Like we didn't know?

[voluptuary_manque]

I don't know about scientists. Proving sex is good exercise? This needs proof?

 

[Handley_Page]

I don't know about scientists. Proving sex is good exercise? This needs proof?

Well, it seems to me that they need to Prove Everything (beyond any doubt).
Like Science I guess.
The fact that we all know it for a fact is not [quite] the same thing.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Quantification can be much more useful than "everyone knows this."

 

[carlieplum]

A Scottish study from a few years back says it makes you live longer, also.

 

[Handley_Page]

A Scottish study from a few years back says it makes you live longer, also.

Now THAT'S worth it in itself.
All I need now is. . . . .

 

[MatthewVett]

Yeah, I think the quantification is the most important, because I've seen a lot of urban legends about how many calories it burns. Of course, sex is such a diverse exercise that it's going to come down a lot to how you do it.

 

[sr71plt]

Quantification can be much more useful than "everyone knows this."

Yes, but it's not always the next best way to spend research money.

 

[lovecraft68]

More money awarded to yet another "Captain Obvious" study.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yes, there is always something much, much more important than whatever the study is, no matter what.

But science doesn't work that way.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, there is always something much, much more important than whatever the study is, no matter what.

But science doesn't work that way.

No, it would be a waste to study diseases and cures for them or the economy and what can be done or anything useful. Lets waste money on something the results of which are not just obvious but has been talked about in Maxim, Cosmo and who knows how many other magazines ans shows?

Then again I never win this one. I'm the guy that gets jerked off that we are trillions in debt, but will spend billions trying to find out what kind of rocks are on Mars

 

[Handley_Page]

No, it would be a waste to study diseases and cures for them or the economy and what can be done or anything useful. Lets waste money on something the results of which are not just obvious but has been talked about in Maxim, Cosmo and who knows how many other magazines ans shows?

Then again I never win this one. I'm the guy that gets jerked off that we are trillions in debt, but will spend billions trying to find out what kind of rocks are on Mars

There's been expressed a view over in the UK (a nation providing financial support for a few foreign countries) that when one of those same nations spends a large sum of cash on
"Inter-planetary exploration"; they've sent up an expensive Satellite.
There are those who feel that they just simply should not be in receipt of our financial support.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yep, all those trillions of dollars, yep yep. Let's pretend the bulk of it isn't swirling down the financial drain of the military-industrial complex and into the pockets of Big Finance-- often at the very same time-- and we will bitch about the costs of one research project at a time.

I figure scientists seem like an easier target.

 

[Bramblethorn]

No, it would be a waste to study diseases and cures for them or the economy and what can be done or anything useful. Lets waste money on something the results of which are not just obvious but has been talked about in Maxim, Cosmo and who knows how many other magazines ans shows?

Then again I never win this one. I'm the guy that gets jerked off that we are trillions in debt, but will spend billions trying to find out what kind of rocks are on Mars

If it's any comfort, that research brings quite a lot of benefits here on Earth. Technology developed for one purpose often turns out to be useful for other things too. Here's a list of some of the spinoff technologies coming out of the space program: artificial heart-assist pumps, robot-assisted surgery, aircraft and road safety tech, early cataract detection, cheap pollution cleanup, and quality-control processes that halved salmonella rates. That last one alone is worth about 400 lives/year in the USA.

 

[lovecraft68]

If it's any comfort, that research brings quite a lot of benefits here on Earth. Technology developed for one purpose often turns out to be useful for other things too. Here's a list of some of the spinoff technologies coming out of the space program: artificial heart-assist pumps, robot-assisted surgery, aircraft and road safety tech, early cataract detection, cheap pollution cleanup, and quality-control processes that halved salmonella rates. That last one alone is worth about 400 lives/year in the USA.

Right and most of the benefits had nothing to do with flying their trillion dollar machines anywhere.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Right and most of the benefits had nothing to do with flying their trillion dollar machines anywhere.

In fact, the flying machines had everything to do with those benefits. Technological development doesn't go in straight lines.

 

[Hypoxia]

If it's any comfort, that research brings quite a lot of benefits here on Earth. Technology developed for one purpose often turns out to be useful for other things too. Here's a list of some of the spinoff technologies coming out of the space program: artificial heart-assist pumps, robot-assisted surgery, aircraft and road safety tech, early cataract detection, cheap pollution cleanup, and quality-control processes that halved salmonella rates. That last one alone is worth about 400 lives/year in the USA.

I recall reading that the economic benefits from weather satellites alone more than offset the costs of the world's entire space+rocketry programs. All the other spinoffs from space programs are just gravy.

