>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

Tyson is just plain wrong here, he says:
"40% of scientists are religious, so this notion that if you are a scientist, your'e an atheist, and if you are religious, you're not a scientist, is just empirically wrong"
Well, those of us who do say there is a conflict between science and religion have never framed the problem that way, the mere fact that there are religious scientists out there isnt evidence of a non-conflict anymore than the fact that a nazi could marry a jew. People can hold 2 or more conflicting views at the same time, we all do it all the time.
First of all, lets look at that "40%" number, it really depends on which poll or survey you look at. Those surveys who asks questions like "Do you believe in a personal god" usually end up in the sub-20% area of "religious" scientists, but if you include people who answer yes to questions like "are you a spiritual person" then maybe the number is closer to 40%.
So I really think 40% is really stretching it in favour of Tysons view here, but I'll let it go, lets say its 40% then, fine. Whats the same number in the general public? 41% 43?. No. its like 90%, right? So what happened to the 50% difference here? Did "No conflict" just happen to them? They just so happened to learn about science and nature, and via a sheer bloody coincidence, the number of religious people dropped by over one HALF???!!
No conflict my ass.
Of course there is a conflict. Tysons own inflated number even shows it directly.
But even if his inflated number was 100%, that ALL scientists were religious, there would still be a conflict, because faith and science are fundamentally different ways of approaching information and knowledge. In fact, they are, by definition, the opposite of eachother. Science can almost fully be described as "A complete absense of faith" and vice versa. If you've got even a hint of faith in your science, you've contaminated the results. Period. Similarly, if you take a hint of science, even at the level of a curious 5-year old, and apply it to the claims of faith, they immediatly start to look preposterous.
No conflict my ass.


To say there is no form of "faith" in science is misleading as well. If you're an avid follower of the science world, how could you be blind to the number of areas where we hold things to be accepted/true that are impossible to prove (outside of complicated math or computer models)? The most obvious example would be a many worlds/dimensions view, so any string theory borders on requiring "faith" to accept. Anything beyond the atomic level is a combination of interpreted observation and applied mathematics that we'll never be able to observe/prove first hand, in a sense we have "faith" that we're correct and have yet to find a reason to break that "faith" but if it happens we accept our "truth" to be not true. People had faith in newtonian physics being a true predictor/theory and we found it to not be the case after all.

I'm not attempting to compare the validity or justifiability of the 2 different flavors of faith. But a rose by any other name is still a rose, and there are things we believe and treat as true in science that we only know to be true in the ways we can measure them, and those ways sometimes contradict themselves still! Imagine the wave-particle duality and the contradictions in quantum theorys and Einsteins relativity...both of which we still use today (hell we still use newtonian physics in schools).

Ugh, this really is going in circles. The NIST report claims that there was no blast sound and that nobody heard it. True. However, that is factually incorrect. There is video evidence of blast sounds before the collapse as well as eyewitness testimony. NIST ignored it. That's why there is the belief that there is a conspiracy. Do try to keep up.>> ^shponglefan:

Yes, it is an insane idea. I've already outlined the extremely complex logistics in bringing WTC 7 down as part of a secret plot on 9/11. Am I being incredulous? You betcha! You're suggesting a secret conspiracy with little more than flimsiest of "evidence"; so what do you expect?
For example, you say "Eye-witness testimony mentions explosions" . So what? There probably were some explosions. Many things can explode, especially in the presence of a large seven hour fire: fuel storage containers, electrical transformers, etc. Plus other loud noises like falling debris may be misconstrued for explosions. To jump from "people heard explosions" to "secret plot to wire up WTC 7 for a controlled demo" is leaping several football fields worth of logic.
If you want to go the more complicated route, you need evidence of why that route is a more probable explanation and why it supercedes the more obvious explanation: that a debris damaged building burned for seven hours and then collapsed due to structural failure.
And if we're going to start trading things to look up, now you can look up Occam's razor.
You may also want to re-read the NIST report on WTC 7. They specifically mention that there is no evidence of a "blast event" capable of destroying a singular column in WTC 7. They discuss that such an event would be extremely loud (130 to 140 dB) and be heard from at least a half mile away, and that there were no witness reports of such an event nor such audio heard in any recordings of the WTC 7 collapse.
>> ^Fade:
It's not an insane idea in the slightest. NIST wont release any of the data that they used to come to their conclusions and the computer models they have released don't map to the observable video evidence. Eye-witness testimony mentions explosions. So test for explosions. The complexity of setting up demolitions doesn't rule them out. Argument from incredulity is a fallacy. Look it up

