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Any experiences. My near neighbour swears by them and his lawn is in
a far better state than mine. But I'm wary of franchise operations but presumably they have access to better chemicals/fertilisers/weedkillers than the rubbish I seem to get - or they are better at applying it. greenthumb.co.uk -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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On 15/07/2020 16:45, AnthonyL wrote:
Any experiences. My near neighbour swears by them and his lawn is in a far better state than mine. But I'm wary of franchise operations but presumably they have access to better chemicals/fertilisers/weedkillers than the rubbish I seem to get - or they are better at applying it. greenthumb.co.uk They sound to me a bit like the US ChemLawn franchise which does what it says on the tin but with a more UK friendly eco greenwashed name. If you like your lawns to be a featureless green monoculture desert of grass with absolutely nothing else left alive and obtained at any cost to the environment then it is for you. I prefer my lawn with some small wild flowers in it and only really persecute dandelions, ground elder and buttercups. Clover is in flower right now. One application of weed and feed in the spring and a couple of spot weeding sessions with a broadleaf specific weedkiller combined with regular cutting is plenty good enough. It looks much more interesting with some smaller wild flowers left in it. I buy my spring weed and feed in the Autumn get rid quick sale when they are making room for Dracula's Cave/Santa's Grotto. The trick to applying it is to spread it evenly over the whole area. It can burn the grass if applied incorrectly or not watered in within a couple of days. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
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On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:35:33 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote: They sound to me a bit like the US ChemLawn franchise which does what it says on the tin but with a more UK friendly eco greenwashed name. Chemlawn changed its name a few years ago to "Trugreen!" We live in a rural area of "upstate" New York, and I adhere to the "as long as it's green" school of lawn. Originally planted with Timothy, since there are nearby hayfields of that. A little coarser than putting green stuff, but very hardy and carefree. And the lovely aroma when I mow the patch where wild thyme has settled in. -- Gary Woods O- K2AHC Public keys at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic, or get 0x1D64A93D via keyserver fingerprint = E2 6F 50 93 7B C7 F3 CA 1F 8B 3C C0 B0 28 68 -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus |
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On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:35:33 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote: On 15/07/2020 16:45, AnthonyL wrote: Any experiences. My near neighbour swears by them and his lawn is in a far better state than mine. But I'm wary of franchise operations but presumably they have access to better chemicals/fertilisers/weedkillers than the rubbish I seem to get - or they are better at applying it. greenthumb.co.uk They sound to me a bit like the US ChemLawn franchise which does what it says on the tin but with a more UK friendly eco greenwashed name. If you like your lawns to be a featureless green monoculture desert of grass with absolutely nothing else left alive and obtained at any cost to the environment then it is for you. It's not my choice :( When I'm not looking SWMBO gets the mower out on its lowest settings just as a dry spell is about to arrive and the lawn has less cover than my head. I'm sorely tempted to put a locking bolt through the mechanism. I prefer my lawn with some small wild flowers in it and only really persecute dandelions, ground elder and buttercups. Clover is in flower right now. One application of weed and feed in the spring and a couple of spot weeding sessions with a broadleaf specific weedkiller combined with regular cutting is plenty good enough. It looks much more interesting with some smaller wild flowers left in it. However there are now large patches of no grass rather than grass interspersed with a few daisies. I buy my spring weed and feed in the Autumn get rid quick sale when they are making room for Dracula's Cave/Santa's Grotto. The trick to applying it is to spread it evenly over the whole area. It can burn the grass if applied incorrectly or not watered in within a couple of days. Thanks for the "heads up". -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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On 19/07/2020 12:52, AnthonyL wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:35:33 +0100, Martin Brown wrote: On 15/07/2020 16:45, AnthonyL wrote: Any experiences. My near neighbour swears by them and his lawn is in a far better state than mine. But I'm wary of franchise operations but presumably they have access to better chemicals/fertilisers/weedkillers than the rubbish I seem to get - or they are better at applying it. greenthumb.co.uk They sound to me a bit like the US ChemLawn franchise which does what it says on the tin but with a more UK friendly eco greenwashed name. If you like your lawns to be a featureless green monoculture desert of grass with absolutely nothing else left alive and obtained at any cost to the environment then it is for you. It's not my choice :( When I'm not looking SWMBO gets the mower out on its lowest settings just as a dry spell is about to arrive and the lawn has less cover than my head. I'm sorely tempted to put a locking bolt through the mechanism. I prefer my lawn with some small wild flowers in it and only really persecute dandelions, ground elder and buttercups. Clover is in flower right now. One application of weed and feed in the spring and a couple of spot weeding sessions with a broadleaf specific weedkiller combined with regular cutting is plenty good enough. It looks much more interesting with some smaller wild flowers left in it. However there are now large patches of no grass rather than grass interspersed with a few daisies. I buy my spring weed and feed in the Autumn get rid quick sale when they are making room for Dracula's Cave/Santa's Grotto. The trick to applying it is to spread it evenly over the whole area. It can burn the grass if applied incorrectly or not watered in within a couple of days. Thanks for the "heads up". Yes it does burn but the grass comes back fine Use it with plenty of water - natural or otherwise - to get it soaked in -- No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post. |
