Ultimate space simulation software

 
User avatar
JackDole
Star Engineer
Star Engineer
Posts: 1874
Joined: 02 Nov 2016 18:18
Location: Terra

Totally off-topic thread

03 Dec 2019 23:52

Any scientist who says what you just did has ceased to be a scientist.
This attitude is in one of my unwritten science fiction novels the reason why one day all scientists will be burned or hanged.
(I've written a short story that plays some years after this event, unfortunately only in German and unpublished, and of course I'm not saying that's okay. It's the uncontrolled mob that does this! :evil:)

Scientists first need to do comprehensive research before they do anything. If they do anything at all.

But if uncontrolled toxic waste is dumped into the environment, it has an impact on the environment and on the health of local residents. I do not need to know what kind of illnesses are the result.  And it does not have to be dozens or hundreds of victims before something is done.

Basically, of course, I'm in favor of scientists doing accurate research.
For example, what kind of effect which substances can have before they are released into the environment.

But such investigations are of course difficult to make. Without guinea pigs.
JackDole's Universe 0.990: http://forum.spaceengine.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=546
JackDole's Archive: http://forum.spaceengine.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=419
JackDole: Mega structures ... http://old.spaceengine.org/forum/17-3252-1 (Old forum)
 
User avatar
midtskogen
Star Engineer
Star Engineer
Posts: 1537
Joined: 11 Dec 2016 12:57
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Totally off-topic thread

04 Dec 2019 10:14

 "Correlation = causation" is one of the most pervasive fallacies in science and human psychology, and it is absolutely important to understand it, the meaning of statistical significance, and how hypothesis and model testing actually works.
Indeed.  Scientists use statistics all the time to back up their research, yet few have any academic background in statistics to speak of.  This may be a serious problem (I have to say "may be", as I never did statistics at university myself and I regret it, so I can't really back up that claim :).  I wouldn't be surprised if it got much harder to publish anything if scientific articles were not reviewed just by peers, but rather by peers and statisticians.
P-hacking happens all the time, mostly unconsciously.
The human mind looks for connections continuously and find it even if there is none.  It's simply how the mind is wired and how we organise sensory input.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 06:53

 "Correlation = causation" is one of the most pervasive fallacies in science and human psychology, and it is absolutely important to understand it, the meaning of statistical significance, and how hypothesis and model testing actually works.
Indeed.  Scientists use statistics all the time to back up their research, yet few have any academic background in statistics to speak of.  This may be a serious problem (I have to say "may be", as I never did statistics at university myself and I regret it, so I can't really back up that claim :).  I wouldn't be surprised if it got much harder to publish anything if scientific articles were not reviewed just by peers, but rather by peers and statisticians.
P-hacking happens all the time, mostly unconsciously.
The human mind looks for connections continuously and find it even if there is none.  It's simply how the mind is wired and how we organise sensory input.
Yes, but when there are comprehensive studies done by multiple universities, that is plenty.  Statistics need to be viewed with severe skepticism, I've seen industry spin numbers their own way (like the Tobacco industry did with nicotine.)  Statistics isn't a science.  I've taken statistics, it's a very simple and basic kind of math.   Nothing like calculus!  I've seen the same statistics spun in multiple ways- basically you can make numbers look the way you want them to.  When you find a causative agent and a mechanism for how it works (like blocking of a neurotransmitter in the above cases) and the numbers to back it up, thats all you need.  Statistics has its uses (and all four universities I quoted from are highly reputable and used them, unlike industry sources which covered up their research) but finding a mechanism that causes the action is more important, because that's actual science.  I'm not one who likes to wait around to do the right thing.  Especially when industry did the same research and covered up the results until they were sued.
Last edited by A-L-E-X on 06 Dec 2019 09:11, edited 6 times in total.
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 06:56

Any scientist who says what you just did has ceased to be a scientist.
This attitude is in one of my unwritten science fiction novels the reason why one day all scientists will be burned or hanged.
(I've written a short story that plays some years after this event, unfortunately only in German and unpublished, and of course I'm not saying that's okay. It's the uncontrolled mob that does this! :evil:)

Scientists first need to do comprehensive research before they do anything. If they do anything at all.

