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No, I just didn't feel it necessary to duplicate literature which already exists because you're too lazy to click a link, but I'll play: Here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00182388 Is an investigation of the genus Neisseria - which includes the pathogens N. meningitidis and N. gonorrhoeae as well as a number of non-pathogenic commensal species. Both pathogens have been observed in the clinic to be penicillin resistant. By reconstructing the phylogeny ("Darwin tree" if you insist) we can determine that the resistance genes are mosaic genes resultant of ectopic recombination rather than vertical transfer, and horizontal exchange with commensal species is a probable route for inheritance of resistance in pathogenic species. TlDr: by Making a Darwin tree of a genus of bacteria, we can show that they share and recombine genes that encode antibiotic resistance, and come up with better management plans for controlling the spread of drug resistance in those pathogens.

I don't watch CNN; I just read BBC, Reuters and Japan Times daily. I'm getting increasing disenchanted with the BBC though because it has some pretty obvious agendas, which it seeks to promote with quite unseemly enthusiasm. I like neutrality.

This is pretty basic math, Raider. You cannot assert a percentage if you don't know both numbers in your calculation. You do not know how many hidden/secret/unknown nuclear sites exist in North Korea. This is true by definition, yet you continue to assert percentages despite not knowing the actual baseline for your denominator. I'm not attacking your identity. I'm not arguing against you as a person. I'm merely pointing out that you're pulling things out of your ass and asserting them as fact. That's where I've applied my challenge to your posts. You either grasp this or you do not. Just accept that's okay to make mistakes sometimes, use it as an opportunity to improve future posts, and we can then continue this discussion about the countless many other things about which we surely agree. You know, or keep digging your heels in farther and farther... I suppose that's an option, too.

Luckily I left this topic on my browser and refreshed it or I'd never have seen your edit.... Hard to analyse a video compared to text... Around 5m 20s '"Spooky action at a distance" says that...' At 5min32sec "information in quantum mechanics can travel faster than light" etc followed shortly by 'Nobody understands this, but it's well established and it's a true effect.' "Spooky action at a distance" is well understood mathematically (not by Doctor Don Lincoln) though there is disagreement about its implications, much like 'observing' in quantum mechanics. Action at a distance does not involve the superluminal transfer of information. 'Information' as used by Doctor Don Lincoln has an unspecified different meaning from the normal meaning as in 'information cannot move faster than light.' When I see a false statement justified by 'Nobody understands this' (i.e. the author doesn't understand it) I don't see the point in watching the rest of a video where nothing I don't know already can be trusted. Doctor Don Lincoln does hint that his 'information' is different but anyone trying to learn from this video will likely conclude that physics is really difficult and should be left to clever people like him.

I don't think he made such terrible 'gaffs' (new word of the day for me ). As far as I remember you did not understand the point Reg was trying to make. But I do not want to recap the whole argument again here. As far as I remember the discussion was about naive falsificationism, which nearly nobody adheres to anymore, except maybe a few naive scientists. I know that it can be difficult to keep calm at Reg's posts, because of his 'know-it-all' and cynical style, but if you feel angry because of that, just take a deep breath, and concentrate on the contents. Are you sure you understands what he says? If not, ask. If you are, give counterarguments; but do not dismiss them just out of hand. Philosophy is not trying to dismiss the other, but proof the validity of arguments. In my impression the threads were not just closed by Reg's tone, but also by those of others. Any discussion, be it in science, philosophy or daily life, is done best by taking a disinterested stance, by not identifying oneself with the arguments, and so feeling attacked when somebody does not agree with you. And again, @Reg Prescott, please temper your tone. It could be much more productive.

*facepalm* Yea - it's so unfair that science is backed up by references and tried and tested experiment. lol.

So, what''s your beef? If one is looking to see how something evolved then it's essential. It has given researchers a blueprint in where to search for solutions by classifying genetic progressions. If you haven't got a working theory you can't make predictions.