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On 19/07/2020 12:52, AnthonyL wrote:
It's not my choice:( When I'm not looking SWMBO gets the mower out on its lowest settings just as a dry spell is about to arrive and the lawn has less cover than my head. I'm sorely tempted to put a locking bolt through the mechanism. My SWMBO has been convinced by the bee orchids that we should have at least one part not mown at all. Neither of us want to put any kind of weedkiller on it at all. (Though mowing around them _is_ a PITA!) Andy |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2020 21:52:56 +0100, Vir Campestris
wrote: On 19/07/2020 12:52, AnthonyL wrote: It's not my choice:( When I'm not looking SWMBO gets the mower out on its lowest settings just as a dry spell is about to arrive and the lawn has less cover than my head. I'm sorely tempted to put a locking bolt through the mechanism. My SWMBO has been convinced by the bee orchids that we should have at least one part not mown at all. Neither of us want to put any kind of weedkiller on it at all. (Though mowing around them _is_ a PITA!) Oh we have plenty of nature garden. It's the front lawn that is the issue here. -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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On 20/07/2020 12:36, AnthonyL wrote:
AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. -- "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." Josef Stalin |
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On 20/07/2020 12:36, AnthonyL wrote:
Oh we have plenty of nature garden. It's the front lawn that is the issue here. I leave a foot-wide strip against the front hedge for quite a while in late spring to give the primroses and cowslips a chance. She does moan about that I admit :) My argument is you can't really see it from the road. Andy |
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On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:27:28 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote: On 20/07/2020 12:36, AnthonyL wrote: AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". My lawn is looking better for simply allowing it to grow beyond baldness. Clover is doing well too. -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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On 21/07/2020 12:49, AnthonyL wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:27:28 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 20/07/2020 12:36, AnthonyL wrote: AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". Actually the main problem is that there is no proof of anything available, and that's why the philosophy of science is so important. It stops people looking for 'scientific proof' because it *cannot* exist. Science consist of a suite of hypothetical entities whose existence predicts some stuff that seems to happen. That doesn't mean that those entities are the only, or the correct, explanation, or that they have any reality outside the human mind. It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". Sounds ******** to me. Safety factor is the margin to known problems. Says nothing about unknown problems, but how could it? My lawn is looking better for simply allowing it to grow beyond baldness. Clover is doing well too. same here, except I am trying to knock out the clover. I've got a wildflower meadow down the bottom: what I want is a LAWN -- "Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it." - Stephen Vizinczey |
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In article ,
AnthonyL wrote: When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". The former shows your misunderstanding of complex issues - why do you think there IS a single, explicable, complete answer? There very often isn't - and, in some cases, there are questions that are quite simply unanswerable in such terms. And the second is effectively ********. You cannot design for all possible events - ships are designed only against (say) 'once in a millennium' storms, not the worst possible storm, let alone such things as Cumbre Viejo or the Storegga shelf collapsing. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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AnthonyL wrote:
You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it Try telling a mixed crowd of Christians/Jews/Muslims/WHY to go off and find a "religious string theory" ... |
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On 21/07/2020 19:07, Andy Burns wrote:
AnthonyL wrote: You are scientists.Â* If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it Try telling a mixed crowd of Christians/Jews/Muslims/WHY to go off and find a "religious string theory" ... How many angels will fir on the head of a pin? New name, old concept. -- “it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism (or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans, about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a 'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,' a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian utopia of 1984.†Vaclav Klaus |
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On 21/07/2020 19:20, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
How many angels will fir on the head of a pin? Which debate sounds less silly when you find out that the debate was not over 10 or 100 or some such, but over finite vs infinite. Andy |
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On 21/07/2020 21:22, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 21/07/2020 19:20, The Natural Philosopher wrote: How many angels will fir on the head of a pin? Which debate sounds less silly when you find out that the debate was not over 10 or 100 or some such, but over finite vs infinite. Andy Indeed. Which is what string theory is. A way to counteract the mathematical problems of 'point sources of mass' leading to infinite gravitational fields, in the limit. Amongst other things. -- "Corbyn talks about equality, justice, opportunity, health care, peace, community, compassion, investment, security, housing...." "What kind of person is not interested in those things?" "Jeremy Corbyn?" |
