Lazy/bad science/reporting (rant content)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7870562.stm

New definition of the word quantify as “there could be thousands”.

My personal favourite paragraph. REad it and then think about that last line.

While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.

<wanders off to boil some piss>

Translation.

Can we have more funding please….

Conks

Related but worse, poor science matched with poor reporting is the root cause of this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7872541.stm

That whole subject area is bad science. That star there must be made of this because it burns this colour etc… Couldn’t be something that we don’t have here could it – oh no…

You could always start a magnesium fire instead of boiling piss.

RE. boiloing piss see discovery of phosphorous.

That whole subject area is bad science. That star there must be made of this because it burns this colour etc… Couldn’t be something that we don’t have here could it – oh no…

Its a fairly safe assumption that it’s the same substance, for it to be different the laws of physics would have to be different where the other star is?

Is that on the curriculum now too?

That whole subject area is bad science. That star there must be made of this because it burns this colour etc… Couldn’t be something that we don’t have here could it – oh no…

What do you think it is? Cheese?

STar colour is more related to temperature (that whole planck’s curve thing), absorption spectra would tell us the composition.

See sun and discovery of helium (Ooo i like this game)

Aye, but how do you know that it is the same stuff that we have on this planet?

We don’t it’s obviously alien cheese

My personal favourite paragraph. REad it and then think about that last line.

While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.

The reporters are talking about recent studies/guesses, not this particular study. This study has used computational modelling to come up with an estimate of the likelihood of life existing – based on a number of known variables and a bunch of assumptions (known unknowns!). I agree it’s bollocks, but they have quantified the bollocks, based upon their model inputs.

Exactly – Alien cheese or something we haven’t yet discovered.

Couldn’t be something that we don’t have here could it – oh no…

unfeasibilium ?
Things are made of atoms, or which there are a few hundred sorts (allowing for isotopes). The colours of flames and stars are determined by energy transitions of the electrons in the atoms – unless these other stars use magic or whatever?

SFB – are you assuming that we have discovered everything already?

Smee, have you looked at the periodic table at all?

Yes. Why?

That star there must be made of this because it burns this colour etc… Couldn’t be something that we don’t have here could it – oh no…

Arf. Scientists are much cleverer than you apparently think they are. We know about (and pretty much have on earth) every element from atomic number 1 up to what, 92? And we’ve made a good but higher than that in machines, but they aren’t stable. So do you think that there are special places in the universe that have elements with nuclei made of 32 1/2 protons?

Let’s just say there’s “quite a lot” of evidence suggesting that that’s not possible. Evidence that you apparently don’t know about 🙂

Because you seem to have a fairly slim grip on the realities of chemistry

66%

What makes you so sure that the evidence is correct when nobody has been able nor are they ever likely to gain any direct confirmation?

Nickc – the “realities” of chemistry and founded on what we can/have directly observed. You been to the next solar system have you?

No question of belief. It’s a fact that aliens have been visiting Earth for last several thousand years. Many of our technologies are gifts from them.

LOL

Because you seem to have a fairly slim grip on the realities of chemistry

and maths.

He’s an excellent fisherman though 🙂

You been to the next solar system have you?

Don’t have too. remember the Big Bang Theory? It postulates that everything in the entire universe was created in one event. Just because something’s a long way away, doesn’t mean it has different rules. In fact, in order to exist in the same universe, it can’t. Hydrogen is Hydrogen where ever you are.

BBT postulates that? What about Fe being a fission prduct of stars??? The builsing blaocks are still being knocked around in stars to build new atoms of known elements so why can’t new elements be being made? Granted they are quite exotic and massive. Oh and the periodic table i’m looking at has 112 elements on it. with some gaps.

So you are calling Einstein/Max Planck a divvy then smee??

How direct confirmation would you like?? A spoonful, not enough? How about a Coke bottle full??

The processes going on in stars are pretty simple, quantum mechanics explains it pretty well and whether it is the sun, proxima centuri or many other stars the same rules apply.

The ‘colour’ of the stars light is determined by the temperature of the radiating body, the absorption spectrum of the light shows what the star is made of. These rules have been shown to apply pretty much throughout the observable universe. Where the rules do not apply, there are good and understood reasons (in black holes etc.)

Conks

largest amount of protons in any nucleus is 210, you can’t get any more. that’s as true here as it is at the edge of the universe.

Iron has a hugely stable nuclear structure, heavier elements are generally thought to have been formed in Massive shortlived stars that were formed when the universe was young. These early stars died in huge supernavae creating these heavier elements, scattering bits and bobs all over the universe, of which we are made up of bits.

Historical Glaciology is a science. The thing with historical glaciology is that we weren’t there when it happened, so we need to take our best guess at what events took place to get us to where we are at present – can’t be proven yet can’t be disproven. Why should the chemical composition of distant celestial objects be any different?

Chemistry is built on simple rules and building blocks. It’s our belief that those building blocks are the same throughout the universe. If they were different in different places, we’d be seeing a whole lot of really strange crap. As it is, we see a lot of what we recognise from earth when we look through telescopes.

If say a Gary Fisher Cake is not a brilliant descender on Earth, would it become any better if we took it to Mars?

It does not matter where in the universe you are, a hydrogen atom is still a hydrogen atom, and its absorption/emission spectrum will be the same. If its not Hydrogen, it will be something else..

It may be red/blue shifted slightly depending on the speed that the object is moving towards/away from the point of observation.

You can’t see gravity directly, but you can see its effects everywhere, whether a falling apple or calculating the path of distant stars. It still exists though.

Ah, the religion of science – everything is just so because we’ve found experiments that prove it…….hypothetically 😉

‘Likelihood of intelligent life in the universe….. less then one’

Quite witty I thought, and given the state that we are getting this place into and the current bit of a mess that is the world economy, probably not far from the truth.