Interesting Stuff Thread

Genghiz Cohen

swampgas wrote: »

I'd love one. Think of the party games you could invent!

I think the most popular game you could play in there was invented some time ago.

You could call it the Glory-Box. Get on your knees and start pleasing.. who(m)ever!!!

obplayer

swampgas wrote: »

I'd love one. Think of the party games you could invent!

Given some of the Church's activities and pastimes I'd really rather not!

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/first-meeting-between-government-and-atheist-group-to-take-place-1.2097361

The first formal meeting between a taoiseach and members of an atheist advocacy group in the history of the State is set to take place this Tuesday evening.

The meeting is part of the structured dialogue with churches, faith communities and non-confessional bodies set up in February 2007.

It will be attended by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan, Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland as well as an atheist teacher, an atheist parent and an atheist student.

The advocacy group will explain how Ireland breaches the human rights of 340,000 people in the State who, according to the 2011 census, did not identify with any religion. They will illustrate how the Constitution, the education system and Irish laws and practices systemically discriminate against atheists.

robindch

Got to hand it to Michael, Jane and the rest of the crew. That kind of meeting would have been a little unthinkable just a few years back.

Hope ti goes well - and let's see what comes of it!

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

Got to hand it to Michael, Jane and the rest of the crew.

Indeed.

That kind of meeting would have been a little unthinkable just a few years back.

Ironically that's exactly the opposite of what one B. Ahern said in 2007 - from the same IT article above:

Launching the dialogue process in Dublin Castle on February 26th, 2007, then taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the State must “equally be alive to the rights and position of those who do not subscribe to religious faith. Many have contributed to building up Irish society and to the quality of our democracy, and the humanity of our society, from a philosophical basis which owes little or nothing to religious belief or practice. “It is a special care for governments in a society like ours – where religious belief and practice has shaped so much of our culture and institutions – to respect and provide for, and engage with and listen to, those who articulate public positions from such a perspective. The dialogue process which we are inaugurating today includes, as a core and defining feature, engagement with that important and growing section of Irish society.”

He added: “We live in a pluralist society, where doubt and disbelief exist side-by-side with an increasing diversity of faiths.”

Wow. Atheists don't have horns, and some of them actually have morals. And it only took 8 years to get to talk to some of them.

Cabaal

http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/

as of mid-2011, Mount Everest has claimed the lives of over 216 known mountain climbers.

the above link details the fact that much of them are left out in the open, the link maybe NSFW do to images it links to.

robindch

Earthlings, behold your heater. In HD if you can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSVv40M2aks

Shrap

Wow. Behold our Creator, more like. Superb.

obplayer

Shrap wrote: »

Wow. Behold our Creator, more like. Superb.

Yeah, at least the Egyptians had the sense to worship it as Ra, a God who actually does something useful.

Calibos

Hail Ra!! Finally a south eastern mediterranean bronze age civilisation I can agree with

robindch

Ever wondered why mirrors flip things horizontally, but not vertically? Well, whatever it is you thought, you're probably wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBpxhfBlVLU

recedite

It never occurred to me that mirrors flipped anything, but if she wants to call a reflection "an inversion through the z dimension" that's fine by me

robindch

recedite wrote: »

[...] if she wants to call a reflection "an inversion through the z dimension" that's fine by me

Think gloves.

swampgas

robindch wrote: »

Ever wondered why mirrors flip things horizontally, but not vertically? Well, whatever it is you thought, you're probably wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBpxhfBlVLU

This was called "lateral inversion" in a science book I had at school a long long time ago - I remember thinking at the time that it was nonsense, as a mirror doesn't know which way is up. Good video though.

Hotblack Desiato

She should've written the word on a clear piece of plastic and held it up to the mirror - the letters viewed from behind and viewed in the mirror would look identical.

pauldla

So, today being the first day of the Chinese New Year, I'd like to wish all xin nian kuai le. This being the Year of the Goat (or Sheep, depending on translation and/or personal preference), and not just any Goat but a Blue Wooden Goat (or Green Wooden, teach the controversy), it's a good year for small business owners. Why? Because that's just how Blue Wooden Goats roll.

chun jie kuai le, gong xi fa cai!

http://community.travelchinaguide.com/learn-chinese/lesson.asp?id=22

CramCycle

recedite wrote: »

It never occurred to me that mirrors flipped anything, but if she wants to call a reflection "an inversion through the z dimension" that's fine by me

+1 I never knew this was considered a source of confusion, it is a reflection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYh94XTJTDU

KomradeBishop

Great article on fraud in science, with some pretty shocking results about the lack of reproducibility of many scientific claims (in this case, specifically in biotech):
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/18/haruko-obokata-stap-cells-controversy-scientists-lie

Not only are most experiments not reproduced, most are probably not reproducible. This statement will shock only those who have never worked in a wet lab. Those who have will already suspect as much.

