Cosmos

[Pali]

Anyone else watch the pilot of the new series hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson?  I quite enjoyed it.

[TheKid]

Hmmm Pali  can see your Signature, needs a fix imms heh.

[TheKid]

Wow i am dumb I thought this was shout outs lol slap self.  Carry on men lol.

[Pali]

*sigh* The one response this gets is completely unrelated and purely accidental...

[Magick]

I have it recorded and it hasn't been watched yet, so I couldn't comment just yet.

[Pali]

That makes me feel better.

[Magick]

That information is wrong, sorry.  UK is a bit behind with broadcasting and my recording is set for Sunday due to scheduling conflicts.  But be assured I will be watching it before too long.  Looks quite interesting.

[Dizz]

I enjoyed it!  Watched the second one last night at Skybar.... an astronomy bar. One of my buddies is a microbiology grad student. He did some Q&A afterwards about evolution. Then I went outside to look through the telescope, saw a nebula.

[Dizz]

http://www.fox.com/watch/183733315515

 

Stream it with no commercials for free

[Magick]

"The video you are attempting to watch is only available to viewers within the US, US territories, and military bases."

 

Thanks anyway, Dizz.  Pity I'm no longer in the military.

I could use a proxy, but it's not worth the trouble just to watch it 6 days early.

 

But I did watch #1 last night.  It's definitely flashy and nothing I didn't know already.  But I was expecting as much for the pilot episode.  Looking forward to the next 12, though.

[Pali]

I've yet to really learn anything new myself in the first two episodes, but considering that the point of the show is to provide a solid layman's understanding of science and I've already mostly got one... I wasn't expecting to. The second episode focuses primarily on evolution.  Thus far, I'm quite happy with the show.  It's science-porn. 

[Magick]

... considering that the point of the show is to provide a solid layman's understanding of science ...  Thus far, I'm quite happy with the show.  It's science-porn. 

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[inscribed]

I don't post that much anymore, but it's late and I've been drinking so I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here, so feel free to ignore.

I hate Neil Degrasse Tyson. He's an arrogant asshole who lucked into a bit of a celebrity status and now believes all the smoke others are blowing up his ass. I hate his fans. Googling a couple of articles from Scientific American and sharing some pretty pictures from that stupid "I Fucking Love Science" facebook page with a science-y sounding quote on it does not make you knowledgeable on "science". I get what this show is trying to do. It's trying to promote an interest in science, which is a good thing. But instead, all we get is some pompous jackass putting on airs for a bunch of smug viewers who spend the entire episode thinking to themselves "man, I am SO intellectual right now watching this, I can't wait to Tweet about how I watched this so all my friends know I'm super duper into science".

All of that's just a symptom of the general dumbing down of the word "science" today. Everyone is a scientist now. Psychologist? Anthropologist? Hell, even chefs are now calling themselves "food scientists". A scientist is an expert in a PHYSICAL or NATURAL science. And here's a hint, if you can't even do basic calculus or differential equations, then you definitely are not a scientist. How can you even pretend to "know science" when you can't even speak the language. People think that just because they learned what the scientific method was in the third grade, they get to call whatever field they work in a science now. I get it, science is "in" right now, so everyone wants to pretend they give a damn about it, but they don't want to actually put any work in. Learning science requires hard work. You need years of trig, calculus, differential equations, calculus-based physics, and chemistry just to even START to learn an actual physical science. A lot of people are just flat out not capable of learning it. But in today's society where everyone is a winner, we won't let that stop us! No, we'll just dumb the term down so everyone can feel like a scientist. 

It'd be great if everyone were educated in science, but let's not fool ourselves here. If you use shows like this as a stepping stone to pursue a career in a scientific field, then great. But it takes a lot of hard work, and a lot of people will fail trying to do it. It will take years of developing the tool set to even talk science. Like with that other thread I saw on the Bicep2 experiment. I minored in Astronomy, took classes in cosmology and observational astronomy, I've derived the Friedmann, fluid, and acceleration equations (which is very challenging, and considered the very first thing budding astronomers should be able to do), and I consider myself an absolute novice in the area. I had to reread parts of that paper several times to even appreciate what they were explaining, and I'm still missing a lot. I KNOW I have a lot more to learn to "get it". So it's sets me off to see these people thinking that they read a couple articles on the internet, and now are totally knowledgeable with their background in English Literature or Psychology or whatever to talk about the importance of the discovery, or if it even means anything at all. Sure, I will give you a minute to copy and paste a couple of lines from your favorite source and pass them off as your own thoughts, internet science fans.

