Creationists, Flat-Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers.... People who reject science.

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

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Good teachers and/or students don't get spooked by being lectured. Getting defensive is an immature reaction to receiving information
I love it when students challenge the norms. Thats what Id strive for because I had a few great teachers who "leave it to the student with minimal insights".
The differences with you is that you are just flat wrong and dont accept that fact. So, why waste my time in an argument that should be much farther along with details.
When someone gets stuck on one outcome without knowing the other options available, thats the beginning of fanatacism.

I'm not convinced that I'm not wrong. I'm just not convinced that I'm wrong yet, either, because you haven't provided any incontrovertible explanation. You mentioned the mantle is too hot to be feeding energy from above, but you didn't put your reasoning on the table for critical scrutiny, so how can I determine that it's incontrovertible?

Did you reply yet to my question about whether you, with all your knowledge and what you think about your knowledge, expect that the Earth will eventually cool to some stable temperature appropriate to its distance from the sun, or whether it will remain at its current temperature until the sun eventually turns into a red giant? In other words, is the core/mantle/crust distribution of energy/temperature going to change through immense geological time spans, or is it going to remain more or less the same? And please explain your answer.

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Youre kinda stuck in an almost anti-science mode . Are you a past science major? or are you still looking forward to attending college??

You might be better at condescension that at science. Science isn't religion (except for people who use it as a faith-crutch because they are atheists). I'm not anti-science because I am not anti-truth. Are you?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

I was wondering whether youve thought about a way you may "falsify" either your hypothesis or science's theory about Continental Drift.
I have.

Yes, it would be great to find conclusive reasons/evidence that would allow me to abandon thinking in false directions. That's a big part of why I endure all the hostility I do for thinking outside the box and posting it online for public discussion.

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Look at the pattern of surficial and deep "thermal gradients" in tectonic zones. Come up with a way that you may falsify either.

In other words, WHICH WAY DOES THE HEAT TRAVEL??? WHERE DOES IT OCCUR???
HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND THIS???

I wish you would explain your understanding of this in more detail. If I post another thread on it, will you do so?

Regarding your question about which way heat travels, I'm not sure what you mean. The subduction zones seem to drag ocean floor/sediments down under the continental plate. Generally it seems that biological sediments get compacted and consolidated into denser fuels/molecules as they are 'processed' geologically by nature. How far can such processes of compacting and consolidation of energy go underground? Could there be warm rivers of sludge that gradually flow into deeper/higher-pressure flows that get hotter and/or more chemical-energy dense due to ever-more consolidation of energy? Heat dissipates if it can, but what if there is a rotational flow of magma going on within the core that allows energy-rich material to continue to flow down into it and as the material gets heated, compressed, and consolidated, it continuously loses volume?

If you took a large amount of biomass or sludge and started processing it to compress it and heat it using its own stored energy, how dense and hot could you make it if you could use layers upon layers of rock above it to bear down on it and insulate the heat from escaping? Eventually, enough heat might build up to cause convection in the rock above, but the deeper you would go, the more heat/energy it would take to move the rock above, and eventually the energy might more easily force its way forward than up. That is why I suspect there could be currents of magma and even rotation in the core that absorb energy as lateral acceleration instead of pushing convection currents upward, though it seems that there are also convection currents causing mantle plumes as well.

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In either explanation there should be ways to falsify the explanations.

Yes, and it would be great to figure them out; but I hope you can admit that the large scale of geological time and the impossibility of sending cameras down into the bowels of the Earth make it difficult.

When you post information you know about various kinds of measurement, rock types, etc. it gives me a little sense of what I could analyze in more depth if I had a geology degree, but since I don't and I'm not going to invest in getting one, I have to work with what I have and whatever people are willing to tolerate me thinking at the level I'm at.

In terms of the broad-line questions about the big picture, this is something more and more laypeople are going to be thinking about as climate science continues to gain importance. Everyday people used to talk about the weather a lot, but that is now evolving to go beyond the weather and right so, considering that all aspects of climate and geology are interconnected thermodynamically and mechanically.

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@livinglava,

I said that good teachers teach students the right answers. There are correct answers in science. Right answers are not the same as "dogma" (your word).

To master science, you need to spend years developing mathematical skills. For Quantum Mechanics you need integral calculus, differential equations. You also learn linear algebra (which is not technically necessary... but sure as hell makes the calculations better).

Question:

I assert that the Earth is round... and that it orbits around the Sun.

Is this real science? Or is this pseudo-science? There are people who believe that the Earth is flat. I have no problem saying that they are wrong.

If I am teaching a class on orbital mechanics, and I have a student who believes the Earth is fixed... it is her problem not mine. If she is going to pass my class (or even learn anything from it) she is going to have to give up her ideas for the correct ones.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I said that good teachers teach students the right answers. There are correct answers in science. Right answers are not the same as "dogma" (your word).

