Pangloss

What Atheist said. As someone who spends a lot of time teaching VB to business-oriented IT students, I think that if you're planning a career in science then C++ and Java are better languages to focus on because they're so much more common in scientific fields. VB/C# are fantastic managed-code languages, and managed code is making more inroads in scientific/engineering fields, but it's really more designed for business client-server work. Running reports on monthly sales figures is a very different thing from science/engineering programming. I also think that even Microsoft now sees VB as a dead-end -- they focus on C# and toss new features down to VB a version or two later (usually... maybe...). The main impetus for forward language progress in Microsoft is business-oriented web application development through ASP.NET. The most popular underlying language in ASP historically has been VB, but over the last couple of years there has been an almost total about-face and now all the emphasis is on C#. Coupled with a new, AJAX-driven desire amongst ASP developers to learn Javascript, which uses the same syntax as C#/C++/Java, and it's not hard to understand why VB is falling by the wayside. Of course people have been saying that for years, but the main reasons for its continuance seem to be evaporating rapidly. I wouldn't say that it's gasping for its last breath or anything, but the writing is on the wall. (This may be moot, but just to address something Atheist mentioned, there are VB tools/editors/compilers for non-Windows machines. But Visual Studio is so good that it's worth going to the extra trouble to load Windows environments for. I firmly believe that Visual Studio is the best IDE on the planet, and perhaps Microsoft's best contribution to the field of programming.)

Oh right... that cancelling-out explains why macroscopic materials behave in Newtonian manner, if memory serves (but please correct me if I'm wrong). I think I understand now. Thanks for the quick answers, folks.

Thanks for the quick reply. Is this the article you mean? http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/ The article seems to say that they can determine which slit the particle went through by measuring the location of its entangled partner. But when it does so it stops the interference pattern, which is then restored by deleting the entangled partner. But then how do they know which slit the particle passed through? Aren't they actually just capturing one potential path? I thought the whole point of this is that the particle passes through EVERY potential path. ALL of them. Wasn't that Feinman's contribution? Has that been disproven?

I'm confused... the above posts seem to suggest that detection is possible without stopping the interference pattern from appearing. But if I read my Brian Greene right, he seems to say that the detection equipment either works, in which case the particle is affected and the interference pattern doesn't appear, or the detection equipment FAILS to detect the particle (and answer the question of which slit it travelled through), in which case the interference pattern appears. Am I misunderstanding something here? He goes to great lengths in The Elegent Universe talking about how Heisenburg shows that while the energy used in detection can travel down to zero, at that point it no longer affects the particle, but can no longer detect the particle either, therefore you either modify the particle in some way (and answer your question), or you do not -- there is no way to detect the particle and fail to modify its behavior (and eliminate the interference pattern). Am I just a victim of a book that doesn't explain the subject completely enough, or lacks recent information? (Or perhaps I didn't read it thoroughly enough?) Thanks.

When applied to a different subject from the one we are discussing. It's not something I would disagree with anyway, you should KNOW it's not something I disagree with (from the context), and I think you either did it deliberately (to give JohnB a way out) or because you weren't paying attention to the discussion. Either way it was unspeakably rude.

Please don't change the subject. Give JohnB a chance to answer my question.

ROFL!

Is your son ok? You should be more careful about taking stray teddy bears in off the street!

That's not correct. Nobody assumes mathematical models are accurate. They simply represent the best verifiable information available at the time. What would be the point in adding unconfirmed personal opinions into a mathematical model? Doesn't it make more sense to just assume that the model only represents a known-to-be-imperfect degree of reliability? You keep talking about those scientists as if they believed their model was 100% accurate. Why would they think that? Can you prove that statement? Where are some statements from these scientists insisting that their model is 100% accurate? Because I've never heard of ANY honest scientist doing that. Just because they don't include a specific piece of information -- that means they think their model is 100% accurate? Come on, that's not true and you know it. What's happened is that they've chosen to ignore certain inputs because they cannot be verified or their accuracy is questionable for some reason. And you didn't answer my question: What do they do about the millions of other unverified inputs, the vast majority of which turn out to be false? Your point seems to be that anybody who believes their data to be accurate must be assumed to be correct. Does that actually make sense to you? Really? My question deserves an honest answer. Can you do that, or will you ignore it again? This is the same sort of thing that the mass media does -- putting up singular examples and making people think that they represent common occurances. How do we know that the Titanic's captain didn't witness a once-in-a-lifetime event? We simply don't -- we have to guess. In this case the scientists guessed wrong. And stop assigning emotional values to these scientific decisions -- you're just demonizing people you don't know from Adam. You're using the word "ignore" to mean "belittle". Just because piece of data isn't included in a mathematical model doesn't mean that people hate that piece of data and want to see it put before a firing squad. Emotion has NOTHING to do with science. As a hobbyist in Roman history, it really irks me to see Pliny abused in this way. I don't think faith is useless. It's simply not relevent to science. Eyewitness accounts (which aren't necessarily a matter of faith) are used in scientific research all the time. It's not accurate to imply that they are scorned in some way. Reality checks are done in science all the time. Nobody is more aware than a scientist of how useless an model is when it's not accurate. The difference is that a scientist knows that, depending on the type of model, singular exceptions don't necessarily render the model inaccurate. A person who relies entirely on faith is incapable of understanding that. And the fact that you understand it doesn't mean that you appreciate faith more than scientists do, it means that you're not entirely a person of faith. You set faith aside when you need to. A rather obvious hypocrisy, wouldn't you say? (PS, don't forget to answer my question.)

