Reply to Re: Is there a name for Dink's world?
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While I might advise cocomonkey to just ignore these sort of comments, it doesn't mean I always do that. 
Typical DN behaviour. It pisses me off so much.
I very much disagree. In my experience, the DN is one of the friendliest communities on the internet.
Everybody always uses something another person has said
Most of the time, yes. Where did you get the idea that turtles and dinosaurs lived in the same era? Right, that's what I thought. That is because the world is so complex, that it is impossible to personally do research on every topic. So if someone says "I've done research, and this is what I found", then we tend to believe them. For example, someone recently said that the order in which sprite's main() functions are called is their depth sorting order. This sounds weird, but I believe it without checking. Then someone else says they did check it, and found that it was correct. Now I believe it even more firmly, but I still didn't check it. But back to the general topic, if they found something really strange, we will ask for a convincing explanation, consisting of the measurements and how they lead to the conclusion they draw. In the example here, the explanation "this is DinkC" is pretty convincing to me.
That's called science. It's the best we have in terms of finding out how things really are. By discarding any and all statements of scientists, you end up with a world full of unexplained things. "Common sense" isn't going to tell you anything about what happened more than 100 years ago. You weren't there for your common sense to get impressions and draw conclusions. Without science, you don't get further than "my grandmother told me that she saw this".
With science, you may sometimes end up believing something which isn't true, but most of the things that scientists find are actually true. That's the entire purpose of scientists, and with some common sense you can easily understand that most of them will try their best. The few that just want fame and make up results will lead to statements like yours, but they are a very small minority. Pretty much all scientific knowledge is believed by the scientist who publishes it. If many other scientists agree, it is very likely to be true. These are smart people, and they have common sense, too.
I bet people would argue that snow isn't water if highly educated scientists just said so.
Of course! If a smart person who has spent a lot of time understanding the world has researched this specific topic and found that, they are very likely right. But just someone saying it isn't enough. They have to explain why, and it must be convincing. That's how science works.
Now if you're talking about radioactive age determination, as was mentioned there is overwhelming proof that this is an extremely accurate method. And it's not just scientists saying "I pushed this button and the computer said the sample was 3000 years old". No, there is a very good reason for it to work, which can be explained and understood. Trying it on real samples shows that it works, too. (For example, all bones in a single skeleton should all be the same age, and they are.)
You know what, I'll explain to you how it works. Please tell me what's wrong with it, or which parts you don't believe. If there are no parts you don't believe, I hope you agree that that means you must believe that the method works. That's one of the basic rules of science. (Don't get me wrong; you don't have to be able to prove that it's wrong. But if you agree will all parts, including the logic leading to the conclusion, you must agree with the conclusion as well.)
Cosmic radiation causes nuclear reactions of atoms in the upper atmosphere. As a result, these atoms change into radioactive atoms. Due to diffusion, these atoms also reach the lower atmosphere. Radioactive atoms decay into stable (non-radioactive) atoms after a certain time. Because of the constant radiation, there is a permanent supply of new radioactive atoms, and because of decay they are lost again. This results in an equilibrium amount of radioactive atoms in the air we breathe.
And that is exactly the important part. Living organisms continuously take atoms from the air and put them into their body. Because of this, a living body contains the same ratio of radioactive and non-radioactive atoms of a certain part (say carbon) as the air. (This is only true if the radioactive atoms live much longer than they remain in the body, which is true for carbon.)
But when the organism dies, things change. It then no longer breathes, and it doesn't build new body parts with the radioactive atoms. So no new radioactive atoms are added to the body. But the ones in there still decay. This means that from the moment the organism dies, the amount of radioactive atoms in it will decrease.
If you measure the amount of carbon atoms in a fossil, and from the radioactivity you measure how much of that carbon is radioactive, you can find the ratio between them. There will be less radioactive material than there is in a living body. Some simple math (and facts like the half life of the atom you're using) gives you the age of the sample.
So when does this method fail? When for some reason there was more or less radioactive material in the body when it was alive, or when it was preserved in a highly radioactive environment, causing new radioactive atoms to be generated after it died. A clear example is someone who died from radiation, for example by eating highly radioactive food. Their body will contain much more radioactive atoms than normal, which results in a negative age measurement. After a long time, the age will no longer be negative, but it will still come out smaller than it really was. I think there are some ways to detect this (I could think of one), but I'm not that familiar with the method.