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On 22/07/2020 12:53, AnthonyL wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:20:29 -0000 (UTC), (Nick Maclaren) wrote: In article , AnthonyL wrote: When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". The former shows your misunderstanding of complex issues - why do you think there IS a single, explicable, complete answer? There very often isn't - and, in some cases, there are questions that are quite simply unanswerable in such terms. So they may as well believe in a god and argue about that? They may theorise one thing and it is in pursuit of theories that more becomes known but to argue that one belief is better than another is the anathama of what I understand science to be. What's the point in believe a heavy stone will fall to the ground faster because it is heavy? You need to make a fine distinction here. All real world knowledge is essentially *inductive* propositions. (what Sherlock Holmes called wrongly 'deduction') Inductive knowledge is the art of proposing causes (assuming causality exists and is valid) from effects = Phenomena. Shit on the carpet? The dog did it. Or the Russians. If it ended there, one proposition would be as good as the other, BUT the point about *science* is you take a DNA test and if its canine and matches the pooch, then the probability that the dog did it is very high. And that is the point about *science*. Its *inductive* propositions can create *deductive* propositions that *can be tested*. IF 'the dog did it' THEN the DNA will match. IF 'gravity' works as Newton suggested THEN planetary orbits will be...what they are, approximately anyway. (Einstein etc). Religion however is 'IF GOD then...well...' nothing. Or everything. It's all *untestable* and therefore not a *scientific* proposition. Might be true, might not. Can't tell. No WAY to tell. And the second is effectively ********. You cannot design for all possible events - ships are designed only against (say) 'once in a millennium' storms, not the worst possible storm, let alone such things as Cumbre Viejo or the Storegga shelf collapsing. That is not how engineering builds in safety factors. At least not in the aviation (airframe and engine) environment I started off in. Oh I think it is. Airframes are stressed to - for example - -2g to +4g for a commercial aircraft. At some level that represents a 'once every thousand year' event. A microprocessor might very well be likely to fail from a timing issue once every ten years, but from cosmic ray impact once every 3 months.. safety margins consist in building to meet the unlikely knowns. Not the unknowns of which one is ignorant though. If anybody has actually seriously said 'make sure your skyscraper can withstand a 300 tonne aeroplane full of fuel impacting at 300mph' the twin towers would still be standing... As it was the 45 minute fire rating did its job and should have allowed time to evacuate...if there had been any way to get people above the fire out. -- "The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll look exactly the same afterwards." Billy Connolly |
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On 22/07/2020 12:53, AnthonyL wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:20:29 -0000 (UTC), (Nick Maclaren) wrote: In article , AnthonyL wrote: When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". The former shows your misunderstanding of complex issues - why do you think there IS a single, explicable, complete answer? There very often isn't - and, in some cases, there are questions that are quite simply unanswerable in such terms. So they may as well believe in a god and argue about that? They may theorise one thing and it is in pursuit of theories that more becomes known but to argue that one belief is better than another is the anathama of what I understand science to be. What's the point in Science is a progressive approximation to describing reality using the best mathematics available. The more a scientific theory can explain and the more experimental tests of its predictions that do not refute it the stronger that scientific belief in that theory becomes. The fundamental conservation laws are close to being an immutable core set of beliefs and firmly believed by all as anything in physics. But there is always a possibility that some clever experiment done tomorrow will refute something that until now has been considered a sacrosanct law of physics. Groundbreaking experiments with unexpected results tend to break open whole new areas of physics for study. Radioactivity, superconductivity, general relativity, lasers for instance. You can never tell in advance what will be important. Each advance in physics includes all the existing results as some weak field limiting case of a more complete and complicated theory. It is still not known if a grand unified theory of everything is even possible. Certain pure mathematical proofs hint that it may not be. believe a heavy stone will fall to the ground faster because it is heavy? Allowing for air resistance it does fall ever so slightly faster. But shape will make a big difference too. Experiment trumps elegant theory every time - nature is the final arbiter of every scientific theory. A flat plate will fall more slowly than a sphere. Shape really matters unless you do the experiment in a vacuum. And the second is effectively ********. You cannot design for all possible events - ships are designed only against (say) 'once in a millennium' storms, not the worst possible storm, let alone such things as Cumbre Viejo or the Storegga shelf collapsing. That is not how engineering builds in safety factors. At least not in the aviation (airframe and engine) environment I started off in. They do basically look for the worst case loading that the airframe might be expected to encounter in service and then choose a suitable multiple of that as a safety margin. Victorians tended to err on the side of caution with a factor of 7 so their sewers still work whereas the cheap and nasty blocks of flats built in the 1960's used a safety factor of 1.0 which is why Ronan Point collapsed like a deck of cards. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
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AnthonyL wrote:
Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". Debating or discussing with each other -- the loaded "arguing" is rarely the appropriate word -- is quite a good way of finding out what the differences really are, whether or not one's position needs adjustment, or what steps might be taken to clarify or prove the thing one way or another. I not infrequently disagree with my colleagues, since we not only have different backgrounds, different expertise, and often different intuitions; the resulting debate is not only instructive but productive. #Paul |
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On 22/07/2020 18:08, #Paul wrote:
AnthonyL wrote: Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists. If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". Debating or discussing with each other -- the loaded "arguing" is rarely the appropriate word -- is quite a good way of finding out what the differences really are, whether or not one's position needs adjustment, or what steps might be taken to clarify or prove the thing one way or another. Arguing can sometimes be the right word. Fred Hoyle's disparaging use of the term "Big Bang" Cosmology to describe the new theory that supplanted his own Steady State Universe model for instance. It didn't help that some of the early observational radio telescope surveys that made steady state untenable was partly contaminated with ghost sources in sidelobes. When cosmic microwave background was observed by Bell Labs the case for Big Bang was essentially water tight but adherents to Steady State never gave in. They fought a rear guard action pretty much to the last man. I not infrequently disagree with my colleagues, since we not only have different backgrounds, different expertise, and often different intuitions; the resulting debate is not only instructive but productive. When big egos get involved things can get ugly even in science. A sadder case was the poor unfortunate Russian scientist who found the first self catalysing redox clock reaction that flew in the face of normal chemical theory as it was known at the time. Unable to get it published other than in an obscure Russian journal he eventually gave up working as a scientist and never lived to see it become world famous in the 1970's. He was unlucky and well ahead of his time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belous...insky_reaction Wegeners continental drift was another good idea that was ridiculed at first but ultimately the mass of evidence overwhelmed his critics. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html -- Regards, Martin Brown |
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On 22/07/2020 14:48, Martin Brown wrote:
On 22/07/2020 12:53, AnthonyL wrote: On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:20:29 -0000 (UTC), (Nick Maclaren) wrote: In article , AnthonyL wrote: When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists.Â* If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". The former shows your misunderstanding of complex issues - why do you think there IS a single, explicable, complete answer?Â* There very often isn't - and, in some cases, there are questions that are quite simply unanswerable in such terms. So they may as well believe in a god and argue about that?Â* They may theorise one thing and it is in pursuit of theories that more becomes known but to argue that one belief is better than another is the anathama of what I understand science to be.Â* What's the point in Science is a progressive approximation to describing reality using the best mathematics available. The more a scientific theory can explain and the more experimental tests of its predictions that do not refute it the stronger that scientific belief in that theory becomes. I slightly object to 'belief' in that context. I think the phrase used is 'strong evidence' The material realists believe that the fact that sciences *works* is 'strong evidence' that the entities that comprise its theories - e.g. gravity - 'actually exist'. P prefer to merely note that they are simply explanations that give useful predictions without ascribing any truth content to them at all. As can be seen with e.g. Einsetein where a radical different construction - bent space time, gives almost the same result in most cases and a far better result in a few cases. The fundamental conservation laws are close to being an immutable core set of beliefs and firmly believed by all as anything in physics. # As is causality. But what 'causes' that particular radioactive element to decay at that particular time? Quanatum level mess cannot be solved by simple cause and effect, instead we have a probability function only. Einstein claimed he could not believe that God played dice..but that is a belief, only. But there is always a possibility that some clever experiment done tomorrow will refute something that until now has been considered a sacrosanct law of physics. Groundbreaking experiments with unexpected results tend to break open whole new areas of physics for study. Indeed. That pesky photoelectric effect that led to quantum physics, which gave us the semiconductor and the laser.. Radioactivity, superconductivity, general relativity, lasers for instance. You can never tell in advance what will be important. Yup. Or where it all might lead. First integrated circuits were to control guided missiles. Now they run twitter. Each advance in physics includes all the existing results as some weak field limiting case of a more complete and complicated theory. It is still not known if a grand unified theory of everything is even possible. Certain pure mathematical proofs hint that it may not be. If you take Gödel and view him as Hofstatder does as an example of *recursion*, then it becomes clear that a given knowledge base can never use itself to prove its own correctness. Inductive propositions about the real world made by limited beings can never be sure to have captured the world either completely or truthfully. See the Matrix. absent the Red Pill how could you tell you were in a simulation? Science is not about truth, it is about effective prediction of the future. Using models of reality that can never shown to be correct. only be shown to be incorrect. believe a heavy stone will fall to the ground faster because it is heavy? Allowing for air resistance it does fall ever so slightly faster. But shape will make a big difference too. Experiment trumps elegant theory every time - nature is the final arbiter of every scientific theory. That's why it was calld ahem! NATURAL PHILOSOPHY A flat plate will fall more slowly than a sphere. Shape really matters unless you do the experiment in a vacuum. And the second is effectively ********.Â* You cannot design for all possible events - ships are designed only against (say) 'once in a millennium' storms, not the worst possible storm, let alone such things as Cumbre Viejo or the Storegga shelf collapsing. That is not how engineering builds in safety factors.