Human Race and Earth Endangered by New Strain

[Forkie]

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

What? Which theories have been cobbled together and then simply accepted as fact, exactly?

 

[pixmedic]

So....am I supposed to take the Red pill or the Blue one?

 

[KenC]

So....am I supposed to take the Red pill or the Blue one?

No, you swallow the one labeled "drink me"

 

[snowbear]

 

[The_Traveler]

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

I'm with Forkie on this one. A huge generalization that is unprovable except by vague anecdote.
Science works iteratively, looking at facts and then trying to connect them with a reasonable theory. Each successive fact causes changes in the theory as scientists attempt to account for new knowledge. Science attempts to be self-correcting and virtually everything we know comes from years of adapting theories to data points.
The way scientific 'knowledge' becomes public is usually through scientific publications and, typically, scientists submit a paper to a professional journal and it is reviewed, not for its literary style, but for how well the work was done and how well the conclusions are supported by the data. Scientists try to be right so that they aren't shown to be wrong by succeeding work. Scientific theories build on past work and are molded by follow-up work. Eventually some theories are so well documented and supported that they are accepted as fact.

Believers, on the other hand, tend to pick a data point and build a complex theory around that data point and ignore any facts that contradict their theory.

Good examples of belief are young earth creationist theories or anti-vaxxers; the first attempt to explain away all the scientific data about fossils and age dating with non-factual beliefs. the second just modify their beliefs slightly as their position is chipped away and end up ignoring facts they don't like.

Science, big 'S', attempts to be self-correcting.

 

[The_Traveler]

A good example of how science works is the response of the scientific world to Andrew Wakefield's work on vaccines

 

[unpopular]

as long as the bank perceives the electromagnetic energy that represents my paycheck...life is good.

Right now, my paycheck ACH is late. :\

*reality breakdown*

 

[Fred Berg]

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

As opposed to non-scientists, who do... what?

Some common examples of what you're saying would be...?

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

What? Which theories have been cobbled together and then simply accepted as fact, exactly?

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

Two trains approach on another at 100 MPH which means that they are closing in on each other with a combined velocity of 200 MPH. Increase the speed of the trains and the effective velocity doubles accordingly. So if the speed of the trains increases to 250 MPH the effective velocity also increases to the combined speed of 500 MPH. This holds true until the trains reach light speed then... er no, wait a minute, um, we need a new theory. Newton's apple has a wormhole in it (theoretically anyway), where's that German guy with the stone?

 

[Buckster]

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

I bet you're serious too! Thanks for the laugh!!

 

[Forkie]

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

As opposed to non-scientists, who do... what?

Some common examples of what you're saying would be...?

The trouble with scientists is whenever they can't explain some phenomenon or other they cobble together a rather iffy theory which is then promulgated until it is accepted as gospel truth.

What? Which theories have been cobbled together and then simply accepted as fact, exactly?

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

Two trains approach on another at 100 MPH which means that they are closing in on each other with a combined velocity of 200 MPH. Increase the speed of the trains and the effective velocity doubles accordingly. So if the speed of the trains increases to 250 MPH the effective velocity also increases to the combined speed of 500 MPH. This holds true until the trains reach light speed then... er no, wait a minute, um, we need a new theory. Newton's apple has a wormhole in it (theoretically anyway), where's that German guy with the stone?

Evolution, gravity, quantum theory, dark matter and black holes are not crazy ideas that have been cobbled together.

Evolution has been studied and proven since Darwin first suggested it as an explanation for biodiversity since his publication of The Origin of Species 156 years ago. Evolution is a fact. "Natural Selection" is the explanation (the theory, after 156 years of study) about how evolution (the fact) works. It is certainly not "cobbled together".

Gravity is also a fact and has been since Newton's publication of his Principia 328 years ago. His theory of gravitation was the best explanation of how the fact of gravity works until Einstein's theory of general relativity fine tuned and corrected Newton's inaccuracies. The combined studies of the world's astrophysicists over a period of a third of a millennium does not a "cobbled together" idea, make.

Stephen Hawking noticed that within Einstein's theory of general relativity suggested the likelihood of black holes. He went to look for them and found them. Again - not cobbled. Hypothesised, searched for, found. The theory of how and why they exist is born.

