the buffalo running down the road is in a vehicle that passed them on the road and started the buffalo running.

down that road on nice days apparently it leads deeper into the park

as they move from grassy area to grassy area, fertilizing those they've left behind. They're also going deeper into the crater, not away from it. In addition, the next eruption is going to take place miles northeast of the present caldera because of plate tectonics. You know, SCIENCE.

Some people just spend their lives looking around for things to scare themselves half to death over. This gal in the OP must be one of them. Willful ignorance makes the scare more complete.

and I'll say this, those fuckers can move when they want to.

People just have this desire to live in extraordinary times that it overrides commonsense.

That's why we have all sorts of religious and secular lunatics shouting about one sort or another of global doom is impending.

They can't have adapted an evolutionary behavior to avoid volcanos since evolution can only innovate in the face of constant environmental challenges. A supervolcano or even a regular volcano erupts so infrequently that there would be no positive selection bias for buffalo whose mutations randomly grant the ability to detect oncoming seismic activity.

SCIENCE!

I gave up on that quest years ago.

Trying to convince the willfully ignorant is like teaching a pig to sing opera after a mud wrestling session.

were running deeper into the park (volcano) not fleeing it....
Oops, truth again...damn
Quick! Look over there! UFO! Get that guy from TruTV with the funny hair to prove it is aliens!

and saw the bison many times. Once a group of them were running. My first though was it must be a nice day to run if you are a buffalo; my second was that they wanted to catch the main herd that was over the next hill...

I suppose they could have been running from something

If we are to believe the Big Bang Theory and that God does not exist then what the heck are we here for? I think most want to believe that their has to be something after our time on Earth because if not? What is the use? Not my thoughts but just people I have spoken to over the years.

for many if they believe this is it, a flicker of life, and then nothing for eternity. They need it to move forward in life, to avoid utter depression, to at minimal try to accomplish something in life. Hence, it seems for almost all societies there have been belief systems in something greater than mankind. Hence, religion and all that goes with it, and also the charlatans that fleece the flocks.

I have a background in the physical and social sciences. I've come to accept over the years that this is it, there is no more, death is death. What keeps me going is an innate excitement about what the next day will bring, but I have no rosy view of a heaven and all of that. To me, when I die, that's it, end of the show.

That all said, I do have a view, advanced, of folded space, time warps, all of that and the fact energy continues on forever, and this leads me to think of multidimensional space ... and a bunch of stuff. That I can think about, but not the standard fare of the belief of an afterlife.

(not an inclusive list of causes)

for heresy?

If she wants to believe the Yellowstone caldera is about to blow, let her. If she's right, it won't matter anyway.

There's no convincing the stupid.

But she doesn't believe it enough.

Seriously, if Yellowstone goes that's a planetary level extinction event AFAIUI.

it certainly is an event that could eventually kill a billion or two humans due to food shortages, but it won't extinct the human race or any other species except maybe a handful of small populations who might be affected by a couple of years of "nuclear winter"

How significantly, one can debate, I guess, but certainly I think we can all agree we hope it doesn't happen any time soon.

Hard to compete with those promises.

they take all of their money/assets with them. That one will wake up in heaven surrounded by wealth. And, he seemed amazed I did not believe similar. To me, it was a giant WTF. Some are so delusional and so easily manipulated. I'm sure he was a big financial supporter of his church. I don't know if there are more bizarre people and beliefs today, or we just hear more about them with today's improved communications.

I haven't read it in fifty years and I know the relevant verses:

Matthew 19:

see today is many christians have maligned religion to suit their own selfish agenda, and others have turned love into hate cults. When I hear many start spouting the bible, interpreting what people have said eons ago, they fail on facts and demonstrate little understanding of religion than what some fool has crammed into them.

I tried to show her that it isn't healthy, and that the primary benefit is simply from weight loss. It doesn't dissolve fat and none of its proponents can actually name which toxins it supposedly cleanses. I showed her quotes from doctors discrediting the practice, and I told her to eat solid foods of the same caloric amounts and drink water if she really wants to lose weight.

She is currently on the cleanse. You can't reason with some people. Once they "read it in a magazine", it's all over. These magazines and dodgy health blogs are practically the bible for some.

She keeps trying to tell me to get off some of my medications because eating and drinking certain things will have the same effects as the medications.

I have friends who think they can rid their bodies of "toxic frequencies" by walking outside barefoot

The thinking goes that since you have to "ground" electrical appliances, then walking on the ground will "ground" the body's electricity. Otherwise "toxic frequencies" will build up.

So human static isn't a problem.

and it will do no harm. I guess this is why I am so grounded, I love to walk in bare feet. I didn't even know it was good for me.

