the earth does what? around the sun?

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Avicenna

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Don\'t forget the \"These are really dumbass questions, so lets screw up the answers\" strategy, that some people apply to street questionaires.

Not that I would ever do anything like that. :innocent:

What a stroke of genius!

Did it recently with a University researcher trying to carry out a street study in Birkenhead (Silly Girl).
She asked all sorts of questions trying to judge psychological responses.
She didn\'t get it when she handed me a Rorshach Inkblot and I looked at it for a minite then turned it round and said \"That\'s better. It was upside down.\"

 

[Hoblit]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

Originally posted by Hoblit
Paraphrased by Dragonsreach

I\'m an manager not a scientist. They don\'t let us near those nice delicate pieces of equipment.

my average day at work.
\"I wonder what happens if you do that\"
They do that, stuff gets sprayed everywhere, they change their clothes.
I say:
\"Well that was stupid wasn\'t it?\"

You get the idea.

lol

I\'m working on getting to that point, however I am still enjoying being paid for what amounts to playing in the mud.

edit: ink blot. Have to remember that for next time I see one of those

 

[tzor]

Question #1 sounded like it was a trick question, but since the exact text of the question isn\'t printed that is just speculation.

Question #2 is probably only known by those of the Jaques Cousteau generation, otherwise why care how much of the earth is covered in water? It\'s like how much of the earth is covered in tropical rainforest? I don\'t know, only I know it\'s getting smaller each day.

Question #3 is due to horrid B rated movies. And of course that one group of people who I won\'t name.

 

[Dedwrekka]

Originally posted by funnymouth
i found this article by accedent, and wanted to get your perspective.
scientific dumbos

i was surprized.

Also realize that a lot of the technology and advances have leap frogged in the last few decades, and it\'s not all that surprising that the public cannot keep up with the advances. Cloning took us by storm. Computers have exploded in capacity while shrinking significantly in size.

In the end what helps scientific advancement more is ignorant populace. You think everyone would accept full medical attention if they were reminded each time at the cost in human lives that were given to advance medical technology?
You remember the stem cell thing, you notice how the research had been advanced for years and years without the public knowing about it? Then someone found out and they made a big ideological fuss about it? Now with a partial lift on the ban we\'ve been able to advance the science significantly. Think where we\'d be if we, the public, were even more ignorant on the subject.

We\'re also highly specialized in our schooling. We get a general, broad strokes overview of everything in High School, then we get to choose where we go from there in College.

 

[mistamick]

I can understand the one about the fact that a lot of Americans are not sure that dinosaurs were before humans, because there are a lot of films depicting primitive humans hunting a tyrannosaurus rex.:duh:

 

[finn17]

Heh....

I consider myself to be both a scientist and an engineer and have bits of paper to prove it. The thought that scientists views are trusted so much scares the sh1t out of me..or at least it did...until I considered the alternatives.

The public rarely knows who commissions the research however, and like most things, there are good scientists and bad ones...

 

[dauber22]

One of the things I find worrisome (other than those already mentioned) is that such a large percentage of people are willing to listen to \"scientists\": the one grouping in that list that has no real, clear definition. I know what a \"teacher\" is. I know what a \"reporter\" is. I know what a \"govenment official\" is. I can even define a \"business leader\". But what exactly IS a \"scientist\"? And what qualifications do you have to have to be one? Amorphous terms scare me. They are too easy to manipulate. I remember back in the early days of the Clinton administration, when Hilary was touting her vaunted new health care plan, tehre was a full page ad run in the New York Times, the Wahington Post, etc declaring teh names of 1000 doctors who wholeheartedly supported the plan. The problem was, on closer incestigation, virtually NONE of those doctors was actually a physician. They were all things like Doctors of Language Arts, Doctors of Philosophy, Doctors of Political Science, etc, etc, etc. As I said, amorphous terms do not put me at ease and I certainly wouldn\'t trust someone just because they said they were a \"scientist\". And why should I believe that a \"scientist\" would be willing to ignore their own personal, political, professional or any other kind of agenda just to bring me the \"Truth\"?

 

[finn17]

All good points dauber...

Points a \'true\' scientist would make

 

[Modderrhu]

If scientists knew what they were doing, we\'d have no need for them.

 

[Ritual]

I would say, from experience having a masters degree in physics, that people doing natural science more often than not know what they\'re doing. This is not surprising since the scientific model more or less has its roots in natural science and you can use mathematical models to describe things you can observe. (For those that don\'t know it, the scientific model is a set of basic \'rules\' defining how to perform science in a proper way, like for example, that experiments should be reproducable.) Things get more complicated when you study other scientific fields, like social studies, for instance. Then it\'s more tricky to apply the scientific model on what you do and the results are often ambiguous and it\'s difficult to establish undisputable facts from them. This is often (ab)used by politicians and media to fit their agenda.

But, apart from that, mostly when we hear about scientific findings it\'s been filtered through the media and their ignorant reporters and they have a tendency to simplify and misinterpret the material and make claims that can\'t be supported by the actual scientific results.

For instance, I read today that NASA had got \'photographic evidence\' for the existance of dark matter. This report means absolutely nothing to me since the term \'photographic evidence\' is completely meaningless when you talk about astrophysics... And I wouldn\'t expect the reporter who wrote that article to know anything at all about dark matter. If I read an article written by NASA scientists, then I could form an opinion about what to think of this.

