Yawn...

You late for your afternoon nap?

Doesn't studying just about anything work like a bench-press for your brain? Math, music, any language.

Yes.

True but finishing high school would have.

Mayflies live for, what, 48 hours? Humans (and a few other animals) live for, what, about 16,500 times that long?

So, what if the extreme, bell curve defining, long lived alien lives for...16,500 times as long as us? That's 1.4, maybe 1.5 million years.

Wanna travel to a star 5000 light years away? Would be the equivalent of 1/300th of our life...or 4 months. Wagon trains traveled longer than that to explore. The Lewis and Clark of the long lived aliens would discover 5, maybe 6 planets...

No I'm not saying that at all.

Ha.
The last few decades have had lots of moments where discoveries have "complicated things".
Some still hold onto ideas from the late 1800's despite the complications.

Unfortunately "science" has been corrupted in some subjects.
In cults the answers are pre-defined and questions are not allowed.
In uncorrupted science upon each answer more questions are raised.
The uncorrupted scientific method is a tool to find and improve questions.



The point Peter might have been making is Latin equips one to read and write in a language used to categorize in research.
As such it is a tool that allows one direct access when reading raw research from which to form their own worldview.
Without knowing latin, one must remember "Tyrannosaurus Rex" as a seperate meaningless word attached to a particular finding.
If one knows Latin the name Tyrannosaurus Rex conveys meaning of itself.

All hail the king of the tyrant lizards! Long live the king!

You said that more eloquently than I was able.
Funny story- after reading this thread yesterday, I had a patient who is a biology undergrad major nearby. I jokingly asker her "Does latin help you think?" (in regards to her major).

She shrugged her shoulders, said "no" and we laughed. Pausing, she added, "I never took Latin, but now you mention it, perhaps it would" She then went on to state that her biggest challenge was learning the names to the animals. There was no context. For me, it was never an issue. I remember some areas you could actually deduce the answer just by connecting the latin dots, especially in human anatomy, and I was never that great of latin student btw

edit- and all this talk about latin, is (for me) more that latin is a gateway into the sciences. It's really the science education to which I'm thankful for giving the tools to begin to decipher not only information, but how to evaluate limited/imperfect information in real time. What to sweat vs. what not to sweat. And I ain't perfect. I recently interviewed for a post doctorate position, and while discussing the research requirements associated with the degree, the dean joked "We don't expect you discover some new cure for cancer or something, more, that the students gain an appreciation for just how hard good research is." As someone said earlier, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. I'm guilty as hell! :)

I learned a bit of Latin in elementary school. It was very helpful in many of my future classes/endeavors. It gave me insight into areas that other students and most teachers did not have. Any advnatage...is an advantage.

I'd say this distills my view of education. You may come out knowing a bit more about a subject or two, but you should also come out humbled by knowing you know almpst nothing and have much to learn. A lifetime is not enough.

^^^^Amen!!^^^^

It sounds like you are not experienced in these things.

Our entire world as we know it today would have been considered Scientifically impossible 10,000 years ago.

Even if you had a time machine and travelled back how would you prove something like a nuclear power plant was possible?

It's not scientifically possible with our present knowledge of science. We can't assume we know everything we need to know to yet.


There would be evidence.

Ancient civilizations would not have left the clues we have without either first hand knowledge or historical evidence to draw from.

If we all die, future civilizations will look at re-runs of the Jetsons and say "See , they weren't stupid after all."

This is the most interesting article I've read on the possibility of space aliens:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Perhaps because I don't know Latin at a language level it's easier to point out the struggles of not having learned it.
Helpful though was that many latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes, were fixed within my noggin when of single digit age.
Personally I was feeling my lack of Latin in the article Javadog linked about CV19.
Had it fresh in the mind.

Some critters in paleontology were named based on conjectures made with limited fragments.
When a greater number of fragments were later discovered the critters were found to be nothing like their names.
If one ever encounters the skeleton of a mid sized rat and find its latin name means whale sized sea lion...well, that is probably how that happened.

That is great.

Up next: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

How would you like to have spent 40 years in a discipline where you know your tools are lacking:

"Webb will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space. It will fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe."

Gee, thanks. One thing we do know for sure, Earth girls are easy.

Congratulations RWebb!! http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...s/beerchug.gif