My sister and I both got ringworm from our love of bare feet, lol.

I guess it could do harm.

Lucky for me, that has not been an issue. When I was a kid, I don't think I ever had shoes on in the summer.

oh the callouses we got by June. I could walk barefoot on asphalt' I am such a tenderfoot now.

Because ground.

to walk outside barefoot, and have the callouses to prove it. No harm in the practice, as far as I can tell.

Although now I know why I'm so much better balanced than most, electrically speaking.

Since we are on the topic of scientific truth - I hope the CDC counts as a reliable source

-------------------------------------------

http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/Hookworm/

An estimated 576-740 million people in the world are infected with hookworm. Hookworm was once widespread in the United States, particularly in the southeastern region, but improvements in living conditions have greatly reduced hookworm infections. Hookworm, Ascaris, and whipworm are known as soil-transmitted helminths (parasitic worms). Together, they account for a major burden of disease worldwide.

Hookworms live in the small intestine. Hookworm eggs are passed in the feces of an infected person. If the infected person defecates outside (near bushes, in a garden, or field) of if the feces of an infected person are used as fertilizer, eggs are deposited on soil. They can then mature and hatch, releasing larvae (immature worms). The larvae mature into a form that can penetrate the skin of humans. Hookworm infection is mainly acquired by walking barefoot on contaminated soil. One kind of hookworm can also be transmitted through the ingestion of larvae.

Most people infected with hookworms have no symptoms. Some have gastrointestinal symptoms, especially persons who are infected for the first time. The most serious effects of hookworm infection are blood loss leading to anemia, in addition to protein loss. Hookworm infections are treatable with medication prescribed by your health care provider.

it seems very much like a no-brainer to me.

But, thanks for the info. I'll use caution in my barefoot walking.

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

Khalil Gibran

could deal with" which showed her just how necessary it was.

Changes in one's diet can absolutely affect your health.

If you are prone to yeast infections you can do a 3 week cleansing diet by eliminating all sugar and yeast and you will definitely help your body.

MY SIL was diagnosed as pre-diabetic and went on a 3 week dietary change where she removed sugar and carbs from her diet. Got retested and her levels came up normal.

People eat a lot of crap and there's nothing wrong with a dietary cleanse to sort of reset yourself.

As is giving up alcohol and other harmful addictive substances.

The alternative medicine "toxin flushes" are not. There's a huge difference between them.

Once my dad was diagnosed with diabetes, both he and I, on the advice of our family doctor, started eating healthier and cutting certain foods out of our diets. We didn't buy a "toxin kit" online and hope to crap out diabetes.

I just point out that this is what our liver and kidneys are for. Drink a lot of water. It will "flush the toxins" from one's body quicker than any fast, or any concoction one might consume.

I thought everyone had to take Biology class to graduate from high school. Seems there are an awful lot of people who slept through it, because that's where they teach you about how your organs work. Hell, lots of us got that in junior high. SMH.

Too much alcohol, sugar, etc... Nothing wrong with taking a break from those things to "cleanse".

Weight gain happens over a long time and any instant relief (like surgery) is dangerous. Fad diets do not work.

People gain weight primarily from eating too many empty (non-nutritious) calories or the calories are nutritious but way more than the body needs. This crowds out other nutrients and the person craves food because they are malnourished.

Feed a starving skin and bones child a 6 oz cup of ice cream a day and it will help them immensely, along with other nutrients in other foods and after ramping up from 1 oz. Feed anybody a quart tub of ice cream a day and they will gain fat and become overweight. It's not evil, but people have a toxic relationship with ice cream and sugar and excess fat.

Eat reasonable proportions of healthy nutrients and exercise moderately and the pounds will fall away. Not overnight, but over the course of two years it will make a big difference. Introduce such a big change into your diet gradually.

It's not the science, it's the controls placed on science and media that give people this effed-up way of looking at the world. Personally I think the Bison were running because the Forestry Service announced a Bison cull. Smarter than the average bear, eh Bo-Bo?

Science is fine. But scientists are underfunded.

Sadly, I work with scientists who also believe in the nonsense others have pointed out on this thread.

Scientists don't prove their theories true. They put them out there for other scientists (and sometimes themselves) to prove them false.

Theories that stand repeated attempts to prove them false are good theories. Good theories that explain a lot and are fundamental are accepted as being so close to fact that we use them as fact. Like gravity and evolution.

No one knows that.

Not even the most esteemed scientist.

"Neither the quake nor the uplift suggest an eruption sooner than tens of thousands of years from now, said Peter Cervelli, associate director for science and technology at the U.S. Geological Survey's Volcano Science Center in California."

