Why hasn't society evolved enough yet?

Answer : There's no money in it for the multi-national-corporations for society to evolve beyond things like money, cars that run off of water, ectera....

- W -
* There you go *

 

Backing up my statements with links is NOT SPAMMING, and sneaking in here after I've left for the day & BANNING ME was uncalled for!

 

I see, so unless I'm related to Einstein or Edison, or someone of that caliber, I have no place in the debate. Well, I'm glad we cleared that up!



You know, I've never been fond of hanging a piece of toilet paper on my wall, telling people how great I am, from some communist indocrination camp, jokingly referred to as "schools of higher learning". I've been told that if you go too high, you'll run out of oxygen.



As for science, it runs on theories, not facts. The "theory of relativity & theory of evolution" just to name a few.

As for patents, I may have a few, but I don't see how that's relavant.

 

Let's establish one thing right now: you care a lot more about this than I do.

Posting several times in a row is spamming. I warned accordingly. That's not uncalled for, that's doing what I'm supposed to.

 

Of course, I said nothing of the sort, and you know it. You're using a cheap trick to make it look like you're answering when you're not.

I said nothing about you being related to anyone. I asked what you, PERSONALLY, can claim. I couldn't care less if your great-uncle was Albert Einstein, or if you're related to Carrot-Top for that matter.

Nice "dodge" though.

Translation - you have no formal education in the sciences. Correct?

It is true that having a formal education is not the sole indicator of having KNOWLEDGE in a field, and that having a degree, by itself, doesn't prove you to be an expert. But it is extraordinarily unlikely for someone to obtain a degree in teh sciences without having a fundamental understanding of how science works, while it is similarly very LIKELY that someone without an education in the sciences will not have a clear understanding of how science works.

This is simple logic. Nobody is BORN with all knowledge, and "just sitting around thinking cool thoughts" is not enough to create expertise.

In my first engineering job, after completing my military service, I worked with several "engineers" who did not hold degrees (it was a pretty half-assed company, to be blunt). I will never forget actually having one of our supposed "manufacturing engineers" attempt to argue against me, calling me "stupid" when I began talking about inspecting the crystalline structure of metal samples. He was absolutely convinced that metals were totally noncrystalline. ANYONE who had ever studied metallurgy knows better... but this guy (who was not STUPID, just IGNORANT, mind you) had no formal education... so he ended up making a total fool of himself in the midst of a major conference.

Education DOES matter. It's not, by itself, ENOUGH. But without being educated in a topic, a person is BY DEFINITION ignorant on that topic.

And for that reason, yeah, if you want to talk about science, and your statements seem to indicate a whole series of misconceptions on the nature of science, I think that questioning your education on the topic is perfectly relevant.

And I can provide you with exact measurements of the levels of oxygen you can expect to see at any altitude. I know that because I've been to school to study those things.

See, that's one of those utter misconceptions that I was talking about, that anyone who has even a basic foundation in science would never dream of saying.

Since you're missing it... the basic steps in the scientific method are as follows:

1) Observation: You see something, without knowing what it means.

2) Hypothesis: You come up with a potential explanation. You attempt to disprove the hypothesis (or rather, more often, to prove the "inverse hypothesis"), and if you can, you must reject it. If not, it can be considered...

3) Theory: A theory is not a fact. A theory is an explanation that has not been successfully disproven, despite robust attempts to do so, and which fits all known observations.

And finally...

4) Fact: Once something has been conclusively proven to be true, and ONLY then, may it be considered a fact. Facts are not subject to discussion or debate, not because "it's not allowed" or "because there's a consensus" but rather because the evidence supporting it is so utterly overwhelming, and because there is ZERO evidence contradicting it, that no reasoning person could possibly dispute it.

An example of a fact is that "gravitational attraction occurs between the centers-of-gravity of two objects." A theory is that "gravitational attraction occurs according to this equation." (It's possible that the equation we currently use is not entirely accurate, after all.) A hypothesis is that "gravity occurs due to exchange of graviton particles" or "gravity occurs due to warpage of the fabric of space/time." Neither has ANY evidence supporting them... but neither has been disproven, either. And of course, the observation is that "heavy objects move towards each other."

That pretty much sums up how science works. It's an important job, but all it really is, is way for us to try to understand stuff that goes on with or without our understanding of it! It's a tool... and like all tools, it's important to know how it's used and to use it properly. And to never claim that it does anything more than what it actually is able to do.

It is relevant if you are making references to the patent office somehow suppressing technology (a claim that you DID make, after all!) The USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) isn't even particularly effective at keeping one company from swiping another company's supposedly "protected" technologies. All the USPTO does is provides a forum for creating legally-recognized documentation to support potential future lawsuits. And everything at the USPTO, and every patent-related lawsuit, is considered entirely public. In fact, in order to keep something truly secret, you CANNOT patent it. I've been involved in several instances of Patent litigation. And FYI, I was just awarded another patent today. So, yeah I know a fair amount of how this stuff works.

