Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religous about their science

[Jono]

That is your opinion, so how about some place where this actually happned? Where a dogmatic belief in something is currently interfering with the process of discovery.

That's actually a hard question, but we all know it has happend. The problem is it's mostly something we can reflect on way beyond hindsight.

 

[Tubbythin]

Something that shows up in a lab certainly qualifies as empirical.

That is true. But that does not provide us with a definition of empirical.

Inflation is a complete no show in the lab.

Of course. If it was a show in the lab then lab's would not exist. So unless you

There are half a dozen "brands" to choose from too.

So? Any idea how many different brands of quantum gravity there are?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I agree. IMO however it's only "difficult" because it lacks empirical support and therefore the "believers" insist that the "evidence" is in that math.

No, that's completely backwards. A physical law is expressed using mathematics. Using mathematics, we can derive physical consequences of the law that may not be obvious at first glance. Whether those predicted consequences match reality is an empirical question; the empirical evidence determines whether the physical law stands or falls.

As an example, consider Einstein's theory of general relativity, whose mathematical core is the Einstein field equations. It wasn't immediately obvious that Einstein's 1915 formulation of those equations had no static solution that was compatible with empirical observations of the cosmos on a large scale (matter-dominated, low pressure, spatially homogeneous, isotropic, et cetera). When Einstein tried to fix that by adding the lambda term, it wasn't immediately obvious that Einstein's static universe is unstable.

Nor was it immediately obvious that, when combined with a few more assumptions forced upon us by empirical observations, the field equations predicted black holes or a Big Bang.

Not many people are going to understand the entire chain of reasoning that yields one of those predictions. The very beginning of that chain, Einstein's field equations, are is expressed using graduate-level mathematics. Once you understand that mathematics, it takes little more than high school algebra to prove that Einstein's static universe is the only static solution with certain properties, and little more than calculus to prove that Einstein's static universe is unstable, but the mathematics needed to predict the singularities (e.g. black holes or the Big Bang) is quite daunting.

When you don't understand the mathematics, you have several options. Here are a few of them, in increasing order of reasonableness:

• You can deny the possibility that others might understand the mathematics or science better than you.
• You can admit you don't know.
• You can recognize that those who do understand the mathematics or science have probably gotten it right.

That third option is illustrated by Naddig74's insightful post:

A priest will tell you a fairy story, and demand you take the counter intuitive, hard to understand on faith; ''You'll just have to take my word for it.''

I'm pretty bright, but I'm a dunce where maths is concerned especially. A lot of high level physics in particular just goes completely over my head. On a lot of hard science subjects I just have to ''take the professor's word for it.''

I appreciate the difference is that what the scientist is telling me can be shown to be true by experimental evidence or mathematical proofs, but mostly they just bewilder me too.

In essence, I think that for most people of average intelligence science is like religion in that you just have to accept that what you're being told is true, as actual understanding is so difficult.

The first option is illustrated by several threads that remain active in this subforum. Michael Mozina explained why he scoffs at some areas of science but not others:

I don't for instance have to have much "faith" in electrical engineering because it produces tangible goods on a regular basis. I can doubt the validity of the math all day, but certainly I can't ignore the computer I'm using, or the usefulness of that field of science.

Many people just aren't aware that cell phones and cable connections the Internet use technologies based on quantum mechanics. If they knew that, they might be less likely to scoff at quantum mechanics.

The general theory of relativity has fewer applications to everyday technologies, so it's easier for Michael Mozina and others to ignore the empirical evidence in its favor.

That's not the whole story, of course. The basic principles of biological evolution are not forbiddingly mathematical, and they produce tangible goods (e.g. crops, pets, and drugs) on a regular basis, but some people still find cause to reject those principles. That may be off-topic for this thread, however, as I'm not sure what that could have to do with religion.

 

[Dancing David]

That's actually a hard question, but we all know it has happend. The problem is it's mostly something we can reflect on way beyond hindsight.

Nope, Zeuzzz made a positive statement there are peopel whsoe religous views of science are a dteriment to science.

'We all know it has happened" is an opinion, now support it with data.

Zeuzzz is also talking about present day.

 

[Dancing David]

Please provide us with a definition of empirical.

Well it certainly doesn't involve telescopes except for certain ones.



So it isn't empirical that objects in galaxies rotate faster around galactice centers than they ought to, and it isn't empirical that there has not been detection of enough baryon type matter to account for it. That is not empirical.

