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    My Christmas Gifts to Science 2.0
    By Enrico Uva | December 16th 2011 11:41 PM | 26 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
    About Enrico

    After majoring in chemistry at Concordia University I worked briefly at Fisheries and Oceans' Arctic Biological Station and in the food industry...

    View Enrico's Profile
    Not that anyone else is counting, but for my 100th blog/article, and for Christmas, I'm offering t-shirt ideas to Science 2.0. Evidently t-shirt sales are so far not exactly paying for the servers. Maybe scientists and science readers are simply too sophisticated to turn themselves into walking billboards, but just in case, here 's one with a logo designed in 2009 by one of my Korean students (Pauline Park) .
    And here's one for chemists with a corny sense of humor, modeled by a pretty chemist (they actually exist!)...

    Finally, for Dad and the other person still scrolling, from the 100 contributions, here are my favorite 8:
    1.Snow, Chemistry and the Spirit of Christmas
    2. Nitroglycerin In The Park Of My Youth
    3. Even When Pure Water is Blue
    4. The Chemistry Of Light Bulbs—And Why CFLs Are Overrated
    5. Crystal Ball Of Science? Or Pure Fantasy
    6.
    Nitrite In The Hot Dogs Of My  Youth
    7. The Science and Tradition of Winemaking

    Comments

    Johannes Koelman
    Congrats on your 100th!
    UvaE
    Thanks. The only reason I got to 100 so quickly is that the skeletons of some articles were already on my web site; a few others were rewrites of pieces I had written for a chemical education publication.
    The Stand-Up Physicist
    Based on your 100th blog, I read about the three billion trillion steps needed to make an average snowflake, and ordered a Science2.0 t-shirt from Cafe Press. I have a store there myself, and rarely ever sell a t-shirt because the price point is too high for what people expect to pay for t-shirt ($16+6=$22). For my own tees, I invested in inventory to get the price per shirt down to $15+3=$18, but now I found a math error so have flawed merchandize.
    UvaE
    They should go for volume, and lower those prices...but you didn't wait for them to incorporate some of my logos?! :)
    My other idea included
    Hank
    You're right, we don't sell a lot and ours are pretty good.  Mugs too.
    Top seller (if it can be called such?)


    Next time I do a group order, I will send all of you one.

    P.S. I am at 1,776 articles, though about 30 of those are unpublished; fragments, etc.



    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    UvaE
    P.S. I am at 1,776 articles, though about 30 of those are unpublished; fragments, etc.
    That's a prolific rate of about 1776 articles/57 months = 31 per month, or slightly more than 1 per day!
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Any chance of producing a Science 2.0 crackpot mug for us crackpots to buy? Maybe something like this....... 
     
    Make love not war
    UvaE
    Maybe the cup will become so popular that we will substitute the term crackpot with crackcup!
    Halliday
    I like your design, Helen.
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Thanks David, but would you order any? I definitely wouldn't call you a crackpot but you might know a few maybe?
    Make love not war
    Halliday
    While I do know a crackpot or two (or more), I think it would be fun to have one on my own desk.  :)

    Besides, I, too, may be a "crackpot", according to the definition you attribute to Hank:  "anyone who thinks outside of the current, scientific, groupthink square and is brave enough to admit it and then is open to attack."  ;)

    David
    The Stand-Up Physicist
    I refuse to order this. Several people however will send one to me.
    I like that! I'd buy a few for my looney friends.
     
