Comment Interesting.... (Score 2) 89
That is interesting, please continue. Tell me s'more about these campfire activities.
Comment Re:author evidences how bad U.S. science literacy (Score 1) 795
the author shows by his very writing of the article just how bad science education is in the u.s. that is, he himself is a victim of the very low standards and the lack of teaching and emphasis on philosophy of science
That's actually kind of funny. The author is apparently French, lives in Paris, and was educated at the école des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Paris.
Comment Re:The whole article is just trolling (Score 1) 795
Science is more than capable of contemplating the cause of anything. It may not be good at anthropomorphizing natural phenomena and giving it intent (like wondering why the universe was created), but that is simply because scientific reasoning easily dismisses such thought as not only irrelevant but ultimately incorrect.
So you're saying that Richard Fenyman was wrong?
. I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God – an ordinary God of religion — a consistent possibility?
Yes, it is consistent. Despite the fact that I said that more than half of the scientists don't believe in God, many scientists do believe in both science and God, in a perfectly consistent way. But this consistency, although possible, is not easy to attain....
Why are you right, and he wrong? Why are you right and the many sciences that believe in God are wrong about that?
Perhaps the answer is here:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8)
Being an atheist doesn't make you smarter any anyone else, it just makes you an atheist.
Comment Re:Excuse me?...excuse me?... (Score 4, Insightful) 795
It can be the perfect setting for morality plays.
Comment This subject... (Score 1) 795
This subject appears to be controversial.
How Our Botched Understanding of "Science" Ruins Everything 795
An anonymous reader writes "Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes at The Week, "If you ask most people what science is, they will give you an answer that looks a lot like Aristotelian 'science' — i.e., the exact opposite of what modern science actually is. Capital-S Science is the pursuit of capital-T Truth. And science is something that cannot possibly be understood by mere mortals. It delivers wonders. It has high priests. It has an ideology that must be obeyed. This leads us astray. ... Countless academic disciplines have been wrecked by professors' urges to look 'more scientific' by, like a cargo cult, adopting the externals of Baconian science (math, impenetrable jargon, peer-reviewed journals) without the substance and hoping it will produce better knowledge. ... This is how you get people asserting that 'science' commands this or that public policy decision, even though with very few exceptions, almost none of the policy options we as a polity have have been tested through experiment (or can be). People think that a study that uses statistical wizardry to show correlations between two things is 'scientific' because it uses high school math and was done by someone in a university building, except that, correctly speaking, it is not. ... This is how you get the phenomenon ... thinking science has made God irrelevant, even though, by definition, religion concerns the ultimate causes of things and, again, by definition, science cannot tell you about them. ... It also means that for all our bleating about 'science' we live in an astonishingly unscientific and anti-scientific society. We have plenty of anti-science people, but most of our 'pro-science' people are really pro-magic (and therefore anti-science). "
Submission + - Former Assistant Secretary of Energy to Obama says: Climate Science is not settl (wsj.com)
Zecheus writes: Steven E. Koonin in an article published this weekend of the People's Climate March summarizes the "very, very difficult" problem for the climate science research community. There are hard questions, and the climate models today are not dependable. He warns against declaring climate science as either 'settled' or a 'hoax', because neither declarations advance the public discourse of politicians or diplomats who are developing the policies of environmental management.
Comment Re:Partisan bickering (Score 1) 392
Maybe you could look into this too.
France heat wave death toll set at 14,802
The new estimate comes a day after the French Parliament released a harshly worded report blaming the deaths on a complex health system, widespread failure among agencies and health services to coordinate efforts, and chronically insufficient care for the elderly
Comment Re:Partisan bickering (Score 1) 392
The US already has a system like "the rest of the world" with its Veterans Administration hospital system. Just like "the rest of the world" people die waiting for care, and the employees try gaming the system to make their stats look good. You see similar things going on in the NHS, and other similar systems.
Patients facing eight-hour waits in ambulances outside A&E departments
I don't think everyone wants that.
And you're right, the Democrats did drag the US into a 19th century plan, unfortunately before that the US had a 20th/21st century system. The Democrats tried to "fix" what was at most a 15% problem by seizing control and screwing with 100% of it, and making a hash of it. But at least they own it.
Comment Re:kill -1 (Score 1) 469
Why do we need this? I've been in unix for over 20 years and never even heard of kill -1.
I'm in the same boat. Is linux so unreliable and prone to disaster that "kill -1" used on a regular basis? There seems to be so much whining about "systemd", you just can't work out how much is complete FUD and whats a genuine gripe. Most of the gripes seems to be neutered by the Myths page http://0pointer.de/blog/projec...
There is an old saying that Unix is user friendly, it is just particular about who it chooses for friends. Maybe the two of you have been hanging around *nix for years, but how well do you really know it? Kill -1 (aka kill -HUP) is pretty handing if you are running infrastructure that other people rely upon for uninterrupted service. Just rereading a config file for updates is generally better and easier than stopping and restarting daemons*, and plenty of standard daemons expect it. It also a handy command since at times it will kill things that other variations of the kill command won't, including kill -9. It also can be a good place to start since "gentle" kills give a process an opportunity to clean up after themselves.
If you take into account all of the standard utilities of Unix and its derivatives there is an enormous amount of functionality and multiple ways to accomplish the same task. I haven't met anyone yet that was fluent in every tool and facility in standard Unixland. That is part of what I like about it - there is so much you can learn and apply, and knowing which tools can scratch particular itches. Even "obsolete" tools can be useful.
* Although there are times when stopping and restarting is a good thing too.
Submission + - The Ruinous Results Of Our Botched Understanding Of 'Science' (theweek.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes at The Week, "If you ask most people what science is, they will give you an answer that looks a lot like Aristotelian "science" — i.e., the exact opposite of what modern science actually is. Capital-S Science is the pursuit of capital-T Truth. And science is something that cannot possibly be understood by mere mortals. It delivers wonders. It has high priests. It has an ideology that must be obeyed. This leads us astray. ... Countless academic disciplines have been wrecked by professors' urges to look "more scientific" by, like a cargo cult, adopting the externals of Baconian science (math, impenetrable jargon, peer-reviewed journals) without the substance and hoping it will produce better knowledge. ... This is how you get people asserting that "science" commands this or that public policy decision, even though with very few exceptions, almost none of the policy options we as a polity have have been tested through experiment (or can be). People think that a study that uses statistical wizardry to show correlations between two things is "scientific" because it uses high school math and was done by someone in a university building, except that, correctly speaking, it is not. ... This is how you get the phenomenon ... thinking science has made God irrelevant, even though, by definition, religion concerns the ultimate causes of things and, again, by definition, science cannot tell you about them. ... It also means that for all our bleating about "science" we live in an astonishingly unscientific and anti-scientific society. We have plenty of anti-science people, but most of our "pro-science" people are really pro-magic (and therefore anti-science). "
Comment Re:Partisan bickering (Score 1) 392
You're deluded if you think that. The Progressive lobbyists and Democrats that wrote the bill are the ones that had to water it down and put state level bribes in it to get Democrats to vote for it. The Republicans couldn't be bribed, and knew better than to vote for it. It is a bill owned by Democrats, lock, stock, and barrel.
Comment Re:I'm wrong, shouldn't figure trillions in my hea (Score 1) 392
You mean the health care coverage businesses used to provide years ago, but scrapped in favor of a stock dividend and other profits?
That would be the health care coverage that was in place when "Obamacare" was deemed passed (remember that one?). Just kidding about the "deemed" part, it actually did pass on a party line vote. When a business fails the problem is even worse. Then there is no health insurance and no job.
And why we should not hold these businesses in moral contempt for callously skirting around the law so they can continue to abuse their employees?
Because it was the Democrats that passed Obamacare and forced bad choices on everyone?
If new "costs" are being incurred: It's because Life and the Pursuit of Happiness are expendable to American business.
Your life and pursuit of happiness (note: pursuit) are your responsibility, not your boss's.
Hard to have either when you're dying from lack of preventable treatment or sick.
I wouldn't worry too much about that, Obamacare is preventing a growing amount of treatment.
Comment Re:Partisan bickering (Score 1) 392
At least this is a simpler case than most for assigning responsibility. Obamacare was written and voted into law purely by Democrats, and a Democratic administration executed the law. The Republicans had no hand in it.
Comment Re:Compare and Contrast (Score 3, Funny) 392
That the F-35 isn't a perfect warplane is well established. On the other hand the "Affordable Care Act" is absolutely useless against the latest Russian and Chinese combat aircraft. Even the elderly Iranian air force is more than a match for the ACA.
