Science and Superstition

[British Red]

Whoosh...

Are you not missing the entire point about peer review and the scientific method in the first place?
Here's a diagram that might help you understand it.

I can't see the leg for "teach something as fact", find out it isn't a "fact", re-write theories, demand everyone accepts new "fact".

I'm missing no points thanks. I am no advocate of religion, or some abstract called science either. It just makes me laugh that they behave so similarly and behave identically when challenged. Its hilarious.

Keep up the good work - its endlessly amusing!

 

[sandbender]

"...As for dowsing, no double-blind tests have ever showed any results. The amount of times they are correct is no different compared to guesswork.

I am of course willing to believe any and all things, they just need to be proved convincingly and have to be repeatable....".

A chap bought the old barn next to my place in Scotland, his architect made up plans to knock it down and build a multi-bedroom mansion with swimming pool in its place, they presumed that they would be able to use the hillside spring that fed my house and the old barn. My lawyer pointed out that this wouldn't be possible.

To resolve the lack of water supply they hired a dowser, in one afternoon he found a water source, albeit one that they had to drill down to.

Nobody was around when the dowser was doing his survey so I offered him a cup of tea and some biscuits and had a chat with him, apparently his biggest customers were water, oil and gas companies.

Obviously they reckon that there is something to it and my neighbor did get to build his house.

faster than light is definitely possible the universe is 13.7 billion years old (ish) and is over 90 billion light years across so its been expanding faster than the speed of light.

Not quite, nothing was traveling faster than the speed of light 'in' the universe, but the universe was/is 'inflating'. Try and get your head around that one

"...But it's on its way. In one year's time, we'll be able to see one light-year further into the cosmos than we can now..."

However because its all accelerating away from us there will come a time when we won't be able to see any further no matter how long we wait, that'll be in about 100 billion years.

"...I can feel the elephants on its back..."

BR is right of course, the world is flat, it does sit atop four immense elephants that ride on the back a gigantic turtle, it only appears as a globe because that is what Ceiling Cat wants us to see.

Happy New Year all.

 

[boatman]

Emotionally I would like dowsing for water to have a basis in reality as an extension of the human senses. Map dowsing and dowsing colours is another matter. Have tried it a couple of times, once for the correct point for my new sewer to cut into the existing septic tank system and the other at a demo near Wootton Bassett Wiltshire. The sewer experiment was entirely successful but it could well be down to the fact that I had absorbed all sorts of clues and dug that garden for twenty years before.

I allegedly found a spring near Wootton Bassett but have no means of verifying it although the copper rods did seem to twist of their own volition, as has been said, proper trials needed to establish what happens.

 

[Andy BB]

Logical progression of the prime mover explanation of. .who started it all.. is that the answer requires the same explanation as the question. Ie who created the Prime Mover?

 

[woodspirits]

Emotionally I would like dowsing for water to have a basis in reality as an extension of the human senses. Map dowsing and dowsing colours is another matter. Have tried it a couple of times, once for the correct point for my new sewer to cut into the existing septic tank system and the other at a demo near Wootton Bassett Wiltshire. The sewer experiment was entirely successful but it could well be down to the fact that I had absorbed all sorts of clues and dug that garden for twenty years before.

I allegedly found a spring near Wootton Bassett but have no means of verifying it although the copper rods did seem to twist of their own volition, as has been said, proper trials needed to establish what happens.

hiya boatman, great to hear you had some positive results from your dowsing. and yes its entirely probable that you had taken on board all your known factors, but in this instance your dowsing verified what you perhaps already knew, and saved you a lot of unnecessary digging!

 

[Prawnster]

Logical progression of the prime mover explanation of. .who started it all.. is that the answer requires the same explanation as the question. Ie who created the Prime Mover?

That's a fair question, of course, but perhaps we only ask it because we look at things from our own, human, flawed perspective.
I've read that some scientists think that prior to the big bang, there must have been something that has always existed, an energy force perhaps, but some thing 'eternal' anyway. Maybe this is the Prime Mover.
Perhaps this is one of those things, amongst others, that our intellect does not have the capacity to understand. We're clever beings but there must be a limit to our intelligence.


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[blacktimberwolf]

We're clever beings

Do you have any proof of this ?

 

[John Fenna]

Do you have any proof of this ?

Only from the biased opinions of other humans surely
Can science measure "clever" in any meaningful way?

