You're cherry-picking. That sentence isn't the key one. I'm not sure what is meant by that sentence (the use of "constraint" is ambiguous), but it would be utterly unscientific if it meant that the stratigraphic position pre-determined the outcome. Geology would be scientistic nonsense like ID, not science.

Yes, and that is the point. If Geology worked like that it would be scientific nonsense, and it does work like that. The stratigraphic position is determined by the index fossils and radiometric dating. The age of the index fossils is determined by the stratigraphic position and radiometric dating. Radiometric dating itself is "checked" by stratigraphic positioning. That doesn't sound like circular reasoning to you?

On the other side the date is determined by the uniformitarian assumptions about radioactive decay rates in the past, and many other things. It assumes, among other things, that the rate will never change. As I showed in my reply the Bicyclerepairman, the rates can indeed change.

Even the next two sentences demonstrate this: "There is no way for a geologist to choose what numerical value a radiometric date will yield, or what position a fossil will be found at in a stratigraphic section. Every piece of data collected like this is an independent check of what has been previously studied."

Now this is the intellectually dishonest part. They say they can't choose where a fossil will be, but they have already the determined that the presence of certain fossils and radiometric dating igneous layers above and below it determines the age of that layer. They don't choose where a fossil is, but they do choose what the age of the layer is that contains the fossil based on their assumptions. So they are basically saying that radiometric dating and stratigraphy is validated by index fossils and radiometric dating, and vice-versa.

The date that is returned is indeed chosen by the scientists as it is based on uniformitarian assumptions that they've made about the past. Perhaps you don't understand how it works, but there is nothing about the rock which reveals its age. They use the secondary evidence of how much radioactive decay of certain elements they believe have occurred, but if the rates aren't always constant, the measurement is worthless. As I showed in my reply to Bicyclerepairman, even secular scientists have acknowledged the rates can change. Therefore it is unreliable on its own, and what is essentially happening is that they are propping up one unprovable assumption with the evidence interpreted through another unprovable assumption.

If geologists were in the habit of treating data this way, scientifically-minded people who entered the field would be disgusted and leave, and form their own new scientific discipline of the study of the earth. The fact that this hasn't happened means the geological method appears scientific to scientific-minded people, if not dogmatists.

It's far more likely that you, a dogmatist and a non-geologist, are cherry-picking information to come up with data that supports your dogma. Dogmatists, by definition, cannot be relied upon for unbiased information that either challenges or confirms their dogma. Their dogma pre-disposes them to coming to wrong conclusions far more than non-dogmatists.

Your argument from incredulity not-withstanding, I think Max Planck sums it up rather nicely:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it

There was a paradigm shift from catastrophism to uniformitarianism in the late 19th century. It was a deliberate move away from the idea of a global flood. To make their theories worked, they needed vast amount of time. Most of the contention comes down to how fast or slow certain geological features take to form. Scientists have staked all of their modern research on the theory of deep time, and they interpret all of the evidence through that conclusion. In other words, it has become conventional wisdom..IE, dogma. Please read my reply to Bicyclerepairman to see how bias effects interpretation.

If you examine the history of science, you will see that scientists have had it wrong many times and wasted decades and decades of research on things ultimately proven to be false. The near universal agreement of scientists on any issue is not any indicator of truth.

I'll take 10 minutes to respond to your comments, but I'm not taking 1.5 hours to watch more non-scientific nonsense framed in scientific terms. If there were strong enough evidence that the Earth were a few thousand years old, there would be a branch of geologists studying it. And I'm excluding the dogmatic "creation geology". It is pseudoscience.

In other words, you believe whatever the scientists say and there is no reason to understand the alternative viewpoint. Your dismissal of the material as "non-scientific nonsense framed in scientific terms" flatly shows your intellectual incuriousity, not even having looked at it. Dr. Emil is an accomplished geologist and his discussion is framed in the terminology and methodology used in that field. If you want to debate this subject, you should at the bare minimum understand the basics of the position you are defending and the position you are arguing against. Also, the video is about 1 hour with 30 minutes of questions.

FWIW, according to Wikipedia: "Flood geology contradicts the scientific consensus in geology and paleontology, chemistry, physics, biology, geophysics and stratigraphy". Do you think you can knock all those scientific fields down as well? Have at it.

