BF2S Forums D&ST - Science

i suggested that to galt 3 pages ago when he kept hammering me to explain to him what a cursory google search could yield, instantaneously.

he even jibed me with "you won't say because you know there's nothing uzique". rofl.

then dilbert tried to give me shit for supplying galt with a phd thesis completed at a college local to him (i.e. me doing the work for him)

you can't please these people. they're convinced in their pigeonbrained little worlds that what they're doing is the only 'good work', the secular era's version of doing 'god's work', and all the rest of us are just idiots devoting our time to folly. if only they realised how stupid they look to anyone with half a clue in anything outside of the sciences.

nope, you're free to read it. the retarded question that caused 3 pages of debate (which wasn't an off-topic discussion of my choice) was "what do english professors actually DO?". really, now? what's more likely: the question (with its implication that non-science research isn't 'real' research) being plain stupid, or me feeling as though i'm being called stupid? protip: i'm not an english professor.

speaks for itself how? i get frustrated because it seems i've typed 100,000 words on this forum in the last 6 months defending the work done by all other non-scientific disciplines. you guys have the supreme egotism about your line of work/education - it's not me 'throwing the fits', it's me being exasperated by your refusal/reluctance to accept any other point-of-view or thing of merit.

as i said, pure maths/science research yields just as much "value" as pure art/humanities research. it's all completely academic. 'knowledge for knowledge's sake'. comparing the research done by a biomedical department to an english department is obviously a pointless line of argument. news just in: academic departments conduct high-level, ultra-specialised research that benefits the layman on the street in a nil-to-none way. does that mean the human race should stop trying to progress its academic knowledge and understanding? because it doesn't satisfy some utilitarian 'benefit' or 'greater good'? dude that idea is like 100 years old and is extremely lug-headed. no shit serious heavyweight academic departments aren't sweating too much about their contribution to the 'greater good': they're far older than that idea and their ideals are far longer lasting.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-21 07:11:05)

Uzique wrote:

nope, you're free to read it. the retarded question that caused 3 pages of debate (which wasn't an off-topic discussion of my choice) was "what do english professors actually DO?". really, now? what's more likely: the question (with its implication that non-science research isn't 'real' research) being plain stupid, or me feeling as though i'm being called stupid? protip: i'm not an english professor.

I read the question. And the ensuing flame fest.

You could have taken it as a legitimate question and answered it, educating those here who may not have known what sort of research English departments are involved in. Or, you could have taken the approach that you did: gone immediately into snide defensive mode.

Personally, I think the first course of action would have been more productive.

You've been on this site long enough to know that it's more than can be reasonably expected for others to research an answer. It's frustrated me, as well. But that is how the game is played here.

you know the real problem with this argument?

you're all fucking boring.

if someone wants to research the linguistic routes of some african tribal language and their uni is willing to give them grant money to do so, fine. i honestly couldn't give a shit.

and i'm sure there's something productive to come out of it. i'm not a linguistic expert, i couldn't tell you.

what precisely is productive, directly, about a project like skymapper or a multi-million dollar piece of equipment like the v. large array/large binocular telescope? yet i'd say those projects are some of the most important science currently going on.

Last edited by Spark (2011-12-21 23:13:37)

Uzique wrote:

i mentioned that politicians/the public were complaining about the "cost" of the higgs-boson experiments, [they were] applying your same crude and idiotic conception of 'value' to highly academic/theoretical work. my line of argument from the start has been in defense of science work like this, quote myself: "very much A Good Thing". i mentioned english research because that's my perspective from which i sympathize with high-level academic scientists having to defend their daily work from the ignorant mob that want to know about bottom-line figures instead of missing atomic particles. i have never once in this thread "griped" about science research - only chimed in with support and equal dismissal of 'what is the research worth?' type talk.

dilbert are you really not reading or something? i am literally baffled. your pure science-r-good / arts-r-sux bias is actually blinding your ability to READ.

Last edited by Uzique (2011-12-22 00:18:50)

Uzique wrote:

this is a recession and many people (politicians included) are saying that science research (as well as all other pure academic research - maths, arts, humanities) should be 'entrepreneurial' in spirit. which basically means it needs an immediate relevancy or a cash-back plan within the next 10 years. so it probably seems like a silly question to a scientist but to someone that doesn't give much of a shit about the theoretical thrill of discovering the higgs-boson... not so.

of course it makes sense that publically-funded institutions with taxpayer's money invested in them are going to have a slight social and political debt to produce 'relevant' works.

There we go.

your view that everyone in art and humanities departments all over the world are browsing through dusty tomes from 1470 is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Based on the link you provided yourself - it seems about half of them are.

Probably not, as it was raining at the time

He's 70? Bloody hell, I didn't think he was that old.

I've been saying it for aaaages now, drug resistance is going to be one of the big issues of the 21st century and no one seems to have noticed.

But once we finally realise just how fucked we are, with things like the above, the new strains of multi-resistant malaria cropping up all over the place, when the nastiest strains of HxNx flu finally jump the animal-human barrier, and a whole host of other truly nasty diseases, mix that with modern air travel and you have a recipe for some truly catastrophic epidemics.

But that's OK because we've been developing the new generation of broad spectrum antibiotics to counter this which we've needed since the 90s... right?

Right?

Last edited by Spark (2012-01-16 03:00:11)