GooberTheHat wrote:I've probably asked this before, but could someone please explain to my how, if the universe is expanding, and galaxies are moving away from each other, how is it that the milky-way and andromida are due to collide?
A Hubble constant of 70 would mean that the universe is expanding at a rate of 70 kilometres per second per megaparsec. To understand what this means, you must first appreciate that a parsec is a measure of astronomical distance and that a megaparsec is the equivalent of a million parsecs. In turn there are 3.3 light years to a parsec, so a megaparsec is the equivalent of 3.3m light years. Thus for each 3.3m light years that a galaxy is distant from us, it will move an extra 70 kilometres (43.5 miles) per second faster from us, as a result of the expansion of the universe.
Dinostar77 wrote:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/23/have-scientists-discovered-fifth-force-nature/ A fifth force of natured could have been discovered after scientists carried out a "Nobel-prize worthy" experiment which could revolutionise our understanding of the world.
Physics centres on the theory that four forces control our universe - gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong force.
But scientists from Hungary have published groundbreaking findings which show what appears to be a fifth force at work......
We discuss the potential for these results to be integrated into a larger, new theoretical framework of bullshit as a low-cost strategy for gaining advantages in prestige awarding domains.
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1.2 Bullshit as a Low-Cost Strategy
For many domains in which humans compete for prestige, status, or material goods, the criteria for determining who succeeds and fails at least partially rely on impressing others. In these domains, bullshit may be deployed as a low-cost strategy for gaining prestige. An agent working towards being successful in a domain, can engage in the long and arduous process of acquiring expert skills and knowledge that they could then leverage to accomplish certain goals. Alternatively, an agent could engage in a less effortful process that produces similar benefits (i.e., impressing others with bullshit). These two strategies need not be mutually exclusive. A person with impressive skills and competence could potentially use bullshit to enhance their outcomes, and as such, yield more success compared to equally skilled peers who are either unwilling or unable to bullshit well.
The extent to which bullshit can be deployed as an effective low-cost strategy for success may greatly vary by domain. First, bullshit is less likely to be effective in domains in which success is objectively judged, and thus, impressing others is not required. For example, in athletic competitions focused on speed (e.g., 100m race), endurance (e.g., a marathon), or strength (e.g., powerlifting), the ability to impress others with bullshit should be a) difficult and b) of little value, as one’s degree of competence in these competitions can be easily and objectively measured. Nevertheless, in many domains, success can be obtained, or at least enhanced, by impressing others. For example, in artistic endeavors such as music, poetry, or art, technical skills are unlikely to be the sole determiner of success. What is likely to be equally important is the ability to impress others by making one’s artwork appear unique, profound, and meaningful (Miller, 2001). A quick and efficient way to impress others in this manner is with claims that imply, yet do not contain, any specifically interpretable truth or meaning (i.e., with bullshit). Of course, “bullshit” in this context need not carry any negative connotation. If the goal of a piece of art is to inspire the feeling of profoundness in its viewers, whether this feeling originates from the art itself or is created by the viewer is of no consequence. Such situations may be contrasted with circumstances in which truth, rather than pleasure or profoundness, is a primary goal (e.g., science or medicine), where the use of bullshit to gain advantages is antithetical to the primary purpose of the discipline.
1.3 “Bullshit” in Science
While we may wish to believe that bullshit is ineffective in more objectively judged domains (e.g., science), where truth is of primary importance, a growing body of research hints that even here bullshitting may offer a competitive advantage. For example, Eriksson (2012) demonstrated that the inclusion of irrelevant (and nonsensical in context) math formulae in the abstracts of scientific papers caused graduate-degree holders in education, the humanities, and other non-mathematics fields to rate these scientific papers as higher in quality. Similarly, Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, and Gray (2008) found that including irrelevant neuroscience explanations for psychological phenomena caused readers to judge these explanations as more satisfying compared to when the same explanation was given without irrelevant neuroscience information. Notably, this difference was especially pronounced when an initial explanation was of poor quality. In both instances, these empirical findings highlight how the inclusion of seemingly impressive language that was irrelevant to the truth-value of a scientific claim improved readers’ reception of the work. While it can be debated whether these two instances qualify as “bullshit” technically, these cases do highlight how the goal of scientific communication can become less about strictly communicating true knowledge about the universe and more about impressing an audience.
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These predictions are not intended to be taken as a value judgment on the quality of modern art, nor a dismissal of the subjectively derived meaning formed when exposed to such pieces. If anything, the production of good and satisfying “bullshit” (i.e., statements meant to be impressive regardless of truth) may simply be part of the artistic process as much as the production of a painting.
The Daddy wrote:This is a fun read: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html Totally reminds me of labs in 1st year physics before I was able to opt-out and just do theoretical stuff. The equipment was terrible and I nearly got in trouble once because my results were too good (I had made them up to be fair, but I wasn’t going to admit that).
Dinostar77 wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/20/humans-put-into-suspended-animation-for-first-time
This is crazy and has hollywood horror movie written all over it.
Facewon wrote:https://twitter.com/PaulGCornish/status/1235317897259626496?s=19 What a story. Pluto could have had another name, but the dude was an asshole.
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