It's all predicated upon the philosophy of deep time. Deep time is the cornerstone of modern research, and it supported by flimsy, circumstantial evidence. If you can show deep time is false, then all of it crumbles.

Also, "former atheist" means "current dogmatist". You don't find it astounding that his conversion happened to coincide with his discovery that the evidence didn't hold up? I do. Evidence of non-scientific thinking.

It's interesting you're still inventing reasons why you shouldn't watch the video. You don't know anything about the man but you make wrongheaded assumptions about him. Such as that he converted because he had doubts about the evidence in Geology not holding up. Yet, that isn't the reason he converted, and it had nothing to do with his work as a geologist. Your conclusions here are evidence of non-scientific thinking.

You're cherry-picking. That sentence isn't the key one. I'm not sure what is meant by that sentence (the use of "constraint" is ambiguous), but it would be utterly unscientific if it meant that the stratigraphic position pre-determined the outcome. Geology would be scientistic nonsense like ID, not science.

Even the next two sentences demonstrate this: "There is no way for a geologist to choose what numerical value a radiometric date will yield, or what position a fossil will be found at in a stratigraphic section. Every piece of data collected like this is an independent check of what has been previously studied."

If geologists were in the habit of treating data this way, scientifically-minded people who entered the field would be disgusted and leave, and form their own new scientific discipline of the study of the earth. The fact that this hasn't happened means the geological method appears scientific to scientific-minded people, if not dogmatists.

It's far more likely that you, a dogmatist and a non-geologist, are cherry-picking information to come up with data that supports your dogma. Dogmatists, by definition, cannot be relied upon for unbiased information that either challenges or confirms their dogma. Their dogma pre-disposes them to coming to wrong conclusions far more than non-dogmatists.

Anything scientific can be independently verified by someone else, and if a scientists makes a strong claim and it's later proven wrong, that scientist's credibility is shot and their career severely damaged. So-called ID "scientists", on the other hand, can make all the wild assertions they want, and if something is proven false (again) they lose nothing, and may even gain standing in the ID community for trying -- they've shown their heart is in the right place, even if they're incompetent scientists.

>> ^messenger:

Anybody know why he makes three passes, and what kind of force he suffers while he's stopping?


Can't explain the three passes. It does look like some kind of test flight though, so presumably it's to do with giving the pilot a feel for it, or possibly data collection.

I was interested in the forces as well, and it's typically about 4 to 5 Gs for a carrier landing. Incidentally, that's about the same as a grand prix racing car experiences under braking.

just waiting for costs to go down even more before attempting this worthy data collection project. Right now there are units you can stick a SIM card in and basically makes it a mobile phone, you can use GPS real time and have the unit text you when its outside set perimeters. You can also call the unit and listen to sounds. No camera though and expensive + needs cell service sub.

Soon, though. I will know all their secrets.

http://www.amazon.com/Dogtek-Eyenimal-Digital-Videocam-Pets/dp/B004IWPX76
http://pawtrax.co.uk/

cant find the little unit you can call.. i remember it because of the size.. most pet trackers are dog sized for hunting dogs, etc.

>> ^berticus:

Research is never perfect, and there are always alternative explanations. I don't think that's a reason to hate studies.
Having said that, I think you should read the full article if you haven't already (I can get it for you if you would like). The mediation analyses are all fairly clear, and social support is in the model. In other words, a lot of what you're alluding to, they cover.


Yeah, I'd appreciate that. I think my main concern here was that this study wasn't from a group that was purposely looking for a case study that would put religion in a positive light. The main reason for this was that the main factors involved, in many ways, literally run parallel to obvious negative factors that would create their situation every-time and the biggest culprit would be the situation you find minorities in.

So I'm sure the group may be OK in the end (if you give me that full paper, I'll do some digging around and see if I find any links with religion), I just wanted to be sure that this was not the case here. Moreover, what you provide me will help me see what type of factors they decided to include and realistically how in depth this really went.

As I said, it just seems hard to get a real "usable" result out of this. By that I mean, as a minority--just because of that factor alone--puts you up for many factors that will throw you right off the SWB scale (like living conditions, parents in household, job/income, housing, etc...). Lots of these things are tied together when you are a minority. It also answers the study before it's complete, depending on what the prime reasons for doing it were (if they're to validate opinion-bad news, if they're just data collection-not so bad, etc...).


Thanks for getting the study. I really just want to know all the primary factors and of course the primary group's name and affiliations.

The point is not that there wasn't policy. The point is policy is harder to push when needed without a Department of Education.

The entire question of whether we should have a Dept. of Edu should not have a thing to do with specific policy debates. If the Dept. of Edu. is pushing bad policy, then change the policy it's pushing; abolishing it completely is ridiculous. It would be like abolishing DoD after the Vietnam War.

The Dept of Edu serves many functions beyond just pushing policy. It provides an apparatus for data collecting, analysis, correlating, etc. dedicated to education. It provides a national mechanism to help enact educational policies that are national in nature. It's common sense that if education is important, and if there are national tendencies, trends, data worth investigating that could/should drive national education policy, then we should have a Dept. of Edu. What policies should be pushed, as I said before, is an entirely different issue.

>> ^BansheeX:

The department of education helps no one but those in the education industry, it's a really bad deal for students. Education is a noble profession, but all services can be overpriced. Federal loans allow colleges to jack up rates every year knowing that the government will borrow more to pay for this supposed "sacred service that is the key to everything no matter the cost". Politicians have no fear of loss, the money is coming from future taxpayers that don't exist to vote it down. It's no coincidence that prices have accelerated far faster than unsubsidized products and services. If the government were to declare laptop ownership a social protocol and issue $1000 vouchers to everyone, the price of laptops would go up $1000 overnight. They do the same to education as they've been doing with housing.
My stepfather graduated from college in 1967. He paid 4k total for 4 years, that includes room and board. His first accountant job paid 10k a year. He is actually fairly liberal and is shocked to see how many people naively think that college didn't exist or wasn't any good prior to the DoE. He's old enough to know it's the total opposite.

You're partly right, those letters will never get to a bank employee, but as an employee of one of those companies that opens the letters for several banks, I can tell you that at least with us, we're obligated to capture any and all correspondence customers send in to us and provide it to the banks with the rest of the data. So the wood shims and roofing tiles will just piss off the wrong people, but any actual message you put in there will get to the bank, and a sudden spike in correspondence volume will get noticed.

I also disagree about raising bank costs being fruitless. If banks start charging people a monthly fee while paying 0% interest, most people will just pull their money out and bank somewhere else. Hopefully they'll go to a local bank or credit union instead, but they could always just store piles of cash in a safe at home. No business can insulate itself from increases in input costs by simply raising the price they ask customers to pay -- doing that loses you sales, and winds up costing you money.

>> ^L0cky:

Warning, party pooping.
The mail will never reach any employee of a bank, let alone a banker. It goes to a data collection warehouse.
People with already crappy jobs working for a sub contractor who do nothing but open envelopes all day and sort their contents will be the ones who will have to bin all your wooden shivs and messages.
On top of that, your local (probably unionised) mailman will have to lug around this extra mail on his/her collection round.
Nice sentiment, but poor in execution
Also, right now I don't see an effective end goal in trying to increase the banks' costs. We pay all their costs anyway, through charges or bailouts.

Warning, party pooping.

The mail will never reach any employee of a bank, let alone a banker. It goes to a data collection warehouse.

People with already crappy jobs working for a sub contractor who do nothing but open envelopes all day and sort their contents will be the ones who will have to bin all your wooden shivs and messages.

On top of that, your local (probably unionised) mailman will have to lug around this extra mail on his/her collection round.

Nice sentiment, but poor in execution

Also, right now I don't see an effective end goal in trying to increase the banks' costs. We pay all their costs anyway, through charges or bailouts.

>> ^legacy0100:

...wtf is this bullshit. This man is spewing diarrhea out of his mouth. He is basing his argument solely on what little he knows about his own little world. I highly doubt this man has ever done any professional research over these matters, not even data collection. He's just conjuring up a theory solely based on what he has read and heard over the news media sitting in his own living room.
What he said towards the end really bothered me the most. "some religions have never had these extremists", what sources does he have?


You, sir or madam, are the one who apparently knows little to nothing about both Islam and Sam Harris. May I suggest you read "The End of Faith", or any of Harris' excellent (and researched) books, before "spewing diarrhea"-like criticisms without knowing what you're talking about.

As for Islam, look up one or many of the following effects of Islam in the world today: honour killing, fgm, suicide attacks, stoning, hate crimes, hate speech, punishments for "adultery", etc...

