I'm not a scientist man!

[timtofly]

It's a perfectly fine answer.

Even if it came from a scientist who was asked how to reconcile their beliefs?

 

[dutchfire]

I don't think that would be the case in a simulation. You can simulate something as big as the earth on something as small as a computer.

The limit could be the amount of processing power. At some point the turtle runs out of RAM.

When you simulate the earth on a computer, you ignore a lot of 'degrees of freedom', you are basically simulating a simplified model of the earth. You can not describe the state of every molecule in the atmosphere with your little computer, but that is usually not necessary. Knowing the average temperature and humidity in a 1km x 1km block will often be enough.

The largest thing you can simulate with a computer is a computer.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have to admit I have significantly less disdain for Rubio now.

 

[kochman]

...And bringing us back to the topic of the OP:

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/...panic-voters-a-gop-challenge-84620_Page2.html


As much as I'm annoyed to admit it, this is a reasonable response.

I agree with him a lot here...

However, "In America we should have the right to teach our children whatever we want"...
I am not sure how I feel about this. I don't want Big Brother forcing newspeak down my kid's throat... but have you seen what some people are teaching their kids?!

 

[peter grimes]

Even if it came from a scientist who was asked how to reconcile their beliefs?

Yes - there are thousands of stellar scientists who have no problem believing that their god made the ground rules - prime mover style - and their job is to discover those rules.

You will find next to none who believe in the YEC, Evilution, Jesus-is-my-ghost-brother, style of gods. And even if there were, it wouldn't invalidate any of their scientific accomplishments.

Why? Because the personal beliefs of the person doing the research are completely irrelevant to the work itself. Albert Einstein could have been a Waffen SS Reichstagjudenjagermeister guilty of war crimes and that would not have any effect on the validity of his Nobel Prize work, Special Relativity, or General Relativity.

In Science, good work is good work - no matter who does it.

 

[uppi]

When you simulate the earth on a computer, you ignore a lot of 'degrees of freedom', you are basically simulating a simplified model of the earth. You can not describe the state of every molecule in the atmosphere with your little computer, but that is usually not necessary. Knowing the average temperature and humidity in a 1km x 1km block will often be enough.

The largest thing you can simulate with a computer is a computer.

To illustrate how hard such a simulation gets once you include all degrees of freedom: Current supercomputers can simulate systems up to around 50 particles. For anything more complex you need to start making simplifications.

 

[peter grimes]

To illustrate how hard such a simulation gets once you include all degrees of freedom: Current supercomputers can simulate systems up to around 50 particles. For anything more complex you need to start making simplifications.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question:

Does 50 particles mean 50 variables? Or is it 50 <objects>?

Or is it 50 quarks yielding ~15-20, umm, baryons?

And does the time slice resolution matter?

 

[uppi]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question:

Does 50 particles mean 50 variables? Or is it 50 <objects>?

Or is it 50 quarks yielding ~15-20, umm, baryons?

And does the time slice resolution matter?

It is fifty two level systems (qubits), no matter what kind of objects are represented by these systems. If the objects involved have more than two states, the whole thing gets more complex and the number of objects gets smaller.

This is only a rough number, you can decrease the length of the simulation or make the time slices larger, but it scales exponentially with the number of particles, so there's not that much you could gain with that. The timescale of your dynamics sets a lower limit to you resolution anyway, there is no point in being able to simulate many particles when the simulation is wildly inaccurate.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

When you simulate the earth on a computer, you ignore a lot of 'degrees of freedom', you are basically simulating a simplified model of the earth. You can not describe the state of every molecule in the atmosphere with your little computer, but that is usually not necessary. Knowing the average temperature and humidity in a 1km x 1km block will often be enough.

The largest thing you can simulate with a computer is a computer.

You are talking about computers as we know them now. What about computers in 50 years? 100? 200? 1000?

The computer also doesn't need to 'render' everything, just that which is perceived.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes - there are thousands of stellar scientists who have no problem believing that their god made the ground rules - prime mover style - and their job is to discover those rules.

Yes, there are. But there is many less of them than their are in the general public and their numbers are trending downward:
(NAS = National Academy of Scineces [US])

Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality).

