Yeah, I was a little sloppy with my wording. I mentioned this in a reply to another post above, what I meant was the mathematical models, provided they agree with available data, can only be incomplete. The underlying mechanism proposed can definitely be wrong, but ultimately it's the mathematical model that produces predictions. Newtonian physics may be wrong as a physical model, but as a mathematical model we still use it to build our bridges. Thanks for the reference though, I've had Khun on my reading list for a while so I'll definitely start there.

I know you probably meant that as a joke, but the fact is that the epicycle model fit observable data quite nicely. A physical model may be incorrect, but a mathematical model, which is what actually makes testable hypotheses, that fits the data can only ever be incomplete.

And yet again, a basic understanding of the fundamental scientific process causes people to say foolish things. "Previous scientific theories were proven wrong, so we shouldn't trust current theories" blah blah blah. Previous scientific theories weren't proven wrong, just incomplete, as has been said thousands upon thousands of time. Under restricted conditions, they are still "right"- in the scientific sense of the word, which is "matches observation to our more precise measurements". OK, so people want to make the, "LHC is an extreme condition and so outside the tested realm of theory." Yeah. No. Not at all. The exact same theory which predicts that black holes could be created predicts that they are also being constantly created in the earth's atmosphere. And the exact same theory predicts that they evaporate via Hawking radiation, etc. You don't get to have it both ways. And this is where people's arguments get really silly: "But, you could be completely wrong!" Yes. I suppose we could. But in that case, we could be wrong in an infinite number of ways. And an earth destroying black hole would require us to be wrong in a very specific way on par with, "Our knowledge of electricity could be wrong and some magical circuit with just the right components will end all of reality as we know it."

Arguing that theoretical physicists would be likely to be biased is, if possible, even dumber than the LHC panic arguments. You don't need a PhD to understand that the whole hysteria is retarded. In fact, suggesting that you do is creating a false dichotomy: either you need to be a particle physicist, or you're just taking their word for it. Seriously, this "analysis" will probably do more harm than good.

Now can we as a society please move on?

Er, preventative medicine is entirely different from treatment medicine. Vaccinations and antibiotics are entirely different compounds. The article is about letting certain illnesses run their course naturally, not saying, "Well, screw it let's just not bother with the whole medicine thing." Unless of course you'd like to see a resurgence in polio.

It appears that years of media scaremongering and anti-vaccine lobbies have gotten through the youth crowd quite effectively.

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Simple solution: If you do not want- do not buy. Developers aren't idiots. Religious video games will be industry standard when hell freezes over. That's sort of the main point of the article. At the same time, there's certainly a niche market for them. I don't enjoy racing games, that doesn't mean I'm opposed to their existence. Why should this be any different? Seriously, in cases like this the whole, "leave religion out of it," line is just retarded. On that note, Happy Newton's Birthday everyone.

It's been said by other people already, but it merits repetition so that people will stop using this stupid argument and thinking they're clever for it. This is why studies are accompanied by confidence intervals, etc. If "these other factors counteract it" and there is no net effect then there is no effect. Correlation doesn't imply causation. Yes, we know. We get it. However, causation implies correlation. And by the contrapositive, no correlation implies no causation. Learn statistics before trotting out tired old cliches.

As far as the reflection losses go, it's not converted to anything, it's transmitted. That's what the GP meant by "if you can see it the rainbow isn't completely contained". There's no such thing as a perfect reflector, some of the light is always transmitted through. And since we can't attain perfect vacuum, there will also be internal collisions with gaseous molecules, which can either transmit the absorbed energy via heat in colliding with other molecules, or re-transmit it as light, though possibly in a series of longer wavelengths.

As for the solar cells thing... no. That's a completely different situation. The trapped rainbow is a nearly closed system, with no continuous energy input, and the problem is that we can't make it completely closed (and if we could, it's internal entropy would then increase over time so it still couldn't be perfectly stable). Technically, I suppose all the energy can't be sapped since it's exponential decay, but the system energy asymptotically approaches 0 (and once a small enough amount remains, the fact the energy is discrete becomes important). It's about inefficient energy conversion. Far form implying that we could create 100% efficient solar cells, this is why we can't create 100% efficient solar cells.

Yes. That's why they're called facts. If you want a normal life, it's your job to spend the rest of it convincing everyone that you aren't the person you were. Redemption, not revision.

When I watched that, its mention of, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" reminded me of when I used to play that as a kid. So I downloaded it.