The relevance of my question then, is "you seem to make some nonsensical claims about the powers of the USPTO and I want to see if you have ANY actual knowledge of this or if you're just playing 'tinfoil hat guy' again."

Hope this clears up a few of your apparent difficulties comprehending my questions.

 

I don't know you, Cary L. Brown, but you are currently my hero! I love your responses!

 

A suggestion to avoid violating the "no spamming" rule...

Remember that you can EDIT your own posts for... is it 24 hours or 48 hours?... after you make the original posting.

Regarding your three quoted articles, one shows a CONVENTIONAL HIGH-TEMPERATURE FUSION REACTOR in diagram (and thus is unrelated to your point). The little bit showing the "Plasma 1 Million C" (aka "one million degrees centigrade") should have made that clear. NOT "cold fusion" in any way.

And the other two both refer to "energy-negative" reactions... that is, they do not produce any usable energy and require a great deal of energy to operate. Those are both, therefore, TOTALLY UNRELATED to "cold fusion" (wherein a room-temperature reaction is supposed to create excess energy and to serve as a power source). It's INTERESTING, but unrelated to the topic of conversation.

Therefore... I am FAR from "crushed."

 

Ok, here's a test for you:

Go to the patent office, and say you'd like to take out a patent of ANYTHING dealing with cold fusion. A reacor, an engine, a static display, ANYTHING.

....See what happens.

 

Great! When you find the missing link, and can fill the holes in relativity, and other questionable aspects of science, get back to me. Until then, I remain skeptical.

Our perceptions of science are mostly based on observations we got here on Earth. Hence the term "earth centric". There is NO reason to believe our perceptions will remain the same once we leave the protective magnetosphere that surrounds the Earth & Moon.

NONE.

 

Believe it or not, that's the single most scientifically-sound thing you've said so far in this conversation. And I agree nearly completely, though with some caviots.

We have built mechanisms which have been launched from Earth which have travelled well beyond the magnetosphere, and they have continued to operate per expectations outside of that region. If the laws of reality altered dramatically where they've gone to, it would be unreasonable to expect them to continue to operate according to spec. So we know that the "rules" seem to apply as far away as the outer planets, and that they operate pretty much identically on Mars as they do on Earth.

However, it's not a FACT that the rules are identical in both places... it's a theory. Your point, if perhaps slightly overstated, is essentially correct. We do not know that the "laws of reality" will be the same, or even particularly similar, to what we know if we were to go to (for example) the galactic core. And assuming that what we know to be the case here is entirely unreasonable (and, as you say, "earth-centric.")

Again, however, the MECHANISM we use to analyze... the PROCESS of science, if you will... will remain the same. It's just that the observations we make, and the conclusions we draw, might not be as "true" as we think they are if the laws of nature aren't as constant as we think they are.

Skepticism is core to REAL science, and your comment, above, is actually perfectly in-line with that perspective. We only know what we know... and people who claim to know things that have never been observed, much less repeatably demonstrated, are acting on FAITH, not on science. ;-)

 

Well...... It appears we still have a long way to go.

 

Good! Here's something to chew on:

http://press.xtvworld.com/article11448.html



A better link (with less clicking going on):

http://www.1888pressrelease.com/bexley-p...-uy9341t6z.html

 

Is this the Science forum or the Future of Trek forum?

These threads are starting to make my head hurt. Balls to science. Lets dicuss more important Star Trek-based things.

Who's going to play Mr Kyle? The people want to know!!!

 

I still say it's bunk, why use the Shuttle and rockets to go to the moon if we have access to tech like Trek has ?

It doesn't add up in my book, unless someone's gonna say we never went to the moon in the 1960's, then it's time to put on my tin foil hat and not listen to them anymore.....

As for Mr. Kyle, any suggestions ?

Who's gonna play Mr. Leslie bridge railing expert extrodinare ?

- W -
* People wanna know who's playing these parts, yes ? *

 

I'm sure the black Oil aliens are behind this wacky conspiracy?

 

^ Time to put on a tin foil hat, eh ?

IF, a spaceship did crash in Rosewell in July of 1947,
it's ALIEN tech, there's no way we could reverse engineer any of it, because it's ALIEN, what was there a Manual to to the spaceship written in English ? I don't think so.

Lets say the ALIEN tech is millions of years ahead of us, how could we poor humans understand something so far ahead of us, in 1947 our tech was big old vacuum tubes and stuff, could we even understand something millions of years ahead of that ? I don't think so.

Don't even bring Enstien or Hawking into this, I don't care how smart these folks are, we're talking ALIEN, as in you'd have to get inside an ALIEN'S head and how they think to understand how their tech worked.

I do believe there's life out there, but there's no way we could understand it on the same level as we understand one another.

- W -
* I should sell tin foil hats, I'd make a mint *

 

I'm sure he already has one and wears it regularly.

 

Yea, pay no attention to the DATE THE PAGE WAS POSTED, just ignore that, and insist that nothing had been done!