But having an eight year old eyeball something and say it looks like a bunny. That is emprical.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Fair enough. I have been drinking.

Well, it was Friday night afterall.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That is true. But that does not provide us with a definition of empirical.

Well, I suppose we could use that as a definition of empirical, but it would be rather limiting even from my perspective. The key issue here is whether or not you can establish a cause/effect relationship between your invisible friend and the effect in question *before* you start pointing at the sky and saying "god did it, and here's the math to prove it." Most of the mainstream theories rely not upon empirical experimentation, but upon circular arguments related to a mathematical definition of the invisible friend in question and then simply pointing at the sky and saying "my friend did it".

So? Any idea how many different brands of quantum gravity there are?

But the attractive processes of gravity show up in the lab. Inflation was made up in the head of a single individual, with no precedent whatsoever. The whole thing has "morphed" into a half dozen or so "possible" brands of "inflation" now, as though inflation is a "given", and the only question remain is "which" brand of inflation did it.

 

[catsmate]

Blaming others for lying?
Yeah, this really belong in the joke and conspiracy theory forums.

Now, now, he's not blaming others for his lies, he's blaming them for exposing his lies..

 

[Michael Mozina]

Gee MM that is vague link even by your standards, how on earth does someone proposing a different mechanism for gravity support the idea that religous science is a detriment to science.

I think you missed my point. The point I was trying to make is that what you currently think you know about GR, may in fact be what's led you astray all along. Nobody is "complaining' about that particular paper. The point is that there are many possibilities, and no certainties. It's therefore pointless to fixate on a single "possibility' to the exclusion of everything else.

Are you feeling oaky? Your response to my questions makes zero sense to me.

I'm feeling fine, but it is possible I didn't understand your questions. Try again.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Religious Scientists

So, I'm a bit confused about what this thread is supposed to be about.

I have to agree that I also do not quite get the point.

Religious scientists are those that cling to falsified theories, right?

That looks like one example of what Zeuzzz has in mind to me, though I think the effect is rather broader than that.

For instance, ...

I've noticed that those people that have religious type convictions about scientific areas will tend to not have partners, or instead strained relationships, as they are so vehemently engrossed in their subject they have time for little else.

This actually describes Albert Einstein rather well during most of his life. He even had a contract with his 2nd wife limiting intimacy. He had rocky personal relationships. But ...

I guess what I'm saying in a roundabout way is that scientists that distance themselves from their work and the meaning of it all (maybe in exchange for a happy family life) always seem to end up inadvertently finding much better scientific discoveries than the religious type of scientist.

Here I part company with Zeuzzz and claim exactly the opposite. The scientists who are most deeply enshrouded in their work, to the exclusion of everything else, are the ones most likely to be most productive, the ones most likely to make significant and expansive discoveries. Just go back to the example of Einstein. His inability to deal with personal relationships on what others might call a happier level was a direct result of his complete devotion to his work. As a result of that devotion he managed to come up with both special & general relativity, which is no small addition to the pantheon of science. But he also made significant advances in more classical physics, specifically in statistical mechanics, where his tour-de-force efforts allowed him to compute the physical size of molecules from Brownian motion, pounding the last nails into the intellectual coffin of those who still argued that atoms did not exist.

And this effect is not limited to science only. Take an example from chess. Alexander Alekhine & Bobby Fischer are two good examples of players whose names dominate the short lists of "greatest chessplayer ever". They dominated the world of chess in their day, both becoming world champion, and both utterly consumed by chess to the exclusion of everything else.

I think that kind of utter devotion is a key ingredient in the likelihood of any individual making major discoveries in their chosen discipline. Of course, people vary a lot from one to the other, and there will be counter examples of individuals who seem to have managed great advances without the extreme level of devotion (perhaps Richard Feynman comes to mind here).

So? Since Alfven is not God, why should we take his opinion as sacred and unquestionable?

Nobody asked you to do that. I simply asked you to take his statements seriously, consider them carefully, and consider the methods he used to describe the same processes (circuits). The hierarchy of the mainstream has *NEVER* done that.