Just a friendly reminder -- only jokes are allowed to remain in this thread (aside from the occassional friendly reminder from staff -- like this). Everything else is deleted/edited/removed/whatever. If you have a question or comment or problem with a post, you can send a private message to a staff member or post on the Suggestions board. Thanks.

Someguy, you seem to be saying that all countries should be forced to "merge together", and do things your way -- complete with your own "world army". That's an interesting point of view. I'm not sure but it seems to me that I've read it somewhere before. Just out of idle curiosity, in what way do you feel that you differ from President Bush?

I think another valid response to the original question posed in Post #1 is that there is a political element to what happens when a special interest group takes (or in this case declines to take) a position on an issue outside of their normal framework. While it may seem like a non-sequitur to question why PETA doesn't have a stated position on, say, the war in Iraq, these groups do spend time pondering their positions on seemingly unrelated issues. There are three major reasons for this: 1) Real-world events often involve issues that cover more than one area of interest. When baby Jessica falls down a well, is that a parenting issue, a well safety issue, a toxic waste issue, an economic issue (closed water plant), or something else? 2) While a special interest group may be focused on one specific issue, most of it's members are typically not. So getting back to the animal rights hypothetical with regard to abortion that was brought up in the OP, this is a valid question in so far as it impacts members of PETA who may also hold a firm position on the abortion issue. They may be offended by a position PETA takes on a seemingly animal-rights oriented issue. An interesting example of this came up recently with the dog-fighting prosecution of NFL quarterback Michael Vick. PETA leveraged the incident widely, and in the process alienated some in the African American community who felt that race was a factor in his prosecution, and therefore deserved more attention than the issue of animal abuse. 3) Contrary to popular belief, many (if not most) special interest groups deliberately align themselves with broader ideological and/or political factions. They do this not just because they need the extra support but because they can have a greater impact on policy-making as a member of that broader faction. An example of this may be seen in the alignment between the National Organization for Women and Democratic and liberal causes. This can sometimes make for interesting policy conundrums, like if NOW were to take a position against a woman who broke through the glass ceiling because the company she works for just dumped toxic waste somewhere, fired a minority, or whatever. Since we're discussing "biomedical ethics", this is absolutely a valid question, and it deserves an answer that extends beyond the basic scientific facts.

For the record, I am opposed to a constitutional amendment to lower the age requirement for the office of President of the United States.

You make it sound like the oceanographers were doing something wrong. Were they supposed to just believe whatever they were told? What about the 5,000 other things they're told on a regular basis that really do turn out to be utter nonsense? I think people make a huge mistake when they use words like "safely ignored" or "not 'real'" and talk about what scientists "believe". Scientists aren't trying to make people look like idiots, they're trying to establish what we know factually and distinguish it from what we don't know factually. That's it. Anything else we ascribe to that action is either our personal extrapolation based on our own emotions, or the mistaken behavior of some individual scientists who misguidedly decide to act like jerks.

So did I.

quantum110, we don't allow fringist conspiracy theories on this board. Our justification for this is that we're a science board and require scientifically valid evidence for conclusions. Plus if we don't do it this way Karl Rove will send his Focus on the Family ninja squad to SFN headquarters and shut us down. We have a subforum for such speculations right here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=59 Any further replies on the subject of 9/11 conspiracy theories in this thread will be deleted.

I wondered about that the other day myself, agentchange -- what would happen if Bill Clinton got into another affair, now that his wife is running for president. I've no idea, but it could certainly make fertile fodder for her opposition. At the very least she'd have to deal with press speculation about divorce, and endless questions on the subject.

