Ongoing important Science news thread

[polak]

Originally Posted by Hesla

However, could you imagine it is a dyson sphere being built... then every 10 or so years another star a bit closer to us starts exhibiting the same properties. Could be a galactic civilization rapidly expanding. Or.. most likely a the comet theory.

That'd be creepy to know.

[peter12]

Has anyone read John Horgan's "The End of Science?" I am looking to pick it up as I am always interested to read critical perspectives of progression in science and technology. So much of what we hear is pure hyperbole, hype or fantasy.

[Thor]

Sounds like a worth while read, might have to pick it up as well.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-science-8221/

I wrote a preface for the new edition, which begins as follows:

Here's what a fanatic I am: When I have a captive audience of innocent youths, I expose them to my evil meme.


Since 2005, I've taught history of science to undergraduates at Stevens Institute of Technology, an engineering school perched on the bank of the Hudson River. After we get through ancient Greek "science," I make my students ponder this question: Will our theories of the cosmos seem as wrong to our descendants as Aristotle's theories seem to us?


I assure them there is no correct answer, then tell them the answer is "No," because Aristotle's theories were wrong and our theories are right. The Earth orbits the Sun, not vice versa, and our world is made not of earth, water, fire and air but of hydrogen, carbon and other elements that are in turn made of quarks and electrons.


Our descendants will learn much more about nature, and they will invent gadgets even cooler than smart phones. But their scientific version of reality will resemble ours, for two reasons: First, ours… is in many respects true; most new knowledge will merely extend and fill in our current maps of reality rather than forcing radical revisions. Second, some major remaining mysteries—Where did the universe come from? How did life begin? How, exactly, does a chunk of meat make a mind?--might be unsolvable.


That's my end-of-science argument in a nutshell, and I believe it as much today as I did when I was finishing my book 20 years ago. That's why I keep writing about my thesis, and why I make my students ponder it—even though I hope I'm wrong, and I'm oddly relieved when my students reject my pessimistic outlook… So far my prediction that there would be no great "revelations or revolutions"—no insights into nature as cataclysmic as heliocentrism, evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity, the big bang--has held up just fine.


In some ways, science is in even worse shape today than I would have guessed back in the 1990s. In The End of Science, I predicted that scientists, as they struggle to overcome their limitations, would become increasingly desperate and prone to hyperbole. This trend has become more severe and widespread than I anticipated. In my 30-plus years of covering science, the gap between the ideal of science and its messy, all-too-human reality has never been greater than it is today.

[Thor]

I would argue with this point:

In The End of Science, I predicted that scientists, as they struggle to overcome their limitations, would become increasingly desperate and prone to hyperbole

Because ironically since he is a science writer, its journalism which is prone to hyperbole and taking science stories into levels of absurdity.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Thor

I would argue with this point:



Because ironically since he is a science writer, its journalism which is prone to hyperbole and taking science stories into levels of absurdity.

He elaborates on this point on his blog. Mainly calling out evo psychs for their wide-ranging generalizations on human nature based on faulty, one-off evidence. Also went after Lawrence Krauss awhile ago. He is a really great journalist. A credit to his profession, for sure.

[troutman]

There is so much more for science to reveal in medicine for example, even if many of the big questions that can be answered in physics and biology are solved.

[Coach]

Yeah, I would agree that there isn't going to be much in the way of changes to fundamental understandings of nature. The biggest thing would be to find life based on different conditions than our own, but the level of tech required to do that is currently out of our reach.

I do think that the "gadgets" will cause fundamental shifts in the way we interact and organize. Nanotech, computers in our brains, robotic limbs, 3-D printed organs. This stuff is going to revolutionize humanity, but not necessarily alter humanity's understanding of nature.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by troutman

There is so much more for science to reveal in medicine for example, even if many of the big questions that can be answered in physics and biology are solved.

Maybe. We have basically lost the war on cancer. Some things just might be here to stay forever.

[Harry Lime]

"These changes are likely to have negative effects on marine ecosystems and organisms that contribute significantly to the economy and ecology of the Pacific Region ... where ocean acidification and its biological effects remain largely unmonitored and unstudied."

