[thkoutsidthebox]

Isn't it ironic, a species that evolved from a hairy ape, lost most of it's hair, found a way to herd other hair bearing animals together to remove their hair, so that the hairless ape could make clothes to replace the hair it started out with.

Very clever, is that evolution or am I missing the plot somewhere?
Ian.

LOL...not missing the plot, but possibly missing the point! I'm confused....are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?

[dufas]

Thats an interesting video. I'll never understand the scepticism towards such things. They might turn out to be bogus, but with something like that, if the reaction occurs even once then its not 'impossible'. What is it about certain scientists who only want to accept whats already been before them, and they have no ambition to push the boundaries and advance science beyond whats currently accepted. Most of what is currently accepted, that which they have learned about in their careers, was at one point not accepted.

Those scientists that will not except contrary evidence have worked their way to the top of the scientific food chain and grant status. They do not want to loose their power, money, and position, therefore, any advancement that comes along that does not fit their belief system or is not presented in the 'prescribed' manner will not be accepted as fact. The advancement will not even be looked at scientifically because not only was the experiment performed by those not with the prescribed temperament, it was first presented outside scientific circles.

A historical example of scientific denial was the Wright Brothers and their heavier than air experiments. Scientists ridiculed the idea of powered flight all through the Wright Brother's initial experiments.

Another 'proven' scientific edict was that traveling in an automobile faster than 30 MPH would kill a person by sucking all the breath out of a persons lungs.

Jimmy Dolittle proved that a large attack bomber could be launched from an aircraft carrier when all of the aeronautical scientists stated that it would be impossible and they had the facts and figures to prove it can't be done.

Then there is Geof's bumblebee which science have proved it is impossible for the critter to fly.

Using the logic of some people here, there is no reason to have a court system. Some authority determines that a person is guilty of a crime and therefore, it must be true. Forget about a trial, just go straight to pronouncing sentence. Don't let a little thing like the person has been wrongly accused stand in the way when all of the other police take the word of the arresting officer. Consensus means more than the truth.........

[mike hide]

Excerpts from Cold Fusion: Fire from Water

Watch the complete video. Although it concerns cold fusion, it is telling as to how the discoverers were treated by their fellow scientists and scientific reporters. This might seem familiar with a few posters here......

I see pictures pike this all the rows and rows of windmills. Seems to me every suceeding row has less energy to work with and straight line wind,why don't they do different heights so that they take advantage of clean full energy airflow......?

[NinerSevenTango]

It would seem that the elusive dream of something for nothing is alive and kicking.

Untill the scientists actually produce tangible results for their efforts, it is just Alice in Wonderland mythology, nice to think about, nicer to dream about and even nicer if just a little actual practical results were available.

All this tends to make even a simple person a little sceptical, especially when even the scientists themselves disagree on a process that is so earth shattering in it's potential it even exceeds the expectations of the huddled masses in their quest for a viable future.

Like all great ideas, untill the proof of the pudding has been tasted, it is just a recipe, and as such does not deserve any acclaim untill indeed the proof of the pudding is tasted.

What does it matter if the whole world is against them if in the end the product becomes viable, until that day I'll just burn gas for my cooking and heating and light my hovel with electricity from whatever source the energy providers see fit to obtain it and fuel my petrol buggy with oil derivatives et al, tried, tested and proved, and that's some pudding.

<snip>.....


Ian.

This is the same criteria that gets applied to the global warming scare.

In addition, besides being impossible to replicate like the cold fusion claims, the global warming bunkum is demonstrably false in its premises, and its promoters fake the data to support their case. As well, the prescription given won't save mankind, but will ruin it instead. Which seems fine with the followers, who look with envy at their betters and happily seize upon any means to try to bring them down.
Consistency in logic is not their strong suit.

--97T--

Edit: It wasn't just the Wright brothers that got ridiculed by the scientific community. It was a whole lot of others that had wrong ideas as well. Sometimes the maverick is right and everyone else is all wet. But the Wright brothers flew their airplane, got it on film, and others were able to replicate their results. With cold fusion, all that is required is that the results be replicated. Same with the claims of super-cracking water with high frequency electrolysis, etc. Publish the plans, and soon people everywhere will prove you right -- if you're right.

[NinerSevenTango]

It would seem that the elusive dream of something for nothing is alive and kicking.

<snip>

BTW, it is now an established and documented fact that more electric energy is being produced by wind power than Nuclear power, and at 1/10th the cost of a nuclear installation of equal capacity.