Â* At least not in the aviation (airframe and engine) environment I started off in. They do basically look for the worst case loading that the airframe might be expected to encounter in service and then choose a suitable multiple of that as a safety margin. Victorians tended to err on the side of caution with a factor of 7 so their sewers still work whereas the cheap and nasty blocks of flats built in the 1960's used a safety factor of 1.0 which is why Ronan Point collapsed like a deck of cards. No, to be fair progressive collapse, like the Comet and metal fatigue, was sort of known about but not considered something you should take into account. Same goes for various resonant bridge collapses - Tacoma narrows? We live, and we learn from thee failures, that there is more we need to take into account. Known unknowns become known knowns. But, the problem with science is that fact that it has always worked before is no absolute guarantee it will work in the future. As the man falling past the 30th floor replied when asked how he was doing 'okay, so far' is all we can really know. Assuming that memory is real and what just happened is not a figment of our imagination, and we are not trapped in a timeless present with nothing but false memories.... Ultimately we nothing for sure, just a bunch of ideas that seem to have worked, so far, enough for us to to the Darwinian Shag and beget another round of brats ... ....Until woke came along and now no one knows whether or not they ought to not actually be gay, or so full of guilt for actually having the temerity to exist, that instant suicide is indicated out of pure shame. All one can say is that such genes will not then be passed on... -- The lifetime of any political organisation is about three years before its been subverted by the people it tried to warn you about. Anon. |
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On 22/07/2020 22:42, Martin Brown wrote:
On 22/07/2020 18:08, #Paul wrote: AnthonyL wrote: Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? Very interesting question: the short answer is they don't, except they need to at least sort of believe the 'evidence of their senses', and the basic structure they impose on the Universe - space-time/matter/energy/causality etc are all useful *assumptions*, but are metaphysical - unprovable - in nature. When I hear them arguing and disagreeing with eachother the thought that immediately comes to me is "You are scientists.Â* If there is not a proof there that satisfies all then shut up and go seek it". Debating or discussing with each other -- the loaded "arguing" is rarely the appropriate word -- is quite a good way of finding out what the differences really are, whether or not one's position needs adjustment, or what steps might be taken to clarify or prove the thing one way or another. Arguing can sometimes be the right word. Fred Hoyle's disparaging use of the term "Big Bang" Cosmology to describe the new theory that supplanted his own Steady State Universe model for instance. It didn't help that some of the early observational radio telescope surveys that made steady state untenable was partly contaminated with ghost sources in sidelobes. When cosmic microwave background was observed by Bell Labs the case for Big Bang was essentially water tight but adherents to Steady State never gave in. They fought a rear guard action pretty much to the last man. I not infrequently disagree with my colleagues, since we not only have different backgrounds, different expertise, and often different intuitions; the resulting debate is not only instructive but productive. When big egos get involved things can get ugly even in science. A sadder case was the poor unfortunate Russian scientist who found the first self catalysing redox clock reaction that flew in the face of normal chemical theory as it was known at the time. Unable to get it published other than in an obscure Russian journal he eventually gave up working as a scientist and never lived to see it become world famous in the 1970's. He was unlucky and well ahead of his time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belous...insky_reaction Wegeners continental drift was another good idea that was ridiculed at first but ultimately the mass of evidence overwhelmed his critics. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html On the other foot we have Lysenkoism, phrenology, Eugenics, Racial theory, Piltdown Man and Climate Change, all massively popular theories because they fitted a particular social and political narrative, that turned out to be utter bunk... -- Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do! |
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In article ,
AnthonyL wrote: It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". The former shows your misunderstanding of complex issues - why do you think there IS a single, explicable, complete answer? There very often isn't - and, in some cases, there are questions that are quite simply unanswerable in such terms. So they may as well believe in a god and argue about that? They may theorise one thing and it is in pursuit of theories that more becomes known but to argue that one belief is better than another is the anathama of what I understand science to be. What's the point in believe a heavy stone will fall to the ground faster because it is heavy? When you are in a hole, stop digging. I was polite, and said "misunderstanding", but the correct term is "wilful ignorance". For an explanation, look on BBC catchup for Sir Paul Nurse's explanation to the COVID Science Committee (or some such title), a couple of nights back. And the second is effectively ********. You cannot design for all possible events - ships are designed only against (say) 'once in a millennium' storms, not the worst possible storm, let alone such things as Cumbre Viejo or the Storegga shelf collapsing. That is not how engineering builds in safety factors. At least not in the aviation (airframe and engine) environment I started off in. Oh, yes, it is, and I have worked with and for some of those people. Here are two examples: Aircraft regularly drop hundreds of feet in clear air turbulence, and are designed to survive that, but vortices are unlimited in size and they are NOT designed to survive a drop of (say) 2,000 metres. Engines are designed to survive moderate bird strike and hail, but are NOT designed to survive complete flocks of geese or head-sized hail. Unknown factors (and the chances of such incidents ARE unknown, because there is not enough data to estimate them) are the reason that safety factors are needed in those cases. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:56:57 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote: On 21/07/2020 12:49, AnthonyL wrote: On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:27:28 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". Sounds ******** to me. Safety factor is the margin to known problems. Says nothing about unknown problems, but how could it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety or more precisely the "Margin of safety" That has nothing to do with unknown problems and has everything to do with the uncertainty of the anticipated behaviour of the materials in question. Albeit a long time ago I also spent a lot of time calculating (before ready access to calculators) Mean Time Before Failure and Operational Reliability of sub-systems in an engine. No doubt any safety factor applied nowadays would be much more refined than in those days as the manufacturing and build processes improved and the ignorance factor decreased. -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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On 23/07/2020 02:42, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/07/2020 22:42, Martin Brown wrote: A sadder case was the poor unfortunate Russian scientist who found the first self catalysing redox clock reaction that flew in the face of normal chemical theory as it was known at the time. Unable to get it published other than in an obscure Russian journal he eventually gave up working as a scientist and never lived to see it become world famous in the 1970's. He was unlucky and well ahead of his time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belous...insky_reaction Wegeners continental drift was another good idea that was ridiculed at first but ultimately the mass of evidence overwhelmed his critics. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html On the other foot we have Lysenkoism, phrenology, Eugenics, Racial theory, Piltdown Man and Climate Change, all massively popular theories because they fitted a particular social and political narrative, that turned out to be utter bunk... Climate change deniers are invariably working for fossil fuel companies and using exactly the same doubt and uncertainty tactics as they did to keep the dumb punters smoking tobacco. You only have to follow the money to see which side is science and which is utter bunkum "supported" by deniers for hire working for various US rightwing "think tanks". The rest of them I agree with you are pure anti-science. Though it is beginning to look like there is a race based genetic component to susceptibility to novel coronavirus Covid-19. It could be as simple as having a dark skin at high latitude or being a sickle cell anaemia carrier but it may well be something more subtle from way back. The recent genomic sequencing paper suggests that one risk factor comes from our Neanderthal ancestors through a variation on gene 3. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...07.03.186296v1 Whereas pure homo sapiens directly from Africa does not have this. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...07.03.186296v1 It is the first working hypothesis that more or less correlates with the observed death rates experienced in various countries around the globe. The other is ABO blood group related and seems to be confirmed now that having any A antibodies is bad for you and being blood group O is best. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
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On 23/07/2020 12:47, AnthonyL wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:56:57 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 21/07/2020 12:49, AnthonyL wrote: On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:27:28 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". Sounds ******** to me. Safety factor is the margin to known problems. Says nothing about unknown problems, but how could it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety or more precisely the "Margin of safety" That has nothing to do with unknown problems and has everything to do with the uncertainty of the anticipated behaviour of the materials in question. Ignorance === unknown. I didnt start the use of that term, I merely replied that 'ignorance factor' implied 'margin for unknownn (problems) Albeit a long time ago I also spent a lot of time calculating (before ready access to calculators) Mean Time Before Failure and Operational Reliability of sub-systems in an engine. No doubt any safety factor applied nowadays would be much more refined than in those days as the manufacturing and build processes improved and the ignorance factor decreased. What 'ignorance factor'? You have categorically stated that this has nothing top do with unknown problems, therefore there is no 'ignorance factor -- In todays liberal progressive conflict-free education system, everyone gets full Marx. |
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On 23/07/2020 14:29, Martin Brown wrote:
On 23/07/2020 02:42, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 22/07/2020 22:42, Martin Brown wrote: A sadder case was the poor unfortunate Russian scientist who found the first self catalysing redox clock reaction that flew in the face of normal chemical theory as it was known at the time. Unable to get it published other than in an obscure Russian journal he eventually gave up working as a scientist and never lived to see it become world famous in the 1970's. He was unlucky and well ahead of his time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belous...insky_reaction Wegeners continental drift was another good idea that was ridiculed at first but ultimately the mass of evidence overwhelmed his critics. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html On the other foot we have Lysenkoism, phrenology, Eugenics, Racial theory, Piltdown Man and Climate Change, all massively popular theories because they fitted a particular social and political narrative, that turned out to be utter bunk... Climate change deniers are invariably working for fossil fuel companies and using exactly the same doubt and uncertainty tactics as they did to keep the dumb punters smoking tobacco. Indeed. Al Gore and the NYT are using exactrlyt these tactics to deny the science - which basically proves that climate change is nothing to do with CO2 - in order to increase the price and government control of energy and benefit the fossil fuel companies - Al Gore was working fror Enron and trying to promote gas over coal as Enron had serious gas interests at that time when he made 'an inconvenient truth' - which was, of course, actually a really convenient lie. You only have to follow the money to see which side is science and which is utter bunkum "supported" by deniers for hire working for various US rightwing "think tanks". Precisely so. The renewable industry and climate change in general is a multi trillion dollar industry now based on utterly bogus 'science'. CO2 has been rising monotonically since the 1960s, but climate change more or less stopped in the year 2000, and certainly hasn't been rising