I also hate King of the Nerds (being into comics and video games does not mean you are smart), Big Bang Theory, Sheldon, girls who say "geeks are sexy", when what they are referring to are neckbeards with fake thick-rimmed glasses, not the kids still working at the computer lab at 2am (if they were sexy, then why aren't all these girls lurking there to pick up dates?), and all of this other faux-science-nerd crap that seems to be prevalent today,

[Pali]

Ignored.

[Deykari]

Is that even a serious post? The man may not have contributed directly in his field since the mid-2000's but he is an effective communicator and it is through people like him that people are actually starting to take a greater interest in science - and why shouldn't they? Why the elitist attitude? You've derived the Friedmann equation and have a mathematical grasp of a cosmological concept that many others do not - does that mean they aren't allowed to learn about the universe and their place within it, and discuss their knew-found knowledge however layman and simplified it may be? Your post is one entire sweeping generalisation that everyone who has a casual interest in the sciences is trying to appear to be cool, intelligent and armchair experts. Sure, there are people who fit that description - but that's not unique to science. I am nearing completion of my MPhys Physics degree and am involved as a volunteer with a programme involving getting people interested in science. The level of understanding varies from person to person, but what is apparent with the majority of people I meet is that they are interested in learning what they can and they find it fascinating. If popular science media inspires somebody to take upon the challenge of studying in the field, power to them. If it doesn't and they're happy to learn rudimentary ideas free from mathematics and tricky-to-visualise concepts in order to appreciate on some scale what's going on, why is that a problem?

 

You're right that many people will not be able to appreciate some concepts in their entirety because of their conceptual or mathematical complexity that someone not versed in this field will struggle to grasp. It's completely inappropriate to hold the elitist view that almost seems to sugges that science should be kept away from the mainstream, for having to have spent a few years learning calculus. 

 

Dey

[Pali]

See, I was just going to watch the next episode tomorrow then post how awesome it was as my way of giving inscribed the raspberry, but...

Considering that the US populace is a bastion of anti-scientific thought with half of it denying evolution, similar numbers doing the same for climate change, and more than half thinking the Noah story is real... I rarely see a problem with attempts to popularize science unless they get the science wrong.

[Imoutgoodbye]

Through the study of postmodernism and its functions within stories like Thomas Pynchon's Entropy, one can easily develop a fascination with entropy and the laws of thermodynamics.  Just beginning to study such subjects and abstract mathematical matter in relation to the function of the world (universe, however large one desires to go) can lead people to multiple places.  That said, Pynchon's works have been around a loooooong time.  Most people won't ever pick up a copy outside a higher institution of learning.  

 

There's also a wonderful play written by Tom Stoppard, Arcadia that glosses over computer algorithms, fractals, and population dynamics, among a few of the more interesting subjects.  

 

While the "soft" sciences (usually lumped into something called the College of Humanities and Social and Behavorial Sciences, which provide Bachelor of Science degrees) don't often get deeply into the physical sciences, there is a movement to pair them with the physical sciences in greater collaboration.  Hence why there is a Senior Seminar at Central Michigan University for English majors wishing to gain insight into the literary theory of Ecocriticism that has two professors, one literary and one biology, working to give students better insight into Biology.  

 

Getting a population talking, even erroneously, is better than letting them dwell in blatant ignorance.

[Pali]

I can't understand the hate for the social sciences either... Humans are physical, natural entities. Studying human behavior scientifically is no different than studying ant behavior scientifically except in terms of complexity, difficulty and ethics.

[inscribed]

stuff

 

Dey

 

It's got nothing to do with being "elitist". It's about keeping science pure and above pop culture, politics, and other petty crap. Like I said before, if you want to be an actual scientist, or even pursue a scientific field as a hobby, then you have to raise yourself up to it's standards, you don't get to lower the standards of the field so that you can claim yourself a part of it (not you in particular, but a generalized "you"). That requires more than copy/pasting snippets from some science article you found, or googling a term on wikipedia so you can quickly pass off the information as your own knowledge.

