/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2551882]

Kaku demonstrates how much of an idiot he is once again:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/why_do_physicists_think_they_a.php

[Anonymous No.2551886]

This is going to make me rage, I know it.

[Anonymous No.2551894]

Too painful. Had to stop it. I think Creationists know more about evolution. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

[Anonymous No.2551895]

Does he really think that predation is the only form of selection pressure?

[Anonymous No.2551899]

Almost everything what Michio "hollywood" Kaku says on his TV shows is at least a little bit off.

[Anonymous No.2551901]

michio kaku cannot into biology.

He needs to stick with physics and learn about sillystrings

[Anonymous No.2551902]

poor guy just wants his strings to play with

[Anonymous No.2551905]

Mio sucku mucho cocku

[Boomer !!bcdVCSUmpgT No.2551914]

>>2551901
>stick with physics

Fuck no! He sucks at physics too! Biology can keep him!

[Anonymous No.2551916]

>>2551914

we dont want him though

[Samefag !SHjzCSZsqE No.2551919]

>>2551914
Most people get past the whole "Neither team wants me" thing by age 16. Kaku takes it to a whole new level.

[Anonymous No.2551921]

He should get into engineering.

[Anonymous No.2551924]

Is it a Japanese thing that you break down all at once over a couple of years? He got old, -fast-.

[Anonymous No.2551929]

>>2551924
No, it's an asian thing that you look young till you're 50, then you look timeless until you suddenly look ancient a few years before death.

[Anonymous No.2551930]

>>2551924

[Anonymous No.2551934]

Technically natural selection has stopped, if you distinguish between an artificial environment and a natural environment. We are certainly not in our natural environment, so we are not undergoing natural selection, you can only contest this by discussing semantics.

[Anonymous No.2551936]

>>2551934

But he said "evolution" has stopped, i.e. humans in the future will look just like the humans of the present. Watch the video.

[Anonymous No.2551937]

>>2551934

since when is anything "not natural"?

[Anonymous No.2551940]

I don't understand all this hate? He's a media figure first and a scientist second. I watched the video, nothing he said was wrong, but in the context of the article with the writer's slant, he leads you to believe everything Michio says is wrong.

Maybe I'm defending Kaku because I met him once. He came to my business to film a segment for Sci-Fi science.... when the science channel called they didn't say he was coming, just they were filming for a TV show. I was surprised when he showed up, but in-between filming I asked him a lot of questions to explain things I've never been clear on.

He was very king and patient -- we spoke for about an hour, and not once did he seem annoyed that I was asking him all these questions. In fact, many other people came up, and me made time for them all. He was really really nice.

I understand that he talks about the basics of science in layman's terms for the general public, and I guess like Carl Sagan's Cosmos, scientists get mad that someone is seemingly taking credit for the entire field's work and getting the fame. However, for the regular science fan, TV scientists are very helpful.

I mean, cut him some slack, he was asked a question by a fan and did his best to answer it during a general Q&A session. it wasn't like he published a paper or book or recorded a special solely about evolution.

[Anonymous No.2551941]

>>2551930

Russians are like that too.

[Anonymous No.2551949]

>>2551934
We're biologically predisposed to be cultural beings. The artifacts of culture and interaction with other humans is what constitutes a natural environment for us.

[Anonymous No.2551959]

>>2551949

also disease, parasites, sexual selection etc.

[Anonymous No.2551960]

>>2551936
>>2551937
>>2551949
Like I said, semantics. If everything artificial is natural then I change the word "natural" to "non-artificial". Kaku must have meant "non-artificial" selection, it's not a crime to not know some obscure technical detail, only elitist obscurants are sticklers for details.

[Anonymous No.2551967]

>>2551960

see

>>2551959

[Anonymous No.2551973]

>>2551960

Well, natural selection is most commonly used in opposition to artificial selection, which implies controlled breeding, like the social darwinists and eugenicists promoted. Natural Selection doesn't rely on a natural environment to provide the selective pressures, it just requires that the selection itself isn't the direct result of a goal oriented intelligence.

[Anonymous No.2551979]

Kaku is smarter than all of you. He's a proper scientist.

Most of you are just doing the motions and lack proper creative thinking.

[Anonymous No.2551980]

>>2551960

Until humans are created a la A Brave New World, we aren't free of natural selection. And even then environmental factors like disease would influence the artificial selection.

[Anonymous No.2551985]

>>2551940
People are interested in Kaku and what he has to say. This gets very frustrating because he often says things that range from not entirely accurate to flat out wrong. A lot of the people hear him talking out of his ass about topics far outside his area of expertise and take it as gospel because they can't be bothered to learn any better.

