How Science Became A New Religion

reply to post by Grimpachi


Definitions of Fact, Theory, and Law in Scientific Work
ncse.com...

Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true.” Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.

Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.

Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.

Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

Note the usage of "fact" per the definition.

I used it in its proper form.

Stick to your smiley faces.

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


Are you really trying to have this debate here?

Tell you what if you want to debate the merits of the theory of evolution as not being scientific fact here is the thread to do it in.

The title should be right up your ally.

ATS evolution its only a theory

The right thread for the right topic I say.

Edit to add do you really need to post twice to respond to my other reply you know you can edit your posts and add stuff. Just wow.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

 

Are you really trying to have this debate here?
Tell you what if you want to debate the merits of the theory of evolution as not being scientific fact here is the thread to do it in.
The title should be right up your ally.
ATS evolution its only a theory
The right thread for the right topic I say.
Edit to add do you really need to post twice to respond to my other reply you know you can edit your posts and add stuff. Just wow.

edit on 7-6-2013 by Grimpachi because: (no reason given)

While you are editing your posts you should also note that the proper word is "accepted" not "excepted" in addition to "empirical" instead of "imperial."

You are the one trying to start a debate about Darwin's theory of evolution. I stated that all but the most recent theories have been overturned. Then I linked you to a few resources for you to read up on your definitions so you don't get quite as confused and butt hurt.

Evolution as a definition as obtuse as "change over time" is quite accurate and I certainly don't argue against it. But most rational folks would like a theory accompanied by laws which allow for the prediction of future occurrences of differentiation in species from the level of DNA to organisms themselves.

Those are more difficult to come by.

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


Wow you are really big on grammar I wonder if you ever had a pen pal and if you would spend your time correcting them. Oh well if that’s what floats your boat.

How you got but hurt I don’t know but as I stated if you want to debate the theory of evolution we can do so in the link I provided perhaps there you could elaborate on all the theories you claim that have been overturned I am not aware of what you are speaking about.

I don’t claim most rational people would like laws accompanying theories like evolution I think evidence works just fine. I think evidence is the key in proving any claim such as evolution or god. If you can’t provide evidence in either case then rational people will not accept these ideas or theories.

However I am glad to read that you know evolution is true you had me thinking you were another one of those people that think the Flintstones was a somewhat accurate depiction of the past.

How you got but hurt I don’t know ...

reply to post by Grimpachi


it's "butt", not "but".

dummy.

reply to post by tgidkp


thanks I will keep that in mind
It kind of makes everything irrelevant when a word is spelled incorrectly.

reply to post by Phage


Phage no offence to you but you grab mainstream science ideas over conspiracy ideas any day, over the years people have questioned mainstream archaeology and science theories over and over, people like you however defend the popular belief.

reply to post by Kaone

No offense taken. I don't take "mainstream" as a particular insult.
I "grab" theories with evidence and that are built on other theories with evidence.
I "grab" theories that make sense to me not theories that sound cool.

reply to post by Phage


They are theories not evidence, your so called evidence is other peoples word you can not prove yourself and neither can I because we do not have the means to do so.

Originally posted by swanne

The system of examinations and degrees is a sorting process; the physics PhD screens out most of those who question orthodoxy

And many more in my OP.

There may be some truth to that, though it's understandable. People who don't have PhD's often don't seem to understand exactly what it is that they are dismissing with their unorthodox views. Or as some people like to phrase it, "you have to know what is IN the box, in order to think outside the box".

By the time you get a PhD and learn what is in the box, you have a pretty good understanding of why the stuff that's in the box is there, which non-PhD's don't usually have.

So of course it's easier to think outside the box if you don't know what's in the box. This is a natural consequence of ignorance.

Science may be a little slow to accept change but again I don't see this as necessarily a bad thing. Plate tectonics was not initially accepted, until there was sufficient evidence to convince everybody. So a correct hypothesis was initially rejected when presented for what seems to be a good reason, insufficient evidence. With sufficient evidence it was accepted.

And to give you a more recent example, look at 1997 when probably all cosmologists thought the expansion of the universe was slowing. By 1999 many had already started to believe based on a 1998 paper that the expansion was accelerating, so a complete reversal of the entire scientific community's belief from slowing to accelerating expansion happened in just years, based on new evidence.

This is not a century old event, and it's certainly not any kind of religious dogma. It shows fairly rapid change in willingness to accept new ideas supported by good evidence.

reply to post by Kaone

They are theories not evidence, your so called evidence is other peoples word you can not prove yourself and neither can I because we do not have the means to do so.

That's right theories are not evidence but I get the feeling you don't understand what the word "theory" means in a scientific sense. It isn't just an idea.

In science an idea is called a hypothesis. You don't get to call an idea a theory unless you use it to make predictions about something that should be observed (evidence) if your hypothesis is correct. If the evidence is consistent, your hypothesis can be called a theory.

reply to post by Phage


Right and the people that get access to perform the necessary test on those theories usually work for the... oh right the government or some other agency that we as a public have no access to. You yourself cannot go test most of the theories put out by mainstream science. I wonder why? Phage I respect you and members like you very much, so don't get me wrong but the education system does not exactly let us use our own mind does it now?

I'm not sure, but as far as I gather religion is about an invisible, totally unproved, and actually unimaginable being called "God" (or "the gods").

Why the beliefs and prayers to this being?
Some ancient book with terribly barbaric customs (most of which is conveniently ignored) tells people so.
Mostly it is ingrained with hypnotic and mind control techniques that ultimately prove lucrative for the preacher, based on absolutely nothing.