monotonically since, despite all the attempts to 'correct' the data to make it so. Ergo the core assumption that all or the vast majority of late 20th century warming is due to CO2 is refuted utterly and completely. The real denial is by those who refuse to face these facts and maintain that CO2 is teh major and on;y important 'cause' of temperature change, when the geological record shows that actually climate change is the major cause of rising CO2 levels as the oceans outgas...and it wasn't burning fossil fuels that led to the end of the 'little ice age',and nor is the recorded fact of vineyards in Denmark and Sweden in the Roman warm period indicative of it being 'warmer than all recorded history' now...nor are records of the 1912 (or was in 1920) ice free North West passage indicative that Arctic ice has never been this low, nor is it a convenient truth that there are more polar bears in the Arctic than at any time in recorded memory... There is a huge conspiracy to deny the reality of climate change, but it is coming from the Left and from people making trillions out of energy And you are part of it - just another 'useful idiot; who drunk their koolaid. There are of course no 'right wing think tanks' - it's another invention of climate change fraudsters The rest of them I agree with you are pure anti-science. Though it is beginning to look like there is a race based genetic component to susceptibility to novel coronavirus Covid-19. It could be as simple as having a dark skin at high latitude or being a sickle cell anaemia carrier but it may well be something more subtle from way back. Golly, a closet racist?~ The recent genomic sequencing paper suggests that one risk factor comes from our Neanderthal ancestors through a variation on gene 3. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...07.03.186296v1 Whereas pure homo sapiens directly from Africa does not have this. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...07.03.186296v1 It is the first working hypothesis that more or less correlates with the observed death rates experienced in various countries around the globe. The other is ABO blood group related and seems to be confirmed now that having any A antibodies is bad for you and being blood group O is best. -- If I had all the money I've spent on drink... ...I'd spend it on drink. Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End) |
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On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:29:46 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote: On 23/07/2020 12:47, AnthonyL wrote: On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:56:57 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 21/07/2020 12:49, AnthonyL wrote: On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 17:27:28 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: It somewhat reminds me of what I learnt as an engineer "Safety factor is simply ignorance factor". Sounds ******** to me. Safety factor is the margin to known problems. Says nothing about unknown problems, but how could it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety or more precisely the "Margin of safety" That has nothing to do with unknown problems and has everything to do with the uncertainty of the anticipated behaviour of the materials in question. Ignorance === unknown. I didnt start the use of that term, I merely replied that 'ignorance factor' implied 'margin for unknownn (problems) Albeit a long time ago I also spent a lot of time calculating (before ready access to calculators) Mean Time Before Failure and Operational Reliability of sub-systems in an engine. No doubt any safety factor applied nowadays would be much more refined than in those days as the manufacturing and build processes improved and the ignorance factor decreased. What 'ignorance factor'? You have categorically stated that this has nothing top do with unknown problems, therefore there is no 'ignorance factor The ignorance factor is the uncertainty in the reliability of the test measurements taken against any sample, it has nothing to do with unknown outside influences. The tensile strength of Steel, structural ASTM A36 steel is 250MPa. Well exactly? All? Most samples? If you're life depended on it would you apply that load and feel safe? Would design engineers be prepared to put their reputation on that figure? Or might you calculate everything at 230MPa just to give you a margin of safety because you want to be sure (ie because you are not sure)? These are not external unknown problems which is the way I had interpreted some of the criticism of my statement. If a plane crashed into a building that was reliant on the 250MPa structural frame that is beyond the design criteria. If the plane crashed because a wing failed because a bolt snapped because it had no safety margin built into the design then that smacks of overconfidence/negligence and a slight application of extra material would have saved the day if the designer had understood that the full behaviour of the bolt was not exactly understood, ie ignorance factor as cited to me many years ago. -- AnthonyL Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything? |
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Martin Brown wrote:
Climate change [...] Here's a recent review, which the many experts on the subject here will have no trouble at all understanding :-) The Physics of Climate Variability and Climate Change Michael Ghil, Valerio Lucarini The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject to various external forcings, ... https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00583 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.92.035002 Summary here (but the summary is not the science): https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/121 #Paul |
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On 05/08/2020 13:32, #Paul wrote:
Martin Brown wrote: Climate change [...] Here's a recent review, which the many experts on the subject here will have no trouble at all understanding :-) The Physics of Climate Variability and Climate Change Michael Ghil, Valerio Lucarini The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. = Impossible to model with any degree of long term accuracy. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject to various external forcings, ... https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00583 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.92.035002 Summary here (but the summary is not the science): https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/121 "The world is heating up." Er no, it isn't Not since 2000 or thereabouts. Except in towns, and where Eco activists are using cigarette lighters on accessible weather stations. #Paul -- Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas? Josef Stalin |
