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Author | Topic: How Scientifically Literate Are You? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Oh all right, I got two wrong. I did think it was probably Nitrogen but I said Carbon Dioxide, and I put Infrared when I should have said Ultraviolet. I don't get out much these days and being over 70 maybe I have the excuse of an ossified brain. I'm sure you all can think of more interesting explanations.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm sure I'd have gotten all of them when I was twelve too.
Maybe not fracking though.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I think an interesting item is tha 77% of people knew that the continents had been moving for millions of years. I wonder how many people held their nose and marked this question the way a scientist would mark it. For example, I am guessing that Faith does not believe that the earth is millions of years old. Yet she marked the correct answer to this question. Yup, held my nose. Test taking is an art. I still flubbed two I should have got right. "UV protection" is written all over sunglasses and sun block creams for instance, as someone on the thread points out, how could I miss that? Well, as I said, I don't get out much any more. Sunlight? What's sunlight? As for Nitrogen, now I KNOW that Nitrogen is the main ingredient in air, I KNOW that. So how explain missing that one? I was thinking something like: Plants breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breathe out Oxygen, so CO2 must be the biggest player. Or, Air? What's air?He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II. 2Cr 10:4-5 (For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God...
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Air is what we call the mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide and a few other trace gases altogether. ABE: Wait - I just realise you might have meant that as a joke on the 'sunlight? What's sunlight?' theme. If so, ignore my well-meant but patronising response. Yes, it was a joke, but at least now I know that argon is a constituent of air as well, if anyone ever asks.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I learned "nano" about fifteen years ago, and "fracking" probably more recently than that. Not words I'd have learned in high school. But they probably are learned there now.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
There is no way I'm going to convert all the measurements in my cookbooks to metric and throw out all my measuring gear.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
And my ruler and yardstick and measuring tape and scales. Darn tootin, I like America being unique too.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Oh yeh, we got the metric on everything too. As long as I don't need it I don't use it.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
That too.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Na, metricity isn't all that superior. I'm not bragging about inferiority, if science needs metrics then use metrics for science, but leave the rest of us alone, we're doing fine without it. Scientists can learn to do the conversions, don't impose it on the rest of us. Good brain exercise too. And the fact that we have mixtures of both, as UK people have said they do, shows it isn't necessary to impose it on us anyway.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You explain it well enough to make me wish I'd learned it. Too late now. '
I don't have to be concerned with how they measure things in Germany of course. If I moved there I assume I'd learn their system. But my cookbooks correspond to my measuring tools and habits and that's all I need to know. But I also agree with this point:
Now, there are two valid problems with converting to metric. One is that most trades have sets of special measurements that they use all the time and have memorized. Measurements such as standard door dimensions and offsets and the spacing between studs. A solution could be like the kitchen compromise where old measurements are still retained and supplement the new measurements. The second problem is visualization. We can look at something and estimate its size and lift something and estimate its weight, or we can be told a length or weight and we can visualize about what that would be. We would have to relearn all that when we convert over to metric and that would be a problem that could only be solved through much practice. Yes, I'm good at estimating based on the system we have, and changing would be a huge problem for that reason. I can estimate inches and feet but forget centimeters. I know what a quart is but a liter is just an annoying failure to be a quart. Etc. \ Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It would be nice if our uniqueness were in being ahead of the rest of the world, rather than being behind the rest of the world. Well, we used to be ahead until the Left had at us, now we're on the way to Third World status. Not that that has anything to do with the metric system of course. Except that we were the most prosperous and inventive and benevolent society on the planet without it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You've made your point about the superiority of metric, only I'm not going to change because of my ingrained habits. That's just the way it is. I understand the old system, I can think in the old system, I can do quite decent estimates of length and size and distance and volume and quantity in the old system, and at my age there is no point in changing.
Scientists don't have to do the conversions, because by working within the metric system they have absolutely no need to convert between metric and English/US I was thinking of the situation where the average person was going to be required to do conversions between the two systems and that's too much to ask of us, so if anybody is going to have to do that let it be the scientists. And I assumed they would have to because they would be living in two worlds themselves, their scientific world and the everyday world of old system measurements. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined:
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Golly gee, I thought I was correcting a misimpression.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yes, doing all those conversions as you describe for your high school friend's mother is what I thought was necessary.
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