swansont

Yup. I’ve never had cancer, ergo it’s no big deal

Wow, what a crappy argument! Just because something is not personally experienced by you in no way impacts the truth or validity of others’ experiences. And being a statistical argument, it means that you are looking at the total effect of all events. I’m not sure that willful ignorance is something people find persuasive, especially in a science discussion setting People being lazy and/or dishonest is an indictment of those people, not statistics. If there is fault to be found you can dig into the methodology for that. But a blanket dismissal is not an argument to be taken seriously. And were not provided, yet the argument was made anyway.

I can’t begin to understand how people could think this conspiracy theory was true https://gizmodo.com/no-earth-wont-lose-gravity-for-7-seconds-on-august-12-nasa-says-2000711970?fbclid=IwdGRjcAPcpGNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEehrTBUqGLZGFofgeantDjZutdIdMMTgKc9DcSJiTWwr-FCBs1DLQvLpEOmE0_aem_HrwYsNQzUCA1gDyknQ6IGg The claim: “In November 2024, a secret NASA document titled “Project Anchor” leaked online. The project’s budget is $89 billion, and its goal is to survive a 7-second gravitational anomaly expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC [10:33 a.m. ET].” “The text went on to claim that the anomaly would result from the intersection of two gravitational waves from black holes, predicted by NASA in 2019 with a probability of 94.7%. It also claimed the agency is “building underground bunkers” to provide refuge for government leaders, scientists, military personnel, and “selected citizens with genetic diversity” during the event.” “When Snopes contacted NASA about the rumor, a spokesperson said exactly what we’re all thinking: That’s not how gravity works.”

So gravity depends on your culture? In some cultures you can violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics? That’s a pretty bold claim.

This reads like a copy/paste from a chatbot. Did you use one to generate this? But yes, you need to show how one is able to test the hypothesis. It needs to make specific predictions, and fit with existing observations. e.g. how can two masses have a relative speed of they’re moving at the speed of light? And if light speed is not invariant, how do you explain relativistic effects?

So in saying “Isn't God a way of removing subjectivity?” you didn’t mean that at all? But it’s the scientists who do that work (whether it’s all that hard is debatable) Not the institution of science, nor the average person who uses it. But one can ask for the reasoning behind the answers, if one is so inclined, and it’s not “because <deity> has commanded it” And there isn’t a different answer that depends on the discipline of science. It’s not like conservation of energy is something physics requires but chemistry rejects. Unlike e.g. eating pork or drinking alcohol in religion.

“At Dahlgren, West devoted herself to solving one of science’s most complex challenges: accurately modeling the shape of the Earth. Her painstaking calculations and programming helped transform raw satellite data into precise geodetic models, enabling reliable satellite-based navigation. That work ultimately became the backbone of the Global Positioning System (GPS) — now essential to aviation, shipping, emergency response, smartphones, and daily life worldwide.” https://thezebra.org/2026/01/18/dr-gladys-west-mathematician-whose-work-made-gps-possible-dies-at-95/

The fact that there is more than one indicates subjectivity rather than objectivity What they remove/reduce is the reasoning process.

Where did you hear this? From a credible source? https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/influenza-shows-no-seasonality-tropics-posing-challenges-health-care “new research led by Penn State has found little evidence of a repeatable pattern in influenza cases in Vietnam. The findings suggest that influenza is likely unpredictable throughout the tropics” https://respiratory-therapy.com/disorders-diseases/infectious-diseases/influenza/influenza-tropics-shows-variable-seasonality/ “The authors found that flu activity patterns in the tropics and subtropics were much more complex than in the temperate northern and southern hemispheres. They were able to discern patterns in influenza activity for 70 countries and found most of these had one or two distinct peaks per year. Countries nearest to the equator often had year-round flu activity.” (emphasis added)

Which one?