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/yellowstone-volcano-warning-its-bunk-park-officials-say-n72416

there goes my other student loan repayment plan, I was hoping for the last end of the world to cover everything...

Indicators, those predictions would be changed.

A prediction is just a wild ass guess, and the key word is "suggest"

systematic and deliberate defunding of education to establish a serf class unable to think for themselves.

She is not a witch. In fact, years ago, when she rented out rooms in our former house, she kicked out a boarder because she burned incense. She viewed that as witchcraft, so the poor young girl had to go.

But now she has a wand. It's about the size of a pen. She waves it over her food, her sore shoulder, her cats....

I'm an engineer. I struggle with the existence of her wand. It seems to make her happy, and my boys do find it to be utter BS.

(She also ingests liquid silver. And gives it to her cats.)

Her Wand is needed in Jellystone these days.

That's not the same as "liquid silver" as silver would not be liquid at room temperature.

are moving toward the volcano not away from it. I do not know how to link it but the story is here on DU.

I don't understand it either

Because science has a very, very long history of being incorrect. Just read any 20, 50, 100 year old science journal and see how much still applies. ..peer reviewed studies, same thing. .

That's why studies are peer-reviewed, and we have the scientific method.

I'm more inclined to believe science than I am, say, Dr. Oz...

There are some scientific facts which I prefer not to be on the learning curve. ..scientific fact today will either be common knowledge or junk science tomorrow. ..

Skepticism is wise for anyone making critical decisions based on a claim of scientific fact.

I believe what ever I'm told by the scientific community. ..

Evidence is tentative and provisional. When better evidence becomes available, it supplants the old evidence.

No one expects that astronomists could have accepted the Big Bang without the technology to detect CMBR and red shift, or biologists to know about cells without a microscope. For all the scientific community knew before those technologies, they were entirely rational in accepting what we now know as insufficient explanations.

When anyone starts talking about 'scientific fact', is wise.

Though I don't think it means what you think it does.

A fact is an observable, verifiable phenomenon. For example, it's a fact the sun "rises." What you're likely referring to are hypotheses and theories, the explanations about facts--heliocentrism and gravitational theory, which explain that the sun "rises" because it's the center of the solar system and holds Earth in its gravitational field. Those change as new evidence is found; geocentrism was rejected.

There are levels of skepticism, both rational and irrational. Of course you shouldn't take anyone at their word, but neither can you resort to "conspiracy" or the shill gambit when confronted with evidence that contradicts your worldview.

I classify science into 1 . scientific common knowledge pretty well vetted 'fact', and 2. The best we have at this point

For the most part I put things in the 2nd category.

Back in 1968 my parents took my sister to a large, well known children's hospital with a 101 fever. She was treated in the emergency room with the best science of the day. Aspirin was administered, her "brain began swelling", she was dead 8 hours later. The medical examiner, the states official scientific expert on cause of death, stated undetermined viral infection caused cerebral edema resulting in massive organ failure.

Fast forward to 1984 when the FDA issued a bulletin about Reyes Syndrome.

Even in the op we have a statement apparently by a leading scientific expert which should be met with skepticism.

Righteous incredulity.

We do and take the best we can, then hope for the best. No, my point is that I believe it healthy to question science, and be fluid in our understanding that science is fallible. This is the issue I have with these 'science is true' believers. Science is true until it isn't, then the new science is true.

I do agree that a portion of science is irrefutable fact, part is likely, and much is questionable.

..they gallop fast as they can. Tell your friend to not 'panic' with the herd of youtube humans yet!

Didn't work.

They're equally useless in this regard.

My dog guaranteed it, and he was wrong too. I blame all quadrapeds.

1) Some people just want to be the smartest person in the room. They're the ones that took the red pill and saw through what They(TM) want everyone to believe, even if they're being sold a bill of goods by pseudoscience snake oil salesmen. Everyone loves a conspiracy and the underdog, and some people are just contrarians.

2) Terrible science education.

3) A completely rational distrust of corporate or state power and disinformation that ends up leading to a completely irrational "any port in a storm" or "the enemy of my enemy" mentality. I've seen this way too often with the fringes of the anti-nuclear movement.

4) Specifically to this situation, fascination with the apocalypse and doomsday are just a part of human culture.

I was surprised that someone was telling their co-worker, during lunch, that Yellowstone was about to erupt. The teller were unable to realize that it would mean massive death and destruction. There is a free YouTube fictional movie about the eruption. The uncaring Right Wing person's dominate left hemisphere (of the brain) lives in a world of chaos. Science and logic are in the systematic part of the upper right hemisphere.