 

[boatman]

But but and but, even if there was a Prime Mover why would anybody think for one single second that it would be bothered if you eat pork, had fish on Friday, used a condom, married your sister etc et et et?

 

[Wayland]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I simply do not expect to understand everything and even the bits that I do understand often seem miraculous to me.

As such I neither believe nor disbelieve in magic and supernatural phenomena but my inclination is to find rational, "scientific" explanations before resorting to imagination for an answer.

 

[pteron]

I can't see the leg for "teach something as fact", find out it isn't a "fact", re-write theories, demand everyone accepts new "fact".

I'm missing no points thanks. I am no advocate of religion, or some abstract called science either. It just makes me laugh that they behave so similarly and behave identically when challenged. Its hilarious.

Keep up the good work - its endlessly amusing!

Whilst I see what you mean about response to challenge, your first statement is a straw man. Science doesn't change facts. It changes theories based on new evidence.

If you were taught incorrect 'facts' that is down to fallible people. I was never taught anything as 'fact' that has been untrue. Einstein's theory of relativity is just a theory that has so far explained observable phenomena better than the alternatives. The man himself never claimed it was anything different. If the experiment shows that something can travel faster than light, then the theory has a flaw and will be re-visited.

The scientific method has produced the wonderful world that you enjoy. I believe you are approaching retirement - your chances of reaching such an age before the scientific age would be much reduced.

 

[Prawnster]

But but and but, even if there was a Prime Mover why would anybody think for one single second that it would be bothered if you eat pork, had fish on Friday, used a condom, married your sister etc et et et?

Well those are entirely different questions, and really would take us down a detour I do get the impression you're mocking me though, perhaps I'm reading between the lines.

Incidentally I feel I should point out (in case anyone thinks I'm being preachy) that I have the utmost respect for everyone's opinions and beliefs including those with none!

IMO this place has a rich diversity of beliefs and is better for it. I don't know many places, real or online, that such a mix of people get along, from scientists, paganists, to monotheists and atheists, it's all good!


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[British Red]

Sorry "science" has produced nothing. Science is nothing. Its has no values.

People shaped the world I live in. Individual people researching things for their own sakes or for their economic merits. Many of them would not have recognised themselves as "scientists".

I believe in people and their efforts. I do not believe in a nebulous term called "science" - the term has no merits in and of itself. An individual can make a difference through empirical study or rigorous approach, by combining craft, effort, study, economics, marketing, law and a whole bunch of other things.

Its the mantra "science is good" I dislike. The term has no meaning and no values. The slavish belief that "science is good" creates shampoos that contain "30% madeupium".

Back to you

Red

 

[pteron]

There's a great article about you on mother Jones

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

 

[British Red]

Aaah now the vilification of climate change "deniers" (a carefully selected and highly emotive term of course) goes to show just how well "science" accepts that things are "just a theory".

How can you "deny" a theory? Surely you can only deny a fact??

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Aaah now the vilification of climate change "deniers" (a carefully selected and highly emotive term of course) goes to show just how well "science" accepts that things are "just a theory".

How can you "deny" a theory? Surely you can only deny a fact??

You can deny a theory..................creationists for example, deny the theory of evolution




What is a 'fact' anyway ?

 

[mountainm]

The slavish belief that "science is good" creates shampoos that contain "30% madeupium".

Back to you

Red

You seem to be confusing science.with marketing here . All science isn't good, just as all popes aren't good. But good comes from the application of scientific principles in the form of discoveries such as penecillin, aspirin, and space putty.

 

[Prawnster]

You can deny a theory..................creationists for example, deny the theory of evolution




What is a 'fact' anyway ?

Creationists don't deny the theory of evolution, they accept that the theory exists. They deny that the theory is fact.


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[boatman]

Well those are entirely different questions, and really would take us down a detour I do get the impression you're mocking me though, perhaps I'm reading between the lines.

Not at all, these are questions I presume that the intelligent believer has faced and answered satisfactorily for themselves. Alternatively if the PM has done their job and moved on then any worship, obedience to human created rules on their behalf or sanctions for breaking them seems even more irrelevant. But, if there is a personal PM interest in the meanest sparrow fall then you know the questions that must be tackled and may have. Ineffable plan is one answer if that helps.

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Creationists don't deny the theory of evolution, they accept that the theory exists. They deny that the theory is fact.

Well of course they accept that the theory exists, they can't do otherwise.......... but not to accept a theory as a possibility, is to deny it.