The Big Picture: Science!

[Xanadu84]

This is weird. Bob is usually pretty thoughtful and realistic, down to earth in his assessments. And then suddenly he decides to act silly and childish for an episode.

I mean its fine, its funny and all, but it was a bit jarring.

But just to clarity

Science is practical. Jetpacks are not. But if you really want a jetpack to yourself, go pay a scientist a few million dollars.

Cultured meat is possible. But it's not cost effective when compared to old fashion slaughter. Also, you will still need something to grow the meat from. Practically there's just not enough of a difference yet between growing and slaughtering to justify the huge investment to start this up. And places in Africa have difficulty making a well, never mind a genetics lab. And lastly, you think food producers are anxious to be portrayed as affronts to God? I guerentee you that if McDonalds started selling burgers from hunks of non-animal flesh, there would be a boycott of terrified people who can't even get past the idea of irradiated food or genetic engineering. ell, Im very pro-science, and I would have to pause before trying a test tube burger because hey, its probably fine, but what if its not when I can just get a burger from this cow? Even if this was largely accepted (Which it wouldn't be) the loss of profit would be larger then the savings. I will grant you, however, that animal rights groups should be all over this. Well, unless they start thinking that a grown porkchop without a nervous system deserves rights. Which sounds crazy, but so does PETA general.

Space travel is cool. Working economies are better. Better to put space travel on the back burner and develop more practical technologies that will help facilitate faster space technology advancement in the future then blow all our cash now, and the resulting stagnation in our economy actually pushes back space travel by decades. Do you make 1 SVC in Starcraft then then let him gather minerals to kick out a marine? No, you make a bunch of boring SCVs which means that you have Siege Tanks instead. If you want Space Travel, research the kind of practical technologies that will make life better now AND help space travel long term. Also, the whole lying thing probably wouldn't actually pass Peer Review. Scientists give way, way more transparency then other professions, and even politicians get caught. Scientists couldn't manage this.

We have been forcefully evolving dogs for millenia. Maybe we are better at it now, but that's still a pretty huge head start. And once its domesticated, evolution becomes easier. If there's a demand, it will likely happen. Personally, I say screw dogs, go check out domesticated Foxes

 

[BgRdMchne]

I don't need to be psychic to know these things.

Yes you do. At least to be certain

If we're going to get pedantic, then I'll argue that there is no such thing as absolute knowledge and that all is just informed speculation.

Remember when it was "known" that the world was flat or that the atom was the smallest piece of mass, etc. Although the scientific method may be a little more accurate than Greek mythology at explaining the world, it is not perfect.

 

[RadiusXd]

I will answer all 3 of these to the best of my knowledge with as few words as possible.

A) Why no Jet packs, Fly Car, and what not.

Answer: We have Jet backs, and we have flying cars (there called planes). See Jet packs are difficult to use as a flying requires much more skill then driving. Air is difficult to navigate and takes lots of skill and training to be able to perform safely. And even after all that, the numerous jet packs, and rocket powered wing suits that exist are still VERY dangerous. One mistake and you are dead, one pocket of thin air and you have a serious accident. Jet propulsion is not an efficient form of mass transit no matter how neat it might sound.

Why not grown meat?

Answer: It's not cost effective. They are working on it but the general issue is that the cost of growing an organ super out weighs the cost of raising cattle. Raising cattle is pretty cheap as they feed them selves, and what they eat is a renewable resource. The whole system is already in place, so why grow them? Its a fine idea if the science can make it cost effective which we are very far from.

Whats up with the human space program?

Answer: It's useless. And I'm serious, it's completely fucking useless. The only use is to mine asteroids which might be a profitable venture, which can be done by robots. Robots can handle all of our space travel needs at a fraction of the cost.
Now why is it useless? Because people in space is unnecessary and will always be unnecessary. Robots and AI are the key tools to space exploration, when it comes to deep space exploration we will first be sending robots who can do things like survive absolute zero, and 1000 year journeys to the nearest life harnessing planet. As far as physics is concerned faster then Light speed travel is impossible. So we have so pretty insane treks to the nearest life habitable star.
Tell me who was better for scientists, Spirit and Opportunity or Neil Armstrong? Spirit and Opportunity killed the human space program.

Why no small genetically altered bear pets.

Well we could, but we just don't. You could without fancy genetic experimentation, Down breed bears into small cute domesticated pets. But the issues that stand in the way are things like Bears being protected a species, and it not being cost effective. And the number of generations it would take would be quite staggering. See dogs have been domesticated over many years and they are ready to breed within a year of birth. Which makes domestication quite simple. That and wolves don't attack people, bears do.


Past that we have better things to solve before we can start on deep space exploration, like developing long lasting and reliable sources of energy, using genes to super evolve our species into something far beyond anything we could imagine, and continue to develop computer technologies so we can better facilitate every last aspect of our existence.

you do know what time dilation is right?

