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Skeptical Debunker

Scientific Curiosity Captured in Photos - 0 views

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    Caleb Charland is a Maine-based photographer who combines a love of scientific experiments and photographs into wonderful and amazing photographs. If Isaac Newton or Benjamin Franklin were into photography, their photographs might look something like these:
Skeptical Debunker

Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview : NPR - 0 views

  • "People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view," Braman says. The Cultural Cognition Project has conducted several experiments to back that up. Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the "individualistic" group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them "communitarians." In one experiment, Braman queried these subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.
  • "Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project. Kahan says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work. "If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says. And if the information doesn't, you tend to reject it. In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem."And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.
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  • Then there's the "messenger" effect. In an experiment dealing with the dangers versus benefits of a vaccine, the scientific information came from several people. They ranged from a rumpled and bearded expert to a crisply business-like one. The participants tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them. In relation to the climate change debate, this suggests that some people may not listen to those whom they view as hard-core environmentalists. "If you have people who are skeptical of the data on climate change," Braman says, "you can bet that Al Gore is not going to convince them at this point." So, should climate scientists hire, say, Newt Gingrich as their spokesman? Kahan says no. "The goal can't be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want," he argues. "The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded."And Kahan says you can't do that just by publishing more scientific data.
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    "It's a hoax," said coal company CEO Don Blankenship, "because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the Earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don't." On the other side of the debate was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. "Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent." To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy
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The Wisdom of the Hive: Is the Web a Threat to Creativity and Cultural Values? One Cybe... - 0 views

  • The Wisdom of the Hive: Is the Web a Threat to Creativity and Cultural Values? One Cyber Pioneer Thinks So Jaron Lanier rails against the social trends being fostered by the Internet--in particular its power to stifle creativity and grant anonymity as well as encourage groupthink and a lynch-mob mentality
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  • As evidence, he points out that during the 17 years since the Web took off, those who live off their brains—most writers, illustrators and musicians, for example—have experienced a worsening economic situation. In Lanier's view, content originators are only the first to feel the pain—their plight eventually will afflict everyone in the middle class, hampering their ability to earn money.
fishead ...*∞º˙

Are Social Networks Messing with Your Head?: Scientific American - 2 views

  • As social networks proliferate, they are changing the way people think about the Internet, from a tool used in solitary anonymity to a medium that touches on questions about human nature and identity. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world, just behind the U.S. Almost half of its users visit every day. Nielsen Online reports that social networking (and associated blogging) is now the fourth most popular online activity. Time spent on social-networking sites is growing at three times the rate of overall Internet usage, accounting for almost 10 percent of total time spent online. Social networks can lessen loneliness and boost self-esteem. But they can also have the opposite effect, depending on who you are and how you use these forums.
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    # As social networks proliferate, they are changing the way people think about the Internet, from a tool used in solitary anonymity to a medium that touches on questions about human nature and identity. # If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world, just behind the U.S. Almost half of its users visit every day. # Nielsen Online reports that social networking (and associated blogging) is now the fourth most popular online activity. Time spent on social-networking sites is growing at three times the rate of overall Internet usage, accounting for almost 10 percent of total time spent online. # Social networks can lessen loneliness and boost self-esteem. But they can also have the opposite effect, depending on who you are and how you use these forums.
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    This is not surprising to me. It's been interesting how 'the twine group' has been able to move from app to app to app to try and find a suitable place to communicate, share, and collaborate. Looks like Diigo is the place, at least for the moment! I find that fascinating!
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    cumon jack...this place Blows twine away. If Kanye were here, he'd say "I'mma letchew finish, but Diigo is the best social bookmarking service EVER."
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    Absolutely, FishMan! It SO DOES blow Twine away. But, I'm thinking out-into-th-future! There's something on the horizon that will blow Diigo away, ... but, for the moment, it's only a fantasy. I have lots of fantasies, so, ... don't spend any time letting it worry you! LOL, FishMan!
Skeptical Debunker

'Hella' Proposed as Official Big Number - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • To become official, "hella" would have to jump through quite a few bureaucratic hoops. It would have to pass through the Consultative Committee for Units (CCU), one of 10 advisory committees of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM). If the CCU recommends it the CIPM, that board must then decide whether to advance the cause to the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), the official authority that can make changes to the SI system. That international organization, based in France, includes members from 81 countries. "I think that for a number of reasons it's a long shot," said Ben Stein, a spokesperson for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. organization that handles measurements. "The types of things they would consider are is it needed, does it add or reduce confusion, are the names consistent with other names associated with the prefixes?" Sendek argues that the name would honor the scientific contributions of Northern Californians, who have famously popularized the phrase "hella" to mean "a whole lot."
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    Soon the word "hella" may not be associated with California surfers as much as with scientists in lab coats. A physics student is petitioning to add "hella" to the International System of Units (SI) as the official designation of 10 to the 27th power, or a trillion trillions.
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