Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total)
1 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,585 Year: 2,842/9,624 Month: 687/1,588 Week: 93/229 Day: 4/61 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Question About the Universe
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 87 of 373 (739564)
10-25-2014 7:33 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by Colbard
10-24-2014 9:16 PM


Re: Guessing about guesses
Colbard writes:
Any guess or theory as a more formal way of saying it, is as good as anyone else's.
The word "theory" has a number of definitions (definition of theory), and for science discussions I think you're using the wrong one, the one that defines theory as a "guess or conjecture". You used the same incorrect definition of theory over in the Should we teach both evolution and religion in school? thread.
Science uses this definition of theory:
a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by Colbard, posted 10-24-2014 9:16 PM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


(1)
Message 108 of 373 (739650)
10-26-2014 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by Colbard
10-25-2014 7:28 PM


Colbard writes:
There is nothing wrong with guessing, it is the part of reasoning which uses trial and error, and a theory is just such a process.
A scientific theory is not a process of guessing. For a very simply example, we determine the acceleration of gravity at sea level by gathering evidence of objects falling in a vacuum, not by guessing. For a more complex example, we determine the existence of the Higgs Boson by gathering terabytes of data for analysis through a huge experiment, not by guessing. We determine the rate of expansion of the universe through observation and analysis, not by guessing.
This is not to say guesswork is completely absent from science. Given that science is conducted by humans, the full range of human nature cannot help but play some kind a role on the path to knowledge, but theories are not guesswork.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by Colbard, posted 10-25-2014 7:28 PM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Colbard, posted 10-30-2014 8:18 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 117 of 373 (739968)
10-30-2014 9:22 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by Colbard
10-30-2014 8:27 AM


The math in any work that has found acceptance within the scientific community has already received a great deal of attention and not been found wanting. We're all familiar with garbage-in/garbage-out, but you can't just say, "He might not be applying the math correctly." You have to identify the error that those in the scientific community missed and explain how it is wrong.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar - missing "not".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Colbard, posted 10-30-2014 8:27 AM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 122 of 373 (740042)
10-31-2014 7:02 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Colbard
10-30-2014 8:18 AM


Hi Colbard,
You're saying, "Science could be wrong," and the proper response is, "Yes, of course science could be wrong."
Whether science is actually wrong concerning any specific theory depends upon whether you have an answer for the next question: "How is science wrong?" You need a better answer than merely repeating, "Science could be wrong."
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Colbard, posted 10-30-2014 8:18 AM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 123 of 373 (740043)
10-31-2014 8:12 AM
Reply to: Message 120 by Colbard
10-30-2014 8:03 PM


Re: Guessing about guesses
Colbard writes:
When I first studied evolution, I found out that the horse was older than the earth, courtesy Encyclopedia Britannica, which gave the age of both.
I doubt this very much. My guess is that you're referring to the debate between geologists and physicists in the late 19th century, when Lord Kelvin refined his thermodynamic calculations and arrived at an age of the earth between 20 and 40 million years. This figure was never accepted by geologists and paleontologists who were observing the evidence of age first hand. Radioactive sources of heat were unknown in Kelvin's time, hence his incorrect calculations. Ironically, radioactivity not only caused Kelvin's incorrect calculations, it also provided the dating methods proving geologists also wrong. The Earth was not only older than Kelvin believed, it was even far older than the geologists themselves believed. Science gradually figured all this out.
Another example, when I began school, the Australian Aborigines had been in here for 3,000 years, and were discussed in the flora and fauna section of geography. They were still just animals. Very similar to the US and its imported slaves.
Some people are racists, and scientists are people, but in any event, according to science we're all "just animals".
Four years later, the Aborigines had been here for 6000 years, later increasing to 10,000, then 20,000, then 30,000, then 40,000 and remained official there for a while, then 60,000 years and so on.
Those dates you're citing must be for the evidence of earliest occupation. Few scientists would make the mistake of believing they had found the first Aborigine to step off the first boat. More recent refinements to the dating are based on genetic studies, an entirely different approach that yields results consistent with the findings of archaeology.
Their [scientist's] opinions are fallible.
Of course they are. So are yours. Differing opinions are settled by examining the evidence, and gathering more evidence if necessary.
For example, in the fifties and sixties, some of them claimed that smoking is actually good for you.
I think you're confusing advertising with science. Cigarette companies had full blown advertising campaigns that included supposed claims by doctors and scientists. This quote from the abstract to a paper about the role of the image of the physician in cigarette advertising reminds us of what was actually true at the time, that the scientific evidence against smoking was already strong and growing by the 1950's (The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930—1953):
quote:
In the 1930s and 1940s, smoking became the norm for both men and women in the United States, and a majority of physicians smoked. At the same time, there was rising public anxiety about the health risks of cigarette smoking. One strategic response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising referring directly to physicians. As ad campaigns featuring physicians developed through the early 1950s, tobacco executives used the doctor image to assure the consumer that their respective brands were safe.
These advertisements also suggested that the individual physicians’ clinical judgment should continue to be the arbiter of the harms of cigarette smoking even as systematic health evidence accumulated. However, by 1954, industry strategists deemed physician images in advertisements no longer credible in the face of growing public concern about the health evidence implicating cigarettes.
Colbard writes:
They insisted on a high protein diet with lots of meat, milk products and eggs. people still believe that and are dying early.
In this case I think you're confusing diet advocates with science. Teasing out the effects of various components of diet are notoriously difficult, we still have a very long way to go in this area. Those pushing any particular diet will always try to find supporting scientific papers to cite, but when you actually read the paper you'll find the support usually isn't there.
Asbestos was harmless. DDT was sprayed over people while they were still in the public swimming pools, and meat products were drenched with formaldehyde to keep them fresh. If an atomic explosion occurred, all you had to do is "duck and cover."
Scientific research was instrumental in identifying and characterizing these hazards.
I have watched the progress of science fairly closely, and nearly every one of their conclusions, far less so in the medical fields, is wrong.
You're surrounded by the effects of the progress of science.
For instance, I have never believed the black hole theory, and now they are finally waking up to it.
No one is waking up to your take on black holes.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 120 by Colbard, posted 10-30-2014 8:03 PM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by Colbard, posted 10-31-2014 9:54 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 127 of 373 (740053)
10-31-2014 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 125 by Colbard
10-31-2014 9:54 AM