A few years ago, Glenn Begley put this suspicion to the test. As head of cancer research for pharmaceutical giant Amgen, he attempted to repeat 53 landmark experiments in that field, important work published in some of the world’s top science journals. To his horror, he and his team managed to confirm only six of them. That’s a meagre 11%. Researchers at Bayer set up a similar trial and were similarly depressed by the results. Out of 67 published studies into the therapeutic potential of various drugs (mostly for the treatment of cancer), they were able to reproduce less than a quarter.

The Amgen and Bayer studies were too small to tell us how bad the problem really is, but they do illustrate something that biomedical researchers already know in their heart of hearts: reproducibility is the exception rather than the rule. There are probably many reasons for this. Apart from outright fraud, there are all those “benevolent mistakes” that scientists make more or less unwittingly: poor experiment design, sloppy data management, bias in the interpretation of facts and inadequate communication of results and methods. Then, of course, there is the devilish complexity of reality itself, which withholds more than it reveals to the prying eyes of science.

Makes you wonder how much of the more expensive/cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, actually have very little real backing - seems an incredibly easy way to generate a ton of demand for a fraudulent product, and get bucketloads of money from inflated prices due to patents, by pushing a drug as treatment for a condition, without it even being effective.

obplayer

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Great article on fraud in science, with some pretty shocking results about the lack of reproducibility of many scientific claims (in this case, specifically in biotech):
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/18/haruko-obokata-stap-cells-controversy-scientists-lie



Makes you wonder how much of the more expensive/cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, actually have very little real backing - seems an incredibly easy way to generate a ton of demand for a fraudulent product, and get bucketloads of money from inflated prices due to patents, by pushing a drug as treatment for a condition, without it even being effective.

This is why science has mechanisms such as peer review to weed out the fraudulent / irreproducible claims. Pharmaceuticals have a specific problem in that the research can be hideously expensive and the details of it are clung to by the pharmaceutical companies with positively demonic determination. This makes it very difficult to test whether their results are reproducible or not. The reason for this in the case of pharmaceuticals is simple. Money. Science does it's best and is still the least worst system for research and investigation humanity has ever come up with.

KomradeBishop

obplayer wrote: »

This is why science has mechanisms such as peer review to weed out the fraudulent / irreproducible claims. Pharmaceuticals have a specific problem in that the research can be hideously expensive and the details of it are clung to by the pharmaceutical companies with positively demonic determination. This makes it very difficult to test whether their results are reproducible or not. The reason for this in the case of pharmaceuticals is simple. Money. Science does it's best and is still the least worst system for research and investigation humanity has ever come up with.

Indeed, though some of the highlighted article comments were interesting, in that the worst/most-irreproducible research was coming from academia, and making its way into peer review journals (and with so much research not having reproduced verification, it seems rather easy to slip through); i.e. journals don't themselves have a mechanism for verifying reproducibility, but just enable the wider community to attempt it.

Agreed though - it's still the best system we have (though likely able to be improved quite a bit more), just worrying how easy it is to commit fraud (and make a ton of money doing it).

I've had Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Pharma' in my book pile for a number of years now - must dust it off sometime and finally read it.

CramCycle

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Great article on fraud in science, with some pretty shocking results about the lack of reproducibility of many scientific claims (in this case, specifically in biotech):

Makes you wonder how much of the more expensive/cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, actually have very little real backing - seems an incredibly easy way to generate a ton of demand for a fraudulent product, and get bucketloads of money from inflated prices due to patents, by pushing a drug as treatment for a condition, without it even being effective.

obplayer wrote: »

This is why science has mechanisms such as peer review to weed out the fraudulent / irreproducible claims. Pharmaceuticals have a specific problem in that the research can be hideously expensive and the details of it are clung to by the pharmaceutical companies with positively demonic determination. This makes it very difficult to test whether their results are reproducible or not. The reason for this in the case of pharmaceuticals is simple. Money. Science does it's best and is still the least worst system for research and investigation humanity has ever come up with.

From my experience in wet labs, it is some of the more "revered" journals that are the worst for this kind of sh1t. Nature for me has never provided a workable/reproducible experimental protocol, sometimes it is minor in that it is an issue with the technical issues and concentrations (yes that's right, Nature has contributors who can't work out concentrations correctly). But others are wholly unreproducible, when in college, I collaborated with other universities/colleges so it wasn't that I was alone. I often found the OA papers gave far easier to reproduce data sets, numbers might differ slightly but the correlation in increases/decreases where quite accurate.

