Of coarse I was biased. You'll find I do similar things when arguing that Hitler's polices were bad. If I'm arguing against something how can I not be biased against it?
Trying not to be biased is bullshit, use evidence, use logic, ignore trying to represent each sides evenly. In reality the truth doesn't lie somewhere in between. One is right, one is wrong.
As far as astrologers mapping comets and basically collecting data. That's astronomy, once you start saying that data is going to cause you to have a romantic encounter tommorow or that theirs going to be dispair and doom over the lands, that's astrology.
We don't use such things today, we use newtons, and keplers laws to determine such things. The astrologers didn't use science, so were never able to make great predictions about stuff in the sky. Not to say they couldn't, just as a farmer can make predictions about the weather. It's just that the beuru of meteorology is a lot more trustworthy.
It wouldn't be suicidal as you wouldn't send people to do it. Robotics is fine for such things. If we detect this thing early enough (30years, 70years- I'd say were screwed if we only have like 10 years), the idea isn't to cancel out all of it's momentum. The idea is to just nudge it a tiny bit, make it's orbit a tiny big bigger/smaller/rounder/ellipticaler that would be enough for it to completely miss the earth.
Cave men used to look at rocks and make up stories about how they came to be, doesn't mean we need to study or respect what they thought when we do geology. In fact geologists may resent the fact that many people still go around basing their lives on what those caveman thought about the rocks, and ignoring or belittling what geology discovers. Doesn't matter if they discovered the rocks first, they were fully capable of studying them scientifically, but they preferred to make up stuff for who knows what reason. Anyway, I don't really mind people from back then, fine, they actually had nothing better. Today we do. Today's astrology is even more stupid in the light of what we now know. Yet people believe, and ask me to tell them their chart because they assume astrology and astronomy are the same thing!
Many telescopes still are refractors, I have one (80mm archomatic meade retractor, very nice scope, though my main one is an 8" Newtonian Reflector.
Thats where you remember things that confirm something you believe in (the 'hits'), but forget the times when it doesn't (the 'misses').
So all the times you dream about a dog with two tails and never see one in real life, are forgoton. But the one time you see some weird swirl and it turns up in a painting, you'll remember that, and such things add up and BAM! Without violating any natural laws, it seems you've got fortune telling dreams.
Another example: A nurse is working in an E.R room and notices that there seems to be lots of patients tonight, she asks a patient what phase the mood is tonight. He replys "half". Oh...
The nurse then goes about her buisness and forgets the miss.
She would not forget it if it was a 'hit', and if she later got a hit (randomly) whe wouldn't be recounting or remembering all the times she got a 'miss' to her friends.
Of course I'm biased. Doesn't mean I'm wrong, I'm biased towards reality. You can't just dismiss and argument by calling it biased. That's "Poisoning the Well" I believe. You didn't even say how it was biased.
Medicine and faith healing/homeopathy/blood letting used to be the 'same' thing. Today though they are not. That is something that it's very important to understand.
Our beliefs in astronomy today are based on nothing to do with astrology in the past. Except for the names of certain things, such as constellations. Which are just names, they could be numbers without effecting what we'd know about them.
Galileo didn't invent the telescope you know... Anyway, he was a scientist, striving against the faith based beliefs of his day. Astrology is also faith based, these days it's fortune telling that only uses the stars (horrible I might add, you know theres 13 zodiac constellations these days...) as 'tools' to interprit what they like out of, like how someone might use the guts of chicken to predict the future.
Astrology is accurately studied. The results are a clear negative. It's bunk.
Astronomy helps us find the asteroids, and physics helps us defeat them, if we can detect a threat early enough you don't need to move the earth (why would you try to do that anyway??), or blow up the asteroid (stupid idea, now we have lots of tiny asteroids), all you need to move is the asteroid. Strap on a rocket, nudge it a little, we can use astronomy to work out how much and all that.
Also if we do use something, that's still astronomy averting the problem!
Like how medicine/surgury helps fight diease and death, even though it's the penicillien/scapel doing the brute work.
The Chinese did have a look see at the stars, predicted eclipses, saw a historic supernovae(we can see the reminets of it these days), of course it was astrology as such events supposedly foretold what was going to happen, so wars wars were had, people killed, etc etc. Based on nothing.
Psychology is fine, although I notice there's lots of crap mixed in with it, at least at the libary. ><.