But if uncontrolled toxic waste is dumped into the environment, it has an impact on the environment and on the health of local residents. I do not need to know what kind of illnesses are the result.  And it does not have to be dozens or hundreds of victims before something is done.

Basically, of course, I'm in favor of scientists doing accurate research.
For example, what kind of effect which substances can have before they are released into the environment.

But such investigations are of course difficult to make. Without guinea pigs.
JD and Wat, did you read about the research from the four universities (Columbia, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis)?  It's pretty damning.  They are in a fight with the Trump EPA now because the industry insiders he hired ignored the research and the Obama EPA's own work, but eventually the court system stepped in and banned them anyway.  It's also noteworthy that the industry did the same research and came to the same conclusions decades earlier but chose not to report them.

We have the guinea pigs already- they are the people living there and exposed to the toxins.
 
User avatar
Watsisname
Science Officer
Science Officer
Posts: 2318
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 02:33
Location: Bellingham, WA

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 09:26

Scientists use statistics all the time to back up their research, yet few have any academic background in statistics to speak of.  This may be a serious problem (I have to say "may be", as I never did statistics at university myself and I regret it, so I can't really back up that claim. :)
If you like, consider checking out the text Introduction to Error Analysis by John Taylor, which is written at the undergraduate level to explain principles of statistics and their application to data collection and model testing.  It's quite compact and readable for a textbook, and I still reference it frequently.
Statistics need to be viewed with severe skepticism.  ... Statistics has its uses but finding a mechanism that causes the action is more important, because that's actual science.
Statistics is not the problem. :)  Statistics is a tool, and all science depends on it.  Demonstrating causation requires it!   You take some model describing "how A causes B", make predictions with it, compare them to the data, and show that they fit the data while other sensible models or the null hypothesis do not.  Showing that the model fits the data means plotting data points and showing they are consistent with the model predictions within error.  Being even more rigorous, we'd then do a chi-square test or something similar to say, using statistics, how well does the model fit the data.  What is the probability that the agreement is not a statistical artifact?  

What must be looked at carefully are not the principles of statistics, but rather the methods, assumptions, and the presentation of the data.  Usually "lying with statistics" means being sly about how you present your case.  The earlier example of p-hacking is a good one.
JD and Wat, did you read about the research from the four universities (Columbia, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis)?  It's pretty damning.
Of course.  I think you mistake me for thinking these companies' treatment of waste disposal is not disgusting.  I'm not saying anything of the sort.  I'm not advocating that anyone ignore it or pass it off as "probably not a problem."  What I'm advocating is caution about what specific conclusions we reach from various studies, or how strongly we believe them.
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 10:01

Scientists use statistics all the time to back up their research, yet few have any academic background in statistics to speak of.  This may be a serious problem (I have to say "may be", as I never did statistics at university myself and I regret it, so I can't really back up that claim. :)
If you like, consider checking out the text Introduction to Error Analysis by John Taylor, which is written at the undergraduate level to explain principles of statistics and their application to data collection and model testing.  It's quite compact and readable for a textbook, and I still reference it frequently.
Statistics need to be viewed with severe skepticism.  ... Statistics has its uses but finding a mechanism that causes the action is more important, because that's actual science.
Statistics is not the problem. :)  Statistics is a tool, and all science depends on it.  Demonstrating causation requires it!   You take some model describing "how A causes B", make predictions with it, compare them to the data, and show that they fit the data while other sensible models or the null hypothesis do not.  Showing that the model fits the data means plotting data points and showing they are consistent with the model predictions within error.  Being even more rigorous, we'd then do a chi-square test or something similar to say, using statistics, how well does the model fit the data.  What is the probability that the agreement is not a statistical artifact?  