>nothing he said was wrong
What? He said a number of things that certainly weren't right. A few off the top of my head:

He made up some bullshit about "gross" evolution that's useless and confusing.
He said that humans no longer have selection pressures being applied (apparently he thinks predation is the only thing that counts).
He said there are no more Australias. In a way this is true, but it leads one to believe that it would be impossible for a group of species (humans specifically in this context) can no longer diverge from the rest, and this is clearly false.
He talked about Australia as though the evolution that occurred there was particular fast because it was isolated, when really it was just separate.

He's a physicist, not a biologist, and should avoid speaking at length about what he doesn't really know. Hell, he manages to piss off physicists somewhat regularly with some of the crazy shit he has to say...

[Anonymous No.2551986]

>>2551979

nobody's saying he isn't smart. He just said some dumb things.

[Anonymous No.2551990]

>>2551986

Nothing of what he said in that video is incorrect.

[Anonymous No.2551996]

>>2551990

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/08/humans_are_no_longer_subject_t.php

[Anonymous No.2551999]

>>2551990
Yes he did.

[Anonymous No.2552002]

>>2551985 He said there are no more Australias. In a way this is true, but it leads one to believe that it would be impossible for a group of species (humans specifically in this context) can no longer diverge from the rest, and this is clearly false.

An entire continent isn't going to float away and remain isolated from the rest of the world for the next million years, stop being stupid. The isolation and different location would result in a massive change to the evolution on that land.

[Anonymous No.2552004]

>>2551959
>disease, parasites
modern medicine
>sexual selection
contraception

Granted these advances haven't totally removed the impact of these evolutionary forces, they have however drastically reduced them. If you feel the term "evolution" was too ambiguous then I'm ok with that, it doesn't justify going on some tirade of bigotry against poor old Kaku who's scientific advances have alleviated the suffering of millions and advanced humanity, he's like Jesus or some shit.
>>2551973
Then we must introduce a new word "influence". Technically natural selection is natural influence since nature is not conscious and can't select anything. Humans can choose or not choose, so there can be artificial selection, like selective breeding, or artificial influence. I suppose we could add artificial non-mendelian selection to distinguish between selective breeding and and genetic modification.

[Anonymous No.2552010]

>>2551996

tl;dr

That site is full of nonsense and authored by a retard.

[Anonymous No.2552014]

>>2552004
>the impact of these evolutionary forces
the impact of these non-artificial selection forces*

>Technically natural selection is natural influence
Technically non-artificial selection is non-artificial influence*

>or artificial influence
or artificial influence, like people who would have died at age 5 due to smallpox living to 80 due to modern medicine and having 4 kids due to fertility medicine.

[Anonymous No.2552016]

>>2552004

>contraception

implying big black guys dont have more babies than lowly /sci/ neckbeards

[Anonymous No.2552018]

>>2552004
>string theory saves lifes
>Jesus

now you are too obvious

[Anonymous No.2552044]

>>2552016
dont be racist
>>2552018
Just a little hyperbole.

[Krakengineer !!5XY+x7grkpt No.2552051]

Fuck I hate Kaku. In his documentaries all he ever does is wax on about what he thinks the future will be like. That's not physics or even science; it's just idle speculation akin to scifi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist
It bothers me that people think they are learning physics when his documentaries have little to do with it.

[Anonymous No.2552119]

Something happens in grad school that causes physicist to become arrogant know it all cunts. When they are undergrads they are bros, but grad school changes them.

[Anonymous No.2552132]

>>2551930
Fukken saved, if only for the last panel.

[Anonymous No.2552150]

Wait.. has /sci/ already forgotten its (previously) hourly tier thread where you basically had this, taken to the extreme?

Well i guess the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to everyone.

[Anonymous No.2552163]

> at a friend's house with a bunch of other people
> Kaku appears on TV
> everyone gushes how in the last episode he invented teleportation
> Kaku claims to invent some other dumb thing
> grossly misinterprets scientific results, glosses over probably insurmountable technical issues
> even gets some basic facts wrong
> mfw everyone thinks he's a god

[Anonymous No.2552209]

>increase your penis size with string theory

[Anonymous No.2552215]

because of stupid shit like this
>All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

[Anonymous No.2552235]

>Revolutionise our understanding of the universe
>More than once
>Get called names by faggots on 4chan

[Anonymous No.2552239]

>>2552235
/sci/ hates popularizers of science. This isn't news.

[Anonymous No.2552254]

Fucking retard

[Anonymous No.2552261]

>>2552239
does /sci/ hate carl sagan then?

[Anonymous No.2552262]

>>2552235
>Revolutionise our understanding of the universe
What
No he hasn't. The popular messenger is now the author?

[Anonymous No.2552270]

>>2552262
>He doesn't know about string theory

[Anonymous No.2552272]

>>2552261
There's certainly a cadre of haters around here that pop up from time to time and call him a burned-out hack.

[Anonymous No.2552297]

this is why I read Kaku for layman physics
and Dawkins for layman evolutionary biology...

