Intoscience

Not sure if this is news or not, and it maybe out of date. I saw a recent news article about the James Web telescope capturing images of distance galaxies that were thought to be small primordial ones. But the images are showing the galaxies to be far larger than expected which would indicate that they are much older than first assumed. Based on this it would indicate that the universe is much older than currently described. However, the scale of the galaxies in the images could be misleading due to gravitational lensing, thus giving the appearance that they are much larger than they actually are. Not 100% sure how this is determined but it is suggested that the lensing could be caused by super massive black holes. Any thoughts?

+1 I was quite disturbed by the response from the police officer. But rather than judging her I wanted to try and understand why her approach, possibly frustration, was such that acts of kindness are deemed a nuisance. I'm not in the position of dealing with these situations on a daily basis. I imagine that its very frustrating for the police, maybe they feel the system is letting things down and they see where resources might be used to alleviate homelessness rather than tackle it on the front line. I think maybe, certainly in my area where homelessness is very rife, incidents of petty crime are frequent and the vast majority is due to desperate drug addicts. Where I work we have a retail outlet that is frequently burgled by homeless people, they tend to just take a few items to sell for a fix I guess. We had a liaisons police officer working with us on what initiatives we could employ to deter them from attempting break-ins. The things we implemented have worked, break-ins are very rare the last few years. However, I still feel quite sad that though we have deterred them from breaking into our shop, what does this actually achieve? They will just move on to the next victim, maybe that victim is a person mugged in the street. In which case you end up with 2 victims, one of crime and the other quite possibly failed by the system. Although I'm a firm believer in self help, some situations just get so far out of hand that people need support from others. After all we are all people, we are all somebody's child. Based on the comment from the police officer in the situation I experienced it appears to me that the system is failing both the people who are suffering and the people who are on the front line dealing with it. The question is though, who am I to judge the system, what do I really know? what can I do for my community to help, and can I? Not only that, no matter how you present it, charity or otherwise. There will always someone looking to cash in on it. Its the old adage, nothing is free in this life.

You have done this throughout the entire thread, a pattern that I see you often do when you disagree with someone. Your attempt to play me as the bigot in this thread won't wash. Taking snippets of comments I've made then conflating them to make me appear bias towards people or groups of people to support your own arguments is quite typical of you. Lets just agree to disagree since we have spent pages arguing each other and clearly it won't get resolved. I'll just smile and wave. There you go, I knew you would bite and straight away jump on a comment in an attempt to undermine my view or comments. Yep, woke too far is very clear when it demonstrates hypocrisy. I'll leave it at that.

There was a homeless chap sheltering in a local rundown shop near where I live. He appeared from his dilated eyes and pale skeleton like appearance that he was an addict of some sort. I'm not a qualified medical person so my judgement was based on experience with known drug users and (wrongly) a predisposition to assuming most homeless people are such due to drug addiction. However, as I usually do I felt sad to see such a dire and desperate person just sat there with nothing. So I passed the person some money and walked on by. A few seconds later a police officer stopped me and asked if I'd presented the homeless person with some money. "Yes officer I did, is this a problem" She replied " Well its not a crime for sure... I commend your intent but, do yo realise that this person is a known criminal who is also a drug addict and has been relocated to numerous charitable shelters. Which he always disregards and proceeds to commit crimes to fund his addiction and continues to live on the streets. By giving him money you are encouraging this behaviour and discouraging him from seeking the help that has been previously offered, I strongly suggest that you no longer approach such people and leave it to the authorities to deal with". I'm not so sure the authorities are doing all they can. I'm also sure that each individual case though similar in some respects may have differing circumstances, certainly differing personalities, backgrounds... plays a factor. What can we learn from this experience?

Exactly!!! you have hit the nail on the head Just smile and wave, hey...

But they are, iNow has even suggested that my personal tastes are "borderline bigoted" and that I should really consider changing them. If I was offensive towards homosexuals then yeah sure iNow has a very valid point and I would be making self improvements by changing my attitude. But why should anyone be offended by my personal sexual distastes if I don't attack anyone who engages in such activities? Why should I endure social pushback because I don't want to engage in gay sex? By the way, your analogy to eating greens makes no sense. My mother insisting I eat my greens has the intent of improving my health based on scientific data. What are the benefits of anal sex, other than personal pleasure for those who enjoy such? So all I'm arguing is that my personal tastes are being conflated with my personal feelings/actions towards others. One person's poison is another person's cure.😉 I don't like anal sex I find it yuk, but others do and they find it delightful. Fine I have no problem with that at all. So what is the problem??