And that's exactly what Tyson encourages his fans to do, whether intentionally or not. He's condescending and arrogant, and the fact that he cares more about fame and the spotlight than any actual scientific pursuit should be a blaring indicator of that. Even his little quotes and soundbytes that his fans love to quote show it. "Science is true whether you believe it or not". No, it's really not. Though he was probably speaking in reference to religion, it's still the same aggressive, "in-your-face" attitude that internet atheists love to use when they're looking for someone to make fun of or pick an argument with. It's the same mob mentality "you either agree with me or you're an idiot" attitude that runs prevalent through everything pop culture gets it's hands on. Real, actual science should be above that, and not only should there always be people questioning every status quo, but they should be encouraged to. Instead we have "well, Neil Degrasse Tyson said global warming was a done deal and anyone who disagrees is stupid and can't understand facts", or "well Neil Degrasse Tyson said there are multiple universes so it's obviously a fact and here let me post a picture of some stars so I seem intelligent". The ironic part is that people without any mathematical background have to put forth the same faith and belief into this second hand "science" that other people put into religion (since they don't have the tools to see where these conclusions are being drawn from), yet one group feels justified attacking the other. (Note: I'm not religious, but I hate atheists)

You might say I'm over generalizing, but I see the behavior enough both in the real world and on the internet (even on these forums), that I feel justified making those generalizations. Oh, and Cosmos is being produced by Seth MacFarlane? The same Seth MacFarlane responsible for the crap that is Family Guy, American Dad, and the Cleveland Show? You know, that's actually about the kind of guy I'd expect to be involved with this.

[inscribed]

I can't understand the hate for the social sciences either... Humans are physical, natural entities. Studying human behavior scientifically is no different than studying ant behavior scientifically except in terms of complexity, difficulty and ethics.

 

And how exactly do you study human behavior unscientifically? Oh, I guess throwing the word "scientifically" there as an adverb makes it sound legit. Social sciences are unquantifiable, unrepeatable, and are the very essence of "correlation does not imply causation". It's the exact opposite of science. Psychology and it's ilk have have more in common with history than science. You can be rational and analytical in your study, but that doesn't make it science.

[Imoutgoodbye]

And how exactly do you study human behavior unscientifically? Oh, I guess throwing the word "scientifically" there as an adverb makes it sound legit. Social sciences are unquantifiable, unrepeatable, and are the very essence of "correlation does not imply causation". It's the exact opposite of science. Psychology and it's ilk have have more in common with history than science. You can be rational and analytical in your study, but that doesn't make it science.

 

That is basically why the humanities and psychology can not be sciences; ever (history falls under humanities which are placed in conjunction with psychology).  The best move for the "soft sciences" would be to have them paired up with physical and natural sciences and this means a greater push in the United States for mathematical understanding.  Sure, parents aren't going to be able to help their kids with math, but this area isn't up for discussion due to rants and falling into politics.  Without math there is no scientific understanding.

 

That said, the postmodern idea (and some branch of psychology) deals with the fact that everything on this planet, including time, is a social construction.  Will events still happen without humans?  Certainly.  Humans simply won't be here to measure it "over a period of time" "through growth", etc...This is similar to space; it exists, but humans choose to measure it.

 

This leads to another false idea, that humans are separate entities from the world they live in which marks postmodernism itself as a false (meta) narrative.  The idea that language limits how humans interact with the physical world.

 

So, where is Valek going with all these ramblings?

 

Politics, of course.  Politics falls into the realm of the humanities and it corrupts science.  Science has become viewed more as a tool than a method because of the way it is used.  People who see it as a method can (and often do) fall into a "religious fanatics" category and this is one method of demonization for seeing science as more than a tool.  Yet, the faulty thinking of science as a tool places it under humans and by falling under humans, human thinking (humanities/psychology) are falsely positioned over it as a greater force.  This is how corporations continue to pollute because science is assumed to be the tool that can be used to clean it up.  Science is always supposed to be the solution to a problem, an answer for the failings of humanity in response to socially constructed economic structures and policies (because economics isn't a science, either, no matter how much one might wish it to be  ).  Humans need to be responsible for human actions and begin to limit/eliminate problems rather than continuing to wave science around as a possible future answer for population growth, pollution, limited resources, etc....  That is what politics has done to science through the humanities.