Yes, it is an insane idea. I've already outlined the extremely complex logistics in bringing WTC 7 down as part of a secret plot on 9/11. Am I being incredulous? You betcha! You're suggesting a secret conspiracy with little more than flimsiest of "evidence"; so what do you expect?

For example, you say "Eye-witness testimony mentions explosions"**. So what? There probably were some explosions. Many things can explode, especially in the presence of a large seven hour fire: fuel storage containers, electrical transformers, etc. Plus other loud noises like falling debris may be misconstrued for explosions. To jump from "people heard explosions" to "secret plot to wire up WTC 7 for a controlled demo" is leaping several football fields worth of logic.

If you want to go the more complicated route, you need evidence of why that route is a more probable explanation and why it supercedes the more obvious explanation: that a debris damaged building burned for seven hours and then collapsed due to structural failure.

And if we're going to start trading things to look up, now you can look up Occam's razor.

** You may also want to re-read the NIST report on WTC 7. They specifically mention that there is no evidence of a "blast event" capable of destroying a singular column in WTC 7. They discuss that such an event would be extremely loud (130 to 140 dB) and be heard from at least a half mile away, and that there were no witness reports of such an event nor such audio heard in any recordings of the WTC 7 collapse.

>> ^Fade:
It's not an insane idea in the slightest. NIST wont release any of the data that they used to come to their conclusions and the computer models they have released don't map to the observable video evidence. Eye-witness testimony mentions explosions. So test for explosions. The complexity of setting up demolitions doesn't rule them out. Argument from incredulity is a fallacy. Look it up

The main difficulty in simulating a brain is that the brain is almost infinitely parallel, while turing machines are inherently serial. Each neuron is dependent on the neurons around it, which themselves are dependent on the neurons beside them and so on.

To do that calculation in a serial machine is crazy time consuming. You have to essentially re-iterate every single neuron several time to advance one single "step", while the brain does it in real time. We're getting closer, but we're not nearly there yet.

There are ways to simplify it, of course, but then we sorta lose the point, don't we?
>> ^hpqp:

@gwiz665
I like the hardware/software analogy too. In fact, there is a project to make a computer model of the human brain (for circa 2023): http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-52741-en.html

@gwiz665

I like the hardware/software analogy too. In fact, there is a project to make a computer model of the human brain (for circa 2023): http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/page-52741-en.html

It's not an insane idea in the slightest. NIST wont release any of the data that they used to come to their conclusions and the computer models they have released don't map to the observable video evidence. Eye-witness testimony mentions explosions. So test for explosions. The complexity of setting up demolitions doesn't rule them out. Argument from incredulity is a fallacy. Look it up.>> ^shponglefan:

First of all, I never said the collapse was due to falling debris. I said that the facts we have are that the building sustained initial damage (which according to NIST may have included structural damage) followed by a 7 hour fire leading to eventual structural failure. So please don't misread what I write. It's about pointing out known facts (damage + fire) versus unknown speculation (secret bombs).
Second, There is no real substantial evidence that WTC 7 was demo'd. It's mostly based on a superficial account of the video of the collapse, which in itself doesn't suggest anything other than the building was damaged, then on fire, then eventually fell down.
Third, saying that "none of that shit is relevant" when you are proposing an idea that would involve an extremely complex undertaking makes it relevant. When exploring ideas, it helps to step back sometime and do a "sanity" check. That you don't seem to want to with respect to the controlled demo idea suggests you know it's pretty insane idea, you just don't want to admit it.
>> ^Fade:
None of that shit is relevant. I just want to know whether explosives were used or not. Independent testing shows evidence of this. So why didn't NIST do a test?
The footage of wtc7 collapsing is not grainy at all. What footage were you looking at?
your first point is covered in the NIST report anyway. NIST themselves state that the failure was not from structural damage due to falling debris.
The fact that you are arguing against the official account tells me that you probably haven't even read the official account. So why are you even involved in this discussion?

FEMA: "WTC 4, 5, and 6 are eight- and nine-story steel-framed office buildings, located on the north and east sides of the WTC Plaza, that were built circa 1970. ... Because of their close proximity to WTC 1 and WTC 2, all three buildings were subjected to severe debris impact damage when the towers collapsed. as well as the fires that developed from the debris. Most of WTC 4 collapsed when impacted by the exterior column debris from WTC 2; the remaining section had a complete burnout. WTC 5 and WTC 6 were impacted by exterior column debris from WTC I that caused large sections of localized collapse and subsequent fires spread throughout most of the buildings. All three buildings also were able to resist progressive collapse, in spite of the extensive local collapses that occurred."

So WTC 4, 5, and 6 behave like every other steel-framed building in history, but somehow WTC 7 collapses like a house of cards?

Observing the collapse of 47-story WTC 7 shows it to have all of the features of an implosion engineered by controlled demolition:

-The collapse of the main structure commences suddenly (several seconds after the penthouse falls).
-The building sinks in a precisely vertical manner into its footprint.
-Puffs of dust emerge from the building's facade early in the event.
-The collapse is total, producing a rubble pile only about three stories high.
-The main structure collapses totally in under 7 seconds, only about a second slower than it would take a brick dropped from the building's roof to reach the ground in a vacuum.

But NIST never tests for any explosive residue. Instead they spend 5+ years perfecting a computer model to blame the collapse on office fires.

And skeptics are the crazy ones? If you don't regurgitate government lies, then you're a conspiracy nut?

Go back to bed America.

The point about global warming is that all the available evidence shows that:
1. It is happening
2. It is man-made.

Why is that a problem? well, because we dont know what the consequences could be, we dont know how to stop the rising temperature or if theres a limit or if or when we can reverse the trend.

All of the above could happen, or it might not, some of it may not be due to GW and some of it may be. The fact is that we are messing with earths ecosystem, which is the very reason we are here in the first place. We grew up and evolved as a species on this planet, under these conditions, how will a rapid(geologically rapid 100-200 years) change in climate affect us as a species? how will it affect millions of other species? How will it affect weather? viruses? diseases? deserts? forests?

We don't know

Thats the point. some of the above are possible consequences of global warming*.

*or some denialist pulled it out of their ass and put it on the web so that other denialists could impress us all with their extensive lists.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Enviro-statist alarmists claim that all of the following have been (or will be) caused by global warming.

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, Arctic bogs melt, Asthma, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, Britain Siberian, British gardens change, bubonic plague, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north.
Cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt.
Early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El NiZo intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, less, not polar bears), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California.
Famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, high court debates, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths.
Ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, insurance premium rises, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers’ income increased (surprise, surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, Lyme disease.
Malaria, malnutrition, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mudslides, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise.
Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, psychosocial disturbances, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice yields crash, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers raised, rivers dry up, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease.
Salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, sex change, sharks booming, shrinking ponds, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed.
Taxes, tectonic plate movement, terrorism, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions.
Walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, Yellow fever.

Enviro-statist alarmists claim that all of the following have been (or will be) caused by global warming.


Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, Arctic bogs melt, Asthma, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, Britain Siberian, British gardens change, bubonic plague, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north.

Cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt.

Early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El NiZo intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, less, not polar bears), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California.

Famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, high court debates, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths.

Ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, insurance premium rises, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers’ income increased (surprise, surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, Lyme disease.

Malaria, malnutrition, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mudslides, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise.

Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, psychosocial disturbances, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice yields crash, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers raised, rivers dry up, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease.

Salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, sex change, sharks booming, shrinking ponds, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed.

Taxes, tectonic plate movement, terrorism, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions.

Walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, Yellow fever.

So what your saying is no matter how much scientific evidence is given to you, you won't change your mind. Why?

Bring forth some genuine scientific evidence to match the claims.

Tweaked data, theories and worst-case scenario computer models that suggest a direct correlation between man-made warming activity and a rise in global temperature are not scientific evidence.

A consensus is also not scientific evidence. A consensus is a bunch of people sharing a certain idea. At one time the consensus was the earth is flat.

I've never disputed global warming (which was the original alarmist battle cry, now downgraded to "climate change") OR global cooling, as both occur in cycles over millions of years.

Because it doesn't fit your ideology. I don't automatically distrust science because some science is corporate sponsored, and some is gov't sponsored.

The burden of proof is always on the instigator of tyranny. You do have the wherewithal to see where the man-made global warming "religion" is going, don't you? Finally the global tyrants have a way to unite the world. Now they can regulate and micromanage all industry the world over, from which crops will be planted to how many houses may be built to what vehicles will be allowed on the roads. If they had an actual thermostat to regulate earth's temperature precisely I'd hardly trust them with that either.

A good experiment is a good experiment regardless of who sponsored it. What are you gonna do? Trust no science at all because every experiment has designers and participants with potential secondary motives?!

I keep waiting for an 'experiment' from the alarmists that doesn't have its conclusions already in place and loud voices declaring all debate over before the opposing side is even allowed to speak.

Science rarely proves something 100% of the time because it's so hard to account for every variable. If you did an experiment about gravity, you may inadvertently introduce other variables that alter the results, such as wind, or magnetism. So some conflicting evidence is expected. But the majority of the evidence suggests a human element to global warming, and global warming is real.

One-World socialist government based on a "suggested" link between a human element which cannot be quantified (how much human activity changes the earth's temperature and by how many degrees?) does not appeal to me.

BTW, how do alarmists promote their claims of decade-spanning climate predictions when weather patterns can't be accurately predicted beyond one week? Furthermore, how does the left know that global warming--man-made or otherwise--is not beneficial?

Per netrunner's hokum, if the left could prove that man-made global warming was dangerous, and there was a solution to be found to the global warming "problem", the solution wouldn't arrive via socialist edicts, the free market would find it.


http://videosift.com/video/Saddam-s-WMD-were-moved-to-Syria

There is no way any good liberal would entertain the notion that Saddam moved WMDs into Syria under the cover of a humanitarian mission. Yet the possibility exists and might undermine the narrative of the 'anti-war' left. Invincible ignorance in your court.

Most people debating on the Internet know nothing about steel, explosives or the official report. Yet they somehow have very well defined opinions.

Yes, I'm looking at you, sifters.

I have BS degrees in electrical engineering and pure math. I'm finishing my Ph.D. in electrical engineering. However, I know very little about steel, explosives and I haven't read the NIST report. Next to an expert, my opinion is as good as a high school dropout's.

But if this video is accurate and NIST didn't explain convincingly how the steel melted, then their report is disturbingly incomplete. And by convincingly, I mean experimentally -- NOT with handwaiving and computer models based on guesswork.

During my career as a practicing engineer and a researcher, I've seen way too many computer simulations designed to "prove" something which is in fact false. Many of the papers I reject have some kind of bullshit assumption or simulation. By using the wrong model, it's possible to show pretty much anything, and in the end, nothing can replace real-world experiments, especially if you're trying to overcome skepticism and confusion.