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Indeed, though some of the highlighted article comments were interesting, in that the worst/most-irreproducible research was coming from academia, and making its way into peer review journals (and with so much research not having reproduced verification, it seems rather easy to slip through); i.e. journals don't themselves have a mechanism for verifying reproducibility, but just enable the wider community to attempt it.

Alot do though, while never a first author myself, I helped out in the lab through my MSc verifying data but our PI was on a peer review board for the BMJ and would be sent papers directly related to his field. He fully agreed that this caused issues as you would have bitter PIs, refusing papers as it would beat their work to the punch but often it meant that he either had a similar experiment done or new someone in another lab who had done similar work and could drop them a note and ask what would you expect, if not satisfied, he could ask them to re run it with far more detail in the raw data. PITA but it worked, I don't think the higher up journals give as much of a sh1t once its a paper that will keep their ranking up. I do enjoy the reviews where someone coallates the data and comments how all of these labs have broadly similar data, but one or two labs have data that contradicts the theory completely, either before the fact or after the fact, make of that what you will. Sometimes, it is human error and varying but undetailed experimental conditions, but sometimes, the before and after of the disagreeing data lead me to think otherwise.

Agreed though - it's still the best system we have (though likely able to be improved quite a bit more), just worrying how easy it is to commit fraud (and make a ton of money doing it).

I have all my raw data in a box, as I was warned to hold onto it, as I have seen people, within my own old institution, forced to pull back their work, another who was found to be a fraud and had their PhD pulled as well as reducing the chance of their PI getting funding ever again, even though he falsified the data and the PI would not have known that easily. Alot of groups near mine stopped having such trusting PIs after that, which is no bad thing but it does show how easy it is to do, worse is, that once published, unless refuted, can mislead future research and end up costing not a few thousand but 100s of thousands, possibly millions around the world, as well as setting back research in that field, if only a small bit, years. I was lucky to have a PI who insisted on doing all the basic stuff from the ground up, even though at the time I thought it was a waste.

robindch

Baba Brinkman, former rapper on the topic of evolutionary psychology, turns his attention to religion:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/theater/review-rap-guide-to-religion-examines-why-humanity-created-god.html

Here's his TED talk on his ev-p rap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB_kVIoovJI

Tar.Aldarion

Dawkins/krauss talk in trinity tomorrow I see, in case people were interested. Tickets are dear enough!

Calibos

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Dawkins/krauss talk in trinity tomorrow I see, in case people were interested. Tickets are dear enough!

Reminds me of the time Dawkins did a talk in the NCH venue for the Launch of the The Greatest Show on Earth IIRC. Myself and my brother attended. We took our seats and almost straight away I pointed out a guy about 6 seats further down the row and said, "Thats going to be tonights argumentative heckling religionist thats going to be removed by security". Its not like he looked like a wild man or anything but he looked a bit shifty, fidgety etc Presumably I have a good mentalist radar from working in retail for donkeys years.

When it happened an hour or so later my brother laughed and when I turned around in my seat to watch him being escorted down the aisle by security, the people behind who had obviously heard my prediction earlier made the little hand clap gesture and mouthed Bravo!!

Turtwig

Are you saying you took a faith based position? :eek:

TheChizler

After reading this, well, article (?), on the occasion of Dolly the Sheep being awarded a commemorative plaque I found myself reading the Wikipedia article, and was amused by this interesting line:

Dolly was born on 5 July 1996 and had three mothers (one provided the egg, another the DNA and a third carried the cloned embryo to term).

I wonder what Lolek Ltd. and Co.'s reaction this little tidbit would be.

robindch

TheChizler wrote: »

I wonder what Lolek Ltd. and Co.'s reaction this little tidbit would be.

It's baa-baaaaaaaa-d.

recedite

TheChizler wrote: »

After reading this, well, article (?), on the occasion of Dolly the Sheep being awarded a commemorative plaque I found myself reading the Wikipedia article, and was amused by this interesting line..

I see its a "blue" plaque and I hope its made out of wood too, seeing as we are now in the Chinese Year of the Blue Wooden Sheep (an auspicious year for founding a new religion BTW, in case anyone had a good idea for one on the back burner)

Also the Dolly commemoration is good timing as the UK has just voted to allow 3 parent embryos, although in fairness that is 3 parents and not 3 mothers. The male parent's contribution is obviously not relevant when cloning a female.

Still if we combined the mitochondrial DNA thing with Varadkars upcoming surrogacy laws, we could have 4 parent humans being produced here in the near future...

TheChizler

recedite wrote: »

Still if we combined the mitochondrial DNA thing with Varadkars upcoming surrogacy laws, we could have 4 parent humans being produced here in the near future...

Goodbye mammy and daddy, hello mammy and mammy... and mammy and mammy...

recedite

Three mammys, one daddy.