What must be looked at carefully are not the principles of statistics, but rather the methods, assumptions, and the presentation of the data.  Usually "lying with statistics" means being sly about how you present your case.  The earlier example of p-hacking is a good example.
JD and Wat, did you read about the research from the four universities (Columbia, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis)?  It's pretty damning.
Of course.  I think you mistake me for thinking these companies treatment of waste disposal is not disgusting.  I'm not saying anything of the sort.  I'm not advocating that anyone ignore it or pass it off as "probably not a problem."  What I'm advocating is caution about what specific conclusions we reach from various studies, or how strongly we believe them.
I actually used to love statistics and started studying it on my own in high school and even bought myself a statistics calculator (a Texas Instruments machine) back then to ease the process.  When I saw some of the tainting being done in some industries to skew the numbers, thats what got me down on statistics.
I also saw some "scientists" use it to defame minorities; intelligence "The IQ Cult"- which still seems to be going on in some circles, unfortunately, it was a throwback to "The Bell Curve."  The reason I got so interested in that is that my middle school back then had a gifted program for which everyone was tested to get into.  I somehow didn't make it in and yet I saw many of my friends were in that program, and yet I KNEW I was smarter than most of them (I was tutoring many of them in science and math.)  So I asked my mother to call the school and was told my score was "131" and that I had missed the mark by one point.  I knew something was fishy here because NO IQ test is sufficiently accurate to be able to dismiss someone based on 1 IQ point.  I convinced my mother to pay $20 or so to get the official Mensa test (even though it was for adults) and I took that and scored a 158 on it.  We photocopied the results and sent them to the school but they said they wouldn't accept the results of an "adult intelligence test" LOL, they only used the results of their CAT test.  That's how I knew that statistics have been used by white "scientists" to discriminate against minorities just like they are used by polluting industries to discriminate against the people who suffer from the toxins they dump.  Looking back at history, the whole neonazi movement actually began in America, and that is where Hitler got his inspiration from.

PS to this- on every IQ test I've since taken, I've scored 142 or higher, and averaged around 149 (including the Mega Test, which was made for "one in a million"), which is what got me into Triple Nine Society.  I dont care much for such societies, but I guess I was always a bit miffed at what happened to me when I was in middle school.  It just made me very skeptical of statistics as prejudiced people use them to further their prejudices.

PPS I LOVE the chi square test, it is both simple and yet elegant.  We used that in genetics all the time!

PPPS Sadly, there is still IQ-based bias going on in the world today, I saw a world map earlier with the "average IQ" of people in each nation, and some nations supposedly have an "average IQ" of under 70?!  If that were actually true, those nations would be nonfunctional.....

PPPPS you're completely right about individual studies, which is why we need meta-analyses using multiple studies.
 
User avatar
midtskogen
Star Engineer
Star Engineer
Posts: 1537
Joined: 11 Dec 2016 12:57
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 14:59

Statistics need to be viewed with severe skepticism, I've seen industry spin numbers their own way (like the Tobacco industry did with nicotine.)  Statistics isn't a science.  I've taken statistics, it's a very simple and basic kind of math.   Nothing like calculus!  I've seen the same statistics spun in multiple ways- basically you can make numbers look the way you want them to. 
I think you're confusing theory with data presentation.  The maths of statistics is not very advanced, but it's difficult to use correctly.  The pitfalls are many.  
I intended to do statistics.  I bought the textbook, but I did too many courses at the same time and I had to drop some.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 15:18

Statistics need to be viewed with severe skepticism, I've seen industry spin numbers their own way (like the Tobacco industry did with nicotine.)  Statistics isn't a science.  I've taken statistics, it's a very simple and basic kind of math.   Nothing like calculus!  I've seen the same statistics spun in multiple ways- basically you can make numbers look the way you want them to. 
I think you're confusing theory with data presentation.  The maths of statistics is not very advanced, but it's difficult to use correctly.  The pitfalls are many.  
I intended to do statistics.  I bought the textbook, but I did too many courses at the same time and I had to drop some.
You're right.  Data presentation is what can be spun in different ways, but used correctly, statistics helps find associations.  In the "IQ Cult" I referenced earlier, psychologists and psychometrists of a prior era (and some even today) were improperly using statistics to try and prove their conjecture that ethnic background had something to do with IQ. 
 
User avatar
Watsisname
Science Officer
Science Officer
Posts: 2318
Joined: 06 Sep 2016 02:33
Location: Bellingham, WA

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 15:48

When I saw some of the tainting being done in some industries to skew the numbers, thats what got me down on statistics.
Your comment and story reminds of people who dislike or even reject evolutionary theory because of atrocities with eugenics.  But evolution is not inherently good or bad, it's simply a fact of nature.  If crazy people call upon it as a justification for their craziness, they are at fault, not the theory.  Likewise, statistics is simply a tool. A tool is not inherently good or bad, it depends on how it is used.  Or misused.  

