They agree on HOW to learn about those things. There's a huge gulf between empirical observations and explanatory theory. There are plenty of cosmologists around that do not accept the Big Bang theory even now - in fact, there are probably proportionately more now than 20 years ago. There are thousands of climatologists, geologists, meteorologists, and physicists who think that anthropogenic globe warming is crap. Few, if any, though disagree with the opposing theoreticians about the fundamental methods required to actually gain an understanding. What is interesting from an anthropology-of-science view point is that often these divisions between theory-based cliques lies along the divide between observation-based theory and theory-based observation. Theory-based observation expects observations to help verify theory, while observation-theorists often take any unexpected observation as grounds for new theory. The division that emerges is from the basic divide between mind sets that are convinced they have an explanation and mind sets that are convinced they have found a shortcoming the popular theory does not cover. Cliques tend to nucleate around issues and - ideally - new or modified theory emerges. The disagreement is not a bad thing necessarily, but occasionally it can devolve into what amounts to gang warfare.

Bullies are scum. No 'if onlies,' no 'buts.' There's no reason why a kid with difficulty understanding social cues should spend grade school making sure an upper grade bully got fat off his lunch money. No one 'makes' a bully steal your stuff, throw tarred rocks at you or generally lurk around for a chance to otherwise make your life miserable. All understanding the social cues offers is the knowledge of whom to avoid. There's a reason so many bullies go by handles like "Chopper," "Dumbo" and "Buddy" (all ones that I knew personally) and it isn't because they're brightest bulbs in the lamp. However, my dad always said 'don't get mad, get even.' I expect that Buddy never did understand why when he stole my home work he still got D's, and I still got A's.

Great, this could put a whole new light on lost baggage: "Dear Mr. Jones. Your baggage was fired Tuesday. It should have arrived at the ISS before you did. Unfortunately, the capture system failed. The capsule has entered an unstable, atmosphere grazing orbit and will burn upon re-entry in about two weeks. We're sorry, but this loss is covered in the waiver you signed. Sincerely, A. Pratt"

There are several published surveys of criminals in prison investigating what they do, how they evaluate targets, and what conditions discourage them from operating in given localities. The risk of being shot by a victim is a major factor. Apparently even criminals are capable of minimal cost-benefit analysis.

Do you mean to say that if a photo of your wife appeared like this you wouldn't contact her for a date? Tsk!

Actually, the mineral as specified in your example is a natural substance - "rock mineral". While modern and moronic patent examiners might indeed grant a patent on the mineral they should not have done so. The treatment in your example is novel and an invention and therefore should be patentable. Patenting the mineral itself forecloses on a fact of nature and as such would preempt any investigation of other properties of the mineral by anyone not holding the patent until the patent expired, regardless of how those properties were applied. Suppose for instance that lurking in the catalytic properties of the mineral was a trait that would - say - convert copper to a room-temperature superconductor - no such thing, but just suppose. That use of the mineral could in no way be construed as an infringement on your medical method for treating cancer using the mineral. Your persistence in defending a patent of a naturally occurring mineral would have delayed the advancement of science in general, physics in particular, and technology as well, merely because you are "protecting" your "discovery." In fact given the results of the University of Mississippi's attempt to patent tumeric, it seems possible that even your method of treatment might not be patentable if any prior art could be demonstrated.