However there is still a long way to go to exceed the production of electricity by coal.

Don't ask for evidence, just refute the claim if you have evidence to the contrary.
Ian.

What costs less, the generators? 1/10th? Maybe, if you hide a whole lot of the costs. And the electricity costs more, way more. Here's why:

http://www.mnforsustain.org/windpowe...lectricity.htm

Every wind farm requires a conventional power plant of equal capacity to be available for the 70% of the time when the wind isn't blowing in the right speed range or at the right time. That means if your electrical system is at capacity and you want to add capacity by adding a wind farm, you have to build a real power plant of equal capacity anyway. Plus the extra transmission costs. If you ignore that, you're in dreamland. In the long run, electricity from wind can only nibble at the margins. You just can't depend on it. Storage to even out the supply multiplies the costs many times over. That's why the factories that make windmills aren't powered by their own product!

I can see why you don't want to substantiate this wild claim. Since that paper above was written, the myriad ways of hiding the true costs of this hare-brained scheme have only multiplied. Let me know when you get a reduction in taxes and a rate break on your electricity because of all this newfound wonderful efficiency. You can get efficiency out of a press release just like you can get manliness out of a bottle of rum.

--97T--

[NinerSevenTango]

Finally, something personal we can all do to really save the world:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...d.foodanddrink

I'm not so sure. If I substitute more beans into my diet, I'll be transforming carbon compounds into methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than innocent little CO2.

--97T--

[chrbau]

Once Darwins ideas about natural selection was totaly rejected by "peer-reviewed science".
The weather is changing, as it always has. It's a brilliant idea to collect more taxes though. "pay the taxes or the weathrgods will destroy us!"
I think the Mayas tried something similar and look how that went...
The weather is changing. Get ready instead of trying to distribute the blame.

[dan_the_welder]

Hi,

I think you are confusing scientists with people who will do anything to keep their jobs and/or influence.

These people are everywhere and are a huge problem in all fields; politics, business, academia, religion.

Once your desire to maintain your vested interest starts to block progress and new knowlege , you cease to be a human being and become an animal. Feral.

The animals run the show these days and that's a bad thing.

Dan the welder

[dufas]

Hi,

I think you are confusing scientists with people who will do anything to keep their jobs and/or influence.

These people are everywhere and are a huge problem in all fields; politics, business, academia, religion.

Once your desire to maintain your vested interest starts to block progress and new knowlege , you cease to be a human being and become an animal. Feral.

The animals run the show these days and that's a bad thing.

Dan the welder

Then all scientists are upstanding people, none of them have a vested interest or any other human failing.......???

[dan_the_welder]

Then all scientists are upstanding people, none of them have a vested interest or any other human failing.......???

No Doofas,

I am saying, some scientists are not upstanding people.

I am saying, that there are plenty of people who are not upstanding.

I am saying that these not upstanding people are everywhere, in positions of power and influence.

I am saying, call them what they really are, dishonest.

I am saying don't say "scientist" like a it's a curse word.

I am saying, let further the discourse by getting our terminology straight so we can solve the problem.

However if you just want to argue, It's one pound for a five minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.

Dan the welder.

[fizzissist]

Most people apparently don't realize that scientists are often entrepeneurs too.

I know of at least a dozen who have used their position to get a grant, use spin-off technology from the grant to develop a product or process that they build their own private company around.

Many of them patent the ideas, use the university resources (including student labor) to develop the ideas, and even though the universities get a healthy portion of the patent, the scientist starts raking in the money.

Conflict of interest? It's ok, they sign disclaimers. The university looks the other way...though they'll often use the patent as a self-kudo on what a wonderful place they run.

Universities are also great places to steal ideas.

But scientists are, for the most part, straight up and honest guys, playing it by the book.

[dufas]

No Doofas,

I am saying, some scientists are not upstanding people.

I am saying, that there are plenty of people who are not upstanding.

I am saying that these not upstanding people are everywhere, in positions of power and influence.

I am saying, call them what they really are, dishonest.

I am saying don't say "scientist" like a it's a curse word.

I am saying, let further the discourse by getting our terminology straight so we can solve the problem.

However if you just want to argue, It's one pound for a five minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.

Dan the welder.

The statement "I think you are confusing scientists with people who will do anything to keep their jobs and/or influence." sounds as if one should leave scientists out of any suggestion of wrong doing or being upstanding people. The rest of your post I agree with completely.