I've come to the conclusion this past week that I was wrong in predicting that we will depart prior to the 2008 presidential election. My basis for that earlier prediction was the fact that neither party wants Iraq to hang over the election. The Republicans don't want it because it's seen as their mess. The Democrats don't want it because they don't want the long-term "loser" baggage that comes with victory on this issue. But what I didn't realize is that both parties would find a way to take Iraq off the table without actually bringing the troops home. Listen between the lines of this coming week's rhetoric (amid the circus of General Petraeus's testimony) and you'll hear something that both sides agree on -- they'll call it "sustainable force", or something similar. This is a middle ground that neither side will openly talk about because they don't want it to be roasted by the other side's vocal partisans. But it'll be there if you listen for it. What I think is going to happen is that we're going to draw down to ~50,000 troops, which solves the most immediate deployment problem. Then both sides will declare victory and move the agenda on to other issues. The Democrats are going to turn a deaf ear on the far left, which will conveniently coincide with the end of the primaries and the beginning of the general election cycle. That's overdue anyway -- mainstream Democrats are already feeling a bit abused in that department, IMO. Democrats are going to be okay with this resolution to the Iraq crisis because of the simple fact that departing would guarantee failure, and they don't want to be responsible for that. Maintaining a force capability means that even if we can't stop violence from happening, we can at least react to it and look like we're doing something. So they'll settle for a "Mission Accomplished" moment of their own. Republicans will be okay with it because it takes Iraq off the table in time for the election. The White House will be okay with it because it means that Iraq becomes the next administration's problem. The wild card in this will be the far left. If it catches on quickly and starts shouting about it then some Democrats could break ranks and pull the party off track. But my guess is that sufficient numbers of partisans will realize that this is the correct political choice for victory in 2008 -- groups like MoveOn.org will likely go that route, IMO. It's not like they're a real peace movement anyway, they're just anti-Republican. A few political observers seem to be leaning in this direction as well, including Newsweek Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist Fareed Zakaria, who touched on this idea last weekend in a television round table. I think if you look around you can also see signs of a less-demanding position from columnists and others (it's just an impression I get). The message about leaving being a bad thing has been delivered, and it has sunk in with the general public. And that's it, folks. The end of the Iraq saga. The fat lady sings, just not the tune everyone was expecting. All that'll be left are the dregs of extremism and perrenial ABB whiners and die-hard peace-uber-alles types. Good fodder for message boards, but not the sort of thing that shapes policy.

I don't think that's "stability" for Iraq, I think that's a recipe for ongoing civil unrest. The sunnis are blooded and trained now. They're not going to stop. But it's moot -- we're not going anywhere, even if we elect a Democrat. Starting another thread on that now.

That's actually a perfect example of my point. As I said above, that isn't liberalism. That's just one specific issue position that may reflect overall ideology -- or it may simply be about making Republicans/Bush wrong, depending on whom you ask. Thanks for the illustration.

Somalia and Bosnia come to mind as recent examples that most people agree on. Perhaps you meant "while a Republican was in charge"?

Maybe, but we didn't invent the Mafia. We certainly invented the modern conspiracy theory, though. And honed it to a fine art.

Speaking of which, Slate had a great article on that the other day, on the subject of re-watching the Mike Nichols movie "Primary Colors". Spot-on.

I think you meant the debt in the first paragraph, rather than the deficit.

Interesting post, pioneer. I was thinking earlier today that a current example of this may be found in the hypocrisy of complaining about the rising cost of living while at the same time insisting that tax cuts are harmful (even when applied to the same economic group!). But I guess where I might differ is in the characterization of this as liberalism. I don't think liberalism itself has become less noble a trait or has even fundamentally changed. What's changed is the current mindset of the thoughtless sheep that follow partisan ideologues around. Specifically, I think that the socio-political group that is typically identified in this country as the "far left" has become so obsessed with George Bush and Republicans in general that it has lost sight of its own ideological principles. The exact same thing is happening on the far right. Conservatism is an inherently normal political position, just as liberalism is. It's not extreme at all, and many important American values are born out of (and continue to be supported by) this tradition, just as the same may be said of liberalism. The reason I think this is an important distinction is that the political extremism in this country has so divided people that they're no longer able to separate "conservatives" from "far rights" or "liberals" from "far lefts". That's bad, because in order for this country to move forward we have to actually embrace mainstream ideological ideals and learn how to find the common ground between them. Instead we sit around demonizing each other, as if that actually makes sense, when in fact the demons are the idiots leading us in the demonization. We (the normal folk) are actually just fine and have changed very little.