[Anonymous No.2552308]

>>2552261
I do. He is a talk show "scientist" not much different from Bill O'Reilly.

[Anonymous No.2552323]

>>2552297
>Baaaaaaawkins
>Evolution

It's like I'm really in the 70s

[Anonymous No.2552348]

>>2552308
Sure is tough out there for edgy guys like you.

[Anonymous No.2552375]

>>2552051

saved

[Anonymous No.2552383]

ITT retards cant comprehend the mind of an actual scientist.
>"This does not mean that evolution has stopped"
>"Gross evolution" is no longer what it used to be

He's saying that there are many new avenues which evolution can take; as opposed to the ruthless selection pressures that were once evident on planet Earth. He actually contradicts himself but the message is clear towards the end.

[Anonymous No.2552388]

>>2552323
...his old books, I mean

obviously I am not going to read "The God Delusion" in the hopes of actually learning anything

[Anonymous No.2552394]

>>2552348
I'd just except more criticism towards the bullshit Sagan has pulled as I think the 'talk show' science method of intervened politics/ideologies/interest groups is the next hurdle world has to overcome.

[Anonymous No.2552425]

>>2552394
As long as it heightens interest in scientific endeavors, I don't really give a fuck. Anti-science tripe like that which comes from fundamentalist retards needs to stop, pronto.

And while the shit Kaku was spewing in the OP was pretty inaccurate (and "pretty" is an understatement here), Sagan didn't pull the same sort of overplayed hype like that as far as I know.

[Anonymous No.2552466]

>>2552425
Are things really that bad in USA, that you justify using Jesuit measures? I think was Michael Crichton was making a lot of sense in this lecture.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crich
ton/

[Anonymous No.2552475]

>>2552466
In some areas, yes, it is that bad. I live in a relatively large city in the middle of a region well-known for its ardent religiosity and high instances of religious retardation.

[Anonymous No.2552511]

>>2552383

I thought that too.

I'm getting the impression that the author of that piece had a chip on his shoulder about physicists and did his best to interpret Kaku's (admittedly, poorly worded) comments in a way that would allow him to go on a generic rant about arrogant physicists that he had stored up for use at the earliest possible opportunity.

The fact that Kaku clearly said that evolution had not stopped completely but was accused of saying exactly that by the blogger tells us everything we need to know.

[Anonymous No.2552621]

>>2552466
http://www.crichton-official.com/

>>Join us as we celebrate the life and works of writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton.

I was wondering why that article was so bad, now it all makes sense.

[Anonymous No.2552633]

Watching people all slap each other on the back in an adulation of self-congratulatory smug superiority is sad. It's even sadder when it's a bunch of neckbeards.

[Anonymous No.2552640]

>>2552051

[Anonymous No.2552657]

The fact that this idiot writing the blog doesn't even know what the definition of the word "gross" is (I bet this dipshit thinks it means ickypoopoo) tells a lot about this man.

"Hurrr this guy inventing new forms of evolutions!" No, you jackass, gross is a distinct word with a few distinct meanings, which make his statements obvious if you're not illiterate.

[Anonymous No.2552670]

>>2552621
Thanks for this, nice article. I knew all the "consensus" controversy had something wrong with it.

Dammit all, humanity.

Oh, and nuclear winter is a lie.

[Anonymous No.2552679]

>>2552657
Fucking dipshit, "gross evolution" has no scientific meaning. Have you considered that an evolutionary biologist like PZ Myers might actually know what he's talking about?

[Anonymous No.2552694]

>>2552657
It's not that he doesn't understand the meaning of the word, it's just that it's not a term used in that context. You can't talk about science when you're making up new words. That's for philosophers.

[Anonymous No.2552696]

>>2552679
Once again falling into the fallacy that a lot of people in the scientific community do:
Not every word a person uses is a technical term. Gross has a few definitions, which are very applicable to what Kaiku is talking about. He isn't "making up new evolution". He's using a word in context.

Stop being an obtuse jackass and defending this immature rant from someone who seems to be pissy that his parking spot was taken by a physicist.

[Anonymous No.2552701]

>>2552696
Didn't read the statement, but he was probably trying to make it clear he wasn't talking about microevolution.

[Anonymous No.2552707]

>>2552261
I've heard that he was a proponent of legalizing weed, so nope.jpg

[Anonymous No.2552713]

>>2552670
>Oh, and nuclear winter is a lie.
It actually is. There's exactly zero evidence that this would happen.
The effects of massive nuclear war would be devastating, but we wouldn't blot out the sun.
In fact, the predictions and empirical evidence that nuclear winter would come to fruition have utterly failed to pan out.

>Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Carl Sagan and other scientists predicted that burning oil wells could cause environmental damage comparable to nuclear winter.[10] Nearly 700 oil wells were set ablaze by the retreating Iraqi army and the fires were not fully extinguished until November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war.[11] The fires consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil daily.