I use it on an almost daily basis to improve my understanding of nature.  Astrophotographers use it (many perhaps without realizing it) in the sense that they care a lot about the signal-to-noise ratio, which arises from Poisson statistics.  That is, "counting statistics", for individual photons strikes on the sensor.  So understanding it is very useful.  And it is absolutely crucial for professional CCD-based astronomy.  

The entire field of statistical mechanics applies it to physics at the microscopic scale in order to understand and predict macroscopic behavior.  You can derive things like the ideal gas law, 2nd law of thermodynamics, Bose Einstein condensation, blackbody radiation, chemical reaction rates, and on and on, just from using statistics and some simple physical laws.

But I digress.  What of IQ?  I think most scientists pay little to no attention to it.  There is nothing wrong with the statistics of the IQ test per se.  A person answers some set of questions and their score is tallied up and compared to a large number of others.  Naturally this yields something like a normal distribution.  Does that distribution or where an individual's score lies in it say anything important about them?  Probably not.  The test is a measure of a very specific kind of intelligence, and intelligence in general is something that is extremely hard to define, let alone make some sort of standardized test for.
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

06 Dec 2019 16:57

When I saw some of the tainting being done in some industries to skew the numbers, thats what got me down on statistics.
Your comment and story reminds of people who dislike or even reject evolutionary theory because of atrocities with eugenics.  But evolution is not inherently good or bad, it's simply a fact of nature.  If crazy people call upon it as a justification for their craziness, they are at fault, not the theory.  Likewise, statistics is simply a tool. A tool is not inherently good or bad, it depends on how it is used.  Or misused.  

I use it on an almost daily basis to improve my understanding of nature.  Astrophotographers use it (many perhaps without realizing it) in the sense that they care a lot about the signal-to-noise ratio, which arises from Poisson statistics.  That is, "counting statistics", for individual photons strikes on the sensor.  So understanding it is very useful.  And it is absolutely crucial for professional CCD-based astronomy.  

The entire field of statistical mechanics applies it to physics at the microscopic scale in order to understand and predict macroscopic behavior.  You can derive things like the ideal gas law, 2nd law of thermodynamics, Bose Einstein condensation, blackbody radiation, chemical reaction rates, and on and on, just from using statistics and some simple physical laws.

But I digress.  What of IQ?  I think most scientists pay little to no attention to it.  There is nothing wrong with the statistics of the IQ test per se.  A person answers some set of questions and their score is tallied up and compared to a large number of others.  Naturally this yields something like a normal distribution.  Does that distribution or where an individual's score lies in it say anything important about them?  Probably not.  The test is a measure of a very specific kind of intelligence, and intelligence in general is something that is extremely hard to define, let alone make some sort of standardized test for.
Yes, and like most things, it's a combination of genetics and environment.  The CAT test was heavily reliant on memory, specifically auditory memory (as opposed to visual memory.)  And my hearing, even at that age wasn't the best (midtones sound like murmurs to me so people have to speak clearly for me to hear them.)  The Mensa and other tests I took were more into pattern recognition and geometric and arithmetic patterns, which I absolutely adore, because I love graphics and love numbers (even trying to visualize what shapes in higher dimensions would look like and what kind of shadows they would cast.)
I dont have a problem with evolutionary theory at all, because I can separate the way nature blindly works from how human beings seek to use science for their own selfish ends (eugenics.)  It's like separating the science behind nuclear power from those who want to make more nuclear weapons.
Yes, I forgot to mention that.  Statistics is used in the different types of stacking used to reveal data that would hitherto be invisible in astrophotography!  As a matter of fact when I chose what camera to buy, I analyzed sensor data like quantum efficiency- something which can only be obtained from statistics.  It's also used to discover particles in collider data.  That is one of the type of statistics that I like.  Quantum mechanics itself is a branch of statistics that shows a mathematical basis that underlies the "solid" macroscopic reality that we all think we perceive.  Like predicting where an electron might be located within an atom.

My disgust is more towards the manipulation of data which I've seen from companies like the ones we've discussed earlier.  It's also overused in sports because it doesn't take into account human psychology and anatomical limits (but I digress too lol.)
 