Tell that to the farmers struggling under tariffs. Except, we are. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger, not to mention cyber and the cold wars being stoked with China and Iran Except the opioid epidemic, poverty, rampant inequality, and if you want our crumbling infrastructure. Busted v Philip Randolf Institute. Benisek v Lamone. Gill v Whitford. Jennings v Rodriquez. Jesner v Arab Bank. The list goes on. Just because you’re unaware of them doesn’t mean they’re unimportant or indecisive. Except, you know... the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the 18 bombs mailed to democratic leaders, and the countless many other acts committed by white nationalists in the US. How are you unaware of the hundreds of protests and marches which have taken place in 2018 alone? That’s just the first paragraph. I’d reply to the other four, but at this point it really feels like a Gish gallop Except the very first sentence in the next paragraph. Can’t let that go. 1944. 1968. 1952 1951 1945 1943 1929 Shall I keep reading and correcting you?

Correct, I think.. In general, you need to know/learn/recognize someone's level of understanding/comprehension concerning a certain subject matter. You can call it 'cognitive empathy'.

I wanted to post this comic somewhere as it is insightful about both science communication and quantum theory. This thread will do! http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3

Has your studies included curve sketching? So sketch the graph of x3 -3x hint can this be factorised? now a is a 'constant' but we may choose different values of 'a' What do you think this does to your sketch?

Then by your definition it is impossible to have secret locations. Because if we do not know about them, they do not exist. But if we do know about them, they are not secret. The implication obviously is that because they have kept facilities secret that have been ultimately discovered, there is a likelihood of yet undiscovered ones. Thus one cannot claim with certainty (as you did) that we know of all of them.

If there was no mass (or energy) anywhere then there would be no gravity. But the question was (as I understood it) about an area where there was a vacuum, within the universe. In that case, there would be gravity, even in the vacuum, because of the presence of mass elsewhere.

You are creating a hypothetical here, but rather obviously there is a long list of actions taken by the administration that allow us to contextualize their action. This does include hiring folks such as Bannon and Miller who have crafted policies exploiting and enhancing racial division, cozy up to white supremacists. And no, I do not accept the interpretation that it is all to reduce illegal immigration. The administration has enacted numerous policy changes to curb immigration and have tried to target some areas (you known how Trump called them, do you?). Highly qualified H1B holder are increasingly denied green cards and the list goes on. Add that to his overall rhetoric, the only question that could be asked is not whether the policies are based on nativist/ white nationalists ideals. No, the only aspect one could question is whether Trump actually believes them or whether they are merely strategic. However, given his personal history as well as his reflexive defense of white murderers (both sides, anyone?) the weight of evidence clearly tilts to one side. If it walks like a duck talks like a duck and has trouble condemning White supremacists or neo-nazis, you may have racist duck. If, on the other hand, you insist on ignoring all the rhetoric, personal history, targets of his policies, the useless cruelty involved, use of nativist language, the target demographics and their attitudes, the and thereby virtually everything that creates context and counter it with a theoretical, then I am afraid I have to believe that you are not arguing in good faith.

No, because everything we know about a black hole is "available" at the horizon. We can't know anything about the internal structure or mass distribution. And in the case of Hawking radiation that arises is an effect of the existence of the event horizon, not the singularity. It is created immediately outside the event horizon, which is why it can escape the black hole. Perhaps surprisingly, the radiated power and temperature of Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to mass (temperature goes as 1/M and radiated power as 1/M2). If you want to play around with the properties of different sized black holes, there is a neat interactive calculator here: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/ You can plug in any parameter (mass, radius, temperature, etc) and it will calculate all the others for you.

It doesn't expire. I suspect the manufacturers of the water drinks in bottles put a best before date on the bottle to cover them selves in case of bacterial growth in the water or something like that. That's my guess anyway.

! Moderator Note It is also unfair to show up and make claims while being unfamiliar with the topic. The OP was answered, and the response brushed aside with "I suspect that all the examples you have mentioned here..." which is pretty weak tea. It's also unfair to make such a dismissal but expect others to go into depth with some justification — which wasn't part of the question — especially after the first answer was brushed aside. The OP was free to ask about a specific one and inquire about the details, but tried to shift the burden of the argument. One last thing, Reg: stop hijacking the thread to kvetch about process. If you can't add to the topic of discussion, don't post in the thread.