Last I checked, there was no nuclear winter then.


Nuclear winter isn't something to really get too worked up about, but it is a bullshit theory.

[Anonymous No.2552723]

>>2552621
What was so bad about the article?

[Anonymous No.2552731]

>>2552713
mount pinatubo, el chichon, agung, and...

tambora

nuclear winter is a known effect, just another variety of measured and observed global dimming.

try not to stupid all over our board.

[Anonymous No.2552740]

>>2552002
The notion that isolation no longer occurs in human populations is untrue. Look at Quakers for example. The condition of polydactyly is becoming increasingly prevalent in their communities because they are socially isolated.

[Anonymous No.2552747]

>>2552713
I loved the part from Crichton showed how nuclear winter was based on a "study" that used an analogue of the Dirac equation with bullshitted parameters that can't be measured.

[Anonymous No.2552748]

I find that not only physicists, but people of many disciplines feel that they have the expertise to talk about biology and evolutionary biology. Maybe it's because they latently think that biology is easy to understand, a more shallow subject, softer, etc. It's really not. It gets as in-depth as any other hard science, particularly microbiology and molecular biology. I wish pop scientists, physicists, and everyone else would shut the fuck up about biology when it isn't their field of expertise. Just say "I don't know." Just say, "That's not my area." It'll make you look smarter than babbling about nothing for five minutes.

[:D !bnigGers.Q No.2552749]

he didnt say we stop evolving.. he said that we are still being under natural selection because we mate.

what is this bullshit, he is right in many things and the writer is a fucking retard saying that biology is a subset of physics.. that actually made me rage

[Anonymous No.2552755]

>>2552749
Yeah, sexual selection is not the same thing.

Anyway, natural selection has become irrelevant to homo sapiens. Cultural and technological evolution are far more important, and we've used them to reduce or eliminate natural selection pressures, instead replacing them with social pressures. And soon, when we start human genetic engineering, we will subvert the process entirely.

[Anonymous No.2552762]

>>2552731
>nuclear winter is a known effect
No it's not, and it never will be.
If it was, then the bombings during World War 2 would have had a measurable effect on the sun's luminosity, which they did not, and no I am no speaking strictly of the two atomic bombs.

The entire supposition of nuclear winter is that it would occur because ash from destroyed cities would fill the air. This has never occurred before, and it would not occur because of nuclear bombs.


Citing a volcano as proof of nuclear winter is asinine. Volcanoes spew kilotons of ash into the atmosphere, while bombs and bombed cities have never had a noticeable effect, and there's no reason to believe a nuclear bomb would exacerbate what has never occurred before.

[Anonymous No.2552795]

>>2552762
It occurs with every volcanic eruption

[Anonymous No.2552797]

>>2552762
Nuclear winter is the winter given to a nuclear holocaust- like if the cold war escalated and everyone nuked the fuck out of each other.
It's not just from one or two nukes going off, we're talking about thousands.

[Anonymous No.2552803]

>>2552795
yes, and what he was saying was that that is not a "nuclear winter" as it has nothing to do with nuclear weapon

[Anonymous No.2552807]

>>2552803
It's just the phrase given to the effect

[Anonymous No.2552809]

>>2552795
>It occurs with every volcanic eruption

Your'e joking right? That's not nuclear winter...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

It has exactly nothing to do with nuclear winter, except that both concepts involve a lowering of the sun's luminosity.

But of the two, only one has ever been observed.

[Anonymous No.2552811]

>>2552807
well then, it's a misnomer, according to that anon

[:D !bnigGers.Q No.2552815]

>>2552755
well i guess that natural selection implies every influence that comes from the environment including cultural, sexual and technological influences.

[Anonymous No.2552817]

>>2552797
It would not cause a nuclear winter. The models are bullshitted with parameters that cannot be measured, and all related predictions about the impact of real events have been proven to be vast overestimates in hindsight.

Nuclear winter is a lie.

[Anonymous No.2552819]

>>2552803
though the aerosols produced by volcanoes are analogous to those produced by near-ground nuclear detonations, thus it isn't unreasonable to extrapolate from a given explosion the necessary energy required to mimic the effects of volcanic eruption and calculate how many warheads we'd need.

I've never met a geologist that thinks we don't have enough nukes to do the job.

I'm thus guessing the moron arguing up there isn't a geologist. Conclusion- his opinion may be ignored.

[Anonymous No.2552822]

>>2552819
your argument is fairly flawed logically, no offense

[Anonymous No.2552824]

>>2551934
wh. . . GET THE FUCK OUT. We are absolutely still going through natural selection. Absolutely. Natural selection isn't something that can be turned off unless all life were to go extinct. People misunderstand natural selection and the greater whole of evolution as something other than a natural process, if there is life, it will evolve and it will naturally select. That is all there is to it.

