Ignore your instinct - think ffs

[Karjalan]

AH ok so you did get the wrong impression. I don't think because some people are crazy pushing their idea's down my throats etc that all people are. Not even close, I was just specifically raging at those people who are in religions or whatever and DO do that.... like specifically do... I don't mean to imply that everyone does it.

[Vampirial]

yea I'll give you that theres idiots on both sides of every argument. I know a couple of the really stereotypical vegeterians (ie the ones that can't stand being near a slice of ham and want to convert everyone to their way of life) and to me there the people that made my life hell when I was a vegeterian Dunno if that makes sense kind of accusing the vegeterians of something their not doing but if their actions weren't so descriminating or one sided most of the world would have no reason to fear/bully/tease those vegeterians because of the potential "loony" ones. In a way that comes back to the religious debate for me too I'm in my own way a very spiritual person but not in the way most people would see it. I typically avoid overly religious people mainly due to bullying when I was younger (being 15 years old walking down the street covered almost head to toe and have some wacko call me a whore and tell me I'm going to hell just alters your perspective a little). I have had religious friends though whom were more than happy to have a good theological debate and at the end of the day accept our differences, unfortunately it doesn't happen too often though with the very zealous.

@cart
ahhh touche on the adults must admit i skimmed the article a bit /shamed face. It would be interesting to know how they selected their sample size in the article - there are a quite a few adults that have technically not grown up. I know the first page says uni students - I'm gonna generalise again but from my experience at uni (in a science degree) I'd have to say that at least 80% of the students in first year would of came from well off backgrounds (my definition of well off is both parents working the children got to go places on their holidays that sort of thing), mummy and daddy were supporting them or paying all there fees and a lot that worked it was just there pocket money (ie no added expenses to come out of that). I don't mean that in a bad way in fact I was more jealous of them in all honesty but the stuff that bothered them was well trivial to me. I think if your gonna select a sample you need to make sure your including all the population - ie include the priviledged and the unpriviledged, the rich and poor, the old and young - and a good article will state how they have selected the test subjects which incase I'm missing something this article doesn't have. I know carts gonna find my error somewhere My internet doesn't like me tabbing dammit it always freezes on the page makes quoting / reading again rather difficult.

[Cartollomew]

I think if your gonna select a sample you need to make sure your including all the population - ie include the priviledged and the unpriviledged, the rich and poor, the old and young - and a good article will state how they have selected the test subjects which incase I'm missing something this article doesn't have. I know carts gonna find my error somewhere My internet doesn't like me tabbing dammit it always freezes on the page makes quoting / reading again rather difficult.

A good report should certainly list the background/selection process for something like this. In fact, if a report didn't state this, it wouldn't be acceptable to the scientific community, you'd probably have trouble getting it printed in anything read by "peers".

But this is an article on the report itself - so we just have to trust that their technique was acceptable, or that it would have been called out by the author of the article. Given it's a New Scientist article, you can probably tentatively trust that there's nothing really glaring; but to be sure, one should always check the original source, the report (I sure as hell didn't - I wasn't that interested ).

In general news or magazines, and particularly in terribad tabloids, you can't really trust that the journalist responsible for the article has understood or vetted the study/report properly - or that they've even quoted the authors responsibly.

Part of science education is teaching people not to take articles at face value or make decisions because of them - without verification or further investigation.
Articles are good, because they can bring things to your attention, but they aren't scientific studies or reports - I think of a science article as being like a headline in a normal article.

If it looks worthy of further investigation, I'll dig deeper.

Re: Students
My own experience with uni students (and I spent a good 7 years there) is similar; the first years are soft as shite. Many of them get filtered out though, and by 2nd or 3rd year, the people you're working with are usually pretty cool, even if mummy and daddy gave them a car and pay all their stuff.

Also:

(being 15 years old walking down the street covered almost head to toe and have some wacko call me a whore and tell me I'm going to hell just alters your perspective a little)

See, these fuckers just aren't likable at all. I doubt religion has much to do with it - the person is a dick. Strip away the religion and they're still a dick.

[Vampirial]

ye I remeber from uni we actually had eally cool lecturers for science (maybe it helps that it was actually forensic science and i guess you have to be a little bit more open in that field and consider everything from every possible angle because if it goes to court you can guarantee the opposing side has). We were constantly told question everything just because this article is in here doesn't mean you can't question it but have facts to support your arguments or you'll be considered a tool. I've spoken to people in other degrees and they absolutely hated uni based on the fact they had to believe what was shoved in front of them.

On the subject of peer review also just because it is printed doesn't necessarily mean its peer reviewed correctly. Even the whacko scientists out there still manage to get stuff published although they do have a little more hard time getting it done. Having had a forensic dentist, a forensic biologist and a scenior detective as the main course convenors (they were usually all present for lectures that directly related to forensics) for my course you would not beleive some of the horror stories some of them told us. They always opted not to name people or state which country/facility things happenned at but some of the stuff they said was damn terrible and you just think to yourself wow and these people screwed it up and they actually have a say (indirectly) in another persons life.

As an example: Everyone knows all DNA is unique, all fingerprints are unique and all teeth are unique.
If you check the peer review for fingerprints the article they source is from the 1800s (I could be wrong I know I have the info in one of my text books somewhere but it is a very huge gap from todays date). For teeth quite a few years ago (I think maybe early 1900s) some mathmetician worked out probabilities of people having the same teeth - which according to my current lecturer is not accurate today and there is no recent studies taken place to proving that all teeth are not identical. DNA uses a similar approach its worked out on statistics and probabilities - noone has actually looked at large samples of DNA and gone you know what well maybe it could be possible to have 2 people with the same DNA living right next door to each other (which theoretically is statistically very very unlikely). Might seem trivial but when your on trial and they've statistically proven that the chances of someone with your DNA living in the same city as you is 1 to 100000000000000 well it really sucks to be the statistical anomaly when your innocent.

Sorry for thread derail this just really interests me.

[Cartollomew]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... goodyear16

“I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

(emphasis mine)

Okay - but you're the minister for science, I think it's fair to ask your stance on something that is a matter of science.

Newsflash:
Admitting that evolution is the most likely cause of the creation of higher creatures doesn't preclude belief in a higher power.

If your faith is so fragile that you simply must deny what is observed, your faith is faulty.