Some Qs. people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 66

                                                                    Interactive science series

Q: What advancement in science is required to break some detrimental present myths?  

Krishna: Myths will be broken with scientific evidence to the contrary. Science ‘is advanced’ all the time. Science can never be backward. What is the main obstacle in breaking the bad things is the society itself!

The real issue is how many people can access to scientific evidence? How many people are willing to consider it? How many people can understand the evidence presented to them in the right way?

And the most important thing is how many people can critically analyse it without coming under the influence of biases that screw up their thought process. And how many people will have the courage to go against the tide and stand alone in accepting the facts exactly as they are?

If only one or two can do this, myths will not melt away. Only when the majority of the people in a given society can do all the above, scientific method will have the upper hand and myths, superstitions and misconceptions can be shown the door.

Now consider changing yourself. Not science!

Q: What are some scientific theories that were generated from mainly disagreement or consensus within the specific field?  

Krishna: This question doesn’t sound right. Why? Because Scientific disagreement or consensus in several fields are not like general opinions. They should strictly be based on facts and data.

Science is the field where democracy means "rule by the scientists , of the scientific methodology and for everyone's welfare"! - KKC

Okay, I agree, where there isn’t enough data or we don’t have sophistication to collect data, several theories come into existence but at least they should be supported by adequate mathematical equations and should be open to further tests in the future and therefore full disagreement or consensus is not possible. They just are truths of the moment!

Science is a work in progress and every scientist knows that.

Q: How should I motivate myself to write research papers?  

Krishna: This question itself sounds ominous ( giving the worrying impression that something unfavourable is going to happen).

I am talking about scientific research here. Several Nobel laureates’ advice to those who are about to enter the research field :

Go into science if you are curious and have passion for it. If not, find something else!

If you are curious and passionate about science, you don’t need separate modes of motivation in the first place. Your mind will have those special characters that will have you in their tight grip.

If you are not curious and passionate, even though you get motivation from outside or from your own tutored self, research will be substandard and you lose interest very soon. 

Q: I get fascinated by the way you answer all the questions from  science's point of view which is completely different from what we see and understand. We never knew this 's practicable. How is this possible?

Krishna: :) Simple!

This universe/world is based on scientific principles. For a mind that is loaded with science it is easy to understand and explain things factually and realistically. There is no miracle involved. 

Q: Who are the smartest people in the world according to science?

Krishna: I am giving this answer based on recent scientific research. A recent study found that critical thinking skills are a better predictor of one’s ability to make wise, effective life decisions than intelligence or IQ score. IQ tests don’t take critical thinking abilities into consideration!

People measure IQ to say whether a person is intelligent or not. It measures intelligence for handling abstract content. But researchers say that “critical thinking” – the ability to make judgments dispassionately without jumping to false conclusions – is a separate ability. According to them, critical thinking ability might be important for real-life outcomes, perhaps even more than IQ.

A highly qualified person can be intelligent, solve the problems using the knowledge he earned or things he learned but can still behave stupidly!

Neutral reasoning and rationality - taking only facts into consideration - not emotions and beliefs - makes a person an intellectual. An intellectual makes very few mistakes and therefore is the smartest of all!

Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?

Q: What are some of the most disturbing discoveries of the universe?  

Krishna: That it really is not in the way it was described in holy books.

That it was based on strict scientific principles you cannot overlook.

That the principles it was based on don’t have place for artificially created boundaries or divisional lines.

That you cannot bend the universal scientific rules with magical mantras.

Q: Do conjoin twins share the same experiences, feelings and senses?

Krishna: Although experts are not convinced, some conjoined twins say they share thoughts and sensations too. 

Two young girls named Tatiana and Krista Hogan are conjoined twins whose skulls are merged together, rare craniopagus twins. They seem to possess something never before seen, according to some news papers, a physical link between their two minds that allows them to literally experience sensations that occur to the other twin. 

Between Tatiana and Krista's separate brains is a physical connection that their neurosurgeon calls a "thalamic bridge," which allows each girl to pick up on the sensory input that occurs to the other girl. For example, if one girl gulped down a slushy too fast, she could give the other girl a brain freeze. If one eats something, the other can taste it. They feel each other's pain. It's believed they can even perceive what the other is seeing out of their eyes, with a sort of parallel vision.

However, I want to add here that they haven't been studied scientifically and all that they say  hasn't been confirmed using scientific methods. So they are just news paper reports based on what the twins say and their relatives say. 

Q: What is the difference between adaptation and evolution?

Krishna: Adaptation is a part of evolution. 

Evolution is the process by which different kinds of living organisms are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth. Once evolved into  different species even from a common ancestor, organisms cannot inter breed and produce viable offspring.