 

All that said, there is little correlation between Family Guy and Cosmos based solely on the producer. Science as fact has always created a decent giggle, especially once people realize gravity is a theory.  Most people aren't going to disbelieve it and jump out a window, though.  With enough strong evidence, theory is taken as fact without being fact.  This is a correlation between a petite narrative and a grande narrative.  The petite narrative covers individual instances where gravity is counteracted by some other physical force (flying, outer space, gliding from large heights) and the grande narrative covers the overall picture, where gravity is the rule rather than the exception (drop a ball, jump without a parachute, pour water).  Please bear in mind my scientific understanding is limited when it comes to the language of science though I have taken Biology, Chemistry, and Physics/AP Physics in high school and a college survey in Chemistry.

[EyeSeeU]

The was no better choice to host Cosmos considering Carl Sagan is Neil deGrasse Tyson's idol.  Did you also know that Seth MacFarlane is an executive producer of the show.  Love the show, but I think I still like watching Neil dawg people with his debates on youtube.

[Pali]

And how exactly do you study human behavior unscientifically? Oh, I guess throwing the word "scientifically" there as an adverb makes it sound legit. Social sciences are unquantifiable, unrepeatable, and are the very essence of "correlation does not imply causation". It's the exact opposite of science. Psychology and it's ilk have have more in common with history than science. You can be rational and analytical in your study, but that doesn't make it science.

 

A fair point - I phrased things badly.  I was less defending the fields as they exist than I was the concept.  My point was thus: if one is capable of using the tools of science - observation, analysis, testing hypotheses, repeating, etc. - to study ant behavior (or better yet that of the other great apes), where is the fundamental difference between using those tools to study human behavior?  My saying they differ in terms of complexity, difficulty and ethics was not a throwaway comment - it is a recognition that human behavior is significantly more complicated than ant behavior (and likely some degree moreso than that of the other great apes as well), that making detailed observations of our behavior and analyzing it is orders of magnitude more difficult, and that humans receive a great deal more ethical consideration than ants which further curtails our ability to study our behavior (locking people away as lab rats is quite rightly frowned upon).  I'm not going to argue that our understanding of or investigations into human behavior are on a par with, say, relativistic physics, but I don't see why both can't in principle be studied by scientific means.

 

I'd completely agree that they should be held at far lower levels of acceptance and reliability, but is that more a matter of limited information due to the above concerns or of flawed methodology at its very core?

[Pali]

 

Science as fact has always created a decent giggle, especially once people realize gravity is a theory.  Most people aren't going to disbelieve it and jump out a window, though.  With enough strong evidence, theory is taken as fact without being fact.  This is a correlation between a petite narrative and a grande narrative.  The petite narrative covers individual instances where gravity is counteracted by some other physical force (flying, outer space, gliding from large heights) and the grande narrative covers the overall picture, where gravity is the rule rather than the exception (drop a ball, jump without a parachute, pour water).  Please bear in mind my scientific understanding is limited when it comes to the language of science though I have taken Biology, Chemistry, and Physics/AP Physics in high school and a college survey in Chemistry.

 

By my layman's understanding, gravity is a fact - that objects attract each other is an observation that can be objectively verified.  There is also the law of gravity, which is the specific equation by which masses attract each other due to their mass and the distance between them.  There is also the theory of general relativity which explains gravity as the curving of space-time by masses, which tells us why the first two happen.  Likewise, evolution is a fact - that populations change over time is an objectively verifiable observation.  How and why they change is covered by the theory of natural selection - populations change over time based upon the spread of progressively more successful genes throughout them over generations.  That the Earth orbits the Sun, that matter is made of atoms (and those of yet smaller particles), and that germs cause disease are also theories.  The "goal" of a theory is not to be proven as a fact - it is to successfully explain and predict facts.

 

Your view of things as narratives often confuses me... gravity is acting no differently in either example.  A bird or plane flying is not an exception to gravity - it still applies force to them.  To my understanding, to label something as an exception to a rule, the rule has to actually not apply to the exception.  The "rule" of gravity is more complicated than "things fall down", so the mere fact of things that don't fall doesn't provide exceptions.

[Magick]

 

Science as fact has always created a decent giggle, especially once people realize gravity is a theory. Most people aren't going to disbelieve it and jump out a window, though. With enough strong evidence, theory is taken as fact without being fact. This is a correlation between a petite narrative and a grande narrative. The petite narrative covers individual instances where gravity is counteracted by some other physical force (flying, outer space, gliding from large heights) and the grande narrative covers the overall picture, where gravity is the rule rather than the exception (drop a ball, jump without a parachute, pour water). Please bear in mind my scientific understanding is limited when it comes to the language of science though I have taken Biology, Chemistry, and Physics/AP Physics in high school and a college survey in Chemistry.