 

[RJ Dalton]

Not to crush your hopes and dreams, Bob, but there actually is a *very* significant problem with building stations on Mars. See, there was a Biodome experiment done a while back that totally fell apart a while back. It turns out, you can't make an enclosed environment to mimic the outside world because the growth of certain bacteria messes up the the oxygen levels dramatically within the space of a couple of months and we have no way of controlling it. I believe the project was called Biosphere2, if you want to look up the details. Basically, it was exactly the same as the Biodome movie, though; a carefully controlled experiment being ruined by unexpected and unwanted brainless organisms far below the level of evolution expressed by the rest of the planet.

 

[The Imp]

ill just leave this here
http://www.imgftw.net/img//170221905.jpg

 

[Gallium]

Science Answers! (I am a Chemist)

Point 1) The Jet Pack.
I'm not going to give you the lame answer of "you already have them, here is the Bell rocket belt". I take it you want more than 20 seconds of flight and less death-trapness.

You don't have Your jet pack because chemistry says "No."
No ifs, no buts.

Chemically fuelled jet packs simply can not contain enough energy in such a small area. This chemistry, all the laws (well, the major ones at least) are known and not going to change. We have pictures (Thank you Electron Microscopes!). You can compress and store the fuel as much as you like, but eventually you start hitting the limits of what is mechanically possible / weigh so much you lose all benefit of carrying the extra fuel.

Now, you could say "use nuclear!"... but if you could do that at "carry on your back" levels, you would have things far, far cooler than a jet pack to play with.

Which leads us neatly on to answer...

Point 3) Why no cities on Mars?
Chemistry says "No.... at least at cost effective levels".

Exactly the same problem as above. You can not get enough bang per buck with chemical reactions to launch the HUGE rockets required for a colonisation effort cheaply. As for your idea of lying... Consider this:
Say the Moon is covered in solid gold bars. No need to dig them, no need to refine the ore, just solid bars lying around you can pick up and chuck in your space ship.
At today's prices would still be cheaper to just dig it out of the ground on earth than to send a person up there to get them and bring them back.

*THAT* is how expensive space travel is.

Now, once again, you could use nuclear. More sensible idea this time round, but most ways of doing it require for transporting the multi-hundred ton nuclear engine into orbit (while they can reach a much higher top speed, they don't generate sufficient thrust to get into orbit to begin with). Which brings us back to our old friend chemistry... which is a *****.

Point 2) Grow Meat.

Science is working on it. But... it is bloody expensive! For the moment at least.
Once again, consider this:

Scientist + Lab + Chemicals + Biotech process + Quality Checks + Regulations = The Definition of Expensive.

Some guy + Field of Grass + Cow = Cheap.

Sorry, down to money. Making meat cheaper than "leave and animal with some grass" is going to be very hard work.


Point 4) Small Dogs

Genetic variability. Dogs have the highest variability in their genes of any animal, they are also domesticated making them easy to select traits (because of this variability) via breeding. Bears... not so much. Any variation in their genes will be killed to death in the wild making the task even harder.

Now, genetic engineering might be able to help you in the future. But that will take time. And a lot of Bears.

Hope that helps!

 

[Unesh52]

Yeah, neat episode there Bob. Glib, of course, but funny. I don't know; I'd be more into it, but I was expecting an expansion on your views about how science is portrayed in pop culture.

...maybe you want to write an article about that? I would read it. Just sayin.

 

[lralowicz]

Well... Jetpack is actually not a problem. Making pants that will last longer in a jet stream than saying: "Oh damn. My nuts are on fire" is a problem. Also... People have problems with 2 dimensional travelling (cars). And You want another one to the mixture?

 

[MB202]

Wow... This episode was AWFUL! Bob really came off as a big dick in this episode. I mean, there was some stuff in the middle, but most of it made me want to punch Bob for being so immature about these things.

not sure if trolling.....

FYI, I never troll. I think trolling is stupid and wrong,a nd I don't see any enjoyment in purposefully pissing people off. What I said there was what I meant, I really don't like this episode, because Bob's demands from science came off as really piffy.

Not that it matters, this show is LITERALLY about saying whatever he wants to say, so I can't really fault him here for saying what's on his mind. I just think it's really stupid.

 

[PunkRex]

Bob: I just wanna bang green chicks.

Me: And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?

BOB, IM ASKING YOU A QUESTION!?

 

[Gluzzbung]

Hate to say it, but the reason we're still on Earth is because any type of bacteria on another planet would kill everyone it touched, most likely.

no its not, not at all. think space suit. and then think about getting to those planets. and rethink what you just said.

So you think people would be able to construct a steller space station, on an alien planet, and keep it air tight so no bacteria could get in? That's unreasonable and what do you clean the space suit with? Even if it is possible, which I highly doubt to the degree of certainty, it would be completely uneconomical because of the amount you would need to take and how frequently you would need to take it.

you do know there a space station above us right now, where people live for years at a time, in space, where there is not atmosphere at all. i think you need to stop and do a bit of thinking.