Adaptation is any alteration in the structure or function of an organism or any of its parts that results from natural selection and by which the organism becomes better fitted to survive and multiply in its environment.  It is linked to evolution because it is a long process, one that occurs over many generations. The result of successful adaptation is always beneficial to an organism, thus relating it to the process of natural selection.

Q: What is the true colour of the Sun?

Krishna: White! If you go out of the Earth's atmosphere, you will see Sun's true colour. 

The reason the Sun appears yellow during the day from Earth, or orange to red at sunrise and sunset,  is because we view it through the filter of the atmosphere.

If you view sunlight through a prism, you can see the entire range of wavelengths of light. Another example of the visible portion of the solar spectrum is seen in the rainbow. Sunlight isn't a single colour of light, but a combination of the emission spectra of all the elements in the star.  All of the wavelengths combine to form white light, which is the net colour of the sun. The sun emits different amounts of various wavelengths. If you measure them, the peak output in the visible range is actually in the green portion of the spectrum (not yellow).

The atmosphere changes the apparent colour of the sun by scattering light.

The effect is called Rayleigh scattering. As violet and blue light gets scattered away, the average visible wavelength or "colour" of the sun shifts toward red, but the light isn't entirely lost. The scattering of short wavelengths of light by molecules in the atmosphere is what gives the sky its blue colour.

When viewed through the thicker layer of atmosphere at sunrise and sunset, the sun appears more orange or red. When viewed through the thinnest layer of air at midday, the sun appears closest to its true colour, yet still has a yellow tint. Smoke and smog also scatter light and can make the sun appear more orange or red (less blue). The same effect also makes the moon appear more orange or red when it is close to the horizon, but more yellow or white when it is high in the sky.

Q: How do scientists benefit from lying about  global warming?

Krishna: Oh, yes, mother Earth came to them crying and told them to lie in their dreams!

Seriously, why would any scientist lie about it? When we ourselves see these direct or indirect changes…

1. Vegetables getting bitter , flowers loosing scent and these are undoubtedly climate change evidences. Climate even effects human behaviour according to recent studies

2. The people and military of various countries around Arctic are moving more to north ... as the Arctic ice opens up, the world turns its attention to the resources below. 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil are under this region. As a result, military action in the Arctic is heating up, with the United States, Russia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Canada holding talks about regional security and border issues. Several nations, including the U.S., are also drilling troops in the far north, preparing for increased border patrol and disaster response efforts in a busier Arctic.

3. Breeding season alterations among animals.

4. High-country changes ...Decreased winter snowfall on mountaintops is allowing elk in northern Arizona to forage at higher elevations all winter, contributing to a decline in seasonal plants.

5. Spring has changed in the last century ...Spring is emerging progressively earlier than previous times since 1960s. This has set in noticeable changes in plants. Compared to the late 1800s, the first flowering dates for 43 of the most common plant species in the area have moved forward an average of 10 days. Other plants have simply disappeared, including 15 species of orchids.

6. Changed high season at parks

7. Changing genetics...Even fruit flies are feeling the heat. According to a 2006 study, fruit fly genetic patterns normally seen at hot latitudes are showing up more frequently at higher latitudes.

8. As space increases because of ice-melting, polar bears are swimming long distances

9. Mobility of more species ...Species are straying from their native habitats at an unprecedented rate

10. Altering interactions among Species ...From plants and crustaceans to birds and mammals, species across the food chain in the world are shifting how they respond to seasonal changes.

11. Decreasing economic productivity around the world ... In a sweeping new study published in Nature, a team of researchers say there is a strong relationship between a region’s average temperature and its economic productivity — adding another potential cost to a warming climate.

12. We are all facing it day in and day out. The effects of heat stress aren’t felt only at the country level, but also at the human level.

Not only does extreme heat put the health of individual workers in danger, but it also hurts workers and their families financially.

Read this article for more information ...

http://kkartlab.in/group/some-science/forum/topics/why-majority-of-...

Q: Why can't some people do scientific research?

Q: Why should someone not do scientific research?

Krishna: If you are not curious and passionate about science.

If you don’t have the mind to do hard work.

If you don’t have patience.

If you cannot face failures courageously.

If you cannot understand the thrill of exploring new arenas all alone.

If you don’t have the capacity to obtain funds.

If you cannot creatively connect things.

If you want lots of easy money.

If you lack the specific qualities to do research.

Karl Marx had said in his Das Kapital: "There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”

So scientific research is not suited for every one. Your brain has to be specially sculpted for it!

Q: What is your moral and scientific view on artificial selection (especially in diary and meat industry)?
Krishna : Science deals with moral issues too. So here you need not separate moral and scientific views.

Well, when milk, eggs and meat become more nutritional, it benefits non-vegetarians. So you need not worry about artificial selection for nutritional content here.