[Anonymous No.2552825]

>>2552819
shouldn't you be asking a vulcanologist?

[Anonymous No.2552826]

>>2552819
>geologist
Oh, you just went FULL RETARD

Anyway, read this first. Search for "nuclear winter" to find the relevant part.
>>2552466
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crich
ton/

Don't be put off by the title - it's a satirical title, not an actual assertion.

[Anonymous No.2552827]

>>2552817
You do realise that the nukes at hiroshima and nagasaki aren't the only ones to have been used, right?
Plenty of studies have been done on the spread of fallout, ash and debris from nuclear explosions.
although as for nuclear winter, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. It probably is, due to the sick amounts of ash and shit kicked up by hundreds of gigatons of nuclear bombs, and the fallout produced would kill 90% of life anyway.

[Anonymous No.2552829]

>>2552819
>Offer no proof
>Appeal to authority
>Ad hominem
Sure is scientific in that post.
What aspect of a nuclear bomb is supposed to cause a nuclear winter? That's right, the ash from a destroyed city. Problem is, even during periods of massive worldwide bombing of cities, there was no noticeable effect.

All of this is rampant speculation based on flawed models that arbitrarily assume 3/4's of a destroyed city end up in the atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.2552830]

>>2552822
of course it is.

I'm arguing for my sake, and no one elses. I don't need to convince an moron that alvarez et al were essentially correct, I doubt he's read anything on the subject anyways.

[Anonymous No.2552832]

>>2552824
Not the guy you're responding to, but natural selection (in the genetic evolution sense) has become fairly irrelevant to our success as a species. It's not about superior genes anymore.

Even if you talk about success within human society, it's not really a question of whether you will manage to reproduce.

[Anonymous No.2552834]

>>2552762
Keep in mind that the only bombs we've ever dropped on cities were significantly less powerful than the warheads of today and the cold war.

[Anonymous No.2552837]

>>2552829
compare all the bombs ever dropped in WWII to the Tsar.

compare the Tsar to all the nukes currently deployed.

fuck off.

[Anonymous No.2552844]

>>2552827
You're assuming studies were done of how much material was kicked up into the atmosphere when these explosions went off.
There weren't.

No one was measuring how much debris was kicked up.

[Anonymous No.2552845]

>>2552832
Okay, but that doesn't mean that certain traits aren't being selected for more in relevance to our artificial environments and breeding habits. People seem to forget that survival is only important BECAUSE it effects reproductive success which is the true natural selection.

[Anonymous No.2552846]

>>2552827
>We've done tests
>Proceeds to make shit up in ignorance of the results of those tests.

Really, look at what you said again.
> due to the sick amounts of ash and shit kicked up by hundreds of gigatons of nuclear bombs, and the fallout produced would kill 90% of life anyway.
Ask yourself, honestly, what are you basing this on? It sure as hell isn't experimental data.

[Anonymous No.2552847]

>>2552837
>a bigger explosion means I'm right!
Actually, no, offer up one shred of empirical evidence.

[Anonymous No.2552849]

>>2552832
You don't understand evolution. I can tell by how you actually used the phrase "superior genes". I hate how even reasonable people in our society don't understand evolution because we don't have adequate education. Evolution has nothing to do with what you consider to be superior. If it suddenly became advantageous to be a fat, lazy slug, those genes would perpetuate no matter how inferior you think they are. Nature is impersonal. What works, works, and that's that. Not whatever you personally consider to be superior, like strength or intelligence.

[Anonymous No.2552852]

>>2552829
>appeal to authority
That isn't a logical fallacy if you're appealing to a proper authority. Not to say that his argument wasn't sound, just to say that appealing to the authority of a geologist when speaking on volcanoes is entirely okay.

[Anonymous No.2552860]

>>2552837
>hand-wave, this large number is obviously much bigger than that other large number
>that's proof
Yeah, no.

All the times we have expected to see significant decrease in insolation as a result of fires sending particulates into the atmosphere, the predicted effect has been massively overblown. And the models used to talk about nuclear winter? It's essentially the Drake equation with bullshitted parameters that cannot be estimated even within an order of magnitude.

[Anonymous No.2552867]

>>2552852
If we were discussing vulcanism and not nuclear weapons then you would be right.

[Anonymous No.2552868]

>>2552849
Fuck you for assuming I'm ignorant. "Superior" means "more likely to propagate through the environment via reproduction".

[Anonymous No.2552869]

>>2552849
Exactly, when speaking in terms of natural selection EVERYTHING is about reproductive success in relation to environment. So while the term "superior genes" isn't inherently wrong, it only works if you are speaking directly in terms of what is superior to reproductive success in relation to environment.

[Anonymous No.2552871]

I think that this debate on nuclear winter is slightly flawed as much of the arguments I've seen are based off of "it is reasonable to assume" or such things like that. Does anyone have a link to a recently performed scientific study on the concept of nuclear winter?