Re: Guessing about guesses
Colbard writes:
The whole point of your post is...?
You presented a lot of confused ideas characterizing science as inept and wrong, so most of my post was spent correcting you.
My last point was just reminding you that newly explored possibilities about black holes are not related in any way to your own ideas. Science is not "finally waking up" to your ideas about black holes. Science is doing what it always tries to do, extending our knowledge of the universe and how it works.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Colbard, posted 10-31-2014 9:54 AM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


(1)
Message 130 of 373 (740075)
10-31-2014 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by Colbard
10-31-2014 10:02 AM


Re: Guessing about guesses
Colbard writes:
So somehow we ought to go by what is officially guessed about the universe, rather than what some individual or small group might have on it.
As I said before, a theory is not a guess. You justified this characterization of theories as guesses by saying that science could be wrong about a theory, and I'm sure we all agree with you, but you can't challenge anything, let alone an accepted scientific theory with its carefully reviewed evidence, just by saying, "It could be wrong." You have to show how it is wrong.
And we are not to assume that because the big numbers will change their minds in the future, that what we have today is not true.
Science is tentative, always ready to change theory in response to new evidence or improved insight, but currently accepted theory represents our best understanding of the world in which we live. There is no better way than science of understanding this universe.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by Colbard, posted 10-31-2014 10:02 AM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 134 of 373 (740098)
11-01-2014 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 132 by Colbard
10-31-2014 7:49 PM


Colbard writes:
There is nothing wrong with having a systematic and methodical approach, which many scientists are true to, but it is not all that simple and innocent and truthful as you might imagine.
Few things are "simple and innocent and truthful" where people are involved, but if you have a method better than science for studying the natural world then let's hear it.
Ya know, you could be wrong.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Colbard, posted 10-31-2014 7:49 PM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 137 by Colbard, posted 11-02-2014 1:25 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 138 of 373 (740164)
11-02-2014 7:13 AM
Reply to: Message 137 by Colbard
11-02-2014 1:25 AM


Colbard writes:
I don't disagree with the methods used to prove something, but I object to its absence and denial of spiritual or moral laws which are part of reality as well.
Science doesn't deny "spiritual or moral laws." As Wittgenstein said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." If science has no evidence of "spiritual or moral laws," then there's nothing it can say about them.
Perhaps you could describe for us how a science informed by "spiritual and moral laws" would work. Imagine yourself at the Leaning Tower of Pisa repeating Galileo's experiment dropping the two balls of equal size but different weight. How would your performance of this experiment differ from Galileo's by taking "spiritual and moral laws" into account?
If science is amoral, then you cannot accuse me of being wrong, because it is a moral term in the first instance.
"Wrong" has more than one definition, and I used it earlier in the sense of "incorrect". Many of the things you've been saying are "wrong" in the sense that they are incorrect, not in the sense of not being in accordance with what is morally right or good.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 137 by Colbard, posted 11-02-2014 1:25 AM Colbard has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 141 of 373 (740275)
11-03-2014 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by Colbard
11-03-2014 3:43 AM


Colbard writes:
Spiritual and natural laws are harmonious, and nature is based and operated on spiritual principles.
You're stating your religious beliefs as facts again.
But if you want to go down the dry road of science which has conveniently dismissed spirituality...
Science has not dismissed spirituality. Again, as Wittgenstein said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." If science has no evidence of "spiritual or moral laws," then there's nothing it can say about them.
...because people are spiritual whether they know it or not.
No one said people aren't spiritual.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by Colbard, posted 11-03-2014 3:43 AM Colbard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by marc9000, posted 11-03-2014 10:42 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 156 of 373 (740441)
11-05-2014 7:23 AM
Reply to: Message 150 by marc9000
11-04-2014 8:26 PM