User avatar
N0B0DY
Explorer
Explorer
Posts: 289
Joined: 09 Dec 2016 14:29

Totally off-topic thread

14 Dec 2019 02:24

How the internet works: https://9gag.com/gag/aj51Wo1?ref=ios
MSIX299MB,[email protected](8C/16T),[email protected](CL16),GTX1080Ti@11GBGDDR5X,OS:WIN10x64@2xSSDSATA3RAID0
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

03 Jan 2020 06:31

Australia, unprecedented forest fires, worst air quality ever..... 15 million acres burned, 18 humans dead, 500 million animals dead, record warm SST just north of Australia too.... this has become an annual thing for them now.
 
A-L-E-X
Galaxy Architect
Galaxy Architect
Posts: 3498
Joined: 06 Mar 2017 20:19

Totally off-topic thread

10 Feb 2020 14:09

Antarctica just saw its highest temp ever recorded- 65.1 and a rather large slab of ice just fell into the ocean there (it was about 130 ft tall.)

On another issue,. I just saw a 30 min documentary on HBO about the Fukushima disaster and what they revealed was horrendous.  Because of the impending 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan has been rushing to clean up after the fall out from Fukushima and they've done a really bad job.  They hired unemployed and homeless people to do the "clean up" and since 70% of the area that is affected is forested and mountainous, it cant be cleaned properly.  The workers weren't even wearing protective gear and weren't told about the dangers, they were in their street clothes.  And they piled up 16 million black bags of radioactive contaminants in public areas and told people it was "safe" to come back even though the area is constantly being recontaminated whenever there is heavy rain and runoff.  The Japanese government has tried to downplay the dangers and raised the maximum safe exposure 20x from 1 milliseviert like the rest of the world to 20 millisevierts, which scientists and medical researchers say represents a 30% higher risk of getting leukemia after 5 years of exposure, which compounds yearly (so it's 60% higher after 10 years.)  They told their workers not to worry about the clean up and to just make the area "look good".  Meanwhile children still have to go for yearly cancer checks and the food has to be regularly screened.  The researchers who went there to see what was going on found some areas with up to 70 milliseviert radiation levels (areas along the path of the Olympic torch!)  The former prime minister who was in charge when Fukushima melted down said that the reactor should never have been built and the tsunami changed his mind because he didn't listen to scientists who told him not to build it back in the 90s.  The current government has hired propaganda people because they dont have the numbers to back up how horrendous this so-called "clean up" has been, they are just trying to show their best face for the Olympics (which might be derailed anyway because of coronavirus.)  The former reactor is still contaminated and prone to further accidents and has to be doused constantly with sea water, which creates its own set of problems as the contaminated water has been mixing with the ground water and making it back into the ocean.  A nuclear chemist said the area isn't safe for being in for more than 30 min or so.

I guess this is why Japan has just commissioned 22 new coal plants :-(

Saw a recent report showing lower life expectancy and higher rates of asthma in areas with industrial fossil fuel plants like in coastal Rhode Island.  Local residents have now organized and are politically focused on moving these plants out of their neighborhoods!

On a more positive note, the UK has passed a law to ban all fossil fuel powered vehicles by 2035 and NY is considering doing the same thing for 2040.


This is from the HBO video, although it's only a 2.5 min clip.

https://www.hbo.com/real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel/all-episodes/january-2020

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/28509/fukushima-and-the-2020-olympics/

https://www.greenpeace.org/internationa ... rch-route/

https://www.greenpeace.org/internationa ... rch-relay/

https://www.greenpeace.org/internationa ... on-crisis/
 
User avatar
midtskogen
Star Engineer
Star Engineer
Posts: 1537
Joined: 11 Dec 2016 12:57
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Totally off-topic thread

22 Feb 2020 10:17

Image
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
 
User avatar
miniluv73
Space Pilot
Space Pilot
Posts: 88
Joined: 25 Mar 2020 11:43
Location: Flying through the Universe

Totally off-topic thread

03 Apr 2020 11:41

How do I edit my posts?

EDIT: Oh wait, I found the edit button, nvm 
"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."
Arthur C. Clarke, 1996

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests