@poolcleaner, maybe no-one reacted because they had experience that told them they weren't in danger? The last few earthquakes in California were pretty small (5.1, 4.4) or pretty far away (6.8 50 miles out to sea) and none of them rated above moderate on the MMI. Sorry, but if you run around yelling at people that they should panic, when the danger isn't that great, then yeah, you kinda look like a crazy person.

I certainly won't react to anything under a 5.5 these days.

As for the video, it's kinda bullshit.

It's a completely artificial scenario. If there was a real fire, people would have gotten up, at least a few would be panicking, etc.

People love this kinda thing because they can point and laugh at all the sheep who blindly follow the herd. In reality, this behaviour is an evolved response, because 9 times out of 10, it's the correct behaviour.

There's a phenomenon known as "the wisdom of crowds", where a group of people who make advocate wildly differing solutions to a problem will actually average out to the correct solution. Everyone hates this, because everyone likes to think they're smarter than average, and they want to believe that a single individual is the pinnacle of everything.

This is prevalent in our culture. Look how many stories involve "one man against the odds", etc. Reality tends not to conform to this. Even if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, when you storm the compound, you get killed by a random guard. Most scientific discoveries are not one lone genius against the establishment, but a whole bunch of people working simultaneously toward the same goal and arriving at the same answer around the same time.

Of course this is not always true, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

The sad fact is that a consensus among informed people generally tends toward the correct answer. It makes for a lousy story, but it's generally true.

Still, if you see flames, get the hell out of the building

Just fail dude.
I never claimed to be an expert in geology, just to have enough knowledge to understand the science involved, unlike you.
EDIT: but your millionaire uncles HAVE talked about money with you, right...so you understand, say, interest?
Uniformitarianism as stated was proven false in the early 1800's. Many factors are involved in the time frame for feature formations, they are not uniform.
Yes, you are consistently anti-science here. You completely ignore the scientific method when making obviously false claims like 'that proves it was caused by a giant flood'.
Oh dude, no where in your fairy tale book does it ever say the earth is 6000 years old, you've been duped by idiots with agendas. Give it up, even your religious 'leaders' have realized the insanity of that stance and the requirement to suspend reality for it to be correct. Try listening to them.
There is absolutely zero evidence for a 'world wide flood' unless you can create some out of thin air with your level of faith in ridiculousness. There is not a single whit of actual evidence, which would take the form of a single, homogeneous layer of sediment world wide at the same geologic age. Doesn't exist. Sorry, you're just plain wrong about what you claim.
The 'evidence' in this video is evidence that landslides happen fast, not that layered non-volcanic sediments can be put down in tens of thousands of distinct and differing layers in an instant, then massive erosion can happen also in an instant, as you claim it does. True enough, erosion can happen fast, but doesn't often, and sedimentary layering simply can't...neither can fossilization. (oops, forgot, the devil put those stone bones there to fool me...but since I AM the devil, I'm not fooled)
Your claim that there is a homogeneous sediment layer all over the world is a complete fabrication. It does not exist. If it did, that would be HUGE scientific discovery heard on every network and science program for years to come, not one only heard about in church and/or afterwards in the lobby.
Once again...fail....as I suspect you did in your science classes.

EDIT:...and I love that your 'proof' video includes Uluru, the oldest large rock in the known world, which is proven by numerous differing methods to be well over 550 Million years old (that's how long ago it was rotated, it existed well before then) I guess the devil/gawd made that too, in order to confuse scientists? I'm not going to watch more time wasting ridiculous unscientific propaganda by the scientifically challenged, so it goes unwatched.
and good job with the cut and paste in order to quote me and answer me without me noticing,...sorry, didn't work.
SECOND EDIT: Do you not notice that on one side you claim uniformitarianism is wrong, but you also insist it's held as a major tenant of modern geology? If it's that obvious to you, an admitted lay person, don't you think it might be more obvious to professionals?

I'm advocating passivity because I don't recognise overpopulation as a threat, more an inconvenience, and one that we couldn't really prevent even if we wanted to.

I don't see what's preposterous or optimistic about taking widely accepted birth rate data and projecting based off that. Birth rates are predictable and stable sampled over a large population. The data consistently shows that as societies come out of poverty, their birth rates fall. The only assumption here is that there isn't another GFC event that hinders growth which at this point is not particularly likely.

All taken into account we already know it's plateauing, and have known for decades. This isn't a hypothesis, it's happening right now. Unless you can show me why this trend will suddenly and irrevocably reverse, despite population data being incredibly stable and predictable historically, it seems the onus is on you to explain why you're so pessimistic.

Again, I think you're still conflating (1) what I want / whether it's bad versus (2) whether it could plausibly be stopped. I would also rather live in a less populated world. At current rates of technology and resource utilisation, things would be cheaper, there'd be more to go around. Reality is not like that. But as I said before, every policy focus has an opportunity cost. I don't see a plateauing population as a threat and I would rather see that effort devoted to poverty which will help reduce it anyway.

We're nowhere near an economic bubble. Maybe a short term stock market valuation bubble right now, but there's plenty of economic under-utilisation in the US and Europe, and China and other developing countries have decades to grow.

The term technological bubble is a bit nonsensical. You can have a technology sector bubble but actual physical technology which works now, will not magically stop working tomorrow based on inflated expectations. If you're saying instead we'll reach some cusp of innovation, well people have predicting that for decades.

We're nowhere near a peak oil event. Every time people say current known reserves are dwindling, they either (1) discover a huge reserve in under developed countries that were previously not surveyed (Africa and parts of SE Asia at the moment), or (2) something like fraking comes along which unlocks new supply. The US is forecast to be the largest oil exporter by 2020 based on that second point.

Hell, I'll play devil's advocate with you. Suppose we do reach a glut. We'll know this at least a decade ahead based on dwindling new reserve discoveries. The price of energy will leap up far, far ahead of us running out. That will spur innovation in more efficient sources of energy and will incentivise both individuals and businesses to be more energy efficient. A gradual adjustment like I've talked about endlessly here. Why am I wrong?

Environmental damage is a different issue and something that I agree needs to actually be addressed. I'm sure if you search back through my posts you'll see me talking about the economic rationale of addressing this directly when corporations who pollute aren't subject to the negative externalities that they impose in our current capitalist system and that will inherently create issues. Hopefully countries will take note of the smog clouds in China's big cities.

Eh. Ultimately, satire can offend, but its goal is to enlighten people. If it's good satire, there should be a net positive societal gain.

I'm arguing that if you end up offending more than you enlighten, there's no net positive societal gain there. Especially if you offend a subset of the very group (targets of racism in this case) than you're trying to uplift with the satire.

It's got to be case-by-case, and it's often a very tough call. As I mentioned above, Dave Chappelle himself, by most accounts a comedic genius, struggled with it immensely in his material. And figuring all of this out is a tricky, ongoing process of discovery and dialog which requires a more nuanced viewpoint and empathy than you're showing a willingness to take on. Honestly it's a lot to process and I often wonder and question my own ability to navigate these issues.

Ultimately, I feel like you and many others just want win an argument and not really have to think about things like this anymore in the future. You want your racial satire and you want your rape jokes without talking about or thinking about any boundaries or grey areas for the purveyors of that comedy, and that's that. Black and white.

If something like this comes up again, welp, you already have an answer for that. You can just pull out your rubber stamp that says:
"It's satire people! Those offended don't get the context of the joke."

Colbert's character is a satire of just that kind of black and white way of thinking, so it's highly ironic for his viewership to mimic it.

"Father of Inflation" Professor SURPRISED w/ New Discovery has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas.

Oh, Discovery.... 19 microseconds is 0.000019 seconds. The conductor was off by 190 miliseconds or 0.19 seconds. They missed by 10^4.

"It's five sigma at point two". Now I know how to impress physicist chicks.

In actuality, I'm reeling at this discovery. Finally, solid evidence of gravitational waves and basically staring at the Big Bang. Astrophysics is advancing so fast these days.

A bit of the background and discovery

Hi A10ANIS,

Could you please address the heart of my argument, that the principle of parsimony (occams razor) states that we should consider the theory of a Creator over the multiverse theory? Thanks.

To address some of your points:

Regarding your "fine tuner" argument; Such is the fine tuning of your "creator" that 98% of all life that has existed, is extinct. Which, apart from being incredibly incompetent and wasteful, points logically to random
selection/evolution.

It also points to a global flood which wiped out nearly all life on Earth around 4400 years ago. The speciation which occurred up until that time was lost, but new species have been created since then. The mass extinctions going on today have everything to do with human development and bad stewardship rather than any design flaw.

Also, your "a painting therefore a painter" point is a non-sequitur for if there were a "fine tuner," there would, by your own argument, have to be a creator of the fine tuner and so an inevitable regression.

We as Christians do not believe in created gods which are a delusion by definition; we believe in an eternal God who was not created. The infinite regression stops at the feet of the eternal God who has always existed. This line of reasoning is a problem not for Christians but for those who believe in the multiverse theory, because whatever the mechanism is which generates all of these Universes would be yet another Goldilocks zone, and so precisely finetuned as to be statistically impossible. You may as well posit a Creator at that point. I mean just ask yourself the same questions; what created the multiverse, what created it, etc.

No, Science has thrown off the shackles of myths and gods. Had they not, our lives would be controlled by theocratic dictators and we would still believe earth was the centre of the universe.

Interesting you would say this considering that in its infancy, pretty much all of the important discoveries were made by professing Christians. It was actually the environment of Christian Europe which nurtured science into what it is today.

Another point is, Christians don't believe in myths; Jesus Christ is not a myth, He is a real person who died for our sins and rose from the dead. He told us about who God is, because He was with God and He is God.

We no longer use the god of the gaps argument. We may never know all the answers but, just because we don't, we no longer lazily, ignorantly, insist that; "Hallelujah, God must have done it."

It is not a God of the gaps argument when the theory has greater explanatory power than what is being proposed. When even apparent fine tuning as been observed, which it has, the principle of parsimony would prefer the theory of a Creator to multiple unobserved universes.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by eric3579. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Science-Channels-100-Greatest-Discoveries-in-Physics

I've heard him talk in the past about wanting to do some experiments that Discovery thought were too mundane, so they never did them, such as testing if analog audio, such as vinyl records and audio cassettes, actually do sound better than digital audio, such as CD and MP3.

In this clip it seemed like he was talking more about big experiments they weren't allowed to do rather than experiments that were too small.

Think bigger: Cannabis could cure our constant state of war and aggression.

Worst thing that ever happened to me was alcohol abuse; best thing was my discovery of cannabis. It's helped me become a caring human being and resolves my anger issues.

The fact that it's use is a mostly illegal is infuriating. They want us fighting drunk, not peacefully high.

David Hahn: Whackjob. Not widely reported (obviously, just hearing about the guy)-Let him in the Navy to keep an eye on his dangerous little ass is what they did. Sure like to see that Discovery channel piece they never aired-
*edit: Well here we go...Don't know if it's the D-channel piece mentioned, looks like it could be-

Unfortunately the process of discovery didn't exactly lend itself to a dramatic announcement. One imagines Archimedes lowering himself into the bath over several months waiting for a statistically significant volume of water to be displaced.

I imagine that pretty much everybody knew he was going to be getting a Nobel Prize at this point as well.