Hi Marc,
You didn't read your own definition of spirituality, here it is with the relevant portion italicized:
quote:
the state or quality of being dedicated to God, religion, or spiritual things or values, esp as contrasted with material or temporal ones
Spirituality is not synonymous with belief in God. For atheists and agnostics I imagine spiritual things would be love, friendship, trust, awe and so forth.
If (those who control) science didn't deny them, it would respect them. By not ignoring them, and pushing beyond them, to try to find naturalistic theories about reality that conflict with them. That was my main point of entering this particular fray.
Yeah, right. There's as much a body that controls science as one that controls religion. Why don't you get on plumber's and electrician manuals for not showing respect for "spiritual or moral laws." It would make as much sense.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by marc9000, posted 11-04-2014 8:26 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 172 by marc9000, posted 11-06-2014 9:39 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 164 of 373 (740661)
11-06-2014 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by JonF
11-06-2014 12:57 PM


JonF writes:
One of my favorites is dating bread from Pompeii via 14C. Alas the paper is behind a paywall at Nature: "Radiocarbon measurements on samples of known age".
I found half of page one: http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/1831582a0
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by JonF, posted 11-06-2014 12:57 PM JonF has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 182 of 373 (740730)
11-07-2014 7:12 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by marc9000
11-06-2014 9:19 PM


marc9000 writes:
Well no, I never mentioned germ theory, and I don't even believe in the Book of Mormon. I was just referring to the general way that the scientific community has always gone after Christianity, particularly the book of Genesis.
The scientific community has not "gone after" Christianity, or any other religion. If you think it has then cite a few scientific papers that "go after" Christianity.
The truth is that Christian fundamentalists have "gone after" and are still going after science education with claims that Genesis is a scientifically accurate version of events and with demands that it should be taught in public school science classrooms. In the face of these claims and demands, explaining how Genesis is not a scientifically accurate version of events is not "going after" Christianity.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by marc9000, posted 11-06-2014 9:19 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 207 by marc9000, posted 11-08-2014 8:48 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 183 of 373 (740732)
11-07-2014 7:42 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by marc9000
11-06-2014 9:39 PM


marc9000 writes:
Spirituality is not synonymous with belief in God.
But I'm still not convinced that "spirituality" is the proper word for anything that can be falsified or tested.
This make no sense as a response to what I actually said, most of which you left out. I followed that sentence with, "For atheists and agnostics I imagine spiritual things would be love, friendship, trust, awe and so forth." I didn't say anything about spirituality involving falsification or testing, nor did I mention any qualities that involve falsification or testing. No one has claimed or is claiming that spirituality is a scientifically verifiable quality, and it would be dishonest to imply that anyone has. What would be honest would be a response to what was actually said.
Yeah, right. There's as much a body that controls science as one that controls religion.
I can't go along with that - there's no "national academy of religion",...
There's the National Council of Churches, and they have as much control over religion as the National Academy of Science has over science.
There are organizations that largely control what is taught.
You mean like the Ohio, Kansas and Texas state boards of education who continually try to push creationist teachings into the schools and evolutionary topics out?
One religion can't haul another religion into court and legally shout it down, like the scientific community did with Intelligent design.
The citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, (not the scientific community) went to court to have the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People removed from their schools after it had been installed by Christian fundamentalists.
Why don't you get on plumber's and electrician manuals for not showing respect for "spiritual or moral laws." It would make as much sense.
There are no best selling books out called "Plumbings Dangerous Idea", or "How Electircal Current Shows That God Does Not Exist",...
Books like these are responses to fundamentalist Christian attacks on science and science education. When Christian fundamentalism ceases these attacks the responses will also cease.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by marc9000, posted 11-06-2014 9:39 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 209 by marc9000, posted 11-08-2014 9:05 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 184 of 373 (740733)
11-07-2014 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by Coyote
11-06-2014 10:03 PM


Re: The hand of God
Coyote writes:
A google search does not show objects being observed 47 billion light years away.
Zaius is referring to objects that are close to 13.8 billion light years away now when their light arrives here, but that light was originally emitted close to 13.8 billion years ago. They've been receding from us over the past 13.8 billion years (due to the expansion of space) and are now around 46 billion light years distant, but the light they're emitting today won't reach us for another 46 billion years, and I think before that time they will have receded over the event horizon and we will see them no more.
I couldn't figure out what point he was trying to make with this information.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Improve the explanation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by Coyote, posted 11-06-2014 10:03 PM Coyote has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 185 by NoNukes, posted 11-07-2014 12:11 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 192 by zaius137, posted 11-08-2014 11:53 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024