A serious problem that gets continuously swept under the rug, there is an effort to accentuate the link between acidification and climate change, to draw more interest from governments and the population at large.

Ocean acidification occurs when the seas absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than normal. As the level of the gas increases in the atmosphere, so does the sea's acidity. Scientists estimate the surface of the open ocean is about 30 per cent more acidic than it was a century ago.

Add to this the dumping of waste, human sewage and overfishing on a massive global scale, and it won't be long before the oceans will be nothing but a desert. The near 90% drop in fish populations from its peak gets nothing but a shrug at this point, but the problem in Canadian and American waters is a small fraction of the problem compared to the Indian Ocean, and South East Asia.
http://www.insidebrockville.com/news...nd-fish-study/

[polak]

Originally Posted by troutman

There is so much more for science to reveal in medicine for example, even if many of the big questions that can be answered in physics and biology are solved.

I think it's outrageous to say that the mysteries of physics are solved?

We literally have zero idea of what makes up 95% of the mass-energy in the universe. Using the term "dark matter" and "dark energy" gives people the illusion that we know something about but what we call it is just a place holder. "Dark Matter" means nothing. We have no idea what it is. We don't know if it's dark and we don't know if it's matter. I think that's a pretty massive hole in our understanding of physics and probably means that we are completely out to lunch in our theories.

I also like a quote I heard in that "How the Universe Works" show where one of the physicists on there said that he thinks any time we get "infinity" or "infinite" as an answer, that means we're wrong. It makes sense. The idea of infinity seems like an excuse for humanity trying to explain something they do not understand.

That authors overall thesis might be right, maybe we will never know. Maybe the real true scope of physics of the universe are just not something we can comprehend. I just don't think you could come close to a convincing argument that "we figured it out".

[peter12]

Originally Posted by polak

I think it's outrageous to say that the mysteries of physics are solved?

We literally have zero idea of what makes up 95% of the mass-energy in the universe. Using the term "dark matter" and "dark energy" gives people the illusion that we know something about but what we call it is just a place holder. "Dark Matter" means nothing. We have no idea what it is. We don't know if it's dark and we don't know if it's matter. I think that's a pretty massive hole in our understanding of physics and probably means that we are completely out to lunch in our theories.

I also like a quote I heard in that "How the Universe Works" show where one of the physicists on there said that he thinks any time we get "infinity" or "infinite" as an answer, that means we're wrong. It makes sense. The idea of infinity seems like an excuse for humanity trying to explain something they do not understand.

That authors overall thesis might be right, maybe we will never know. Maybe the real true scope of physics of the universe are just not something we can comprehend. I just don't think you could come close to a convincing argument that "we figured it out".

That isn't his argument. There will probably always be irreducible mysteries that the human creature will never be able to figure out. Chomsky used the example of a rat getting lost in a maze. The researcher, standing about the maze, cries out "how obvious!" Cognitively, the rat is just incapable of finding the solution. That is probably where humans stand viz-a-viz a lot of phenomena.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by polak

I think it's outrageous to say that the mysteries of physics are solved?

We literally have zero idea of what makes up 95% of the mass-energy in the universe. Using the term "dark matter" and "dark energy" gives people the illusion that we know something about but what we call it is just a place holder. "Dark Matter" means nothing. We have no idea what it is. We don't know if it's dark and we don't know if it's matter. I think that's a pretty massive hole in our understanding of physics and probably means that we are completely out to lunch in our theories.

I also like a quote I heard in that "How the Universe Works" show where one of the physicists on there said that he thinks any time we get "infinity" or "infinite" as an answer, that means we're wrong. It makes sense. The idea of infinity seems like an excuse for humanity trying to explain something they do not understand.

That authors overall thesis might be right, maybe we will never know. Maybe the real true scope of physics of the universe are just not something we can comprehend. I just don't think you could come close to a convincing argument that "we figured it out".

I more or less agree. I think it is a mistake to assume that we are right about everything we currently know. Even more to the point, there is probably a tonne that we don't know that we don't know. It's so far out of reach of our human brains to understand, that it could be right in front of us and we would miss it.

