate it all over the place. {FOOTNOTE: Which brings to mind a segment from one of Dr. Seuss' animated Army training films about Pvt. Snafu. Rumors build up in soldiers minds, which start churning out baloney and pretty soon their mouths open and start shooting baloney all over the place. Which the animation depicted quite literally, with soldiers diving for cover.} As I said, I'm not fond of the {"Goldilocks zone"} argument.
And you missed my point. In a serious discussion of the subject, we find some realistic estimates of how much the earth's orbit could change and still keep us within a habitable temperature range. My point was that creationists do not give realistic estimates any consideration, but rather assume very small variances, probably not even as great as how much the earth's distance from the sun does actually vary each year. Dr. Adequate has supported my point in that many think it's a matter of inches (Message 52).
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
slevesque writes: It's a bit like the old ''If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys ?''. Sure, you'll encounter it once in a while on the internet, but does anyone really think this is an actual argument you can find in creationist litterature ? You might be interested in Message 373, Message 381, Message 382, Message 384, Message 388. Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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sfs Member (Idle past 2561 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
That deleterious alleles that fix in a population take exactly as long to fix as beneficial alleles do.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
That deleterious alleles that fix in a population take exactly as long to fix as beneficial alleles do. Now that I didn't know. Can I see the math/reasoning? Thanks.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Hi slevesque,
Sorry to keep hitting this home, as many others have responded and it's not really on topic, but there is something that I think you need to consider; creationists teach this kind of crap to kids.
However, I just wanna point out that this is a strawman. As far as I know, the argument isn't ''if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze'', it's simply that earth is at the right distance for life (liquid water) and it is usually coupled with all the other factors the earth has that makes life possible here. And yet inactive EvC member Wheely made the following statements on his website "CreationKid", an internet site intended as an educational resource for children;
quote: You can go to A Creation Website For Children to see my dressing down of Wheely's silly nonsense. A number of EvC regulars give Wheely and his horrible little site a damn good Fisking and he declines to defend it very much. There is some very dishonest stuff in there and the real kicker is that Wheely is trying to pass this off as educational. This kind of deluded propaganda can only harm a child's education. Sadly, it appears that "CreatonKid" is no longer online. What a terrible, terrible shame.
It's a bit like the old ''If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys ?''. Sure, you'll encounter it once in a while on the internet, but does anyone really think this is an actual argument you can find in creationist litterature ? Firstly;
The very next day, Dawn Bertot writes: So where did the Gorillas, Apes and other type of primate come from and what should they have evolved into by now Why are they still just monkeys. Once in a while... You might also like to take a look at this video, with a child from a a Muslim faith-school asking Richard Dawkins why, if evolution were true... yes, you've guessed it... why are there still monkeys? Richard Dawkins Visits a Muslim School Uploaded by blindwatcher. - News videos hot off the press. This poor girl's teacher, doubtless the person responsible for teaching the kids this embarrassing nonsense, seems completely unable to answer the question herself. She seems to think it a reasonable question. She clearly has no idea why there are still monkeys. This is a science teacher. She is supposed to be teaching kids science and instead, she is feeding them garbage. And the source of the garbage? Creationism. This kind of thing is creationist ignorance at the front line. A lie gets told by some huckster like Hovind or Gish or Harun Yahya and it is gratefully received by its creationist audience, who proceed to parrot it. It may lose a little finesse in the process, but that doesn't stop half-informed creationists taking it upon themselves to teach it to children. As a result, the next generation of creationist kids is made that little bit more ignorant. This is the fruit of creationism; ignorant children being taught nonsense by creationists so ignorant that they can't even get their silly creationist PRATTs straight. Mutate and Survive On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
That the pressure on the inside of a hot air balloon is the same as the pressure outside the balloon. OK, I'm calling you on this one. The inside and outside pressures are equal at the bottom of the balloon IF the heating burner is not running. While the burner is running, the pressure inside will be (slightly) higher. Regardless, at the top of the balloon the inside pressure is higher than the outside pressure. Moose
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Is the pressure inside a bubble greater than outside the bubble?
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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