Phychology IMO has to be real careful they stick to the scientific method, it's all to easy in that subject to start pulling untestable crap out of their ass such that it fits their ideology.
I love it though, the psychology of belief, why people think what they do, and how they manage to think some things. It's scary when you get down to it, how little we naturally think using reason, how much the reality of our memories are shaped by emotions. Though you may call that nerology.
It's just amazingly interesting to me how little control we really have, how much is simulation (eyesight for example) and how easily it can be taken away. It helps me understand humanity more, and to sympathiese with victims of people and idea's that prey upon such properties.
One involves science, intelligence, logic, and hard work, will march us forward in how we understand the universe, and may help us avoid an asteroid impact.
The other involves magic, stupidity, logical fallacys, fortune telling, and will march us back to the dark ages.
They have as much to do with each other as religion does with science, alchemy does with chemistry and what probability theory has to do with reading tea leaves or chick entails.
Well, I like computers and I learn things about them pretty fast. I wouldn't say that Java is the highest height of excitement for me -I don't even know Java at all ^^ But I don't believe in computer science teaching. If you want to learn it, learn it yourself.
I'm going to study computer science. Sounds boring, huh? I bet it will be. I think I would rather work as a doctor or something, but doctors just don't earn real money in Hungary + they get worked to death :/ I'm really interested in the human body, its ilnesses, disfunctions and everything else.
Several years ago I read a lot of greek myths, hundreds. I liked them, but I can't recall all the stories, heroes, gods and names so we can say I forgot most of them :P
I don't know these authors you mentioned, 90% of the fantasy books I read were from hungarian authors, but you might know Richard A. Knaak (his Firedrake was great).
I like the romance-drama genre in anime, I think I wouldn't in literature :S My aunt has read -no exaggeration- hundreds of these romance novels, but I can't imagine myself finishing a single one :S
Mining is pretty safe, at least here in Australia, all sorts of regulations and everything. The highest cause of death on a mine site would be the occasional traffic accidents.
They get paid really well too, those truck drivers are on $90 000 - $110 000/year, I think the geo's straight out of Uni start on $70 000/year which goes up...
I find phychology and neurology really interesting,
Well life is the same here. Nothing special. I get bored with my currently watching shows after a few episodes, so I don't watch much anime either. School is boring, I'll go to university next year. I hope it will be less boring and I'm looking forward to clubs, but sadly university and commuting will consume a lot more time than my current school :/
What kind of books are you into? I used to read fantasy books and novels, sometimes scifi, but I only read stuff on the internet recently - all kind of articles.
Yeah, I'm going to University for a bachelor in science, majoring in geology. I'm going to take japanese as one of the electives in the science course too :).
I find rocks quite boring though, but there's good $$$ and opportunities in the business (mining), and it doesn't sounds as bad as engineering.
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Trying not to be biased is bullshit, use evidence, use logic, ignore trying to represent each sides evenly. In reality the truth doesn't lie somewhere in between. One is right, one is wrong.
As far as astrologers mapping comets and basically collecting data. That's astronomy, once you start saying that data is going to cause you to have a romantic encounter tommorow or that theirs going to be dispair and doom over the lands, that's astrology.
We don't use such things today, we use newtons, and keplers laws to determine such things. The astrologers didn't use science, so were never able to make great predictions about stuff in the sky. Not to say they couldn't, just as a farmer can make predictions about the weather. It's just that the beuru of meteorology is a lot more trustworthy.
It wouldn't be suicidal as you wouldn't send people to do it. Robotics is fine for such things. If we detect this thing early enough (30years, 70years- I'd say were screwed if we only have like 10 years), the idea isn't to cancel out all of it's momentum. The idea is to just nudge it a tiny bit, make it's orbit a tiny big bigger/smaller/rounder/ellipticaler that would be enough for it to completely miss the earth.
Cave men used to look at rocks and make up stories about how they came to be, doesn't mean we need to study or respect what they thought when we do geology. In fact geologists may resent the fact that many people still go around basing their lives on what those caveman thought about the rocks, and ignoring or belittling what geology discovers. Doesn't matter if they discovered the rocks first, they were fully capable of studying them scientifically, but they preferred to make up stuff for who knows what reason. Anyway, I don't really mind people from back then, fine, they actually had nothing better. Today we do. Today's astrology is even more stupid in the light of what we now know. Yet people believe, and ask me to tell them their chart because they assume astrology and astronomy are the same thing!