About 'wasted' research:

1) Lots of what we think is obvious, isn't true, and reality is only revealed by research. Earth ain't flat; the universe ain't geocentric. "Sex is good exercise" may be 'obvious' and true, but the statement is more meaningful when the inputs and outputs are measured and quantified.

2) Mass-media accounts of scientific research are notoriously sloppy. And researchers who skip peer review and go straight-to-media can be just as sloppy -- cf. "cold fusion". Do you want to understand the work? Then read scientific papers, not newspapers.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Right and most of the benefits had nothing to do with flying their trillion dollar machines anywhere.

Once upon a time there was a football coach who decided his players weren't going to do weights training or pushups, because nobody ever needs to do those things during a real game. He just wanted them to concentrate on the stuff that actually happens in a game: running, kicking, throwing, he figured anything else was a waste of time. And his team got clobbered, because even though you never need to do pushups or lift weights in the middle of a football game, those things are a pretty effective way to build muscle and fitness.

So it is with science. Landing a rover on Mars doesn't save anybody's life directly, but the 'muscle' you develop along the way - skills and knowledge base - can be incredibly useful elsewhere.

FWIW, NASA's total budget throughout history is about $800 billion adjusted for inflation. That's about as much as the DoD's direct spending on the Iraq war; throw in the indirect costs of that war and it comes to several trillion. Even without the spin-offs, space exploration sounds more cost-effective to me.

 

[lovecraft68]

News flash!

I want to post this here before someone gives a University a grant for millions to study it.

I just spent over an hour shoveling heavy slushy snow. I was bending and lifting and moving and burning calories as well as forcing myself to throw the heavy snow back over my shoulder.

I have come to the conclusion shoveling can be a a form of exercise.

 

[jehoram]

A Scottish study from a few years back says it makes you live longer, also.

Reminds me of that joke:

"Is it true that married people live longer than unmarried people?"

"Well, it certainly seems like longer."

 

[sr71plt]

Once upon a time there was a football coach who decided his players weren't going to do weights training or pushups, because nobody ever needs to do those things during a real game. He just wanted them to concentrate on the stuff that actually happens in a game: running, kicking, throwing, he figured anything else was a waste of time. And his team got clobbered, because even though you never need to do pushups or lift weights in the middle of a football game, those things are a pretty effective way to build muscle and fitness.

So it is with science. Landing a rover on Mars doesn't save anybody's life directly, but the 'muscle' you develop along the way - skills and knowledge base - can be incredibly useful elsewhere.

FWIW, NASA's total budget throughout history is about $800 billion adjusted for inflation. That's about as much as the DoD's direct spending on the Iraq war; throw in the indirect costs of that war and it comes to several trillion. Even without the spin-offs, space exploration sounds more cost-effective to me.

OK, I get it. Financially backing a study proving that sex is good exercise is justified because it helps you win football games--and we all know how important that is.

 

[Stella_Omega]

OK, I get it. Financially backing a study proving that sex is good exercise is justified because it helps you win football games--and we all know how important that is.

It's an argument that could work for a lot of people in this country.

 

[lovecraft68]

OK, I get it. Financially backing a study proving that sex is good exercise is justified because it helps you win football games--and we all know how important that is.

Winning football games at the college level is important enough to allow the football "students" to assault coeds, fellow students, drink and drive, never enter a classroom and in the case of Aaron Hernandez in 2007 be involved in a shooting and still be allowed to play football for Miami (shocking he would murder someone) and of course in the case of many never so muich as take a single exam themselves.

To top it off it was so important to win in Penn State people turned their heads while young boys were being sodomized by a sexual predator.

And that event did nothing to change things just look at "Johnny Football" the red neck from Texas who


punched someone out in a bar accepted money from boosters and his father has declared publicly that Johnny has an alcohol problem. Yet all that and if he declares for the draft will be a top two pick

But never fear the NCAA took staunch measures with Johnny after all the aforementioned issues they suspended him for one quarter of a football game

That's tough love baby!

College football is one of the most corrupt industries you'll ever find and the NFL feeds it more and more every year

 

[Stella_Omega]

Excellent post, L.C.

Much, much better to go on to the next rant than saying anything like; "Yeah, I can kind of see your point there about the original topic, Bramblethorn, Stella, and Hypoxia."

Have another beer?

 

[sr71plt]

It's certainly true that if we took all that money we throw at guys to play games and put it into research on whether sex is good exercise we'd get to the moon faster (and probably more often too).

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's certainly true that if we took all that money we throw at guys to play games and put it into research on whether sex is good exercise we'd get to the moon faster (and probably more often too).

Okay, you're on a roll.