They can be. It depends on how they are understood. Water boils at 100C and freezes at 0C and those temperatures change when you dissolve solvents in the water. Alcohol also boils at a different temperature. You can memorize the boiling points of lots of different liquids and solutions and know a lot of right answers, but for a dogmatist, memorizing such information is no different than memorizing a phone book.

It might be useful to have access to facts when you are contemplating and analyzing how things work, but it is no different than googling the fact when you need it. Recalling and reciting facts as dogma/trivia is not the point of science. Critical thinking and understanding are.

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To master science, you need to spend years developing mathematical skills. For Quantum Mechanics you need integral calculus, differential equations. You also learn linear algebra (which is not technically necessary... but sure as hell makes the calculations better).

You can learn to think scientifically without very difficult math. You want to set up prerequisites for scientific understanding as a status attainment, but the reality is that someone might be able to understand something scientific without knowing how to do the math, and then your theory about math prerequisites as a condition of true understanding just flew out the window.

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I assert that the Earth is round... and that it orbits around the Sun.

Is this real science? Or is this pseudo-science? There are people who believe that the Earth is flat. I have no problem saying that they are wrong.

You can learn dogmatically that the Earth is round and orbits the sun and never think deeply/analytically about the mechanics of celestial motion.

The same dogma-conformist who learned that the Earth was flat and was the center of the universe in the middle ages would learn today that its round and goes around the sun. The same person would understand both sets of facts in the same way regardless of whether they are derived from science or pseudoscience.

It's like a trivia game where you might first get asked how many moons Jupiter has and then get asked how many suns Tatooine has. One is factual data and the other fictional, but people can learn them both in the same way, i.e. by memorizing information.

Likewise, people can learn to do a lot of math processing without being good at word problems in which math is actually applied. Then, there are people who are even good and word problems, but when it comes to applying mathematical logic to analyzing real world issues such as economics, they get lost because they don't really understand how to apply math in a relevant way.

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If I am teaching a class on orbital mechanics, and I have a student who believes the Earth is fixed... it is her problem not mine. If she is going to pass my class (or even learn anything from it) she is going to have to give up her ideas for the correct ones.

No she doesn't. She just has to give you the answer you want on the test. If you aren't a deep/broad enough thinker to engage in discussion about young-Earth creationism or whatever belief that diverges from science, then that is your problem.

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@livinglava,

Im a bit frustrated with you because Im not fully certain that your just playing the fool. Please read the following Wiki about Falsification in science.

Lota people herein have the necessary skills to help you understand. I think Im j ust going to sound hostile and I dont really want to (especially if you are a kid who is really interested in science but needs to start walking with the scientific method in mind)

READ THIS ABOUT FALSIFICATION IN SEVERAL DISCIPLINES

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@livinglava,

Quote:

You can learn dogmatically that the Earth is round and orbits the sun and never think deeply/analytically about the mechanics of celestial motion

Is this an admission that youve just accepted a round earth from looking at photos and how theyre shaded???
The data on Continental drift is equally available and understandable and has been proven again and again. The driving forces are well unerstood and are actually used as tools in exploration.

You accept one and deny the other, which is as fiirmly based , why is that?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im a bit frustrated with you because Im not fully certain that your just playing the fool. Please read the following Wiki about Falsification in science.

Lota people herein have the necessary skills to help you understand. I think Im j ust going to sound hostile and I dont really want to (especially if you are a kid who is really interested in science but needs to start walking with the scientific method in mind)

READ THIS ABOUT FALSIFICATION IN SEVERAL DISCIPLINES

I've read Karl Popper on falsificationism.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
You can learn dogmatically that the Earth is round and orbits the sun and never think deeply/analytically about the mechanics of celestial motion
Is this an admission that youve just accepted a round earth from looking at photos and how theyre shaded???
The data on Continental drift is equally available and understandable and has been proven again and again. The driving forces are well unerstood and are actually used as tools in exploration.

You accept one and deny the other, which is as fiirmly based , why is that?

I don't think you read what I wrote correctly. I was not talking about myself learning scientific facts dogmatically, though I have just like everyone else has in various contexts.

My point is that for someone who doesn't think critically and analytically or mechanically, scientific facts work no differently in their minds than other kinds of facts. They will argue just as vehemently that Tatooine has two suns as they will argue that the solar system has eight planets instead of nine.

I am a person who dismissed the whole "Pluto is not a planet" debate until I learned what the deeper issues were that there were many other Pluto-like rocks discovered since Pluto and so Pluto doesn't really stand out as a planet except because it was discovered at a time when telescopes didn't reveal all the other Plutos as well.