It is just the Noah Effect: the world will be destroyed.

But when it comes to science she's very much nature knows better health get crystals all that stuff

many will choose the end of the world hysteria.
They understand emotions but have no clue when it comes to thought.

But it baffles me why when they hear end of the world rational science they close their ears and sing la-la-la.

1. Actual science is difficult.
Even the new "Cosmos" has to water stuff down, or they will end up with much smaller audiences.

Woo is easy.
&quot Fill in the blank prediction) based on my (fill in the blank belief) says Yellowstone is gonna blow up!"

2. Science is scary.
We could be wiped out by any number of planetary disasters.

3. $$$.
Woo spreaders make lots of $$$ from the gullible.

for the high school biology teacher to be the football coach. Which means that the guy does not know a lot about biology or how to teach it.

And many kids get through high school without taking much math or science. Every so often a discussion will spring up here about how much math is needed, and lots of DUers will (proudly it seems to me) proclaim that they had to take Algebra I three times just to pass and they have never ever had to use that knowledge in their life since.

The point of studying things like math and science is to understand certain ways of thinking, of logical connections, of what's necessary to prove something true. Or false as the case may be. Just as history and geography give us a sense of our world, what's happened in the past, how landforms, climate, weather, lakes, deserts, and so on affect modern life. History is to help us understand what happened and (if we're lucky) why it happened. Literature is again a way of connecting to the past and to the culture at large. It's also useful to be able to understand what's being said.

But most kids while they're in high school don't get it that any of these things might matter. If they have crappy teachers, or attend a poor school, or have parents who likewise don't think education is very important, they do what they must to graduate and promptly forget as much as they can as quickly as possible.

The lack of critical thinking skills is all too common and very scary.

collected two of every species to put in it.
You can't win.

It doesn't really matter what she believes - if it goes off then we are all fucked, if it does not she gets to feel safe and secure.

Also, some people are just waiting on the End of The World, have no idea why.

That's why.

They feel the universe should end when they do.

when they can't get a hard-on. Or their kids is sick. Or they buy the newest cell phone.

Electric stoves don't do the job properly imo

For Democrats? Not reliable.

That's probably because most of what they believe can be debunked.

There truly has to be a difference in the way their brains work.

After I do my cleanses and purges, I have to consult my tarot cards and my horoscope to guide me on what to do and expect next. Based on this guidance, I can figure which crystals I should get for further healing properties. Next, I go to the spa for the detoxification treatments available. It is expensive, but the spa's overuse of words like "detox" are simply too hard to ignore.

After all this detoxing, I can confidently not get my vaccine shots since all the hard work I described above is all the inoculation I will ever need. I also make sure my children do all this detoxing and they also don't need vaccines! Who wants autism anyway!?

I think the park is safe....

At least from erupting volcanoes.

Maybe the Bison just heard that Conceal Carry is legal in National Parks.

Run Bison run!

You know,....because it can see that is where cars go to die.

Through it's headlights, I guess.

Most are good, decent, and hardworking, but not too bright.

My dad sure seems to think there are things we are not meant to know and that the devil is using knowledge to confuse people and lead people away from God.

have "faith" in, our authoritarian leaders. Who teaches open-mindedness. Just look at DU where posters are supposed to be "politically liberal" but a "Team" here openly disparages anyone that dares speak truth to the authoritarian power. They immediately pounce on all whistle-blowers and side with the authoritarian leaders like Gen Clapper, Gen Alexander, or Brennan. Their lack of compassion and empathy over the death of Michael Hastings, immediately calling him a drug and alcohol abuser. Generally one would equate authoritarians with Republicans, but the lines have blurred and many Republicans now lurk in the Democratic Party calling themselves, pragmatists or centrists. These are havens for the low intellects.

That, in and of itself is bad enough... The real problem is that far to many of the terminally stupid revel in their stupidity.

and it appears that the bison are moving normally. I do think they we too easily dismiss that animals can sense something like an earthquake or an eruption. A good way to test this would be to pull tapes from zoos that experience earthquakes for example. Any reaction prior to the earthquake that is unusual. One thing some animals can detect that we cannot include Magnetoception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoception). I think it is kind of unlikely because earthquakes/volcanoes are such one off events that I do not see the evolutionary pressure to adapt, but asking the question is still valid.

As far as scientists knowing about the next eruption. They are getting better but their ability to assess risk is not foolproof. Here is one example where a team of scientists did not believe a prediction Nyiragongo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_of_volcanic_activity
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1777671.stm

Here is a Nova story talking about prediction. They say we are good but not perfect.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vesuvius/predict.html