[Anonymous No.2552872]

>>2552868
Yeah, I'm the person who you initially responded to. I felt his response was a bit harsh as well.

[Anonymous No.2552877]

>>2552826
>Now let’s jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on “Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations” but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor.

>In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on “The Effects of Nuclear War” and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.

>Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled “The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon,” which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer.

[Anonymous No.2552878]

>>2552847
>the bomb was originally designed to have a yield of about 100 megatons of TNT (420 PJ); however, the bomb yield was reduced to 50 megatons—one quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa
>This is equivalent to 1,400 times the combined power of the two nuclear explosives used in World War II (Little Boy (13–18 kilotons) and Fat Man (21 kilotons), the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki),

> or 10 times the combined power of all the explosives used in WWII.

claiming that conventional bombs didn't cause dimming thus nukes won't seems a bit weak.

[Anonymous No.2552879]

>>2552852
i've always thought it was okay.


but i have this fear that someone will say "so you trust this person just because they're an authority? what if the person was biased?"

[Anonymous No.2552880]

>>2552877
>The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions.” This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.

>At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:

>Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc
>(The amount of tropospheric dust = # warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance, and so on.)

>The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.

[Anonymous No.2552882]

>>2552867
you made the statement that every geologist you have spoken with believes that we have the nuclear equivalent of some volcanic eruption in the past that had similar effects to the concept of nuclear winter. The objection was raised that: what would geologists know of the statistics of some major volcanic eruption in the past that had similar effects to the concept of nuclear winter? Wouldn't a vulcanologist be more familiar with that information?

[Anonymous No.2552884]

>>2552880
>And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made.

>Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months.

>The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age.

>One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute. But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation.

[Anonymous No.2552887]

as a biologist i take offense to these pompous physisits who think they know everything because "physisits are the gods of science" no. you have your subspecielty, you went to graduate school and you got your ph.d in physics, you experiment with lasers and use mathamatics. i did not go through 4 years of graduate school in molecular biology and 3 years of postdoctoral work to be told a buthcered view of evolution by a biologicly layman. stick to your string theory and keep your bullshit explenations to yourself.

[Anonymous No.2552889]

>>2552882
I made that statement, not the anon you're responding to.

there's a few of us here it seems, and I don't care enough to respond to every comment.

[:D !bnigGers.Q No.2552895]

So whats up with the BOMB and VOLCANO thing?

how does this relate with kaku?

[Anonymous No.2552896]

>>2552882
also a vulcanologist is a geologist, as is a climatologist, a hydrologist, a paleontologist, and a few other ists that all tend to agree with alvarez on the subject of nuclear winter.

[Anonymous No.2552897]

>>2552868
sorry bro, I just overreact to people using that phrase because so many use it incorrectly, didn't mean to jump down your throat.

[Anonymous No.2552901]

>>2552884
>>2552880
Very well argued.

[Anonymous No.2552903]

>>2552895
it's called thread derailment, enjoy it bucko

[Anonymous No.2552907]

>>2552901
or very long quoted.

[Anonymous No.2552909]

>>2552887
>Implying biology is a real science
>Hey look at me, I play with dead pigs!

[Anonymous No.2552912]

>>2552907
Well I meant that what he was quoting was a good argument.

[Anonymous No.2552914]

>>2552909
>implying you aren't a troll
>0/10

[Anonymous No.2552915]

>>2552907
indeed, it is a quote from an argument made by crichton

[Anonymous No.2552916]

>>2552887
>>2552909
If you aren't getting us closer to colonizing the stars then you are not a scientist! CASE CLOSED!

[Anonymous No.2552917]

>>2552916
the understanding of biological systems is crucial to sustaining an ecosystem on a non-earth planet.
Take that, faggot.

[Anonymous No.2552919]

" I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period."

Dear lord in heaven this needs to be made more public.

[Anonymous No.2552926]

>>2552849
A lot of the people here are just high schoolers pretending to be smart.

Anyone who took a basic biology course in college would know what you said already.

And isn't marriage/boning people you think are attractive and rearing children a form of sexual selection? Contraception doesn't do away with sexual selection at all, really. In fact, it helps facilitate it since the process helps you select which person or persons you actually want to have children with by eliminating those with whom you don't.

[Anonymous No.2552927]

>>2552917
Very well...you win this round microbiologist...but I'll be back...

[Anonymous No.2552934]

>>2552927
I'm glad we've reached an agreement.

[Anonymous No.2552935]

>>2552909
implying you've never taken any type of medication, never gone to the doctors, and are probably still relying on the medical practices of hippocratus and galen. go attach ome medical leeches to your testicles, oh and no pain killers for you.

[Anonymous No.2552936]

>>2552919
I love that.
That's badass.
People should be beaten over the head with that statement.

If science is about consensus then Galileo wasn't a scientist.