I suppose I should read the NIST report and stop taking other people's word for it. Because if the quotes from this video are correct, then he's right and NIST's work is unconvincing at best.

More likely it was, "University Academics" "created computer models" that have been tested using "soccer players"... and other federally funded researchers are studying new methods of sound recording, which could be used by the Video Game Industry (a multi-billion dollar industry BTW). Maybe we should give some money to study the effects of prayer.

>> ^MaxWilder:

>> ^ForgedReality:
Exactly my point. People downvoted my comment because they're dumb, I guess.
The angle cut allows the differently sized pieces to swap places, and changing the configuration of the two L-shaped ones creates a gap. OOOH SO MYSTERIOUS.
FR, if you can't see why this shouldn't be possible, you lack a basic understanding of geometry.
The area of the square is width x height. In the first configuration, the pieces cover the full area of the square. In the second configuration, they do not. The area has not changed. The pieces have not shrunk. So why is there a part of the puzzle that is empty?
If everybody else is so dumb, please enlighten us as to how this is possible.
My only guess is that the pieces are being squished into the second configuration, and the squished portions make up for the missing coverage. But that would mean this would not work with sturdier material, or in a computer model.

....

Really, bro? Look at it again. Take two letter L's .. Flip one so that it is inverted, and move it so that the longer bits are touching. Now move them so that the shorter bits are resting on the longer bits of each other. Look there's a hole. Creepy huh?

What's happening is the area that the L-pieces are inside of becomes NARROWER and TALLER (since the two larger pieces are different sizes (One is wider and taller than the other, but the angle cut is the same angle, so they both fit along that edge), allowing for the L-pieces to shift into the second configuration and still fill out that space, but create a hole between them.

It's seriously not that fucking complicated. The fact that nobody here seems to understand how it works is really the only mystery here. It's quite surprising, and at the same time, it makes me worry for the future of humanity. This is no mindwarp. It's simple geometry.

>> ^MaxWilder:

>> ^ForgedReality:
Exactly my point. People downvoted my comment because they're dumb, I guess.
The angle cut allows the differently sized pieces to swap places, and changing the configuration of the two L-shaped ones creates a gap. OOOH SO MYSTERIOUS.
FR, if you can't see why this shouldn't be possible, you lack a basic understanding of geometry.
The area of the square is width x height. In the first configuration, the pieces cover the full area of the square. In the second configuration, they do not. The area has not changed. The pieces have not shrunk. So why is there a part of the puzzle that is empty?
If everybody else is so dumb, please enlighten us as to how this is possible.
My only guess is that the pieces are being squished into the second configuration, and the squished portions make up for the missing coverage. But that would mean this would not work with sturdier material, or in a computer model.


It depends how you built the rigid pieces/computer model. There ARE gaps in the first configuration, they're just small and spread. The second configuration reduces the smaller, spread gaps and converts them into one larger gap.

Check that thing i linked, you'll see that the triangle in that picture isn't a true triangle, it just looks a lot like one. It's actually got 4 sides, and you can apply something similar here.

>> ^ForgedReality:

Exactly my point. People downvoted my comment because they're dumb, I guess.
The angle cut allows the differently sized pieces to swap places, and changing the configuration of the two L-shaped ones creates a gap. OOOH SO MYSTERIOUS.

FR, if you can't see why this shouldn't be possible, you lack a basic understanding of geometry.

The area of the square is width x height. In the first configuration, the pieces cover the full area of the square. In the second configuration, they do not. The area has not changed. The pieces have not shrunk. So why is there a part of the puzzle that is empty?

If everybody else is so dumb, please enlighten us as to how this is possible.

My only guess is that the pieces are being squished into the second configuration, and the squished portions make up for the missing coverage. But that would mean this would not work with sturdier material, or in a computer model.