 

[Dedwrekka]

Originally posted by dauber22
One of the things I find worrisome (other than those already mentioned) is that such a large percentage of people are willing to listen to \"scientists\": the one grouping in that list that has no real, clear definition. I know what a \"teacher\" is. I know what a \"reporter\" is. I know what a \"govenment official\" is. I can even define a \"business leader\". But what exactly IS a \"scientist\"? And what qualifications do you have to have to be one? Amorphous terms scare me. They are too easy to manipulate. I remember back in the early days of the Clinton administration, when Hilary was touting her vaunted new health care plan, tehre was a full page ad run in the New York Times, the Wahington Post, etc declaring teh names of 1000 doctors who wholeheartedly supported the plan. The problem was, on closer incestigation, virtually NONE of those doctors was actually a physician. They were all things like Doctors of Language Arts, Doctors of Philosophy, Doctors of Political Science, etc, etc, etc. As I said, amorphous terms do not put me at ease and I certainly wouldn\'t trust someone just because they said they were a \"scientist\". And why should I believe that a \"scientist\" would be willing to ignore their own personal, political, professional or any other kind of agenda just to bring me the \"Truth\"?

As self proclaimed Distopian =POPE= I can claim myself to be a Pseudoscientist, and I\'ll tell you that as a Pseudoscientist it worries me as well. Anyone who disagrees will be promptly ex-communicated, de-ex-communicated, re-ex-communicated, and then de-re-ex-communicated.

 

[matty1001]

I wonder what the statistics are for other parts of the world?

 

[Modderrhu]

Originally posted by Ritual
I would say, from experience having a masters degree in physics, that people doing natural science more often than not know what they\'re doing. This is not surprising since the scientific model more or less has its roots...

No disagreement from me, Ritual! Of course scientists have to know how to go about doing what they do. But, \'how\' and \'what\' are two different things. I like to think that Michaelson and Morley had no idea what they were doing, but they knew how to do it. And Rutherford had no idea what he was doing until after he\'d done it. Even with the hunt for the Higg\'s Boson, they know how to go about finding it (they think) but have no idea what they will find along the way.

In my opinion, the goal of science is to gain better understanding of the world around us. As such, scientists go where no-one else has gone before. They don\'t know where they are going, but they know how to get there.

I do hope that your years of study haven\'t replaced passionate \'discovery\' with pedantic \'methodology\', Ritual! Both are necessary.


As for dark matter, well... about all the evidence we have for dark matter is photographic, well, spectral at least - yay, Hubble! The trick is how the data are interpreted, and not allowing the hype-sensitive media to hear \"actual\" when a conservative scientist says \"possible\". So I\'ll agree with you on that point too - the NASA report will probably be rather more cautious.

 

[Ritual]

Michaelson and Morley knew what they were doing, but expected the outcome to be different.

My studies made me realise I\'m not scientist material, I\'m afraid! I enjoy learning about the forces of nature and why things work the way they do (or rather, how you can explain it... all science is about models and not absolute facts... important point!), but I have no real drive for the discovering bit. Furthermore, I really dislike the internal politics of the academic world and that\'s something you have to live with if you\'re going to make it as a scientist.

 

[funnymouth]

well, i have mixed feelings. undoubtedly these statistics are off, and in any survey type scenario confusing questions and uncooperative takers can mess things up. really, you would need to look at the study to determine its validity.

on one hand im glad that people trust scientests about science, and for the reasons that NSA mentioned it was surprising. this has a huge potential for abuse though. the other day i saw a health foods pill called cellfood that said it would make you live longer: it contained whole enzymes and blah blah blah that would directly feed cells: complete bs to anyone who has basic knowledge of human nutrition and digestion. the potential for abuse by pseudoscience is huge. whatever the definition of a scientest is, id say that i fall firmly in the \"scientest in training category\" (im a graduate student in population genetics/conservation biology) and a huge amount of my education at this level has been devoted to learning how to read scientific publications critically. if people dont know that the definition of a year is not arbitrary, how can i expect them to be critical?

science education IS important (for everyone) - normal decisions that effect the health of all people happen to each of us, every day.

im sure these stats are exaggerated...but still.

 

[StarFyre]

it\'s not just americans

I like to make fun of americans...but it\'s not just them.

THe lady beside me at work (I\'m in Canada, but to be fair, Canadians are americans..since we\'re all in North America...so a the USA technically isn\'t America...it\'s the United States (of america - sidebar done) was arguing with me \"am I sure that early human\'s didn\'t exist with dinosaurs.\"

I almost had to cry, it was so pathetic.

I think it\'s anyone who is part of the mass media generation from the past 30 or so years (even though she\'s like 50!!!) hehehe

Sanjay

 

[Torn blue sky]

Sanjay\'s just re-iterated my previous point of \"Were screwed\".
The point about NSA\'s photo evidence of dark matter intregued me too. Science is very much not my field. So i don\'t feel ignorant in asking \"Just what IS dark matter???\". I get the impression from various things it\'s like a gravity mass, but i\'m not too sure.

 

[DrEvilmonki]

I have met WAY to many people who know very little (but usually don\'t know it)
A dog breeder once told me her prize bitch breeding was now no good as she had mated with a cross breed. Her belief was that EVERY litter of puppies would now be cross breeds!

While I would hope the actual numbers of people who don\'t know these basic facts would be small it would not surprise me if those numbers weren\'t close.

 

[Talion]

Yep I know people who don\'t know how the planet works, and don\'t care - to busy wrapped up in their small lives.

I get really offended by people not knowing how life works, every one should know!!!!!!

Mind you, I have one of those inqusitive minds that needs to know how stuff works, just in case I may ever need it. My head is full of useful/less facts.

 

[Torn blue sky]

I\'m with Talion on that score...but I still don\'t know what in gods name dark matter really is Thats After looking it up on Wikipedia too!