TheVat

De Sitter's experiment Consider a distant binary star system (two stars, A and B, orbiting each other) and assume that the orbits of the stars obey Kepler's laws (so they trace out ellipses). Assume Ritz's theory so that the speed of light depends on the velocity of the star. When star A is moving towards us (at speed vv) in its orbit, the light it emits in our direction will be moving at speed c+vc+v. When it is moving away from us (also at speed vv), the light it emits in our direction will be moving slower, with speed c−vc−v. Therefore the motion will appear very nonuniform: the star will seem to speed up as it comes towards us and slow down as it moves away. This is not consistent with what we observe in practice, which is uniform Keplerian motion. This means that Ritz's theory cannot be an accurate description of the motion of light. This is an incredibly simple explanation. There are many ways in which you could criticise this argument (maybe the motion we see is the result of Ritz's theory and highly eccentric elliptical orbits?) and he gives a more detailed argument with reference to specific binary systems in a follow-up paper. In this follow-up paper he phrases the conclusion slightly more conservatively: one can put an upper bound on the dependence of the speed of light on the velocity of its source using astronomical observations of binary systems according to the argument sketched above. Of course, there are many other experiments which confirm the predictions of special relativity, but this one has the advantage that it only requires you to have a good telescope rather than some complicated configuration of interferometers. It's also the simplest imaginable experiment you could design to directly test the constancy of the speed of light: essentially racing lightbeams against one another! https://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucahjde/blog/lightspeed.html

The standard has been ten days and 24 hours with no fever, if we are talking of mild or asymptomatic covid. But isolation can be longer if the infection is severe or if the person is immunocompromised. Here's the CDC page where you can scroll down a ways to see all the various scenarios: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html

From today's COP26, an attempt at least (not getting excited, as the pledge has been made before...) GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — More than 100 countries pledged Tuesday to end deforestation in the coming decade — a promise that experts say would be critical to limiting climate change but one that has been made and broken before. Britain hailed the commitment as the first big achievement of the U.N. climate conference known as COP26 taking place this month in the Scottish city of Glasgow. But campaigners say they need to see the details to understand its full impact. The U.K. government said it has received commitments from leaders representing more than 85% of the world’s forests to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Among them are several countries with massive forests, including Brazil, China, Colombia, Congo, Indonesia, Russia and the United States. More than $19 billion in public and private funds have been pledged toward the plan. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “with today’s unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian.”

Yes, the supply chains of stuff like palm oil are a big piece of the puzzle. With coffee, we can promote shade tree varieties (coffea arabica) but it is harder to get consumers to even know how to stop buying the thousands of products that contain palm oil. As @String Junky noted, it is hard to educate on long-term consequences when people are living hand-to-mouth. Those people will likely subscribe to the famous adage, "money talks, bulls*** walks. " So maybe it would take fallow payments, where money rewards leaving a forest alone, because otherwise there will always be economic drivers that we cannot stop just by not buying. Even if rich nations said no more robusta beans, palm oil, tinned beef, copper, latex, etc there would still be hungry farmers nibbling away at the edges of the forests. They would need incentives to just walk in there and gather nuts instead.

Also be wary of critiques of ET which go after only one type of evolution when there are five different mechanisms. Especially if the critique centers on mutation, which by itself generates variation but not evolution. Evolution arises only in the interaction of the mutant variation with the other four mechanisms. As for the attack on mutation plus NS, one need only find an adult who can drink a glass of milk to dismiss it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/01/cop26-what-is-deforestation-and-is-stopping-it-really-possible-aoe The loss of forests and their capacity as carbon sinks, as well as their effects (especially rainforest) on weather patterns, poses serious problems for us. Where do you think effort would be best concentrated? Paying developing nations not to chop, giving them carbon capture credits, seems like one practical approach.

Consider me doubled over - good one! And makes the point about intent. I would say a lot of humor (at least the kind that makes people laugh) is somewhat transgressive, and that's a good thing. It means we are laughing about something that otherwise we might anxious or fearful or sad about. Humor is a vital social coping mechanism which alleviates negative feelings and distrust. When it is transgressive, it says we are mutually trusting in the intent to soften life's blows by taking them less seriously. As you indicated, you have to "read the room. "

Dress codes in schools should address distraction, a universal human malady, not stereotypes about unbridled libidos. Pretty sure my GPA in middle/highschool would have dropped a point or two if students had worn swimsuits, but I would guess after a semester or so I would have adjusted to the new norm.

