Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts

Wednesday 26 April 2017

'Scientists' and 'Experts'


This is indeed true!
It is a fact well known to the tabloids who present us with studies on health, eating, archaeology, losing weight, evolution, sex, dementia, age and everything else presented by 'scientists.'  The fact that these studies may be taken out of context, have slanted opinons, contain little useful to the reader and are in opposition to 99 other similar studies makes no difference, the press offer them as fact.  The fact is supported by the word 'scientist.'
One problem with these studies, apart from the lack of comparison to similar studies, is the nature of the 'scientist' behind them.  Gay 'scientists' have a tendency to produce 'evidence' that supports their lifestyle, evolutionists fond 'evidence' that supports theirs, female scientists are constantly discovering 'how women suffer' yet never notice if men suffer at any time.  How unusual this is.
'Science' is merely an organised investigation into a subject whatever that subject may be.  Such investigation has given the modern world wonderful drugs that cure disease, technological advancements that enable me to sit in this small corner of the world misspelling words for you to read, investigated the hidden past in archaeology digs, and uncovered crimes hidden from the man in the street, science can indeed produce wonderful results.
However there is one fault in all this, the scientist!  
The problem with scientists is that they are human.  Now science lovers tell me scientists always go for the results that appear before them and get upset when I disagree.  I indicate that scientists like the rest of us ignore facts that do not agree with them and continue to seek facts that support their argument.  Thus many results are pushed aside and ignored until someone less biased discovers them.  Not so I am told, all scientists are noble people, caring and concerned for humanity.  Hmmm, I suppose 'scientists' who gave us poison gas, incendiary bombs and nuclear warheads were caring for their country at the time?  
We need not seek those scientists who took the credit for things others actually discovered nor the scientists pushed aside because they did not fit with the establishment of the day.  
What me cynical?



'Expert' are another one!  How often do you read of an 'expert' offering his opinion in  tabloid?  TV loves them also.  Any war in the offing and up jumps an 'expert' on war, sometimes a retired general, sometimes a university lecturer, often just a reporter with a view, good or bad, on the situation. 
The question 'How expert are the experts?' does not get asked, it is left to us to accept that because someone is at Cambridge University or a General or has studied the field they must be experts in that field.  But are they?  Again these folks have the same bias we have (I of course have none) the same influences affecting them and the same desire for fame and fortune that drive many onto the screen and into the press. 
There is no doubt we need 'scientists' and 'experts' though we all know such in our own live.  The 14 year old computer expert is a must in this world, the local electrician or plumber who will not charge the earth, the woman who knows all that goes on around her and all who are responsible for it and the 8 year old who can open 'childproof' bottles and tubs!  We need them all.  I am just a little cynical about the choice of experts in the media, usually it appears they are chosen from a small group known to the media, often sharing their opinions.  Not that I am implying bias in the media, oh no, they are all objective, however during the 'Up all Night' programme on Radio 5 last night I heard Rob and the chap he was talking to both claim this objectivity was not possible, well it isn't in the BBC that's for sure.


Sunday 20 March 2016

Now I'm Not One to Complain, But...


Indeed I am not a complaining type, I usually just sit and bubble quietly while the world walks all over me, however I have so many things to catch up with here, caused by illness with no sympathy, too much work and a great deal of sloth - I have no idea how he got in, he was too fast for me - and now things have got worse.
Yesterday meant a long day at the museum for the latest Exhibition Day, which went very well thanks for asking, thousands came,or it looked like thousands, and all left very happy indeed.  Several wee workshops were put on and the kids and adults loved them!  Not one grumble through the day bar my stomach about 1:30 but that was expected.


This Mad Scientist had the kids in stitches and the place stinking with burnt substances.  From balloons flying about to melting things, great explosions and flashes of flame she had the kids eating out of her hands.  It was fun, laughter filled the place and the mums and dads learnt almost but not quite as much as the kids.
Next door they experimented with smell, taste, and senses.  I ma not quite sure what was in the wee plastic containers they all took away so I stayed well clear, I don't trust these people.  The main hall was filled with kids learning how to digitise stuff on the laptop.  If we had not been so busy we all wanted to join that one and none of us could, but we didn't complain.... 
However I arrived home, knees aching, having missed the football for the most part and discovered we had lost three nil anyway, burnt my dinner, discovered the microwave giving problems and then it died before I had finished making my dinner!  Grrrr!
However luck was in as my dinner survived with a bit off mucking around and I found Raith Rovers playing Hibernian on BBC Alba!  How lovely to watch a game in which the commentators do not irritate with meaningless words!  BBC Alba is the Gaelic channel for the north of Scotland and as the commentators are speaking thus it merely fills the background and allows the viewer to view uninterrupted by codswallop!  It also helps if wee Hibernian lose by two goals to nil!   Oh joy!  
My Hibby mate has not answered my tweets I hope he has not done anything silly...?