Quantum mechanics and dark matter are mathematical hypotheses which are predicted because the mathematics require them to be there for the numbers to work. And just like Hawking did with black holes, the search is on to prove them to show that the maths we already know is either correct, by finding them, or incorrect, by not finding them.

The Higgs Boson is another good example of this. The mathematics of how the universe works suggested there must be another particle that we haven't observed yet in order for the universe to work in this way. So they built the Large Hadron Collider in order to search for it. Lo and behold, it was discovered in 2013 and the man who realised it had to exist, Mr. Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize for it.

Science is not cobbled together. There are theories about how the world works, i.e., in 7 days by a big, almighty bearded man in the sky that needed to have a rest on the 7th day, that were cobbled together by ancient superstitious peoples who had no other way to explain or test how the world, let alone the universe, worked.

 

[Fred Berg]

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

I bet you're serious too! Thanks for the laugh!!

What, and you think the journalist in the linked article is?

 

[The_Traveler]

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

I bet you're serious too! Thanks for the laugh!!

What, and you think the journalist in the linked article is?

An attempt at deflection.

In response to your original statement.
All of those theories are excellent attempts to resolve data points as they are found.
Just as science evolved from Galileo's ideas to enable us to direct rockets to orbit comets or asteroid successfully, I expect that Science will deal with the future exactly as it has in the past.
So far there is no grand Unified Theory of Everything but there are excellent theories that work within the world as we know it so they must be right as far as they go.
Science is willing to try to incorporate new data into modified theories - and it isn't done in a way that requires ignoring uncomfortable data.

 

[Fred Berg]

The theory of evolution; the theory of relativity; quantum theory; dark matter theory; black holes to name but a few.

I bet you're serious too! Thanks for the laugh!!

What, and you think the journalist in the linked article is?

An attempt at deflection.

In response to your original statement.
All of those theories are excellent attempts to resolve data points as they are found.
Just as science evolved from Galileo's ideas to enable us to direct rockets to orbit comets or asteroid successfully, I expect that Science will deal with the future exactly as it has in the past.
So far there is no grand Unified Theory of Everything but there are excellent theories that work within the world as we know it so they must be right as far as they go.
Science is willing to try to incorporate new data into modified theories - and it isn't done in a way that requires ignoring uncomfortable data.

So does time really slow down on those trains travelling at light speed then or is this necessary to prove a mathematical model of a space-time continuum? Or are you going to ignore that uncomfortable problem just as Forkie did?

But I think you misunderstand my intent. You, and others on this thread, are believers: you have faith in science. You are very quick to deride and scoff at anyone who thinks differently and to embark on a witch hunt to smoke out the heretics. A little polemic intervention and you're champing at the bit, positively frothing at the mouth. Let us suppose, though, that the journalist in the original article wasn't employing irony directed at this unswerving certitude of the scientific fraternity and that the piece was meant to be read at face value. I would challenge that the fact fighters will only run out of food, water and oxygen once the boffins have totally buggered the planet up.

Edit: Yes, yes you are right. This is a second attempt at deflection on my part. Not.

 

[Buckster]

So does time really slow down on those trains travelling at light speed then

Yes, time dilation has been confirmed to be true.

But I think you misunderstand my intent. You, and others on this thread, are believers: you have faith in science.

No, we don't join hands on Sundays singing about how gravity is real in our own echo-chamber to try to convince each other that it's true in spite of tons of actual factual evidence against it. Same goes for the rest of science, which is just confirmation of the observable facts that surround us all, you included, like it or not. Some people just look a lot deeper into things than others to discover and confirm the truth about things you apparently can't even imagine, no matter how much evidence is presented to you.

If you can disprove any accepted scientific theories, you should jump right on that and win yourself a Nobel Prize.

 

[Forkie]

It is not "faith" in science.

It is "I think, if I drop a feather and a hammer in a vacuum, they will fall at the same rate because there will be no air resistance to slow the feather down."

*Do the experiment*

"Yes, the theory of air resistance is correct because we can see it to be correct".



You're a photographer. Your camera works because of the progression in the understanding of how the world and universe works. Cameras are based around light - arguably one of the most fascinating scientific subjects. There is no faith involved in how your camera works. It is real.

And as for your train anecdote - time slows down for the train relative to that of an observer. Not for the train itself. For the train itself, everyone else's time slows down relative to that of the train. This is known. And every GPS accounts for this effect to calculate your position on the globe.