“To grow these copper-toothed stomach jaws, which last through the worms’ entire five-year lifespan, bloodworms harvest the metal from marine sediments on the seafloor. Then, through a previously unknown chemical reaction, the worms fuse the copper to their jaws.” https://www.livescience.com/bloodworms-fangs-origins

I think situations like this are part of the reason communities are able to defeat efforts to put large data centers nearby, since they use resources subject to public approval. If utility rates are going to jump, people show up to the public hearings and voice their displeasure. Some politicians will see that they’ll get voted out of office if they contradict strong public opinion.

That assumes an elderly person keeps the phone on them, or remembers to grab it when they get up. And remembers to charge it. Seems to me there’s a significant chance of getting repeated alerts from a forgetful senior.

The people who wrote the Bible didn’t know stars were objects at different and considerable distances.

And you should know that what you think doesn’t matter. It’s what you can show with empirical evidence and testable models. As far as the summary of me goes, I give it a barely passing grade for gathering data and a failing grade for applying analysis to it. Not surprising, because it doesn’t think

“Bees use polarized sunlight scattered by the atmosphere in order to navigate; they always know where the sun is, even if it’s cloudy or behind a mountain. Then they waggle dance to inform their hive-mates about food source locations.” https://kottke.org/26/01/an-optical-compass-inspired-by-bee-vision 10.5 min video in link discusses polarization and why the sky gives us polarized light, and then gets into making an optical compass using this. It finishes up with how bees use this and the waggle dance they use to tell the hive where food is.

“At 710 meters (2,297 feet), the asteroid is more than twice the length of the Eiffel Tower and spins on its axis once every 1.88 minutes. 2025 MN45 is one of thousands of asteroids recently identified by scientists at the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory using the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera — the largest digital camera ever built. Nineteen were categorized as being either super or ultra-fast-rotating. That means a spin time of less than 2.2 hours or 5 minutes, respectively. The findings have now been reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.” https://www.discovermagazine.com/fastest-spinning-asteroid-ever-found-spotted-by-vera-c-rubin-observatory-48532

Looking at the average bill is not particularly informative; it’s going to vary by location in the US owing to the different climates we can experience, it fluctuates over the course of the year, and it depends on how you heat your home, as Cap’n pointed out. She hasn’t even hit the coldest part of winter, though this past December where I am in NY was colder than average, so it likely was for her, too. Also, the article says “energy bill” not “electricity bill” and that “the gas is still off” so the large bill may indeed be (in part) because she’s using resistive heat now According to a few analyses, resistive heating is somewhere around 2.5 - 3x more expensive than gas, (~4x in this one https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/true-cost-of-energy-comparisons-apples-to-apples.html ) so having the bill jump up because of that doesn’t seem so surprising. It doesn’t excuse the reporting for not detailing that and painting it as a rate hike.

And apartments are relatively cheap, since you have neighbors and a corridor, so you’re basically not losing heat to anyone adjoining you.

I researched this recently following a claim that housing costs are no less affordable than they were the past couple of generations, and while costs have risen it’s largely due to the size of new houses going up. Avg size of 1500 sq ft in in 1970 vs ~2500 square feet 40-50 years later

Thanks; unfortunately the “reporting” gives nothing in terms of actual detail. The bill tripled, but nothing about why. Did the rates change? Did the usage go up? Was it something administrative thing? (there are programs that “smooth out” your bills so you don’t pay so much in the high-use months - did that end, and the whole thing come due?) Unfortunately it looks like it could be using an outlier and presenting it as typical, which is an intellectually dishonest tactic.

In upstate NY, my base rate for electricity is about $0.17 per kwh. With taxes and other charges it comes to about $0.25 per kwh I use less than 1000 kwh per month; that’s highest in winter when I use a space heater in one room that’s colder.

Highly dependent on their circumstances. Do they say where they are, how big the house is, and what the electricity is being used for (e.g. do they have electric heat) and how many kwh? Article is paywalled.

What’s the physical significance of 53?

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