Phi for All

This sounds great. You never know what you can do until you try. As long as you aren't saying, "I'm a disorganized mess, but I accept that." That's like saying, "Sure, the table wobbles because the legs are uneven, but I accept that, and try not to move my elbows too much." I think trying to work from a chaotic process is MUCH more difficult, and frankly cuts down on one's engrossed-in-thought time. If you're saying, "I need to compensate for my normal, unorganized approach by being more methodical, so it doesn't impede me", then I think you're helping solve many of the detriments you listed. Sweet! And tragic that you aren't comfortable socially, because speaking someone's native language when it isn't your own is a great social ice-breaker. You have to have more organizational skills than you're letting on if you can learn languages so readily. And it's not weird, it's wonderful.

Embracing who you are is great, but assuming you're always going to be disorganized is like assuming you'll never learn a foreign language. It's definitely something you can fix if you so desire, especially if it's causing problems. I think being organized will help you catalog the intelligence you have, and allow you to focus more. Sometimes it's the disorganization that sets up conditions where you appear clumsy, or can't find the right thing to say in a social context. Bad spelling is like 98% disorganization, since you could easily start spellchecking regularly, and become used to doing it. Being organized will also help you see the importance of the details, rather than perceiving them as clutter. If the details don't come at you in an orderly manner, and you're not trained to mentally organize them, it's easy to see them as unimportant and unconnected. As humans, we're pattern-recognition oriented, so if you can't make sense of something fairly quickly, your brain will either force you to devote more attention to the problem, or dismiss it as trivial. Being intelligent, you really need a well-organized and rational process to overcome some of the problems you've listed. Let's face it, the absent-minded professor without the professor part is probably not who you want to be.

"There's only two things I hate in this world; people who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch." -- Nigel Powers

There is precedence. Dax got Teletubbied several years back. I don't think he ever got over it. Big props for quick, my man.

So true, and emphasized by the fact that there's nothing in the Bible about wedding rings. Nothing. Rings used to ceremonially bind people together were actually of pagan origin, hijacked like many holidays and other ceremonies to make the transition to the new Christian religion less bumpy. Iirc, the original ring-binding ceremonies involved chaining the bride-to-be up so her spirit could be controlled by her master new husband. So good job on those claiming their religion says they can never take their rings off. As a symbol of servitude and caring, I guess you have to ask who the healthcare workers are serving best with their insistence on wearing them.

I'm sure there are examples that might be harder to spot, or more of a judgement call, but in the case you cite the discrimination should be obvious. Just as obvious as the bad judgement involved in tailoring a process to reduce hospital-acquired infections that removes all objects below the elbow, and then allowing a silly breach like wedding rings. It's absurd, and hopefully this kind of reasoning isn't becoming the norm. It seems a bit like having a clean room where everyone has to wear protective clothing to ensure a completely uncontaminated environment, and then exempting executives because nobody can see their suits.

Yes, I'm sure that has a deeper meaning that will invalidate everything he's ever said. Good eye, we'll have to use a much better psych evaluation on staff in the future.

This doesn't seem like a religious issue to me. If the hospital has certain procedures that require NOTHING be worn below the elbows, then it's violating its own directive by allowing wedding rings. And if female muslim healthcare workers want covered forearms, then they shouldn't apply for a job that requires them specifically to be bare. The hospital shouldn't be required to have the capability of hiring anybody who applies for a specific position. If I'm hiring for a position that specifically requires a small person (physical restrictions of the equipment, like a weight limit), I'm allowed to turn away people because they're too big. If doing the job properly requires bare arms, then I should be able to say "Sorry, you won't do" if someone refuses to comply with the directive. If the whole hospital is called Bare Below the Elbows, being turned down for a job there because you want your sleeves should come as no shock. I also think it's deplorable to devise such a strategy, and then violate it with a random amendment like plain wedding rings. It's silly, and obviously discriminatory. Seriously, does a plain band trap fewer germs between the metal and the skin than an ornate one does? Who decides "plain"? I've seen quite a few healthcare workers in the last several months, and even commented that they don't wear their wedding rings when the subject of their spouses and families came up. Most leave them off so it doesn't snag on things, or get discolored from chemicals. Putting on/taking off a brazilian pairs of latex gloves every day increases the odds you're going to lose your ring eventually.

I saw a show recently that mentioned this concept of misconceived mastery. It was in the context of a police investigator questioning a witness. If the witness claims to be "100% positive", or "absolutely certain" about a specific detail, it's probably because they've convinced themselves of it, not that it's necessarily true. Most witnesses who give an accurate description won't go so far as to say they're 100%, because they're recalling accurately, not trying to reinforce something they only think might be true. Perhaps the DK "mastery" is part of this emotional judgement. And as you say, how do you tell "the master" he hasn't mastered anything, how do you tell him effectively? I also don't know how to solve it. Made my day!

There are a LOT of corruptible interpretations in the phrase, "...if they can work yet".