Today, as I nursed my weak knees and rested my brittle bones I managed to find a decent football game in the Dull, Dreich Dundee Derby Day game at half past twelve.  This was far superior to the dreich Manchester derby.  The sooner Van Gall goes the better I say.
However I suddenly thought Sainsburys sometimes do microwaves!  It was quiet so I rushed up there hoping they had one as they were close by and a cheap microwave would be easy to carry home from the shop.  Of course they are quite heavy and in the box heavier but Sainburys are only five minutes up the road.  
I rushed slowly up the road and discovered their cheap microwave, the same as my old one, they are all the same no matter what name appears on them, I discovered their one was £40!  Blow that as I had checked the more distant Argos had one at £36.However I wandered on to Tesco and found a heavy box there full of cheap microwave oven for £35.  Good enough for me I say, the last one lasted about four years and if I remember right cost £29.  
However after lugging it home from Argos that day, unpacking it, starting it up I discovered the blessed thing was bust!  I lugged it back, slower than I brought it, and dumped it somewhat heavily on the desk while panting my complaint.  As I recall the lass did not refund or replace but encouraged me to spend a pound or two more on a 'better' one and so I did while looking in her eyes all the time.  Then I again lugged the even heavier one back down the road.  
I am not fit I said to myself, and I as always, was right.
Now heavier than then, me not the oven, as fit as a corpse with lumbago I paid for my treasure without which I would starve and clambered shakily down the steps towards the door.  Why do they have an escalator upwards but not downwards I ask?  I trudged past the stares from the drunks at the pub on the corner, ensuring I walked upright and briskly as I did so.  Round the corner I changed position and began to wheeze somewhat.  As I passed Sainsburys people began to look and having reached the corner opposite I heard one man ask where that steam engine was.  
Home was reached just before the defibrillator was called for and I sat for a while aching and wondering how some time in the past I used to lug things like this up and down stairs in all sorts of houses.  Heavy goods were easily shifted and now I struggle to open bottles of Lucozade!  
If the muscles allow I will once again begin exercising tomorrow, unless the knees still play up from Saturday let alone today.


The good news that Ian Duncan Smith has walked out of the government because 'Cutting benefits off the poor and disabled while increasing tax cuts for the rich was not acceptable.'  Such warm words which we all agree with.
Hold on, this is the man who put through all these benefits cuts over the past six years.  The man who's department sent letters to people unable to leave their bed since birth 18 years before that they must report for work or lose money!  Some say 2000 have been told they are fit to work and died within a week!  Other claim thousands more have died or lost great sums of money, affecting their food and trapping them indoors because money has been taken from them.  The man who thrust through the 'robbing the poor to pay the rich' was Ian Duncan Smith.  An item in the 'Telegraph' indicates Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Osborne had encouraged IDS to mail everyone telling them to continue with the cuts and therefore put the blame on him, so IDS waked out.  Stories in the papers are of course planted by MPs and who planted that one?  So many tales and so many lies.
However this has blown Chancellor Osborne out of the water.  His decision to cut benefits again will have to be changed, Cameron is desperate to separate himself from anything that makes life difficult and both and in real trouble now.  Good isn't it?
This of course has lots to do with the EU referendum!  Politicians playing games with one another while Rome burns, if that is the right analogy, and we have to read between the lines as to the truth. Here of course the fun is the Conservative Party, the one determined to eliminate all poor, weak. sick or any other people who did not attend Public School and go horse riding with David Cameron from the nation.  Now they are riven in two with a divide growing daily.  Political enemies are never on the other side of the chamber, they are always behind you!


   

Saturday 15 March 2014

Science Saturday



It was Science Saturday at the museum today.  Well over two hundred, nearer three hundred I guess, crowded around the Fossil tables poking at bits of mammoth or possibly early man, they looked the same to me!  Fingerprints were taken elsewhere, bugs magnified by electric microscope and something very strange was going on elsewhere.  This was all part of 'National Science and Engineering Week,' and fun it was.  The kids received certificates for participating, there were activities to check out, and the rest of the museum as open for inspection also.  Two happy workshops were offered making collages or fossils.  The place was full of old fossils today. That reminds me, I must phone my sister.
This young lady was sitting in the teachers desk at the Victorian classroom. She readily took to being in charge!  I wandered around being the 'gopher,' as this means I see everything but do the things that suit my abilities.  I made lots of tea and coffee.  On occasion I helped in the shop.  On these occasions things went wrong.  I made my excuses and left.  This was a good exhibition, none complained as some like to do, all appeared reasonably happy, the kids looked engrossed when I looked in at the workshops which is always a good sign.    


Possibly the parents enjoyed it most!  The Essex Fossil people had crowds milling around their display all day, it took until near time's up for the place to clear.  Handling fossils, especially of big animals intrigues people.  It was all I could do to stop them nicking our mammoth tooth.


The girls working the till had a wonderfully hard time.  There was no charge for entrance today but the workshops cost £3.  These had to be pre-booked and the popular later one was in fact overflowing as many who arrived today wanted to join in.  Names had to be taken and checked, money received, change given, queues controlled, and items sold, all at the same time as others piled in.  Much fun and confusion, especially when I made a hash of the credit card machine, but the girls were magnificent! Volunteers all, except the staff obviously, and hard working all day.


My knees ached by two and I left soon after.  How nice it was to sit down and eat!  It made a change from washing cups and chatting to people.  That last but is the best part, there is so much to learn from visitors, so many tit-bits of information, and the kids are great also, if you manage to get them talking that is.  Some of course never stop, mostly female I should add.... 
I am worn out and off to my kip...


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