@bareboards2: yes, "at this moment" is a key phrase; when Christianity had Islam's age it was still all about the Inquisition and inter-faith massacres (oh, and witch-burning). But there can be no "redemption" for any religion whose core fundamentals are flawed, there can only be a watering down of its craziness with secular morality.

On the false problem of fundamentalists: http://videosift.com/video/The-problem-is-not-fundamentalists-but-the-fundamentals

...wtf is this bullshit. This man is spewing diarrhea out of his mouth. He is basing his argument solely on what little he knows about his own little world. I highly doubt this man has ever done any professional research over these matters, not even data collection. He's just conjuring up a theory solely based on what he has read and heard over the news media sitting in his own living room.

What he said towards the end really bothered me the most. "some religions have never had these extremists", what sources does he have?

http://videosift.com/playlists/bareboards2/Dupes-Made-In-Error

Could you add your vid to this new playlist? I am collecting data.

I have another playlist for vids at risk of being duped in error:

http://videosift.com/playlists/bareboards2/Videos-with-Dupeof-errors

We all get very excited when we lose "our" videos -- the votes, the stars, the title that we slaved over. But we don't know really how big the problem is -- certainly if it has happened to you, it can feel huge.

Now we have data collection sites to de-personalize the experience.

>> ^ant:

>> ^Hybrid:
It's a shame it's not being added. An accidental dupe has just occurred that could have been saved by having a notadupe invocation called beforehand.

Ditto.

Maybe if you put quote marks around the title? To show that this one little press release is being used as emotional propaganda against scads of hard data collected?

And now it turns out the Arctic ice is melting faster than even the scientists predicted. Greenpeace might, horrifyingly, turn out to be correct.



>> ^acidSpine:

Where would we be without our mother?
People need to aknowledge and respect the earth as the genesis and giver of life rather than some undeserving fictional bastard.
Big downvote to januari for their gleefully anti-greenpeace title

I love my cousin to pieces, but found out recently that she doesn't believe in evolution. After some gentle questioning (I love her, I don't want to humiliate her), she finally said "I haven't thought about it, I just believe as my pastor tells me to."

In an odd way, I took comfort from that. SHE HASN'T THOUGHT ABOUT IT. If she ever did think about it, I have faith (Ha!!) that she would accept evolution as fitting the scientific data collected.


>> ^zaust:

Would love to know at what point the christians admit these animals have souls and can go to heaven. And at what point they'll admit evolution has been pretty much proved.

>> ^spawnflagger:


Also, why did they bother to put clothes on the dummies?


Because this wasn't scientific data collection, this was to scare the shit out of people and make them wear their seatbelts. I will never understand why people don't wear them.

I used to believe in spiritual stuff. I would read things like scientists associated with the Institute of Noetic Sciences doing a joint study with mainstream scientists around 2004 in which both teams separately used the exact same equipment and procedures, but came up with results that supported their separate paradigms.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences folks thus concluded that reality literally conforms to your paradigm or something, and that we have to re-examine hundreds of years of science.

Now that I have more intellectual experience, I believe more sober-minded scientists will tell you that there are innumerable ways to unknowingly botch your study if you care about the outcome, and that's one of the reasons science is so notoriously difficult to do right.
>> ^Trancecoach:

Grad, Bernard. "Paranormal Healing and Life Energy." American Society for Psychical Research Newsletter 7 (1981).
——. "Some Biological Effects of the 'Laying on of Hands': A Review of Experiments with Animals and Plants." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 59 (1965).
——. "A Telekinetic Effect on Plant Growth." International Journal of Parapsychology 3 (1961); 5 (1963).
Grad, Bernard, Remi J. Cadoret, and G. I. Paul. "The Influence of an Unorthodox Method of Treatment on Wound Healing in Mice." International Journal of Parapsychology 3, no. 2 (1961).

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^Trancecoach:
So there's actually been some hard data collected on the effects of prayer on healing. The effects are extremely modest (albeit statistically significant).
Dr. Bernard Grad worked with a self-proclaimed healer, Oskar Estabany, and observed that Estebany could "psychically" (i.e., prayer-at-a-distance) inhibit the damage caused by saline to red blood cells, thereby decreasing the healing time of wounds in mice, as compared to a control group of mice for whose healing was not prayed.
That said, I think this family needs to get the hint... unless of course the man's right, and the woman's foot IS all she has (and judging by her family, he might be right).

Link to study, please?