Yeah, just because I personally don't like the idea of it why should that have any influence on the person doing it. I'm more than happy to express my dislike of anal sex to my friends gay or otherwise. Why should that have any influence on my attitude towards them personally? I don't like the idea of someone putting a cigarette in their mouth, I find smoking distasteful. What is the difference? Well you seem to be saying that my dislike for gay sex is learned and I should change my feelings. But you are more than happy to accept that a gay person is born that way and we should respect theirs. Why do you not respect mine? What is the difference? I'm asking a genuine question. Why would changing my personal sexual tastes make me a better person? And if so why would that not apply to other people also? If I was a pedophile or rapist then yeah there is a very good moral case with strong social justification for me to learn to change my sexual tastes. But I'm just heterosexual, no different than someone who is homosexual. Where we just have differing tastes in sexual activities whats the problem?? Good. Let’s end with that then. I don' know how to change my sexual tastes even if I wanted to. No more do I know how to change my dislike for coconuts or cigarettes even if I wanted to. Though with the latter there is a good case for not changing my tastes since cigarettes are proven to be bad for your health. This said, I don't feel any distaste towards people who engage in smoking or eating coconuts, provided they don't inflict such on me passively or otherwise. Convince me with some compelling argument why this is any different to me disliking the act of gay sex? Because I'm asking why I should change my personal tastes?? If so what are the benefits?? If so why mine and not others?? Why are my personal sexual tastes in anyway offensive to others?? In my view, arguing that my personal tastes are wrong and they should align with social trends is discriminative towards me and an example of "wokeness" going too far, or rather - hypocritical.

It only runs counter when people dismiss verified scientific data for pseudo science mythology or religious beliefs without evidence to back up their claims. For example in the story of how the Earth was made by God in 6 days, or the Adam & Eve story, Jesus walking on water etc... As you pointed out. One can be religious, have faith and follow spiritualism and/or believe in gods etc... and still do science.

When you are talking about "the present" moment are you suggesting that there is a universal now but observations/measurements taken are always an approximation?

Why would I find others enjoyment of gay sex distasteful? Again you are conflating my personal dislike with the persons engaging in such. Provided they did not insist that I engage with them then I have no feeling or judgment on what they enjoy in their private lives. So you are saying that my sexual orientation is learned not genetic so I can learn to become gay? Hmmm.... yet gay people historically and even still today, were victimised for not learning to be heterosexual. So my coconut analogy is a strawman thus rendering my arguments weak. But your fashion analogy is fine because in the context we are discussing it has similarities. I would argue that the coconut analogy is a better analogy than fashion since it could be that my coconut distaste has deeper rooted origins. Fashion tends change rapidly with trends, my coconut distaste persists even after numerous attempts to change this. I keep asking, yet nobody has come up with a god reason why I should change my personal tastes. In the context of social acceptance I agree that if I was protesting my view towards the people who engage in gay sex and insisting that its disgusting and they should not engage in such then yeah sure. All I'm arguing is that its not my cuppa tea so if you enjoy it, no problem crack on, but I'm not interested in participating thanks. So I will ask again why should I change my personal tastes inline with others, yet those others are free to maintain theirs? Hmm... not nice when the shoe is on the other foot now is it. I never mentioned anyone was an activist on this forum. If you read my statement I said problems occur when things get conflated especially so by activists from either side. If you feel you fall under into this category and don't like it, then maybe you should change your attitude a bit. I'm more than happy to explore the origins of my dislikes, I'm more than happy to change my attitude towards certain things if those things are unjustifiably offensive towards others. I'm not a fan of the way you insinuated I was a bigot, even though you attempted to detune it by saying "borderline". I agree, though my comparison was about coconuts a taste I still dislike and currently unable to change even after many attempts to do so. This is very true but stems from things getting conflated, as I keep arguing.