Having worked with a group of environmental scientists and listening to how they are going to extend or get more grant monies and watching them change software and test procedures until the outcome fit their original hypothesis plus the skulduggery they engaged in with visiting scientists against other scientists made these 'people' no different than the average politician...

And 'Doofus', [spelled Dufas for people that can't spell...} is a nickname given to me by my daughters grade school class after a character in a booklet that she wrote and I illustrated for her. It was a book on how people should treat each other with civility and respect. This was years ago and now the kids are older but still come by the house and many still call me by that name. Although it is generally used in a derogatory fashion, I am pretty proud of the name......

[dufas]

Most people apparently don't realize that scientists are often entrepeneurs too.

I know of at least a dozen who have used their position to get a grant, use spin-off technology from the grant to develop a product or process that they build their own private company around.

Many of them patent the ideas, use the university resources (including student labor) to develop the ideas, and even though the universities get a healthy portion of the patent, the scientist starts raking in the money.

Conflict of interest? It's ok, they sign disclaimers. The university looks the other way...though they'll often use the patent as a self-kudo on what a wonderful place they run.

Universities are also great places to steal ideas.

But scientists are, for the most part, straight up and honest guys, playing it by the book.

Many of the environmental scientists that I worked with invested in the very companies that would get a government boost from the data these scientists presented to the government. A lot like Al Gore preaching global warming and setting up a company to profit from the hysteria he creates.... Invested interest working overtime......

[fizzissist]

I have to respond to Dufas' comments....
..."Having worked with a group of environmental scientists and listening to how they are going to extend or get more grant monies and watching them change software and test procedures until the outcome fit their original hypothesis plus the skulduggery they engaged in with visiting scientists against other scientists made these 'people' no different than the average politician... "

I stand behind what I said, and at the same time I know EXACTLY what he means. I've seen that too.

There's a fixed amount of NSF money available, or DOE, or whatever granting agency, and the competition for that money is fierce. "Publish or perish" is no joke.

[dufas]

I have to respond to Dufas' comments....
..."Having worked with a group of environmental scientists and listening to how they are going to extend or get more grant monies and watching them change software and test procedures until the outcome fit their original hypothesis plus the skulduggery they engaged in with visiting scientists against other scientists made these 'people' no different than the average politician... "

I stand behind what I said, and at the same time I know EXACTLY what he means. I've seen that too.

There's a fixed amount of NSF money available, or DOE, or whatever granting agency, and the competition for that money is fierce. "Publish or perish" is no joke.

The scientists that I worked with were not only getting government monies, they were getting 'grants' from companies that would benefit from the data that was produced,.... if it was the 'correct' kind of data. For all intents and purposes, the 'correct' data was produced and several of the scientists went on to cushy jobs at some of the companies. My wife's ex-husband, which worked with these guys ended up in a high paying state position based on his work on this project. Manipulation of data can be quite rewarding......

[NinerSevenTango]

Soon we will be granting titles of nobility ......

[fizzissist]

Vice President and Provost has a nice ring of nobility, don't it??

Massaging the data to conform with desired results is close to what's called "dry labbing"... Lab results with none of the inconvenient work...

The Seismology Department at UNR was given a grant by DOE to study Yucca Mountain for suitability as a nuclear waste repository.....some of the initial results of their reports weren't what DOE wanted to hear, and DOE just withheld about $100k of the funding until the tone of the reports changed. (this was not a Bush/GOP specific issue, btw)

I know one prof who had an experiment set up in a university lab and was going to bring some potential investors for his private company in to woo them with the science....part of the sales pitch was to have a student explain the magical benefits of the system.

Problem was, it was all lies, the student knew it, and refused to participate in the dog & pony show. He was subsequently let go.

It is unimaginable the amount of money that has been spent studying EPA Superfund Site remediation.

[NinerSevenTango]

It's Atlas Shrugged come to life.

--97T--

[dufas]

Massaging the data to conform with desired results is close to what's called "dry labbing"... Lab results with none of the inconvenient work...

Al Gorish truths............................

[fizzissist]

Another AlGorish rumor being circulated is the impending doom faced when they cross the streams with the large hadron collider in CERN......I'll expect Handlewanker to be on that bandwagon...he seems to thrive on an anaerobic environment.

For the rest of us who wanna party while Geneva burns, here's a little P-hoton Diddy number....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM"]YouTube - Large Hadron Rap[/ame]