Here is the link, it's an overview of a 1998 survey. IIRC, in the movie Religulous, Bill Maher claimed an even smaller number of NAS members were religious, which fits the trend presented in the article.

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0
Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2
Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8

BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9
Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7
Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3

^Sorry, this site isn't letting me keep the formatting I want and I'm too lazy to make a table. Should be readable though.

However, "In America we should have the right to teach our children whatever we want"...
I am not sure how I feel about this. I don't want Big Brother forcing newspeak down my kid's throat... but have you seen what some people are teaching their kids?!

This is exactly the attitude that is eroding people's belief in the scientific method and the value of education. On the one hand, you acknowledge the fundies teach their homeschooled kids crazy stuff (which is a rare admission from someone who goes on to: ) but on the other, you attack the premise of science.

'Newspeak' isn't what science is about, it has nothing whatsoever with the goals of public education. Just by dropping that in there with this quip proves nothing. It only serves to conflate two completely separate issues.

lol we gotta stop people from teaching evolution because it will lead to a one-party state!

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ugh, ugh and triple ugh.

"In America we should have the right to teach our children whatever we want"

Your children are not your property.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, there are. But there is many less of them than their are in the general public and their numbers are trending downward:
(NAS = National Academy of Scineces [US])

Here is the link, it's an overview of a 1998 survey. IIRC, in the movie Religulous, Bill Maher claimed an even smaller number of NAS members were religious, which fits the trend presented in the article.


^Sorry, this site isn't letting me keep the formatting I want and I'm too lazy to make a table. Should be readable though.

This is exactly the attitude that is eroding people's belief in the scientific method and the value of education. On the one hand, you acknowledge the fundies teach their homeschooled kids crazy stuff (which is a rare admission from someone who goes on to: ) but on the other, you attack the premise of science.

'Newspeak' isn't what science is about, it has nothing whatsoever with the goals of public education. Just by dropping that in there with this quip proves nothing. It only serves to conflate two completely separate issues.

lol we gotta stop people from teaching evolution because it will lead to a one-party state!

You are confusing two separate ideas. The call was not to stop people from teaching evolution. To express discomfort with state mandated curriculum, which does carry a political element like it or not, is not a condemnation of science. My legislature in Springfield does not own legitimate scientific eduction, much as it purports to on occasion.

Your children are not your property.

Nor are they wards of your state.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You are confusing two separate ideas. The call was not to stop people from teaching evolution. To express discomfort with state mandated curriculum, which does carry a political element like it or not, is not a condemnation of science. My legislature in Springfield does not own legitimate scientific eduction, much as it purports to on occasion.

That's not what I'm fighting against.

I'm fighting against any efforts to conflate science in school curriculum with brainwashing. His statement was an attack on science given that the vast majority of objection to school curriculum, even the 'political element' of it, is due to the politicization(?) of science. One word says it all: evolution.

It's both science and thanks to the fundies, politicized. Then you have the big bang and the age of the Earth, etc to contend with. The complaints of brainwashing via public education are almost never about evil Springfield forcing kids to learn to much about Lincoln and tricking them into loving Illinois. It's almost always about some aspect of science the fundie teahadists don't like because God (or rather their interpretation of God and his glorious works).

Plus, kochman didn't exactly try and separate his (and I'll just roll with your suggestion that this is what he meant) disdain for political brainwashing from an attack on science, given this is thread about science.

Nor are they wards of your state.

Well if you screw them up enough, they will be.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Nor are they wards of your state.

Nein, they are njet.

They are empty bundles of joy who long to be filled with knowledge and stuff. Stuff they can use later in life to determine by themselves what to believe and what no to believe. Not because they were raised to believe something, but because they made up their own damned mind.

I know the difficulties with this sentiment. I am well aware. The only reason I reacted as I did was the "we should have" part. We sure as hell should not. It's unavoidable that a parent who believes in hell and heaven will teach their kids to respectively avoid the one, and give it as much ammo to reach the other.

But we should not teach our children whatever we want or believe. We should prepare them to make up their own mind.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't have much issue with parents raising their kids to be religious. I wish they wouldn't, but I can't fault them. They genuinely believe that fire and brimstone await their kids if they don't instill in them a healthy believe in God. Again, I don't like that they believe this, but I can't fault them for trying to prevent their children from going to hell.

