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Do Most Atheists Know that science..... Part 2

To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it. And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
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And I find it hard to believe that it's so hard for you to believe.

And, while we're at it, if God could make a bush talk, why couldn't he just make people understand the real truth of how his universe was formed? Why would he have to "dumb it down"?
 
bokonon said:
And both of these would be more useful than "whack those foreskins," which must have been a bit of a hard sell.
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Back in the day it would have been useful. Not so much now, but it's much easier to keep clean these days.
 
DOC said:
The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Hardcover)
by Lee Smolin (Author)...
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FireGarden said:
Have you read this book?
I've googled Lee Smolin, and I'd be interested in his opinion on String Theory -- something I know hardly anything about. (Just that it involves more dimensions than I would have guessed and experiments which might back it up are way too expensive).
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Well this question took a little time to attain the book. I've skimmed through the book mentioned above by Lee Smolin. Here is an excerpt from the interior jacket.

..."But as Smolin reveals, there's a deep flaw in the {string}theory: no part of it has been tested, and no one knows how to test it. In fact, the theory appears to come in an infinite number of versions, meaning that no experiment will ever be able to prove it false. As a scientific theory it fails...

And here is some more about Smolin from Wiki's article on him:

[Smolin has expressed the opinion that quantum mechanics is not a "final theory".

"I {Smolin} am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me. I have studied most of them in depth and thought hard about them, and in the end I still can't make real sense of quantum theory as it stands.[8]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin
 
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DOC said:
Posted by DOC
The authors of these books aren't so optimistic about physics as you.

"The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next" (Hardcover)

by Lee Smolin (Author)




Well this question took a little time to attain the book. I've skimmed through the book mentioned above by Lee Smolin. Here is an excerpt from the interior jacket.

..."But as Smolin reveals, there's a deep flaw in the {string}theory: no part of it has been tested, and no one knows how to test it. In fact, the theory appears to come in an infinite number of versions, meaning that no experiment will ever be able to prove it false. As a scientific theory it fails...
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Isn't that pretty much what Feynman was quoted as saying?

And here is some more about Smolin from Wiki's article on him:

[Smolin has expressed the opinion that quantum mechanics is not a "final theory".

"I {Smolin} am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me. I have studied most of them in depth and thought hard about them, and in the end I still can't make real sense of quantum theory as it stands.[8]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin
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So, exactly what part of all that are you surprised by? Who here is saying that quantum mechanics is a 'final theory'? I think you still need to work on your understanding of how science works; the key word there being 'works'; science is testable, not a matter of belief. Of course, those quotes could just mean that Smolin is not able to understand quantum mechanics, but I'm certainly not the person to judge that.

Regardless, what relevance does it have to the OP?
 
zooterkin said:
Regardless, what relevance does it have to the OP?
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A lot more relevance than other posts in here, but you never complained about them. And I did talk about things smaller than an atom in the OP. String theory and Quantum theory deal with that topic.
 
zooterkin said:
Isn't that pretty much what Feynman was quoted as saying?
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No, Richard Feynman said this as was cited in post #734:

"I think all this superstring stuff is crazy." He elaborated, "I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with experiment, they cook up an explanation."
 
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DOC said:
A lot more relevance than other posts in here, but you never complained about them.
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Ah, the "Others do worse" defence, got it.

And I did talk about things smaller than an atom in the OP. String theory and Quantum theory deal with that topic.
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They do, as far as I understand it, but I suspect you'd be hard pressed to explain how.

How about dealing with something more straightforward, your contention that the biblical account of creation is amazingly close to what happened. Flowering plants coming before the sun and moon? Birds before land animals?
 
DOC said:
No, Richard Feynman said this as was cited in post #734:

"I think all this superstring stuff is crazy." He elaborated, "I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with experiment, they cook up an explanation."
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And how is that significantly different from, "no part of it has been tested, and no one knows how to test it. In fact, the theory appears to come in an infinite number of versions, meaning that no experiment will ever be able to prove it false." ?
 
So DOC, do you agree that theorys/hypotheses which can not be tested and use post hoc rationalization to fit the data would be classified as bad science?


I wonder what other theories we have which would fit that classification?
 
DOC said:
No, Richard Feynman said this as was cited in post #734:

"I think all this superstring stuff is crazy." He elaborated, "I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with experiment, they cook up an explanation."
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Hmm. Feynman died in 1988. Well before the second superstring revolution...

Perhaps there could be something in this about the way science constantly improves its explanations of phenomena...
 
DOC said:
Actually modern science "theorizes" that the approximate 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the observable universe came from not only something smaller than a pea but something smaller than a single atom. I used a pea though because we can actually visualize its size.

You might ask how could "all" of the matter of 10 billion trillion stars which exist in an estimated 100 billion galaxies come from something smaller than an atom.
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After getting a more clearer understanding of relativity "theory" I now realize that not only (according to modern scientific "theory") does all the matter (physical material) of 100 billion galaxies come from something smaller than an atom but all the "space" in the universe comes from the same smaller than an atom thing too. In addition to matter there was no "space" also before the Big Bang. I think most people think that there was always empty space in the universe. But that is not true according to relativity theory. All "space" had a beginning too.

In other words modern science theorizes that all the "matter" (physical material) and all the "space" in the 100 billion galaxies came from something smaller than one atom. I think now most people can realize why some of the scientists became irritated when their figures led them to this conclusion. It's a mind blowing theory when you think about it, especially coming from a viewpoint where one believes there is no God.
 
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DOC said:
After getting a more clearer understanding of relativity "theory" I now realize that not only (according to modern scientific "theory") does all the matter (physical material) of 100 billion galaxies come from something smaller than an atom but all the "space" in the universe comes from the same smaller than an atom thing too. In addition to matter there was no "space" also before the Big Bang. I think most people think that there was always empty space in the universe. But that is not true according to relativity theory. All "space" had a beginning too.
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Wait, you mean you didn't realise this before?
 
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