And when was the last time the ISS clocked a profit? And where is the nearest inhabitable planet? Yeah, that's what I thought. Uneconomical. Also, people only live in the ISS for about 6 months at a time, because of a multitude of factors, namely muscle deteriorating, developing irregular bodily functions such as not being able to digest food properly and stress, along with a whole host of others.

 

[sanzo]

Where is that first jetpack image from? 0:32

I'm pretty sure it's from The Rocketeer, a movie where a guy gets a jetpack and has to keep it away from Nazis.
EDIT: I'm about 99.9% sure it's from The Rocketeer, looking at the IMDb page.

OT: But cultured meat would taste like despair. Oh I hope someone gets that reference.

Better Off Ted, Amirite?

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Can we not just shoot glen beck into the sun? I mean come on what's the moon done to deserve that cock nozzle

 

[Unesh52]

Smaller brain = less intelligence.

I agree that at a certain point, a brain would be too small to house all of the necessary functional tools that precede intelligence. However, I get the impression that the broader implication here is that brain size is proportional to intelligence, which is very obviously false. For instance, a whale's brain is *[small]many times[/small] larger than a human's, but humans are certainly more intelligent than whales.

Were you just trying to say that a brain of such proportions that it would fit inside a very small bear's head would be unable to house all of the parts necessary to allow the bear to survive?

EDIT: I went back and looked it up. I don't think the brains are "many times" larger, but they are significantly larger.

 

[newguy77]

OT: But cultured meat would taste like despair. Oh I hope someone gets that reference.

Better Off Ted, Amirite?

Yeah buddy. Love that show. Too bad it died before its time.

 

[scdallav]

Ok, so probably someone else already said this, but whenever I click "more comments" I only get to see 2. PETA actually did contribute some funding for the development of cultured meat.

 

[Callate]

I'm pretty sure the answer to the all the questions is more or less the same:

Money.

Well, we do have jet packs, to a limited degree; it's just that they're wildly impractical, as we either end up using fuel that can only carry someone on limited flights for about fifteen minutes (I'm not looking up the exact specifics right now, feel free to correct me if someone feels the urge), or we, um, set the jet pack's user on fire. And while mankind may have always felt an urge to fly, I doubt we were really hoping to imitate a meteor in the act.

We can grow meat in a vat, but right now it's the most expensive meat on earth. It's cheaper, for now, to grow it in a field or feedlot; from the "starving person in Africa"'s point of view, it's way cheaper to eat rice and beans. And it doesn't put those associated with the feedlot and slaughterhouse out of work (I'll leave it an open question whether or not that's a good thing.)

Robert Heinlein once made the argument that the benefits of the R&D involved in the space program- in regards to its re-purposing for use on Earth- far outweighed the financial costs. I don't know if that's still the case, but it seems to have become harder to justify the space program in an era of cross-the-board cuts, and it's a damn shame.

What do you feed a guinea pig the size of a bear? How do you deal with the waste? How do you deal with the body when it inevitably dies in the relatively short life-span of a guinea pig?

 

[Daverson]

1. I'll level with you. It's an insurance thing. (Same with robot butlers, but for different reasons)

2. Let's compare cows to pandas, shall we? Cows are big, dumb and tasty, Pandas are big, dumb and not particularly tasty (If you squint, they both kind of look the same too!). Now, I don't have the exact numbers on hand, but I think there's several billion cows worldwide, whereas there's only about 5 or 6 pandas. You take being eaten away from cows, then what have they got? Making Milk? Any mammal can do that, even Pandas! (if we milked people, I think a lot more people would want to be farmers!)

3. Actually, there probably is oil on Mars. A lot of scientists speculate Mars used to harbour earth-like life, so unless someone else has already stolen it, there'll be oil. Of course, the energy cost of moving oil from Mars to Earth is much greater than the energy that could be provided by said oil...

4. Dogs are relatively easy to domestic and breed, bears on the other hand...

 

[Hagi]

On the cultured meat thing,

wouldn't that be about equal to pig genocide?

I mean if suddenly everyone starts buying cultured meat then all the money is going to go towards the cultured meat laboratories, not to the pig farms.

Those pig farms are going to run out of money and they're going to be unable to feed all those pigs. All those pigs is going to be slaughtered asap so the owners keep enough money to just survive. In a decade or so you're going to have to go to the zoo to see pigs, because for the vast majority of people there'd be absolutely no reason whatsoever to keep pigs around. And in a world where thousands of children die every year due to starvation the amount of people who're going to feed a pig out of charity is bound to be extremely low.

The effect on other farm animals may be lower, cows still give milk and sheep still give wool. But even for them their populations are going to drop if we switch to cultured meat.

In short, switching to cultured meat (or everyone going vegan) basically means the deaths of millions of farm animals....

 

[Unesh52]

Science was going to feed the world, and take us to space.... But then, Green Peace...

XD Ah... fucking Green Peace. I'm sure not everything they do is fiercely ignorant and counter productive.

But a lot of it is.