This all might be true, in which case you are arguing that sexual preferences are nature (genetic programming) due to an evolutionary survival mechanism, not nurture (learned behaviour). But you expect me to my change my preferences (genetic programming) to align with someone else's (genetic programming), but not vice versa. Hang on, I mentioned I find coconut distasteful and the response I had was that its not the same as sexual preferences. Now you are saying that fashion tastes are similar to sexual tastes. So a person not liking a particular item of clothing makes them bigots. This is all getting rather silly now. Though I agree with you, changing peoples attitudes towards certain things can have and does have a social impact. There is though, in my opinion, a difference between a person liking/disliking something and a person accepting something. There is also a clear difference between a person liking/disliking an act that someone engages in and liking/disliking the person engaging in the act. It's when activists from either side conflate the two where problems occur.

Yes, agreed. But the argument and actually the purpose of this thread was to discuss whether certain feelings if you may are nature (genetic programming) or nurture (learned behaviour). I was arguing that my personal feelings or rather in this case tastes whether be nature or nurture have no bearing on my feelings towards the person/s engaging in activities to which I personally have no desire to watch or engage in. It also appears that some are arguing that my personal tastes are learned and I should change my tastes inline with cultural trends. I'm interested in whether they are learned or innate and I'm open to explore the possibilities around this. However I see no valid reason why I should change (even if I could) my personal tastes and why I should not be free to express this. My personal tastes, in this context, causes no tangible harm to anyone. The only argument provided so far is that my tastes are archaic, outdated, out of trend and somehow offensive in that my attitude towards people who I don't share tastes within is skewed so such that it automatically makes me negatively bias towards them. I find this all rather absurd and don't see the logic behind it, other than they are conflating my feelings towards a person with my feelings towards an act they may engage in.

Fair point, Though it's to what extent and to what purpose (context dependent of course). One should also remain conscious of potential conflation, especially so when someone is expressing a personal feeling. In my mind I have expressed a very clear distinction between my feelings towards an act and/or the persons engaging in that act. I see no difference than any other personal pleasures and displeasures.

As you have pointed out, its all about trends. I find it quite sad really, that people get dragged into trends because they are scared to admit their own personal feelings in case it offends others and makes them look bad. My partner has a nice saying in the face of this type of adversity "smile and wave" basically on the face of it be seen that you agree or like something just to maintain the status quo. No, its very different. I don't like spending time with my Aunt, but I'm not disgusted to do so. Either way I respect her no more or less than anyone else. My comment do no such thing. I have been very clear - I don't like the act of gay sex male or female regardless. Persons who chose to do such and enjoy such have nothing to do with my personal sexual preferences. I find Chinese food distasteful, does this make me racist? What a crock of crap. Do you really honestly believe this? I don't like the way my sister drives, I find it distasteful, I don't like being in the car with her, her driving makes me nauseous. I refuse to be a passenger with her at the wheel. Yet I still like my sister, I love and respect her as a person. Why should you? I'm sure people have done the same about you. How did it make you feel in hindsight?

Well, the simple answer would be to keep my personal tastes to myself and don't express any opinion,hmm... how boring.

dimreeper, You enjoy the bickering and that's why you provoke people in the first off. Shame really because you are clearly an intelligent person, often with great insights and differing perspectives. You mostly annoy me, but in a silly sort of way I quite like you.

Surprised? This is quite a common occurrence from people who assume they know more than most.

"that's distasteful" and "I find that distasteful" are 2 different statements and potentially mean 2 very different things. The first is stating something as a belief, an assumption that it is fact or true for all. The latter is stating a personal opinion that holds no bearing to anyone else and assumes nothing. I agree that attitudes can influences others and culture can be influenced by those attitudes. We see this going on all the time. But my attitude is very clear, I've stated my personal opinion based on my personal tastes. I have not at any point by statement or insinuation claimed that my tastes and distastes should be shared by others. Yet I have been asked to change my personal tastes because my personal tastes may offend others based on the current cultural climate? How and why? This I do take issue with because I don't understand why my personal tastes has anything to do with anyone else. Unless of course by virtue acting out my personal tastes causes harm towards others.

Starting a business requires investment one way or another, how much depends on the type of business and required resources. Unless you have access to significant funds already then you will require a robust business model to present to potential investors. investors may be willing to sponsor enterprises for innovation. However, the reality is investors will expect a return. To resource a business capable of multiple practical applications will require millions if not billions of dollars worth of investment. In reality unless you are Elon Musk or similar there is no chance. What you maybe able to do is set up a consultancy/agent type enterprise where you may be able to convince companies to collaborate on individual projects or ideas. Though each one will require a sound business model to even get off the ground. even then, depending on your location there will be legislation around what you can legally produce, materials you can use, testing...etc that's without all the other stuff that comes with running a business. It can be done but, usually most new businesses start out very small and then evolve over time dependent on demand. You get to hear about the odd Jeff Bezos's of this world. But they are the extreme rarities, there are millions of other people trying to get started, or do start and fail early on. For most their passion is in reality only a pipe dream. This all said if you are really passionate enough and can confidently pull something credible together then why not give it a go! Good luck.