But at the same time this approach (IMO) is antithetical to progress, particularly in this country where so many of the religious folk put no effort into understanding how the universe actually works or how God made it work (if you want to go that route) and instead attack everything that their narrow minds percieve as being anti-God.

So I don't fault them, but it's still a big problem in the long run.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't have much issue with parents raising their kids to be religious. I wish they wouldn't, but I can't fault them. They genuinely believe that fire and brimstone await their kids if they don't instill in them a healthy believe in God. Again, I don't like that they believe this, but I can't fault them for trying to prevent their children from going to hell.

But at the same time this approach (IMO) is antithetical to progress, particularly in this country where so many of the religious folk put no effort into understanding how the universe actually works or how God made it work (if you want to go that route) and instead attack everything that their narrow minds percieve as being anti-God.

So I don't fault them, but it's still a big problem in the long run.

Guh. And I think this sort of bias is a big problem for progress in the long run.

If you think ignorance and apathy towards understanding is a quality reserved for the religious how do you explain, oh I don't know, the rest of American idiocy? Especially in the light of your earlier quoted link? The big bad baptist boogeyman isn't the source of ignorance.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Guh. And I think this sort of bias is a big problem for progress in the long run.

If you think ignorance and apathy towards understanding is a quality reserved for the religious how do you explain, oh I don't know, the rest of American idiocy? Especially in the light of your earlier quoted link? The big bad baptist boogeyman isn't the source of ignorance.

Science/scientist do not generally rail against religion. ---> Not a problem for anyone

Religion/the religious frequently do rail against science in this country. ---> Big problem for our future economic growth and competitiveness

I'm not talking about 'the rest of American idiocy', I'm only talking about American idiocy as it concerns the attitudes towards education. In this context, the big bad baptist boogeyman is indeed the problem, though the bigger problem is the big bad homeschooling boogeymen and their teahadist supporters. When they resort to 'teaching the controversy' and supporting the notion that science is 'just a theory' and push to deligitimize it, remove it from curriculum and compare it to newspeak, yeah, that's a big problem.

When they leave it alone and keep theology out of the classroom, the problem largely goes away.

 

[Leoreth]

You are talking about computers as we know them now. What about computers in 50 years? 100? 200? 1000?

Think about dutchfire's last sentence. No matter how advanced it is, a computer's calculation is based on the interaction of elementary particles. Without approximation of any kind, any computer can at most simulate itself - not a whole universe that also happens to include a copy of itself.

 

[Farm Boy]

Science/scientist do not generally rail against religion. ---> Not a problem for anyone

Religion/the religious frequently do rail against science in this country. ---> Big problem for our future economic growth and competitiveness

I'm not talking about 'the rest of American idiocy', I'm only talking about American idiocy as it concerns the attitudes towards education. In this context, the big bad baptist boogeyman is indeed the problem, though the bigger problem is the big bad homeschooling boogeymen and their teahadist supporters. When they resort to 'teaching the controversy' and supporting the notion that science is 'just a theory' and push to deligitimize it, remove it from curriculum and compare it to newspeak, yeah, that's a big problem.

Quite honestly I think Snooki, WoW, Call of Duty 17, 12 hours per day on Twitter and Facebook, and the like are far larger threats to education than are the baptist boogeymen.

I think the samples of people we see must be different. I work around a university, the amount of mouth breathing "scientifically minded" liberals that are attack dogs on anything resembling commonly practiced religion is not insignificant.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Quite honestly I think Snooki, WoW, Call of Duty 17, 12 hours per day on Twitter and Facebook, and the like are far larger threats to education than are the baptist boogeymen.

Thanks for reminding me of my group project where half of the group caught the CoD flu and stopped contributing!

Though I disagree with you, this is an excellent point and I won't refute it.

I think the samples of people we see must be different. I work around a university, the amount of mouth breathing "scientifically minded" liberals that are attack dogs on anything resembling commonly practiced religion is not insignificant.

Yeah, the university I attend is very conservative and religious.