By my layman's understanding, gravity is a fact - that objects attract each other is an observation that can be objectively verified. There is also the law of gravity, which is the specific equation by which masses attract each other due to their mass and the distance between them. There is also the theory of general relativity which explains gravity as the curving of space-time by masses, which tells us why the first two happen. Likewise, evolution is a fact - that populations change over time is an objectively verifiable observation. How and why they change is covered by the theory of natural selection - populations change over time based upon the spread of progressively more successful genes throughout them over generations. That the Earth orbits the Sun, that matter is made of atoms (and those of yet smaller particles), and that germs cause disease are also theories. The "goal" of a theory is not to be proven as a fact - it is to successfully explain and predict facts.

Your view of things as narratives often confuses me... gravity is acting no differently in either example. A bird or plane flying is not an exception to gravity - it still applies force to them. To my understanding, to label something as an exception to a rule, the rule has to actually not apply to the exception. The "rule" of gravity is more complicated than "things fall down", so the mere fact of things that don't fall doesn't provide exceptions.

 

 

 

Since that people tend to interchange some things a bit like theory and law, as with gravity (a common mistake), I'm quoting from this site to define these well without being too convoluted. Unlike most Wikipedia articles.

 

[scientific] Hypothesis:

A hypothesis is an educated guess, based on observation. Usually, a hypothesis can be supported or refuted through experimentation or more observation. A hypothesis can be disproven, but not proven to be true.

Example: If you see no difference in the cleaning ability of various laundry detergents, you might hypothesize that cleaning effectiveness is not affected by which detergent you use. You can see this hypothesis can be disproven if a stain is removed by one detergent and not another. On the other hand, you cannot prove the hypothesis. Even if you never see a difference in the cleanliness of your clothes after trying a thousand detergents, there might be one you haven't tried that could be different.

[scientific] Theory:

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven. Basically, if evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, then the hypothesis can become accepted as a good explanation of a phenomenon. One definition of a theory is to say it's an accepted hypothesis.

Example: It is known that on June 30, 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia, there was an explosion equivalent to the detonation of about 15 million tons of TNT. Many hypotheses have been proposed for what caused the explosion. It is theorized that the explosion was caused by a natural extraterrestrial phenomenon, and was not caused by man. Is this theory a fact? No. The event is a recorded fact. Is this this theory generally accepted to be true, based on evidence to-date? Yes. Can this theory be shown to be false and be discarded? Yes.

[scientific] Law:

A law generalizes a body of observations. At the time it is made, no exceptions have been found to a law. Scientific laws explain things, but they do not describe them. One way to tell a law and a theory apart is to ask if the description gives you a means to explain 'why'.

Example: Consider Newton's Law of Gravity. Newton could use this law to predict the behavior of a dropped object, but he couldn't explain why it happened.

Law and fact are not quite interchangeable, though often they are. Facts are observations that have been confirmed repeatedly and are accepted to be true. They are used to describe laws. They are also specific; mercury is a liquid at STP. If you drop a ball on Earth, it will fall to the ground. That's fairly specific, but the Law of Gravity says they will attract each other and as the ball has the considerably lower mass, the effects will be most visible there. Less specific as mass differences and relative locations are concerned.

So that being said, while the Law of Gravity is more complicated than "things fall down", it would be more precise to say that it's as simple as saying that "things attract each other". As for the petite/grande narrative concerning gravity, my gripe is with the word "counteract". Gravity isn't counteracted. It's not reduced nor neutralized. It's overcome. Gravity is still there using its force against everything in the universe. An airplane is not creating a null field around itself to fly. The force of lift is greater than the force of gravity and the airplane will remain aloft until that lift is reduced as to be lower than the gravitational constant.

Pali, you're examples of the Earth orbiting the Sun, matter made of atoms, etc. They're facts, not theories. We've seen, observed or proven them in some form or fashion. The orbits by the laws of planetary motion, observance of the relationship between the position of stars to Earth, vehicles outside of Earth's orbit, etc; the atoms by direct observance and spectrometry to name some; quarks by bashing protons and other matter together at high speed and looking at the debris. Now what quarks are made of, theories can be made.

 

 

Of course, if I've erred, I'm open to correction.