[Anonymous No.2552939]

>>2552935
>Implying bleeding isn't the most medically sound practice

I bet your humours are entirely out of balance, you heathen.

[Anonymous No.2552966]

>mfw everything Michio Kaku said was correct with regards to western society and other prominent scientists such as Professor Lord Robert Winston agree with him, and the only things people are criticising him on seem to be non-technical language he uses for the purpose of making the video more accessible.

If you think what Michio Kaku said in that video was wrong then you're either some hipster faggot that has something against scientists with a high-profile in the public domain or you don't know shit about evolution.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/media/onlinelectures/2007onlinelectures

[Anonymous No.2552972]

Not surprisingly he believes in god

dumb theists

[Anonymous No.2552975]

>>2552966
>appeal to authority

No thanks, not even going to bother.

[Anonymous No.2552980]

FOX News brainwashed him when he reported the volcano.

[Anonymous No.2553015]

>>2552975
>science lecture given by a scientist on a particular topic
>HURR DIS IS JUST AN OPEEL TO ATHORITY . I CAN REGURGITATE LABELS OF VARIOUS LOGICAL FALLCIES OLOL I MAEK THE GOOD ARGUMENT, REBUTTAL AND COUNTERPOINT BACKED UP BY SOUND EVIDENCE

Okay, I can see you're somebody who is highly butthurt against scientists with a high profile in the public domain, such that you'll try to bitch about them regardless of whether they are correct or not. It's pathetic. I hope not all biologists are as pathetic as the ones in this thread. You're embarrassments as scientists.

[Anonymous No.2553049]

I don't see what you guys are raging about
He's right
There is no longer any pressure for natural selection to take place in humans beings

[Anonymous No.2553072]

>>2553049
>nope.jpg

[Anonymous No.2553087]

I could think of a selective pressure very quickly that would be very difficult to prevent if it occurred right now: An impact event.

[Anonymous No.2553091]

>>2553072
What do you mean nope?
Natural selection works by certain groups of people dying or not reproducing, neither of which is happening on a large scale.
Even the ugliest poorest dumbest disgusting excuse of a human being gets to marry and reproduce eventually.
I think we're all aware of that by now <_<

[Anonymous No.2553094]

>>2553049
There is still mate selection, and that changes with society structure. Like right now women can be single parents and survive so they don't have to marry average joes, they can get knocked up by attractive men they would never have a shot to pairbond with.

[Anonymous No.2553096]

I could very quickly think of something that could exert selective pressure on us that would not be easily preventable if it occurred today: An impact event.

[Anonymous No.2553102]

>>2553091
kill yourself

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1931757,00.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091019162933.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?_r=1

http://www.livescience.com/445-darwin-natural-selection-work-humans.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051023115936.htm

research cited within articles

[Anonymous No.2553122]

>>2553102
Then why are basement dwellers still part of the gene pool?

[Anonymous No.2553130]

>>2553122
because evolution is determined by traits that help people survive in their environment, not the traits that you personally think are valuable due to your socialization

[Anonymous No.2553136]

>>2553049
Dude. read the thread. . .
>>2552824
>>2552845
>>2552849
>>2552869

[Anonymous No.2553141]

>>2553130
But many basement dwellers can't support themselves without their parents. They would die if they venture out in the real world alone.

[Anonymous No.2553149]

>>2553141
you are uneducated

[Anonymous No.2553152]

>>2553141
Yeah, well most basement dwellers aren't going to have children if they don't go out into the real world, and if they do go out into the real world to have children, then you are also wrong. You're wrong. Besides, basement dwelling is a lifestyle choice, not a product of genetics.

[Anonymous No.2553165]

>>2551882

He is 100% correct. Just because something is an abstraction of something else, that doesn't mean that you already know it or that it is easier of somewhat simpler. In anything most abstractions are harder to understand just by using their "basic building blocks".

[Anonymous No.2553178]

>>2553152
I fail to see why there isn't some genetic saying in whether you are a "basement dweller". Sure there is probably a lot of environmental saying, but I wouldn't say it is purely environmental.

[Anonymous No.2553193]

>>2553102
I've read some of them
It said that women will be shorter and will have menopause later
It doesn't make a damn bit of sense though, since women who are taller and have menopause earlier still have children. Assuming that they have children before they're freaking 50.
Maybe white people will die out cause some of them are not having children though.
>>2553152
> Besides, basement dwelling is a lifestyle choice, not a product of genetics.
I wouldn't be so sure about that

[Anonymous No.2553216]

>mfw people insist we're still evolving

[Anonymous No.2553235]

This song is scientific fact
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjTeLBCkoE
Also idiocracy is a documentary

[Anonymous No.2553236]

>>2553193
>>2553178
Are you realistically suggesting that there is a basement dweller gene? Realistically the stereotypical "basement dweller" has arisen pretty recently and is likely a result of the technological revolution and the advent of the internet. Genetics explains a lot of the framework, but someones personality for the most part is a product of their environment and their subjective experiences.