I didn't intend that impression, but that's where I was a jerk. Not realizing how the words might easily be perceived. I used that response only as an example, and not to point at it specifically. I DO realize I was not effective, and I'd like to be. The baseball analogy was supposed to put in perspective the idea of telling trained scientists, who fully understand the capabilities and limitations of their methodology, that they're doing it all wrong, and in a way that spotlights misconceptions and misinformation that are trivially refuted. I can say it sounds like a perfectly rational argument, but it failed spectacularly because the takeaway was that I used his favorite team to call him stupid. NOT what I meant, not what I wanted. But again, I didn't want to isolate specific posters, this isn't an isolated problem. This happens quite a bit, and I'm hoping if we can say it enough different ways, someone new may read this thread and find the argument that makes sense to them. I have to believe it IS worth the trouble, my friend. Some of these guys talk about spending 30 years on their "theory"! It's very common to like the analogies so much that you try to stretch them to fit around EVERYTHING. They're like band-aids, meant for small, specific cuts, not for ALL cuts. Ooooh, see what I did there?

I guess I'm hoping to find a different avenue. Conflict is inevitable, but aggression can be avoided, I think. It seems to be true that the most knowledgeable members we have are also very patient. My patience is aggravated in this regard because I know how much time can be wasted trying to stitch together bits of popular science to replace an outdated education. Any time you think you gain by "intuitive leaps" and avoiding textbook learning is wasted in simple mistakes and misunderstandings, backtracking to find out where you went wrong about something you don't know. So let's say someone joined up at SFN, and posted some threads that show this lack of knowledge. Historically, we end up saying most of the same things, while also trying to find the discussable bits of science in their ideas. It almost always comes involves the comment, "You aren't discussing my idea, you're just telling me I'm wrong". Even if we've supported reasons why, it's still not a productive discussion if that's what the poster takes away. The analogies I've tried don't work either. We end up having to explain the position in just about every thread. So what would you say to show someone most of what they understand may be way off the mark, which calls into question any ideas based on that knowledge?

No, we've been talking about his pistol.

Happily, we get quite a few members who avoided a STEM curriculum in school, but have discovered a latent love for science that they want to feed with science discussion. That's the great part. Unfortunately, there's a lot of defensiveness about lack of education. It's a sore spot with many, probably because it's often equated with lack of intelligence, which is trivially false. But it IS a lack of knowledge, and that's something that can be fixed. Ignorant means you don't know, not that you're not capable of knowing. So how do you convince someone who's uneducated that you aren't saying they're stupid? I respect the desire to learn, especially science. I respect those who've recognized a deficiency in their education, and are doing everything in their power to correct it. I did the same thing myself, about 15 years ago. Still working on it, and I won't ever stop while I'm living. How can I avoid this kind of reaction when talking about the importance of studying mainstream science? I want a thread that I can link to to show that the mainstream isn't a bad place, it isn't a place you can avoid if you have enough "intuitive sense", nor a place where hidebound scientists never look up from their textbooks. When someone joins with all kinds of improvements to science, and it's obvious they don't have the qualifications to do so, what do you think is the most effective way to tell them to take the plunge and study more?

Do that angular momentum experiment with the tassle! Yeah, baby!

This is so critical to rational thought that it deserves repeating. It's really easy to fool ourselves with arguments from incredulity, to believe they have an appreciable weight against observed reality. It's like saying, "This event that's happening can't be happening". It's fallacious reasoning.

A rather large part. Maybe michel123456 is wrong, that's not your finger you're hiding behind.

This is where analogy breaks down. The balloon/universe is all there is. It's more of a 2-D representation that's used because it can show how expansion causes matter to move away from each other. If you continue the analogy further, it fails because a balloon has a center, it has a medium it can expand into. It's a tough concept. The entire universe used to be very small, very dense, very hot, every bit of it. Matter was evenly distributed though compressed. At the Big Bang, it expanded (NOT exploded), keeping the even distribution of matter, and is still expanding. But it's not expanding into "infinite empty-space".

I apologize for any lack of clarity. Let me explain what I meant. Perhaps I misinterpreted your words, but this seems to suggest that the majority of the supporters of the gun lobby favor stricter regulations. When I pointed out that the gun control issue is one of the hallmarks of the far right, who argue for less regulation and government interference, your response was, "So?" Not a helpful remark in a discussion where I asked what you meant. I'm sorry that the internet is preventing a more nuanced interpretation of our words, but that's why we have phrases like, "What did you mean by that?"

Four, if you count Ashley Madison.

Wow. That's an assumption I would never be comfortable with, especially knowing Tom as I do.

If you look closer, it's Bourne in disguise. Good catch, but now you've compromised the Swansont Supremacy. Is that your doorbell?

Because not all driving is to the store. Sometimes you need more than the basic rolley wheels and a trunk. Unless I'm absolutely certain I'm never going anywhere but the store, doesn't it make sense to think a bit more versatile when making a three-year investment?

Too glass-half-empty, baby! What about the Shaguar?

I would question the part about being pulled closer to the sun by 1mm/year. We're always being pulled towards the sun, but we're traveling sideways to it, too fast to be sucked in. I've heard two possibilities about the rest. When the sun starts the helium burning process, it will expand as a red giant with its equator out past Mars. If this happens quickly enough, all the inner planets would be ash. They wouldn't fall in their orbits into the sun, the sun would engulf them as it grows. If this happens more slowly, the sun will be losing a great deal of mass to solar winds, so less pull from gravity, and the planets will have a chance to move outwards in their orbits. It will still mean any inner planets would be very crispy, but they might survive in this scenario.