Keep your secrets then. But don't expect to be taken seriously. It turns your effort to debate into a joke.

Science is knowledge and/or the pursuit thereof. I have certainly seen confusion, and mostly based on invalid scientific claims from yourself actually. I have found that most people I have come across that see the need to discuss truth, will inevitable have some form of ID agenda. The scientific discipline has as its foundations the scientific methodology. That essentially means that this truth is not the goal of science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge Not really......One accepts a proposition/theeory based on observational and experimental evidence that supports it. The truth is nether here nor there. Rubbish. The beauty of the scientific method is that it can be modified, changed, added to, or invalidated as new observations are obtained. This simple basic premise is something you keep ignoring in your many threads. But no one has ever said that that I am aware of.....This hairy fairy truth is not the object...If it happens to be hit upon accidentley, all well and good. But you seem to have come around to scientific thinking as dictated by the scientific method [the bit I highlighted] Why could'nt you just openly admit that? That is simply rubbish once again......This once again highlights the facts of how you twist, misinterpret, place your own meanings on words, and indulge in obtuseness when confronted with evidence to the contrary. And then you scream victim when someone alludes to the probability that you have an agenda? Evolution is as close to being fact as we can hope...We have tremendous amount of knowledge re astronomy, cosmology etc, aided by modern technological advancements, as well as the particle zoo. In fact at least in my opinion, what makes our knowledge so great is how the principal theories covering these disciplines, the BB, SR/GR and our particle zoo, seem to all fit snugly together like a jig saw puzzle. But of course that does not mean more knowledge is not to be found...We still have only seen the tip of the iceberg...DE, DM, are two areas that we have barely any knowledge of at this time. So my question to you is why are you so afraid of knowledge and science in general?

If you have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century to cite someone clinging to a disproven hypothesis to invalidate a routine methodology used by thousands of researcher, you are doing something wrong (and the something wrong is simply being uninformed on the subject matter).

Rather than being vague, I linked to a peer reviewed publication in each instance. Click the links.

So, why didn't you post about that, as an opposing theory to Darwin instead of just knocking his tree?

Let me break this down for you with small words. You: We’re pretty much sure of where all their sites are. Me: Actually, no. Many are hidden and still secret. You: They’re not violating their agreements. Me: Stop moving the goalposts. I wasn’t talking about the agreements. You: I didn’t move the goalposts. Syria is not NK. Me: Facepalm. Let me explain this one more time using crayons.

I never suggested equivalence. Are you intentionally now trying to add the strawman to your string of logical fallacies?

I would wait for the finalization of the inspections before assuming anything. NK has agreed to inspections and stopping their program since the 90s. Neither is it the first time of them actually letting investigators in (and then kicking them out if they are getting too close). The most positive aspect is the seemingly improved relationship to SK, but a mere agreement to inspections does not seem that much different to past negotiations.

Those are both abstractions or methods of mathematical modelling. Sometimes it's easier to have particle behave as a particle, sometimes as a wave, sometimes as an excitation of some field. What a particle is "really" is a whole different question.

No worries The galaxies are moving away from each other not towards each other. The acceleration of the Universe was discovered in 1998 by observing two distant supernovae. Here you can read how they came up with the measurments: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe

A lovely story. That is a version of Pascal's Wager that I am completely in favour of.

Well, we really don't know. According to GR anything that falls into the black hole rapidly falls into the singularity at the centre. So, if the black hole were "active" (lots of material falling into it) then the inside would not be a vacuum - it would contain the stuff that had fallen in, on its way to the centre. On the other hand, if it reasonably isolated so nothing is falling in, then the inside will be a vacuum. On the other (third?) hand, string theory describes black holes as being full of "fuzz". One challenge here is what you mean by "vacuum". In intergalactic space, there are just a few particles per cubic metre. That is a much better vacuum than we can make on Earth. But, basically, the presence of gravity is independent of whether the space is empty or not. If there is gravity in a vacuum then it would, perhaps obviously, be due to the presence of mass outside the area that was a vacuum. (Note that gravity has an infinite range so even in the vacuum of space between galaxies, there will be gravity from those galaxies.) I guess from the title of the video, this is about Cerenkov radiation (can't watch videos). In that case, it is produced when a particle moves through a medium (air, water, glass) faster than the speed of light in that medium (which will always be slower than the speed of light in a vacuum). So the "speed of light" limit is actually the "speed of light in a vacuum" limit. (Haven't been able to watch your 2nd video, so not sure what that is about ...)