[Anonymous No.2553245]

>>2553236
It would probably be a collection of genes that make you more introverted and less driven to find women.

[Anonymous No.2553258]

>>2553236
>basement dweller gene
Yes
Schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, Social Anxiety, Aspergers all can be considered "basement dwelling genes"

[Anonymous No.2553268]

>>2553245
Why would those genes be getting passed on? That is a dead end. Unless you have autism or something, how introverted you are is likely to be shaped by your environment. Genes explain a lot, but expecting them to explain everything about the human personality is simply not represented in the amount of variance human personality can have. However, environments vary greatly and thus produce greatly variant personalities.

[Anonymous No.2553275]

he's right. go back to >>>/x/ idiot

[Anonymous No.2553280]

>>2553258
No, those could be considered Schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, Social Anxiety, Aspergers genes. Not all basement dwellers have ANY of those conditions, thus they are not basement dweller conditions. They may be anti-social conditions but not everyone who is anti-social has them. It's a hasty generalization to assume that because some anti-social people have a medical reason, all anti-social people must have a medical reason.

[Anonymous No.2553281]

>>2553236

If there are genes for aggressive behavior, how can there not be genes for antisocial behavior? Also, technological revolution is not the culprit. It's most likely due to increased living standards and income which enable families to support such offspring.

[Anonymous No.2553292]

>>2553268
>Why would those genes be getting passed on? That is a dead end.
Human society is becoming more tolerant. A basement dweller existing in ancient times would probably become a beggar and probably starve to death.

[Anonymous No.2553300]

>>2553292
Or he would have become a level 70 knight lol

[Anonymous No.2553307]

>>2553281
That isn't what I said. There ARE genes for anti-social behavior but that DOES NOT mean that all anti-social people are at a genetic predisposition to be that way.
>It's most likely due to increased living standards and income which enable families to support such offspring.
regardless, that is still environmental.
Also, genes with a predisposition for anger might actually HELP the odds of reproductive success, where anti-social genes wouldn't.

[Anonymous No.2553310]

>>2553235
>Talks about how the number of idiots increases
>Appeals to said idiots
>irony, irony everywhere!

[Anonymous No.2553312]

>>2553292
Or maybe in ancient times he would have been able to afford a house with crappy job
Cause you know back in ancient times houses weren't expensive as fuck

[Anonymous No.2553340]

There is obviously not a gene for basement dwelling like there is a gene for eye colour, but there would be some effect from the genetics that could cause for people with certain genes to be more likely to be basement dwellers. There are probably genetic risk factors in a lot of behaviour, but I cannot think of any decent examples at the moment. There were some in Richard Dawkins selfish gene but I cannot remember them.

[Anonymous No.2553354]

>>2553292
I'm getting sick of repeating myself. Natural Selection is about reproductive success, not whether or not you die. Anti-social traits will lead to a decreased reproductive rate regardless of whether or not you die as a result of them. They are inherently against the actions that lead to reproduction.

[Anonymous No.2553363]

>>2553354
Have you ever met someone who died and did not reproduce?
Yeah neither have I

[Anonymous No.2553364]

>>2553312
Basement dwelling is what the average person did, he worked the family trade and inherited the house when his parents died. His mom even probably hooked him up with her friend's homely daughter.

[Anonymous No.2553369]

>>2553312
But the rulers back then were harsh and there's always a danger of pillaging during wars. It's kind of like living in the ghetto today.

Also, there's no rule requiring individuals to buy houses. They could always share an apartment with other people if their income is low.

[Anonymous No.2553387]

>>2553354
But in the long run, the basement dwelling people should die off completely because those genes are no longer being passed on.

[Anonymous No.2553393]

>>2553363
Issac Newton died a virgin. Children who are born with congenital diseases like AIDS are unlikely to reproduce.

It stands to reason that the number of people who die without procreating may be larger than you think.

You won't reproduce because you're an idiot nigger.

[Anonymous No.2553406]

>>2553369
>They could always share an apartment with other people if their income is low
That sucks

[Anonymous No.2553425]

>>2553363
Death rate directly effects evolution but ONLY because it directly effects reproductive success. People seem to forget that the fundamental point is passing on your genes, not necessarily personal survival. For example, some species of cephilopods die immediately after their young hatch to reduce competition.
>>2553387
My entire point was that basement dwelling isn't necessarily caused by genetics (although SOME genetic traits might encourage the lifestyle).

[Anonymous No.2553430]

>facepalm

evolution takes place inside of us

what is he saying make him stop NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

ohh god make him stop make him stop, not genetic engineering dont talk about that nooooo. stop talking!

thank god its over

this has been my transcript of the thoughts running through my head while watching the video