I don't think we are in disagreement. The graph misrepresented the facts, but the lay public isn't going to fact check . It's published ergo it's true. The point I was trying to make is the graph is attractive and simple, easily understood . Accuracy is beside the point. The actual science article wasn't. The public is more attuned to sound bites, not really thinking things through. The graph was simple and easily understood. It's always been the same, it takes 5 seconds for someone to make a claim and 5 minutes to explain why the claim is wrong. Who is going to hang around for the full five minutes? Whoa, look at that bright object in the sky, must be a UFO! Well, no, it's really something easily explainable - in five minutes. You're singing to the choir on this one. I was long ago convinced about global warming.
Yes, I understand that Scientific articles are not written in easy to understand terms or concepts, they are speaking to a narrow audience, they are not intended for the general public. The public is easy to mislead when simple plain language is used. The simple language to explain what they are doing is called "lying". One group wants to inform and the other mislead and confuse with simple explanations. Explanations like humans are too insignificant to influence the environment when examples abound in their influence. For example, burning fossil fuels would have less impact if humans had not destroyed natural carbon sinks like forests and grasslands. Now we are further destroying forests to extract oil that uses as much energy as it produces.
The point is the people attacking science have big budgets that are often subsidized by tax payers and certainly have PAC's to influence law makers. Science is under attack and it is contrary to the public interests.
I don't think we are in disagreement. The graph  misrepresented the facts, but the lay public isn't going to fact check . It's published ergo it's true. The point I was trying to make is the graph is attractive and simple, easily understood . Accuracy is beside the point. The actual science article wasn't. The public is more attuned to sound bites, not really thinking things through. The graph was simple and easily understood.Â
It's always been the same, it takes 5 seconds for someone to make a claim and 5 minutes to explain why the claim is wrong. Who is going to hang around for the full five minutes? Whoa, look at that bright object in the sky, must be a UFO! Well, no, it's really something easily explainable - in five minutes.Â
You're singing to the choir on this one. I was long ago convinced about global warming.  _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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I don't disagree with the posters of this thread. I did see something today that illustrates the problem to a sad degree. It was a Yahoo article about "careers for people who hate math". Right at the top of the list was Public Relations. We hire gatekeepers of public knowledge who can't stand the best tools for expressing knowledge, which is math. There is a reason the scientists speak to each other in a local dialect of English. The words they are using have a precise meaning that is different from popular usage and may not even be among the list of definitions in the dictionary. This is not unique to science. When a plumber talks about a "condenser" it is different from what an electrician means. All technical endeavors require a list of words where the meaning is unambiguous. Outsiders have to penetrate this if they want to know what is being said. They need to learn enough to come up to speed if they want to talk to understand what the scientists are saying. Eventually the words fail completely and you need to resort to math. But the gatekeepers, who think they are speaking for and to the "common man" are busy dumbing down the words and removing the last vestiges of math from the message. Image you needed to know the time and all the dial clocks were removed because they are "too technical" and the simple four digit number with a colon is gone because it looks like "math". What you are left with is a dumbed down message like "Mickey's big hand is on the four and his little hand is on the seven". That's what it's like trying to learn something from the popular media about the subject of science. DT
I thought this was a pretty interesting article. I'd never heard of the Mars 3 lander since I was negative 12 when it launched http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2308239/Nasa-photos-reveal-Ma...
On 14 Apr 2013, at 19:50, larry holmes wrote:
On 4/14/2013 7:21 PM, Chris Watson wrote:
I thought this was a pretty interesting article. I'd never heard of the Mars 3 lander since I was negative 12 when it launched
Interesting article. Thanks for posting. 73
A bit more of the nitty-gritty details courtesy of the Planetary Society here: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/0412-how-we-searched-for-mar... patrick
August 17, 1953, from 7:02-7:03 UT, somewhere in New Jersey, I believe. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 9:24 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Science article in the Chronicle When, in all it's history, has science NOT been under attack? On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 9:46 AM, <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
Science is under attack and it is contrary to the public interests.
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".
participants (8)
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Chris Watson -
Chuck Hards -
daniel turner -
erikhansen＠thebluezone.net -
jcarman6＠q.com -
Kim -
larry holmes -
Patrick Wiggins