Lets just get some things straight first, I never used the word disgust, I used the word distaste From the Oxford dictionary: Distaste - mild dislike or aversion. Disgust - a feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive. And in all honesty I probably sit somewhere in between the 2 definitions. - A mild feeling of revulsion towards the act of gay sex. I also stated that same sex gender (gay/lesbian), male or female, sex acts, I find distaste towards. It is you who is conflating between my dislike for the act and dislike towards the people who engage in such. Thus accusing me of "borderline bigot" for the latter, something I'm not. So I'm asking, what is so offensive about my personal likes and dislike which requires me to "discard the visceral disgust" that I seem to suffer from? Sorry you have lost me again. I was asking, if I'm asked/required to change my sexual preferences then why shouldn't others do the same? I have never ever used the word disgust. I have just been honest and open about my personal sexual preferences. I never commented on people who engage in sexual acts that I find distasteful, i.e. I have no desire to watch, imagine or engage in. The only point I made was that I have gay friends who I care dearly for, and that I respect them no differently than I would anyone else. What is so wrong about this? Honestly I can't understand why my personal preferences have any bearing on anyone else. I'm not the one, who is advocating that my preferences should be adhered to by others, why should they? I'm asking why my personal preferences in themselves are offensive? Please explain this to me.

+1 So from this the logical conclusion is that its nurture not nature.

They could be back before they set off.

Maybe, but why assume one would make an automatic assumption about the person involved? Certainly why would anyone be automatically prejudice towards a person of a differing taste to your own? So if this is true then why can't gay people learn to like the opposite sex? It seems to me that extreme activists are expecting heterosexual people to change their "learned" likes and dislikes. I've been asked why I don't like gay sex? why I find it distasteful? That I should change my out of date attitude. This approach towards me seems to insinuate that I'm homophobic. All I'm asking is why should I change my views, my tastes? I'm not prejudice towards gay people in any form other than I have differing tastes in sexual activities, so what?

How so? My attitude towards my dislikes should change? For who and for what reason? What do you mean my attitude towards my dislikes anyway??? I have stated what I dislike and I have also stated that I don't know the root cause of my dislikes, and I'm open to gaining an understanding of this. What is wrong with this attitude? Are you saying I should change my dislikes to likes, to make someone else feel more comfortable, or conform to modern culture or trend? That would be just silly, and hypocritical.

Ok, forcing is a bit strong. Suggesting would have been more appropriate. Well, I cannot offer you a reason which is why I was interested in whether it was learned or something innate. All I can say is I find the idea of gay/lesbian sex acts distasteful. My prejudice is towards the act, not the people. Thinking about or watching either 2 men or 2 women engaging in sexual acts is a big turn off for me personally. I'm more than happy to explore why this is so, I'm not so happy that I'm being told my sexual likes or dislikes are outdated and therefore silly and should change. Yes, if my attitude towards people participating in such acts was prejudice then this is silly and outdated and I would do well to change this attitude. I think MigL has made a good point about the lack of consistency and I'm interested to hear further responses to this. I don't agree they are saying it this way. Or I'm certainly not interpreting it this way. It seems to me that the 2 (my bold) are being conflated, possibly so when suits. To me they are saying that all sexual preferences are learned not innate unless you are gay then its innate. That we (heterosexuals) should change our attitude towards our dislikes to accommodate the likes of gays/lesbians. If you don't change your likes then you are prejudice towards those people. Please correct me if I'm wrong and at the same time correct MigL on his point. I'm not arguing that I'm prejudice towards the act/s. I'm arguing by being prejudice towards an act does not automatically qualify me as being prejudice towards the people engaging in the act/s. I'm also not arguing that my dislikes have a valid reason for being such. I'm even open to investigating how/where my likes and dislikes originate from and whether there is a valid reason for them. I'm not however open to being told that my likes and dislikes are outdated and I should change them to suit or fit in with modern cultural attitudes.