If you are selecting the animals that give more milk and eggs, that benefits the farmers and the industry. This also feeds the ever-increasing population of the world. You need not worry about artificial selection here too.

Nature too selects the fittest. We are only following the nature by selecting what we want and what is beneficial for the human kind!

If you don’t select how do you give a nutritional diet to an ever increasing population of the world? To eradicate malnutrition and hunger, this artificial selection becomes necessary.

Q: Can science explain Deja vu?

Krishna: Déjà vu is a startling mental event. The phenomenon involves a strong feeling that an experience is familiar, despite sensing or knowing that it never happened before. Most people have experienced déjà vu at some point in their life, but it occurs infrequently, perhaps once or twice a year at most.

Although déjà vu often feels supernatural or paranormal, glitches in the brain might be to blame. One possibility is that a small seizure occurs in brain regions essential for memory formation and retrieval—the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, areas deep in the middle of the brain. When you see your grandmother, for example, spontaneous activity in these regions creates an instant feeling of familiarity. With déjà vu, a brief synaptic misfiring might occur in these areas, creating the illusion that the event has occurred before. In support of this idea, studies show that some individuals with epilepsy have a brief déjà vu episode prior to a seizure, with the focal area of the seizure often falling in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus.

Other phenomena might also help explain déjà vu, such as inattentiveness. Because we often navigate the world on autopilot, we take in much of our surroundings on an unconscious level. People who text on their cell phones while walking are only superficially aware of the shops and pedestrians they are passing. Perhaps an episode of déjà vu begins during such a moment. When we emerge into full awareness, we might do a perceptual double take. We are struck by a strange sense of familiarity because we saw the scene just moments before, unconscious.

A third possibility is that we have forgotten the prior experience. The psychology literature is replete with stories of adults visiting a notable place, such as a castle, and becoming overwhelmed by an uncanny sense of having been there before.

Our brain is always searching for connections. As a result, we can sometimes make links that simply aren't there.

Science and the paranormal

Q: Can Mercury in Gemini in the 2nd house cause chest infections very often? What are the remedies?  Krishna: Chest infections are caused by weak or compromised immune system, not being relatively clean, frequently visiting places where germs are in higher concentrations, not taking precautions when visiting such places and smoking.

Mercury in Gemini in the 2nd house has nothing to do with it!

Remedies: Eating healthy, taking adequate rest, following good hygienic methods, drinking lots of fluid to prevent dehydration and to loosen the mucus in your lungs, making it easier to cough up, treatment with antibiotics and anti-viral medications, raising your head up with extra pillows while you're sleeping – to make breathing easier, stop smoking and drinking and getting vaccinated.

Now don’t follow what your astrologer tells you to do. It will not work!

Q: Does positive thinking help us according to science?

Krishna: NO! Surprised?

In the field of science to which I belong to ‘being realistic’ is treated as the right way to go about either in research or in life.

The thing that makes us truly strong is ‘being realistic’, neither positivity nor negativity. Being positive makes us expect too much. It is not a very effective tool and can be downright harmful in some cases, when you don’t get the picture right and anticipate more than you put efforts into a situation. That is like creating an illusion and kidding yourself!

There are much better ways to get the benefits that positive thinking allegedly provides. Can you actually go through life without labeling what happens to you as good or bad? Yes, you can. You have to train yourself to do this. You have been conditioned to think of things as bad or good. You can de-condition yourself.

Think of our pain and suffering as being hit by two arrows. The first arrow, the inevitable pain of life, whether a difficult event, thought or feeling, is shot at us; we have little control over this. But then we shoot a second arrow at ourselves with our own reaction to the pain, amplifying and prolonging it. The suffering from the refusal or pushing away of this pain, the "it shouldn’t be here," the "I can’t stand this," but also the blaming, the ruminating, the "why me?" the "it’s always been this way and always going to be this way" stories: these are the parts we add. To put it simply: pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Just see things and situations exactly as they are, analyse them neutrally using facts and true knowledge and realize the truth, not illusion like positive thinking shows, and tackle it in the right way. Just because you think positively and wish that something would happen, it will not happen without making the right efforts. An example: Majority of the poor people in the world daily wish they had money to have a decent living, food and housing. They wish and pray for it. But do they get what they want with just this positive thinking? NO!

If you think just positive thinking helps you, it just is your perception, not the truth.

Failures might occur in life. When they do, you should revisit your problem, analyse it thoroughly and realistically in an enlightened way and think you haven't found a proper solution to it yet and that's why you couldn't overcome it, then try to get one, increase your efficiency of the effort, plug the loopholes and go after it with all your might to defeat it.

That is the realistic way of doing things.

Q: How will you convince a depressed person to think positively?