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On 06/08/2020 09:53, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 5 Aug 2020 18:05:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 05/08/2020 13:32, #Paul wrote: Martin Brown wrote: Climate change [...] Here's a recent review, which the many experts on the subject here will have no trouble at all understanding :-) The Physics of Climate Variability and Climate Change Michael Ghil, Valerio Lucarini The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. = Impossible to model with any degree of long term accuracy. Especially given the precision, or rather, the lack of it, when it comes to measuring the parameters that go into those models. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject to various external forcings, ... https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00583 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.92.035002 Summary here (but the summary is not the science): https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/121 "The world is heating up." Er no, it isn't Not since 2000 or thereabouts. Except in towns, and where Eco activists are using cigarette lighters on accessible weather stations. #Paul I've just finished a topical thriller by an author I follow, Scott Mariani, 'The Cassandra Sanction', in which a small group of climatologists and astronomers have rumbled the whole 'CO2 is bad' hypothesis. But a group of powerful businessmen with huge financial interests in renewable energy systems and in maintaining the CO2 myth, are slowly having the members of the group killed off, one by one. Mariani seems pretty knowledgeable on the case against CO2. A good read from several points of view. I'll get that. ta -- Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill |
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On 06/08/2020 12:26, AnthonyL wrote:
On Wed, 05 Aug 2020 13:32:29 +0100, (#Paul) wrote: Martin Brown wrote: Climate change [...] Here's a recent review, which the many experts on the subject here will have no trouble at all understanding :-) The Physics of Climate Variability and Climate Change Michael Ghil, Valerio Lucarini The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject to various external forcings, ... https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00583 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.92.035002 Summary here (but the summary is not the science): https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/121 All because of my front lawn? I'll concrete it over then :? That will definitely raise temperatures! In fact there is a study that no one talks about that appears to show that all late 20th century warming has only occurred at weather stations that have had urban development around them. Or jet exhausts pointing at them. Isolated weather stations in remote rural locations show little or no warming at all. -- Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead. They must face it, then decide whether this is what they want or not. Ayn Rand. |
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On 06/08/2020 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
In fact there is a study that no one talks about that appears to show that all late 20th century warming has only occurred at weather stations that have had urban development around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth -- SRH |
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On 11/08/2020 18:24, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
On 06/08/2020 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote: In fact there is a study that no one talks about that appears to show that all late 20th century warming has only occurred at weather stations that have had urban development around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth Set up to 'disprove' an inconvenient truth. -- There’s a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good. Burton Hillis (William Vaughn, American columnist) |
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On 11/08/2020 22:42, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 11/08/2020 18:24, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote: On 06/08/2020 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote: In fact there is a study that no one talks about that appears to show that all late 20th century warming has only occurred at weather stations that have had urban development around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth Set up to 'disprove' an inconvenient truth. Well, yes, it was set up to disprove the inconvenient truth that the earth is warning, with the specific hypothesis that the warming trend was an artefact of site location. However it failed to do so because the researcher was honest and followed the data. -- SRH |
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On 12/08/2020 10:19, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
On 11/08/2020 22:42, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 11/08/2020 18:24, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote: On 06/08/2020 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote: In fact there is a study that no one talks about that appears to show that all late 20th century warming has only occurred at weather stations that have had urban development around them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth Set up to 'disprove' an inconvenient truth. Well, yes, it was set up to disprove the inconvenient truth that the earth is warning, with the specific hypothesis that the warming trend was an artefact of site location. However it failed to do so because the researcher was honest and followed the data. No, it was set up to disprove the inconvenient truth that the earth actually isn't warming very much at all, and certainly in no way correlated to carbon dioxide output. Rising temperature from the 1980s to 2000, pretty much flat since then. Whilst CO2 has risen smoothly throughout that period, Don't have to be a genius to realise that completely refutes 'nearly all modern warming is down to CO2'. -- “Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.†Dennis Miller |
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In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote: Please don't encourage the troll. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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