Scienceballs

Get your science fix here: research, quackery, activism and all the rest
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sTeamTraen
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Scienceballs

Post by sTeamTraen » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:11 am

Like Private Eye's Commentatorballs (formerly Colemanballs) but for science.

Exhibit 1, last night on Sky News, Dermot Murnaghan: "The average temperature in the last decade was 1.1 degrees Celsius or 34 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in the first half of the 20th century". Likely the result of putting "What is 1.1 Celsius in Fahrenheit" into Google, I suppose. (I'm being generous with "Celsius", as he might well have said "centigrade", but that's a minor transgression.)
Something something hammer something something nail

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tenchboy
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Re: Scienceballs

Post by tenchboy » Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:02 pm

One of the last things I saw before my tele went in the skip circa 07,08 was an episode of Scrapyard Challenge in which it was said that the (car) battery was used for storing electric current.
If you want me Steve, just Snapchat me yeah? You know how to Snapchap me doncha Steve? You just...

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Boustrophedon
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Re: Scienceballs

Post by Boustrophedon » Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:34 pm

tenchboy wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:02 pm
One of the last things I saw before my tele went in the skip circa 07,08 was an episode of Scrapyard Challenge in which it was said that the (car) battery was used for storing electric current.
Ditto stores charge, or stores electricity, both of which descriptions occur in school science textbooks.

In the Times Ed some years ago there was a report of an exemplary lesson planned by an award winning teacher. The lesson was supposed to illustrate the transmission of electrical power and involved the pupils walking around the classroom in a circle. As the pupils circulated they picked a piece of paper off the desk, passed a teacher who lit it and they then deposited the burning paper in the steel bin at the other end of the classroom.

It was explained that the pupils represented the electrons, and the burning paper the energy transferred. Quite apart from the H&S implications, it is hard to see even one thing that is right with the mental model that the pupils would have come away with at the end of the lesson. Ok so current flows in a closed loop.
Hjulet snurrar men hamstern är död.

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Rich Scopie
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Re: Scienceballs

Post by Rich Scopie » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:30 pm

tenchboy wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:02 pm
One of the last things I saw before my tele went in the skip circa 07,08 was an episode of Scrapyard Challenge in which it was said that the (car) battery was used for storing electric current.
Did you decide you were more of a Gibson man?
It first was a rumour dismissed as a lie, but then came the evidence none could deny:
a double page spread in the Sunday Express — the Russians are running the DHSS!

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murmur
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Re: Scienceballs

Post by murmur » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:37 pm

Rich Scopie wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:30 pm
tenchboy wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:02 pm
One of the last things I saw before my tele went in the skip circa 07,08 was an episode of Scrapyard Challenge in which it was said that the (car) battery was used for storing electric current.
Did you decide you were more of a Gibson man?
Or Rickenbacker ------->

Sorry for being facetious in the nerdy area (Rich started it!). As penance I will post a serious thread on a serious topic.
It's so much more attractive inside the moral kiosk

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