I think in the digital age that the claim of scientists not reading cited work is even less true. One reason I read all papers that I cite is because I have them at my fingertips, like all scientists do who have access to a decent library.
Citations that are critical to the conceptual meat of papers have probably always been read. Maybe in times past a more tangential citation, say to a well-known method, might have created a bit of a can’t-be-arsed-to-go-to-the-library situation. Or maybe created problems for scientists working with smaller libraries. But now? Why wouldn’t you read something that’s on your desktop after 10 seconds work on your database of choice?
I would guess this also applies to things like mounted fossil skeletons, etc. For example, the skull of the T. rex at the American Museum of Natural History is a lightweight cast, with the original displayed in a case below. The plaque on display explains to all visitor who bother to read it that this is because, being made of solid rock and all, the original skull is too heavy to mount from a thin rod 15ft in the air.
In fact, most modern displays of dinosaur skeletons consist mostly or entirely of replica bones, with the originals housed in collections not on display. The practice of drilling holes into the original specimens and exposing them to the environment of a public hall for decades is pretty frowned upon these days, IIRC.
So, yeah, many museum specimens on display are “fake”, but not intended to be deceptive.
Or the originals were just never found in the first place. If you find, say, half a jaw full of teeth, 17 vertebrae, six assorted ribs, and three bones from the left front leg, you’re still going to want to display those in the context of a full skeleton. Generally the informational plaque will have a color-coded diagram showing which of the bones are real.
I’ve taken exception to complaints like this before, and I’ll do it again: I, for one, actually appreciate it when someone posts a question here that they could have just as easily googled. I had not heard about this book, the facts it presents are interesting, and the discussion in this thread is interesting. If the OP had just quietly gone a-googling, my ignorance would not have been so fought.
I mean, really, isn’t the purpose of this board, and GQ especially, to spread knowledge and fight ignorance? If someone posts a question that you think is dumb, or silly, or that could have easily been answered by googling, how hard is it for you to just not go into that thread? Just because you think something is useless doesn’t mean that everyone else does. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, but there’s no reason to interfere with the ability of others to read and respond, if they so choose. And there is absolutely no reason to take the OP to task for posting something that opens up a lot of discussion.
One of the basic ideas of Baysian probability is that even a highly accurate test is inaccurate is the percentage infected is very small due to the disproportionate number of false positives.
For example: in the US, about 0.6% of the adults have AIDS. To make things easier, let’s say 100,000 US adults are tested for AIDS that has 99.5% accuracy if you have AIDS and only a 0.5% possibility for a false positive.
In our sample 0.006 x 100,000 = 600 people have AIDS and 0.995 x 600 = 597 test positive. Consequently, there are 0.005 x 99,400 = 497 false positives so given that you tested positive, there is only a 597/(597+497) = 54.6% chance you actually have the AIDS. Notice this corresponds to the OP’s claim of “half the time” quite nicely.
Then again, though, some people are more likely to get an AIDS test than others. I’ve never had reason to get one, since I haven’t engaged in any behaviours that could infect me. A hemophiliac gay man who works as a prostitute to support his heroin habit has plenty of reasons to get a test, but the prior probability of him having AIDS is much higher than the baseline 0.6%. The false positive rate isn’t really an issue for either of us, since I don’t have any test results at all, and any positive result he gets are overwhelmingly likely to be true positives.
The CIA Commits Over 100,000 Serious Crimes Each Year
I think this comes under the heading of WELL, DUHHH!! Since most nations have very strict laws about spying, usually equating it with treason (and since a CIA agent would be counselling somebody to commit treason) this isn’t a big thing.
An FBI Expert Testified That Lie Detectors Are Worthless for Security Screening
Accurate. Lie detectors are nothing more than very accurate blood pressure monitors. Since most people are taught from an early age that lying is bad, whenever we do lie there is a spike in blood pressure. However, lie detectors don’t work as well on the mentally ill, and I remember reading that some military Escape and Evasion courses teach ways to get around lie detectors. If they did work, then why are they not used as evidence in courts on a regular basis??
IANAL but I imagine that if lie detectors were accurate there would be compelling legal grounds for getting the results excluded from court as a violation of the Fifth Amendment re: self-incrimination.
Hello people it’s The Man here, or at least one of his representatives.
What did we tell you. There are some things we don’t want you to know but you had to go ahead and know them anyway didn’t you. :rolleyes:
I’m afraid i’m going to have to ask anyone who has posted, read or moderated this thread to report to the disintegration chambers.
If you don’t know where your nearest Mental Pacification Facility is, or indeed that such things existed. Don’t worry, we know where you live. A black helicopter will be sent to collect you presently.
Please do not attempt to flee. The disintegration chambers while neither quick or painless are certainly preferable to what will happen to you if you make us send the {FNORDS} after you.
This is nit-picky bullshit even the military doesn’t fully buy into: Korean War veterans get benefits just like World War Two veterans do, they’re accepted at the VA hospital just the same as World War Two veterans, and they can be buried at Arlington just like World War Two veterans. There isn’t ten cents’ worth of difference between a declared war and whatever technicality you want to lump Korea, Vietnam, and all our other Asian adventurism into.
I don’t want to hijack the thread here (although it seems almost inevitable considering the nature of the question) but is this really true? Why would it cause a mistrial? Don’t juries have the ability to declare a law unreasonable?
This question alone is probably enough to spark something pretty big.
As I understand it: A lot of lawyers and judges hate the idea a jury would do anything but decide the facts of the case and leave the legal decisions to the judge, who is trained in law and understands both legal precedent and black letter law. In practice, though, a jury has enough leeway to do things like return a ‘not guilty’ verdict even when both the facts and the law support a ‘guilty’ verdict. That power is so great it can only be used for Good or Evil, and has been used for both.
I’ve heard of cases where a judge has thrown out the jury’s verdict and the case retried, but I don’t know how that works in practice. I’m pretty sure that if anyone mentioned that the jury is able to disregard the law when deciding on a verdict, the judge would be pretty damn willing to declare a mistrial.
It’s more accurate to say that a jury has an unquestionable right to return any verdict it can agree upon. This goes back to English law, when at one point jurors were punished for refusing to return guilty verdicts in politically motivated trials. The whole point of a jury became enshrined in English (and later American) law that as a political safeguard the State cannot declare someone guilty of a crime- only a jury of citizens can. The concept of jurors refusing to convict against their conscience is called jury nullification.
That said, in modern US trials there are procedures intended to minimize the chances of this happening. The most common is the vetting process during juror selection. Both the prosecution and the defense can question prospective juors about their personal beliefs and have the judge dismiss them as a juror if it’s felt they will not impartially apply the law. And as mentioned above, a mistrial can be declared if the presiding judge believes that the decision process was improper (such as a juror publically proclaiming that they will refuse to convict regardless of the facts presented in court.)