You have not made any case for a genuine scientific framework in which Saturn would be closer to the sun than Earth. Wormholes don't alter the layout of our solar system, nor do playing a cute semantic game with spreadsheet sorting, and when we make a valid statement (valid, as in true) on Saturn's location, it is quite simple and has been so for centuries to confirm or falsify that statement. Science, when it comes to this sort of matter, does very much deal in determining the truth of the matter. And sometimes, as in the matter of planetary locations with respect to stars, it is quite warranted to make a truth claim and hold that claim to be universal. When you say "everyone" is making claims about truth, I don't know who everyone is or what their specific claims are. But I believe the sort of empirically based claims I have exampled here are legitimate claims to truth. They can be proven or falsified, and it is easy to determine which was arrived at. Future science isn't going to discover Saturn is actually beneath a shopping mall in Omaha. It is where it is, farther from the sun, and will remain so unless some interstellar interloper, a brown dwarf perhaps, yanks it drastically out of its orbital path. Saying something is true for a certain span of time makes it no less true.

Yeah, I tend to think indoctrination connotes uncritical acceptance of whatever is being taught. Hard to be "imbued" if someone is presenting it as a debatable. Anyway, in common parlance, the more pejorative definition seems to now dominate conversations. I'd wager more people think Uighurs in reeducation camps or children in madrassas now, when they hear the word. Not places where teacher says, I'll open this up for discussion now.

Dan, science currently has enough suspicion and hostility directed at it. To have scientists start advising people on their religious practices and how to allocate their personal resources, would only worsen the situation. Maybe putting flowers by the Buddha or the blessed Virgin, while viewed by an atheist as a waste of effort, gives someone deep peace and satisfaction that ripples throughout their day. Seems like science best remain silent on this. Atheism I've always taken to mean the active assertion there are no gods. Agnosticism being the other view that knowledge of such an entity is beyond our human epistemic limits. I go with the latter and find serious atheists smug and off-putting.

Gosh, if only there were books that had all the words in a language, and gave agreed upon definitions of them. Hey... Definition of indoctrinate transitive verb 1: to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle 2: to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments : TEACH (From Webster's) So clearly, in definition one, just learning the Monroe doctrine, as an historical fact, is not indoctrination. One must be imbued with it. One must be led to a particular opinion or perspective, usually sectarian or partisan. In this example, one must be persuaded that any foreign intervention in American politics is bad for the nation and should be viewed as hostile. I would venture that many pupils just learn what the doctrine is, without necessarily being imbued with a political opinion of it. I myself am not convinced it is always applicable.

A true vacuum would lower the boiling point of water to room temperature. This suggests that a true vacuum anywhere in or around a body would be catastrophic for the person. Cells would burst and their contents would vaporize. Anyplace in the GI tract would equalize pressure with the external environment since the tract is technically not separate from the exterior and has no hermetic seals at larynx or anus. A slightly higher pressure in the tract, from methane and hydrogen formation, results in burps or farts, or bloat if those don't happen due to temporary food blockages or constrictions of sphincters. And then there's this fact, one which I am mostly encouraged not to share at social functions: prolonged sitting in a chair can compress the anal sphincter to where it effectively seals the colon. In theory, you could, say, eat a bag of white flour, with some water, then sit for a prolonged period, then induce vomiting while in the seated position followed by laryngeal compression and you might achieve (and "achieve" is really the word here, eh?) a small partial vacuum in your GI tract for a brief period.

https://www.thebulwark.com/political-speech-for-human-dingleberries-has-never-been-more-robust/ This fellow makes the point (with some humor) that has been made many times, that in these times very little is ever really "cancelled." Censorship and cancellation has, in reality, become more of a mythic bogeyman used by the "influencers" and assorted loudmouths to up their market share in the media cesspool. The real cancellation is the drowning out of sober observers with intellectual integrity and nuanced analysis that require building some knowledge and attention span.

Not sure what framework would have a fact (which is a, cough, true statement about something in the world) that is different in regards to Saturn. Do you know of a framework where Saturn is NOT farther from the sun than Earth is?? If you are concerned about "silly word issues" then you might well wonder what sort of truth phobia makes someone suggest that Saturn's location is contextual and observer dependent such that it can sometimes be closer to the Sun than Earth. My guess is that science has been often berated for expressing certainty and so there is an urge to back away even from states of affairs where there actually IS certainty (as with my Saturn example). While we can all acknowledge that inductive reasoning only offers, in the purely technical sense, probabilities, I doubt you would find an astronomer who considers Saturn's relative placement to us to be uncertain and merely a probable. We attach truth value all the time, and assert where Saturn is without any epistemological qualms. As for Gods, absent any empirical basis, any belief derives from a personal wager rather than any epistemic warrant, and so lies beyond science.

Saturn is farther from the sun than Earth. So, um, that is not a truth? Astronomical observations didn't lead us to a truth on that? Just asking for a friend.