Ok, I grant you that I misread his myth passage. Which is a bit convoluted, but nevertheless I misread it. So the "myth" isn't Darwin's tree, but Francis's own hypothetical myth that we have supposedly been indoctrinated in. ie that "Darwin's tree is essential to all forms of biology" . I'm struggling to get my head around this. So Francis's point isn't about the validity of Darwin's tree, but about the fact that it's "considered essential" ???? Which is something, to be honest, that I've personally never even thought about. Nor cared about. In that case it would be nice for Francis to declare his position on whether he thinks Darwin's tree picture is actually right or wrong. I personally think it's right, it's self evident, and INTEGRAL to biology, but whether it's essential or not has never been mentioned to me, and I can certainly say with complete confidence that nobody has ever tried to indoctrinate me in that convoluted notion. Have you ever seen such a thing as a jigsaw? If that's the current state of biology, then Darwin's tree is one of the pieces to me. An integral part. That doesn't make it essential, you can do some sort of biology without it, but the puzzle isn't complete, if you leave it out.

I am pleased to now add CharonY and Strange to the list of gullible fools wonderful people willing to sacrifice their time for the greater good here at SFN. Congratulations!

That is an artificial distinction.

It is certainly evidence to any reasonable person. There is no denying that many people have had these experiences and that they mean something.

It's got something to do with empathy.

The only way to introduce these complex ideas is to simplify them. Even students of science get taught simpler models first! In some cases people will be satisfied with the simplified explanation. Others will look for a bit more detail and some will be inspired to go study it seriously. All those outcomes are good. I do wish that there were some sort of standard disclaimer pointing out that the explanation is simplified, that the analogies are inexact, the math is complex, etc. It might reduce the number of people who come here to point out the “obvious” flaw in relativity!

I haven't moved the goal posts, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop accusing me of doing that. My entire previous point even highlighted things about how hard it is to hide nuclear facilities as compared to chemical weapons facilities. Your report that you provided didn't even touch on suspected hidden facilities, holding grounds, or launch site. It talked about what they were doing at the facilities that we know about. Do not equate those two different things. One is a statement I made, one is not. The report focused on what they were doing, not some giant new nuclear facility we just found out about. Hence, my original assertion is still 100% true, and I haven't moved the goal posts. You're also taking what I've said away from the original point I made. Syria was doing things against the agreement, and we suspected it before it was confirmed. At the moment we don't suspect North Korea of doing the same thing Syria did.

The human race does not agree with you, thus you can not say we. Darwin's theory of evolution has already been disproved and the unfortunate result is no one knows what to think so they will not accept the new evidence

Who is we, are there two more stooges? Where did you learn thee words of wisdom and from where did they get the info? I could make stuff up too, except I am a grown up How can the expanded material be the entire universe when that material is moving outward at a high rate of speed. Are you claiming that it goes nowhere, or that where it goes did not exist until the matter got there. My hope is that you learn that you can not make up stories as you go and be taken seriously That said Tyson makes up krap every day as well, Hawking wrote entire books of nonsense

I don't think it's necessary for me to make any such distinction (even if I could!) on this thread as it seems irrelevant to the topic. Darwin's tree seems to be just as irrelevant and useless to applied biology now as it was then. "frequently exaggerated" is a gross understatement - it's like some kind of weird, irrational cult worship. I suspect most biologist have been indoctrinated from Biology 101 to believe that Darwin's tree is "the unifying concept of all biology", and for some odd reason, they've never stopped to consider the veractiy of this dogma, which appears to me to be a full-blown myth.