Now science may have its pitfalls, problems and strange theories (as well as people who practice pseudo-science or advance long debunked beliefs), but science is never built on just talking to the air.

Science has laws of cause and effect, whereas religion claims to move mountains, but it never has moved a single grain of dirt.

Originally posted by Kaone
reply to post by Phage

 

Right and the people that get access to perform the necessary test on those theories usually work for the... oh right the government or some other agency that we as a public have no access to. You yourself cannot go test most of the theories put out by mainstream science. I wonder why? Phage I respect you and members like you very much, so don't get me wrong but the education system does not exactly let us use our own mind does it now?

You are quite right about who does and who does not get funding.

However most all theories are backed by rigorously testing mathematical models. These things are taken extremely seriously in some circles. In fact some theories if not most all theories begin from observed anomalies which do not act as they "should" based on the calculations.

For example it essentially took thousands of years for mankind to come up with a proof to finally prove that 1+1 = 2. See Principia Matimatica B.Russell & Whitehead.

Principia Mathematica
en.wikipedia.org...
www.amazon.com...

In fact Schrodinger's Theorem is based entirely on a mathematical formula which indicated that matter should behave in a certain manner and not the other way around.

So to make my point, in "theory" it is possible to test the theories without government funding. The theory would have to be published. Yes, its astronomy so one likely needs a supercomputer to test whether the hypothesis is theoretically possible.

Perhaps your point was on the issue of access to the actual data collected by the government funded study to test the theory?

reply to post by Kaone

Right and the people that get access to perform the necessary test on those theories usually work for the... oh right the government or some other agency that we as a public have no access to.

Some work for the government but I don't think most do.

I guess it depends on what it takes to perform an experiment. Some hypotheses don't need to do much new experimentation (tests), they can use data that has already been acquired. Some hypotheses can be tested with simple experiments. For complex experiments you might need the resources of a University lab and you aren't likely to get access to that unless you've done some undergraduate and/or graduate work. Those labs are busy and expensive to operate. They don't let people off the street come in an fool around with the equipment. With good reason.

reply to post by halfoldman


Seriously? there are moments in science where people give absolute evidence and the mainstream refuses it because of certain laid out beliefs. If you are going to ask for links or evidence than you your self can not call yourself a scientist because you have not done the research yourself. It works both and many ways my bru!

Originally posted by halfoldman
I'm not sure, but as far as I gather religion is about an invisible, totally unproved, and actually unimaginable being called "God" (or "the gods").

Why the beliefs and prayers to this being?
Some ancient book with terribly barbaric customs (most of which is conveniently ignored) tells people so.
Mostly it is ingrained with hypnotic and mind control techniques that ultimately prove lucrative for the preacher, based on absolutely nothing.

Now science may have its pitfalls, problems and strange theories (as well as people who practice pseudo-science or advance out long debunked beliefs), but science is never built on just talking to the air.

Science has laws of cause and effect, whereas religion claims to move mountains, but it never has moved a single grain of dirt.

Ahhh actually most religions are based on consciousness and the psyche. These are non material phenomena according to most religions.

Modern academia have encountered this thing called the "hard problem of consciousness."

Hard problem of consciousness
en.wikipedia.org...

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experiences — how sensations acquire characteristics, such as colors and tastes.[1] David Chalmers,[2] who introduced the term "hard problem" of consciousness, contrasts this with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set, and he argues that the problem of experience will "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained".[3]

The existence of a "hard problem" is controversial and has been disputed by some philosophers.[4] Providing an answer to this question could lie in understanding the roles that physical processes play in creating consciousness and the extent to which these processes create our subjective qualities of experience.[5]

Several questions about consciousness must be resolved in order to acquire a full understanding of it. These questions include, but are not limited to, whether being conscious could be wholly described in physical terms, such as the aggregation of neural processes in the brain. It follows that if consciousness cannot be explained exclusively by physical events in the brain, it must transcend the capabilities of physical systems and require an explanation of nonphysical means. For philosophers who assert that consciousness is nonphysical in nature, there remains a question about what outside of physical theory is required to explain consciousness.

So calling it "talking to air" is actually incredibly ignorant of actual scientific theory.

In fact religious zeal was at the root of many of societies great thinkers.

Newton practiced alchemy, and no it was not crude chemistry, which was a form of gnosticism. Gnosticism a religion based on the pursuit of gnosis (understanding).

Jack Parsons of NASA practiced satanism/luciferianism according to his own journals and was one of the greatest rocket scientists to date.

I have read your posts in other threads and know why you don't like any religion. Just because some religions don't approve of the sexual appetites of others does not mean they are bunch of brainwashing schizophrenics talking to air.

Well you could if you could explain to me why so many experience the same "trip" when exposed to '___'.

reply to post by Phage


Exactly, I have a friend who actually works for NASA he got hired as a programmer for NASA through the University of Toronto and he can not speak a word of what he does??? Its a supposedly a civilian sponsored program but if you learn where your money comes from you will know who controls the information we get.

reply to post by Phage


Phage you are smarter than me when it comes to space exploration, but you have to admit that even you do not know the ACTUAL truth because neither of us has been up there to test it all out.

reply to post by Kaone

Oh. Right. I forgot.
NASA lies. Nobody has ever managed to explain to me how they know that. But it sure comes in handy to say it.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Maybe because I do know at least something about what they are talking about.