Many telescopes still are refractors, I have one (80mm archomatic meade retractor, very nice scope, though my main one is an 8" Newtonian Reflector.
Anyway, ignore that post if you like then...
(the one about confirmation bias)
What I like is things that can be *tested*, thats all. I'm also prepared to change what I think based upon those tests.
Thats where you remember things that confirm something you believe in (the 'hits'), but forget the times when it doesn't (the 'misses').
So all the times you dream about a dog with two tails and never see one in real life, are forgoton. But the one time you see some weird swirl and it turns up in a painting, you'll remember that, and such things add up and BAM! Without violating any natural laws, it seems you've got fortune telling dreams.
Another example: A nurse is working in an E.R room and notices that there seems to be lots of patients tonight, she asks a patient what phase the mood is tonight. He replys "half". Oh...
The nurse then goes about her buisness and forgets the miss.
She would not forget it if it was a 'hit', and if she later got a hit (randomly) whe wouldn't be recounting or remembering all the times she got a 'miss' to her friends.
Medicine and faith healing/homeopathy/blood letting used to be the 'same' thing. Today though they are not. That is something that it's very important to understand.
Our beliefs in astronomy today are based on nothing to do with astrology in the past. Except for the names of certain things, such as constellations. Which are just names, they could be numbers without effecting what we'd know about them.
Galileo didn't invent the telescope you know... Anyway, he was a scientist, striving against the faith based beliefs of his day. Astrology is also faith based, these days it's fortune telling that only uses the stars (horrible I might add, you know theres 13 zodiac constellations these days...) as 'tools' to interprit what they like out of, like how someone might use the guts of chicken to predict the future.
Astrology is accurately studied. The results are a clear negative. It's bunk.
Astronomy helps us find the asteroids, and physics helps us defeat them, if we can detect a threat early enough you don't need to move the earth (why would you try to do that anyway??), or blow up the asteroid (stupid idea, now we have lots of tiny asteroids), all you need to move is the asteroid. Strap on a rocket, nudge it a little, we can use astronomy to work out how much and all that.
Also if we do use something, that's still astronomy averting the problem!
Like how medicine/surgury helps fight diease and death, even though it's the penicillien/scapel doing the brute work.
The Chinese did have a look see at the stars, predicted eclipses, saw a historic supernovae(we can see the reminets of it these days), of course it was astrology as such events supposedly foretold what was going to happen, so wars wars were had, people killed, etc etc. Based on nothing.
Astrology doesn't work. Sorry.
Phychology IMO has to be real careful they stick to the scientific method, it's all to easy in that subject to start pulling untestable crap out of their ass such that it fits their ideology.
I love it though, the psychology of belief, why people think what they do, and how they manage to think some things. It's scary when you get down to it, how little we naturally think using reason, how much the reality of our memories are shaped by emotions. Though you may call that nerology.
It's just amazingly interesting to me how little control we really have, how much is simulation (eyesight for example) and how easily it can be taken away. It helps me understand humanity more, and to sympathiese with victims of people and idea's that prey upon such properties.
The other involves magic, stupidity, logical fallacys, fortune telling, and will march us back to the dark ages.
They have as much to do with each other as religion does with science, alchemy does with chemistry and what probability theory has to do with reading tea leaves or chick entails.
Several years ago I read a lot of greek myths, hundreds. I liked them, but I can't recall all the stories, heroes, gods and names so we can say I forgot most of them :P
I don't know these authors you mentioned, 90% of the fantasy books I read were from hungarian authors, but you might know Richard A. Knaak (his Firedrake was great).
I like the romance-drama genre in anime, I think I wouldn't in literature :S My aunt has read -no exaggeration- hundreds of these romance novels, but I can't imagine myself finishing a single one :S
They get paid really well too, those truck drivers are on $90 000 - $110 000/year, I think the geo's straight out of Uni start on $70 000/year which goes up...
I find phychology and neurology really interesting,
What kind of books are you into? I used to read fantasy books and novels, sometimes scifi, but I only read stuff on the internet recently - all kind of articles.
I find rocks quite boring though, but there's good $$$ and opportunities in the business (mining), and it doesn't sounds as bad as engineering.