Typical DN behaviour. It pisses me off so much.
I very much disagree. In my experience, the DN is one of the friendliest communities on the internet.
Everybody always uses something another person has said
Most of the time, yes. Where did you get the idea that turtles and dinosaurs lived in the same era? Right, that's what I thought. That is because the world is so complex, that it is impossible to personally do research on every topic. So if someone says "I've done research, and this is what I found", then we tend to believe them. For example, someone recently said that the order in which sprite's main() functions are called is their depth sorting order. This sounds weird, but I believe it without checking. Then someone else says they did check it, and found that it was correct. Now I believe it even more firmly, but I still didn't check it. But back to the general topic, if they found something really strange, we will ask for a convincing explanation, consisting of the measurements and how they lead to the conclusion they draw. In the example here, the explanation "this is DinkC" is pretty convincing to me.
That's called science. It's the best we have in terms of finding out how things really are. By discarding any and all statements of scientists, you end up with a world full of unexplained things. "Common sense" isn't going to tell you anything about what happened more than 100 years ago. You weren't there for your common sense to get impressions and draw conclusions. Without science, you don't get further than "my grandmother told me that she saw this".
With science, you may sometimes end up believing something which isn't true, but most of the things that scientists find are actually true. That's the entire purpose of scientists, and with some common sense you can easily understand that most of them will try their best. The few that just want fame and make up results will lead to statements like yours, but they are a very small minority. Pretty much all scientific knowledge is believed by the scientist who publishes it. If many other scientists agree, it is very likely to be true. These are smart people, and they have common sense, too.
I bet people would argue that snow isn't water if highly educated scientists just said so.
Of course! If a smart person who has spent a lot of time understanding the world has researched this specific topic and found that, they are very likely right. But just someone saying it isn't enough. They have to explain why, and it must be convincing. That's how science works.
Now if you're talking about radioactive age determination, as was mentioned there is overwhelming proof that this is an extremely accurate method. And it's not just scientists saying "I pushed this button and the computer said the sample was 3000 years old". No, there is a very good reason for it to work, which can be explained and understood. Trying it on real samples shows that it works, too. (For example, all bones in a single skeleton should all be the same age, and they are.)
You know what, I'll explain to you how it works. Please tell me what's wrong with it, or which parts you don't believe. If there are no parts you don't believe, I hope you agree that that means you must believe that the method works. That's one of the basic rules of science. (Don't get me wrong; you don't have to be able to prove that it's wrong. But if you agree will all parts, including the logic leading to the conclusion, you must agree with the conclusion as well.)
Cosmic radiation causes nuclear reactions of atoms in the upper atmosphere. As a result, these atoms change into radioactive atoms. Due to diffusion, these atoms also reach the lower atmosphere. Radioactive atoms decay into stable (non-radioactive) atoms after a certain time. Because of the constant radiation, there is a permanent supply of new radioactive atoms, and because of decay they are lost again. This results in an equilibrium amount of radioactive atoms in the air we breathe.
And that is exactly the important part. Living organisms continuously take atoms from the air and put them into their body. Because of this, a living body contains the same ratio of radioactive and non-radioactive atoms of a certain part (say carbon) as the air. (This is only true if the radioactive atoms live much longer than they remain in the body, which is true for carbon.)
But when the organism dies, things change. It then no longer breathes, and it doesn't build new body parts with the radioactive atoms. So no new radioactive atoms are added to the body. But the ones in there still decay. This means that from the moment the organism dies, the amount of radioactive atoms in it will decrease.
If you measure the amount of carbon atoms in a fossil, and from the radioactivity you measure how much of that carbon is radioactive, you can find the ratio between them. There will be less radioactive material than there is in a living body. Some simple math (and facts like the half life of the atom you're using) gives you the age of the sample.
So when does this method fail? When for some reason there was more or less radioactive material in the body when it was alive, or when it was preserved in a highly radioactive environment, causing new radioactive atoms to be generated after it died. A clear example is someone who died from radiation, for example by eating highly radioactive food. Their body will contain much more radioactive atoms than normal, which results in a negative age measurement. After a long time, the age will no longer be negative, but it will still come out smaller than it really was. I think there are some ways to detect this (I could think of one), but I'm not that familiar with the method.