I think there's a conflict running through this chat between two forms of holding an opinion. There is harboring an opinion, on which laws, of necessity, must remain silent. Then there is expressing an opinion such that it translates to action (anything from verbal acts to physical changes to a worker's environment and/or paycheck). The answer to your clever hypothetical is that we do not rely on anyone's sense of courtesy or anything else internal. We instead set legal standards of fair treatment, which proscribe the enactment of hostile and discriminatory opinions. You could be a secret white supremacist and do a good job anyway in the example situation because you want to keep your job and have professional respect from other managers. (and how I will enjoy your internal simmering!) The law never proscribes opinion, only actions that create a hostile atmosphere and different career advancement for a protected class. The power of such laws lies not in their frequent enforcement but simply in everyone with power over others knowing they are on the books.

https://gfycat.com/brightthirdfrillneckedlizard

This sort of undermines the name mammoth. "Midget mammoth" -- a bit like the oxymoronic "jumbo shrimp. " If you bring back one species, people will just want Moa.

This was part of my job for several years. It's a huge topic, so I will just make a couple observations. The sixteen hour thing works. Late breakfast, early supper, fast from, say, 5pm till 9am. Even 14 hours is good. Once you've gotten used to it, it's nice and simple. High fiber is key, as INow noted. Some complex carbs are okay, but avoid white flour and white rice. Avoid corn entirely, if you can. Root vegetables are great, if not processed. Fats - it's all about good fats. Unsaturated, plenty of MUFA, plenty of PUFA with as much omega-3 PUFA as you can (walnuts, flax seed oil, chia seeds, oily cold-water fish, canola oil, nothing fried) If you are vegan, algal oil can be subbed for fish oil, as it has the DHA and EPA forms of omega-3 as fish does, which is more bioavailable to humans than plant om3s. Don't skimp too much on fats, because if you do the gnawing hunger pangs will send you right back to previous bad habits. Fat is essential and the primary vehicle of flavor. Good fats don't elevate BP. Olive oil is linked to drops in BP, in fact. If you like Mediterranean cuisine, it has a lot of all this built in, and it's easy to substitute wholegrain pasta for white. Or sub "riced" vegetables, which are becoming popular, especially riced cauliflower. And don't forget to go off the rails once a week or so. ETA: Oh, and ginger and turmeric are useful metabolic boosters, and good for you in multiple ways. And taste good. If you're older and male, consult with your prostate first, however. Some prostates act up around spices.

Has Jordan left the building?

An adjudicator does not have to be an expert or authority on a subject to render a sound judgment. They need only solid evidence and some basic rules of evidence evaluation. Expertise may help in evaluation of evidence, but judges and juries can use that expertise without themselves having to be become experts. And in many cases, expertise is not needed at all to determine some facts. I don't bring in a mycologist to determine my cheese is moldy.

People vary. My wife likes honest appraisal when she asks about some aesthetic choices. She has the good eye for color, I supply the good eye for proportions and contours, so asking me is recognizing that we are a good team where each fills some gaps for the other. On other matters, I agree that if you don't have any useful insight, and someone is looking for assurance, it is best to just be supportive. I like George Carlin's observation: If honesty is the best policy, then by process of elimination dishonesty is the second best policy.

Drivers must be pretty mellow out here - Phi's idyllic drive is often the experience here, especially when tourist season ends. Sometimes seems like human beings do better when they are not overly crowded together. I am generally tired of the political polarization, where only the most extreme and unsupported positions survive in the social media ecosystems. And various institutions, from churches to school boards to legislatures, seem now to be subject to continual invasions of Brown Shirts seeking to push out anyone less fanatical. This website offers genuine political discussion, and is relatively low in "squabbling." Possibly because members are educated lifelong learners and critical thinkers. The real strife in the world, the strife that's not generated by faux-outrage, comes from the basic human desire for justice and fair treatment. When people see they are not getting justice, when they see others having unearned privileges that they do not, when they are told they do not matter, when their anger is met with a truncheon or a gun or being caged up, then there simply cannot be peace and all the social goods.

Article Two simply sets up the Electoral College system. If there be "faithless electors, " that is covered by state law, which in 47 states either binds the electors or nullifies the vote of faithless one. Other sorts of filings against an election result can go to either state supreme courts or federal district courts, sometimes ending up in the US Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices, whatever their ideological leanings, are usually pretty serious jurists who believe in the rule of law, so there would have to be some ironclad facts supporting any claims of election fraud. Note that district courts tossed out something like 61 out of 62 filings of election fraud in 2020. And the only case that wasn't, IIRC, involved some fraudulent vote by a Republican that was never actually accepted by the county. The best amendment would be to scrap Article Two, section I, and the related 12th amendment, and go to a national popular vote. Had that been done in 2020, the results would have been VERY unambiguous. The margin was YUGE.