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Post by Arlon10 on Apr 27, 2017 10:57:26 GMT
The Pope just might be Catholic for all I know. It's still much ado about nothing, even if it's in a book, unless you can perhaps cite particularly pertinent passages from the book. There are a lot of things I don't know, I'm honest enough to admit. I need more reason than that though to go digging after them. I need as most people do to prioritize. It was not my intention to humiliate you that much. While indeed calling someone a thief is an ad hominem, it is not always a logical fallacy. The significance of the distinction appears to escape you still. When I use an ad hominem I have a very logical and pertinent reason. Thank for confessing your ignorance of the fact that it makes no difference how positve or negative your comments are, they are still irrelevant. Perhaps a dictionary can help you with this concept of "relevance." You like dictionaries. I do too, really. I have no catching up to do.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 27, 2017 11:07:23 GMT
The Pope just might be Catholic for all I know. Evasion noted, but thank you for trying anyway. QED. It is, if you are insulting the opponent, rather than addressing the argument. Check the definition we agree on . That you don't have an argument other wise? LOL Some things, like the fact that a scientist was Nazi sympathiser are, well, just plain interesting in their own sake. And the fact that you apparently didn't know this about him is even more interesting. Should I chose one with which you argue with or one not?
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Post by Cinemachinery on Apr 29, 2017 1:29:44 GMT
I'm not really sure what I think about it, there were some fantastic placards but I'm still not sure what the point was, at least not here (UK). I think it had more to do with Brexit than anything else, everyone I know at work voted remain and I think that was replicated across the country, the UK does well out of EU science grants and collaborations and a large percentage of our colleagues are EU citizens so we are natural Remain voters (I'm the only Eurosceptic in the lab and even I voted Remain). I don't think there are many AGW deniers here, at least not enough to affect government policy though I do worry that the Tories might decide it's politically expedient to become deniers if we leave the EU and need to attract investment. The only pseudoscience that really has a grip here is anti vax and anti GMO. This isn't great but it's not in the same league as AGW deniers. I do worry about free schools and academies, they tend to be targets for takeover by religious organisations who like to put their spin on science, particularly Biology. The US is a different story though, you have an alternative fact pushing president who has some distinctly odd ideas about science. The rest of us are constantly amazed that the country that produces the best science and universities, funds science really well and even has some respect for scientists also has a significant minority of creationists (by that I mean believe that Humans were specially created and don't share common ancestry with all other life) and some who actually believe the universe is less than 10,000 years old. And you now have a president who was voted in by this section of your society and presumably he has to keep them happy, along with the anti vaxxers and AGW deniers. My worry is that science will become politicised here but it already seems to be in the world super power of science (that's the US if you were wondering) and so the March for Science may be necessary, it's a sorry state of affairs though. Honestly, it was less about science in and of itself than it was about the manner in which it's being used or discarded towards political ends.
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Post by thorshairspray on Apr 29, 2017 14:21:22 GMT
the UK does well out of EU science grants and collaborations How well does the UK do out of science grants and collaborations with the rest of the world, such as the US, for example?
As a dyed-in-the-wool Brexit-voting Eurosceptic myself, who lost all faith after the ERM crisis back in 1992 that the EU would ever be able to facilitate collaboration between its member countries whenever push came to shove, I'm struggling to understand why the EU is so important when it comes to collaborating in scientific research. I sometimes get the impression (not from you, but in general) that without the EU's guiding hand, collaborative scientific research simply wouldn't exist! However did scientific breakthroughs get made before the EU existed, I wonder?
Ok, my tongue is in my cheek but I do question whether you scientists place a bit too much credence in the miracle-workings of the EU than it actually deserves. I wonder if anybody has undertaken a PhD thesis on this theory.
Common argument from remainers now. Apparently we cannot, literally cannot work with other countries without being in the EU. I've seen the argument extended to workers rights and womens rights and yet nobody can explain why the UK passed its legislation on such things before we entered the EEC.
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