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Hey, you could even order one for yourself Derek. Hank, this could be a very popular mug, at least 20% of your commentators at Science20 are probably crackpots according to your definition. You know, anyone who thinks outside of the current, scientific, groupthink square and is brave enough to admit it and then is open to attack.
    Make love not war
    Gerhard Adam
    You know, anyone who thinks outside of the current, scientific, groupthink square and is brave enough to admit it and then is open to attack.
    You always leave out the most important part of that sentence .... without evidence.
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Why should crackpots need any more evidence than scientists, when billions can be spent over many years, employing thousands of bona fide scientists, who still have no real evidence for their 'groupthink' Higg's boson and who tend to completely refute even their own experimental evidence, if it doesn't support their current groupthink hypothesis? Superluminal neutrinos and universal constants varying throughout the universe for example, these must be systematic errors otherwise their latest groupthink hypotheses would be wrong, wouldn't they?
    Make love not war
    Gerhard Adam
    Sure ... why not.  It's just all made up, and no one has evidence for anything, so anyone can say anything they like and still call it scientific. 
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Look Gerhard, the problem is that you call anyone a 'crackpot' who dares to question any funded, current 'groupthink' approved scientific endeavours in any way at all, demanding that the unfunded crackpots produce evidence, even when the funded scientists themselves often have little or no evidence for their hypotheses and may well later prove their own hypotheses to be wrong or alternatively in the meantime do their very best to ignore any evidence to the contrary, for as long as possible. No one who's actions have the potential to directly or indirectly impact upon society should be above scrutiny, not even scientists!
    Make love not war
    Gerhard Adam
    Fine, if you think that's an equivalent comparison, then by all means ... science is just whatever anyone wants to believe and speculate about.   However, despite your statements, I don't believe you're truly that confused.

    Also, as you well know, any scientist without evidence is speculating.  There may be a hypothesis that is being tested for evidence, but there's a basis for it.  You don't even bother to offer a hypothesis.  You just like making things up and rationalizing them based on the simplistic argument that no one can know everything.

    I've told you far too many times, that if you have an alternative idea then by all means spell it out and offer your hypothesis.  However, you never do.  You always just keep asking "what if" questions as if that somehow justifies your skepticism.  In short ... you offer nothing, and yet want to claim equal time and credence for your ideas.  That's not "thinking outside the box".  It barely qualifies as thinking.
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Yes, well at least I admit I am a crackpot, I'm not pretending to be an expert or anything, surely that would be worse? Anyway, back to my original question, any chance of producing a Science 2.0 crackpot mug for us crackpots to buy for Xmas or do we have to buy one and crack it ourselves?
    Make love not war
    I'm sure public money would be better spent if we adopted crackpot-review instead of peer-review.
     
    Superluminal neutrinos and universal constants varying throughout the universe for example, these must be systematic errors otherwise their latest groupthink hypotheses would be wrong, wouldn't they?

     
    Dear Crackpot,

    Groupthink is a pernicious thing! Why only last week I discovered that most scientists agree - yes even Tommaso and Lubos are of one mind on this - that 2 + 2 = 4. How conformist can you get ? Every crackpot knows that Godel (or was it Heisenberg?) proved that you can only be so-so certain about anything. But you can prove anything with statistics. CERN do it all the time.
     
    Long live the crackpots!

    Kind regards, Epimenides

    p.s. Maybe I won't buy one of those mugs. Someone might take me seriously and that would never do.

    p.p.s. Ther are three mistakes in this sentnce.


     

     
    Gerhard Adam
    p.p.s. Ther are three mistakes in this sentnce.
    That's a good one !!!
    Hey, you could even order one for yourself Derek. Hank, this could be a very popular mug,
    at least 20% of your commentators at Science20 are probably crackpots according to your
    definition. You know, anyone who thinks outside of the current, scientific, groupthink
    square and is brave enough to admit it and then is open to attack.

    ** ALARM BELLS **


    What have I said to deserve that? :)  
     
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    How about these comments just from the 'Einstein Got It Wrong' article :-
    'Well said.  Einstein got it wrong but everyone else got it wronger. For 80 years we have had to endure piffling mysticism and nonsensical "interpretations" which are now morphing into an unholy chimera of science and philosophy. Can it get any worse?' 
    and :-
    'Schrodinger called the Copenhagen (non) interpretation "a philosophical extravaganza born of despair in the face of a grave crisis". It still is, and, on a personal note, this is the main reason I parted company with physics after graduating in what seemed to be little more than solipsism wrapped up in mathematics'. 
     or maybe what you're saying is that they are all crackpots and you aren't? In which case I'm sorry, I take it all back, you can turn off the alarm bells. Being a crackpot means I can get a bit confused looking at things from my own unique perspective :~)

    Make love not war

    Crackpots? Oh yes. Totally. Didn't I make that clear?



       As for myself, I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
       southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.