I do think that eventually, humans will start to retreat back to nature. We are already seeing it with green movements. That is not to say that all scientific progress will stop, but it will get to a point where we start to question what we need to know to make our species healthy and happy, and what we don't need to learn to avoid the negative consequences of discovery.

Once replicators are invented (and I think they will be), humans can replicate essential items and then fabricate other things they need with ease, we will just naturally start thinking inward.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by peter12

Maybe. We have basically lost the war on cancer. Some things just might be here to stay forever.

What do you mean by lost the war ?

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7130602

Some cancers (eg testicular) are nearing a 100% survival rate. Medications (eg Tamoxifen for breast cancer) are vastly reducing the chance of return. I say we are making steady progress.

[polak]

Originally Posted by peter12

That isn't his argument. There will probably always be irreducible mysteries that the human creature will never be able to figure out. Chomsky used the example of a rat getting lost in a maze. The researcher, standing about the maze, cries out "how obvious!" Cognitively, the rat is just incapable of finding the solution. That is probably where humans stand viz-a-viz a lot of phenomena.

Yeah I agree with that. I think as humanity has learned more and more, we've figured out things that have opened our eyes to how little we understand and maybe we're just not equipped to figure it out.

Now that we have discovered and observed things on a quantam level, we can see that we literally have no idea what the hell is going on.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I do think that eventually, humans will start to retreat back to nature. We are already seeing it with green movements. That is not to say that all scientific progress will stop, but it will get to a point where we start to question what we need to know to make our species healthy and happy, and what we don't need to learn to avoid the negative consequences of discovery.

I kind of 1/2 agree with this. I agree that we will retreat back to nature, but not in a regressive way. I agree (and hope) that research into useless things like hair growth and whether or not my phone can cook my food will die away as we focus on things we NEED vs WANT.

However, I do think that the things we need will still involve high level technology, and our retreat to nature will come more in the form of harnessing clean energy and using asteroids and other celestial bodies to mine for resources vs tearing apart our own home. You could maybe move manufacturing off-world to stop the pollution produced by it from actually impacting Earth.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Hesla

What do you mean by lost the war ?

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7130602

Some cancers (eg testicular) are nearing a 100% survival rate. Medications (eg Tamoxifen for breast cancer) are vastly reducing the chance of return. I say we are making steady progress.

I understand that this has more to do with an overall improvement in diagnostics, so people are living longer after diagnosis, but not longer in absolute terms.

Outside of a few miracle treatments, the overall mortality rate has only decreased by 5%. A lot of that has to do with lifestyle changes - deaths attributed to lung cancer are decreasing because far less people in the western world are smoking.

The number of unnecessary treatments, tests, and surgeries are at an all-time high with very little evidence to suggest they are at all effective.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1722196

[peter12]

It is very difficult for a lot of people to face up to the fact that we really can't know enough about the material universe to rationally control it to the degree we imagine is possible. The panacea of human anxieties, fears, and mishaps is probably reducible to this fundamental flaw in self-understanding.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by peter12

I understand that this has more to do with an overall improvement in diagnostics, so people are living longer after diagnosis, but not longer in absolute terms.

Outside of a few miracle treatments, the overall mortality rate has only decreased by 5%. A lot of that has to do with lifestyle changes - deaths attributed to lung cancer are decreasing because far less people in the western world are smoking.

The number of unnecessary treatments, tests, and surgeries are at an all-time high with very little evidence to suggest they are at all effective.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1722196

Understanding what lifestyle changes are needed is part of the research and treatment.

Here is a good summary about the study you posted.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/813241_2

Research looking at how to improve cancer detection and treatment. Constantly improving diagnostic techniques and definitns is nothing but a positive. Medicine is all about current best practices.

[photon]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/g...ont-and-center

The dark area across the top of the sun in this image is a coronal hole, a region on the sun where the magnetic field is open to interplanetary space, sending coronal material speeding out in what is called a high-speed solar wind stream. The high-speed solar wind originating from this coronal hole, imaged here on Oct. 10, 2015, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, created a geomagnetic storm near Earth that resulted in several nights of auroras.

[Coach]

A high speed wind originating from a cornhole *cough* coronal hole...