Reason and logic and mechanics and critical thinking are more important than fact-memorization. Lots of people can pass a science class by memorizing facts and choosing the right multiple-choice answer; or by applying a mathematical formula correctly; but that doesn't mean they are thinking scientifically or that they ever will, for that matter.

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@livinglava,

those examples youve presented are merely dodging the issue and you know it. The point was what makes you accept a round earth v d enial of the bases for Continental Drift(when each are easily proven from available evidence)

You worked yourself into that corner and Id like to keep you there until you answer the actual question on the table.

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Reason and logic and mechanics and critical thinking are more important than fact-memorization. Lots of people can pass a science class by memorizing facts and choosing the right multiple-choice answer; or by applying a mathematical formula correctly; but that doesn't mean they are thinking scientifically or that they ever will, for that matter

Might I say that, speaking on the side of science. Neither Fact memorization and critical thinking hve nothing in common without UNDERSTANDING. Youve given us ampl evience that you dont have a clue about what you are speaking but are playing some kind of game to try to "Impress others" . Theres really a lot out there that dosnt require you to get stuck in a groove while totally avoiding the real discoveries in earth sciences and geophysics that are going on almost daily.

.

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@livinglava,

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I've read Karl Popper on falsificationism.

It can be a powerful tool whether or not you think Popper was off his feed or not.
"Falsification" (Or , more often, "field testing" our hypotheses) has shown to be especially powerful in paleontology an understanings of evolution of species .

For example, one of the best recent examples of the application of "Field testing a hypotheses" was the following,
TWO paleo scientists asked the question that
"If specific types of fishes were the common ancestors of amphibians, then , there should be fossils of these common ancestors located in geological strata in a very tight time zone of the mid Devonian and they should be located in a shallow fresh water sedimentary environment"
So they tested the hypothesis by identifying three specific environment types of this type of sedimentary rock. Three years after they began the search, they did find such a fossil that represents one of several species of proto amphibians . Later, more species of similar fish were found in the same environment and rock dates. The combined fetures of these types of fish are unique to environments that were seasonally drying sorts of pre Carboniferous "strut" formations. The evidence of evolutionary adaptation to a more arid or swampy environment was a valid conclusion.

Not finding such species would have been harmful to the hypotheses because
either
1The whole hypothesis was incorrect (hence it was found to be false)

2OR, fossilization didnt occur in those typs and /or dates of these specific formations.

Consequently, I think, for achieving some better understanding about the "engines" of Continental Drift you could be helped a gret deal by looking at all the data objectively rather than drawing conclusions from a story that you cooked up yourself and are a bit too proud to abandon. THEN , treat this data (especially isothermal maps) as a "field test". Make a working statement that starts with

"If my hypothesis is so then I should see the following ..."

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@farmerman,

Have you seen A Fish Called Wanda? Otto has read Nietzsche, but he's still a bloody idiot.

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@izzythepush,

Hell Ive even seen Terry Gilliam in some shitty westerns. Wanda was an ok movie. I think it won an academy award for best "key Grips"

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@Leadfoot,

They cut so many corners with this plane that they ended up killing people, and the Federal Aviation Administration is complicit.

The silver lining is that Airbus is now totally dominating the civil aviation builder market, in spite of having flunked and scrapped its A380 model no long ago. Their "neo" line (in essence, old planes with new, more fuel-efficient engines) sold quite well. Boeing tried to fight back with a rushed design, and it now seems they may go down with the 737 Max...

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@farmerman,

I saw it in a double bill with The Naked Gun. Unfortunately they showed The Naked Gun first which mean Wanda didn't seem quite as funny.

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@Olivier5,

I have already stated Boeing's (and hence the FAA oversight) part of the responsibility.
Virtually all aircraft accidents are a chain of events, not just one factor.

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@Leadfoot,

Yet your reaction is to automatically blame the pilot whilst simultaneously sticking your tongue up the arse of big business.

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@Leadfoot,

Both Airbus nd Boeing use the same subcontrctor. Im not sure what Airbus has going but Boeing is pumping out 113 different models of aircraft, from choppers w/Its Sikorsky deals, to Drones, with its Martin Marietta partnership. Im sure Airbus is in a similar situation .
Consequently both companies will be doing fine. Boeing survived the OSPREY debacle. Osprey , no matter what on thinks of it, is a visible part of the defense array.

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@izzythepush,

now with brexit a real deal, how does UK handle its commitments to Airbus.
Doesnt UK make the engines and nacelles??

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@farmerman,

Don't ******* ask me. There's a huge shitstorm heading our way, I really don't want to think about it.

Boris Johnson is a dickhead.

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@farmerman,

And the 737 Max will return to flight. The only things wrong with it are a ' few' lines of code.

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Creationists, Flat-Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers.... People who reject science.

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