You made the claim, so now the onus is on you to back it up - instead of throwing vague examples at me, take just of these examples and explain in specific terms how it demonstrates that Darwin's tree has proven practically useful in applied science. I'd bet my bottom dollar that you can't.

This is irrelevant to the OP

Ah Studiot. I did my best, trust me, trying to bring some measure of clarity to what did not seem to me clearly articulated ideas (kept me up till 2:00am too! Haha!). I'm not blaming yourself for this. Probably my own fault. I was just trying to simplify in order to understand your intriguing example better; not with any intent to distort. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, maybe not. Kinda sick of all the hypocrisy and nastiness on this site right now (this is not directed at your good self). But for now... This seems to me the crux of the issue. I don't think knowledge is that which materializes when a certain threshold of belief is attained. One can believe to the point of announcing absolute certainty yet still not KNOW, right? Anyway, be well. Ta-ta.

And that is an opinion. As is mine. Agree to disagree.

In this thread I'd like to explore the various relationships that obtain between science, truth, and knowledge, and perhaps help to ameliorate some very deep confusions that have been brought to my attention through discussion with fellow members. I've noticed that, in contexts related to science, some members are extremely reluctant to make any mention of the word "truth" (and its cognates: true, truly, etc.), a tendency that struck me as quite inexplicable until the reason, I think, for this misguided reticence was exposed in a very revealing comment recently. If I may paraphrase: "The making of claims to truth would compromise the open-minded character of the scientific enterprise and render it more like a religion." What I hope to show here, to begin with at least, is that such a view leads to consequences that I suspect have not been clearly thought through; consequences that I'm fairly sure the majority of our members would be unwilling to accept. Knowledge, as traditionally defined since antiquity, is justified true belief. Certain inadequacies in this definition (Gettier type counterexamples) have been brought to light in recent decades, though they needn't concern us here. The above definition will be assumed in all that follows. To have knowledge of a certain proposition, to know that proposition, then, requires three conditions to be satisfied: (1) One must believe the proposition (2) One must have sufficient justification for believing that proposition (3) The proposition must be true (1), obviously, tells us that you cannot know something you don't believe. (2) says that one must not only believe the proposition in question, but one must have good reasons for doing so. Guesswork is ruled out. Were Smith, through a sheer fluke, to correctly guess the winning lottery number, we would not thereby attribute knowledge to him. He believed, for example, that the winning number was 314269, and it is true that the winning number was 314269, but he lacked the requisite justification; he had no good reason(s) for believing as he did. Therefore, he did not know this. (3) is self-explanatory. One cannot have knowledge of that which is untrue. You might believe that Paris is the capital of Italy; you may even have good reasons for believing this; nevertheless, you cannot know that it is so. For the simple reason that it is not so. (1) - (3), then, constitute individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for knowledge (leaving aside pain-in-the-ass Gettier complications). If any one of the three is not satisfied there can be no knowledge; if all three are satisfied, knowledge is the result. Now, since truth is one of these necessary conditions for knowledge, any untrue claim -- scientific or otherwise -- cannot constitute knowledge. Without truth there can be no knowledge. Therefore, those who deny that science -- at least in some cases -- yields truth (i.e., true propositions, statements, laws, theories, hypotheses, etc.) must also deny that science produces knowledge. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a fairly weighty bullet that presumably few among us would be willing to bite. To the following questions... How much knowledge has science produced about the cosmos, the stars, the galaxies, the planets? How much knowledge has science produced about evolution? How much knowledge has science produced about atoms and molecules? How much knowledge has science produced about anatomy, the brain, medicine? ... the denier of truth, on pain of inconsistency, must answer: "Zilch! Zero! Nada! Not a jot! Absolutely none!". As a footnote, one occasionally hears on these forums clandestine whispers of "absolute truth" or "universal truth". I personally haven't a clue what is being alluded to. The terms mean nothing to me. For the student of language, "true" and "false", are rather mundane predicates that apply to assertive sentences, from the most pedestrian ("My haemorrhoids are playing up again") to the sublime ("Jesus is the only begotten son of God"). Both sentences make assertions, and thus both are -- at least in principle -- truth evaluable. Now, who's afraid of the big bad truth?