And here we proceed to hijack Zeuzzz's thread so we can discuss Mozina's hypotheses, the fate of any thread he posts in. Oh well. It is just this kind of statement that brings out all of my latent hostility. Generally speaking, I really am a mild-mannered, Clark Kent kind of guy. But what Mozina says here is in fact really insulting, whether he means it to be or not, by virtue of the fact that it is so extremely wrong. It is prima facie evidence that he chooses to say things without ever bothering with whether or not the things he says are true. As a matter of fact, Alfven's ideas about circuit models and currents in plasmas have been taken extremely seriously by the mainstream community. His ideas have been examined, and treated in exactly the same manner as for any other scientists; those ideas which work have been kept, those ideas which do not work have been discarded. The discipline of plasma physics has both a history and a science, both of which Mozina seems quite unaware of. It is just this kind of fundamental disdain for facts that brings out the anti-Mozina hostility in so many. How is it possible to discuss the fine points of any scientific hypothesis or theory with someone who cannot get even the simplest facts straight?

Finally, a suggestion for our friend Mozina. If you choose to respond, do not do so on this thread. You have already hijacked one of Zeuzzz's threads, and are poised to do so once again, turning this into a discussion of your ideas instead of his, and on a totally different subject. There are plenty of your own threads to choose from, or you can start yet another thread. But let us not hijack this one.

 

[LashL]

Several off-topic posts have been moved to a pre-existing thread here. It's not a perfect split because some posts are half on-topic and half off-topic, but it's going to have to do. Now, please stick to the topic of this thread, and keep things civil.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

 

[technoextreme]

Velikovsky was his name.
EDIT:
Which apparently I would know if I watched Cosmos of all places....

 

[Jono]

Nope, Zeuzzz made a positive statement there are peopel whsoe religous views of science are a dteriment to science.

'We all know it has happened" is an opinion, now support it with data.

Zeuzzz is also talking about present day.

The hard part is if or when there's a consensus of what constitutes as "religious" attachment to, or of, their views of science or a scientific topic. And I think, this is where it becomes a problem. Being "religious" about a view can very well mean nothing more than a person who's basically very myopic and heavily biased toward his own approach/view and either refuse to accept or have a really hard time accepting established or probable scientific possibilities.
In other words, an irrational negating viewpoint of a scientific field, issue or claim based on personal prejudice, reluctance toward facts and/or brought on by political views, where said viewpoint isn't supported by data or is the least supported in comparison to what is negated.

The difficult part is what reason one is to assign a potential scientist's, or person's, reluctance to accept or consider new or controversial possibilities (or facts). That's why, even if giving examples, one could easily debate endlessly why the given scientist holds such a viewpoint.

When it comes to the field of genetic determinism for example, to put it briefly, the scientific climate used to be one to openly apply it to human behaviour, groups thereof even. But with the advent of modern 'humanism', liberalism, coupled with sociology of boasian anthropology as a silent rule of prelevalent yardstick, aftermath of European right-winged fascism, it quickly became increasingly frowned upon. In the 60's-80's, notably 70's for example, it became more or less hallmarked in effect of nature-vs-nurture being de facto leaning heavily on nurture, if not often exclusively.
It is not odd, considering the political climate and the political views of many opinion-making academics at the time. Today, the situation is less biased toward nurture, hell even group classifications in mainstream genome-papers on genetic markers now use quite similar groupings as Coon's much older and racial taxonomy. A bit boiled down nowadays to a conflict of semantics; "There's no such thing as human races, but at the same there are, so let's just use a slightly different terminology".

All in all I think scientists and leading intellectual opinion/policy makers are drastically affected by their contemporary political, ideological climate, and this have had and can have an effect on what to negate/accept and what not to, concerning scientific actualities and possibilities. Of course.

 

[Dancing David]

Sorry Jono, that was not much of a response to my typo laden post, there is no repression of study of determinism in human behavior.

You have not really made a point about deeply held beliefs of scientists being detrimental to science.

Genetic determinism for humans in behavior is not studied widely because it is bogus. People do study it all the time and in very strange ways. But the evidence they have is lacking and a frequent subject of threads here.

It could that those who pretended to apply genetic determinism to human behavior were found to be soundly lacking in theory and data.

So you really need to stand up and show some data rather than a vague appeal to a political view of science.

Just to give you a hint look up on Google

‘Electric Stars’
‘Electric Universe’
‘The Big bang Never Happened’
‘Alternates to cosmological redshift’
‘Thunderdoltsbolts of the Gods’
‘Plasma universe’
‘Plasma cosmology’
‘Iron sun’

Then look up
‘Disproving General relativity’
‘Setterfield speed of light not constant’

Bow the reason to do this is then once you find these sites, especially Thunderdolts and all the people who want to ‘prove Einstein wrong’, you will see a common thread amongst many of the arguments:
“My theory is not accepted because of the blindness of the mainstream community’, and that ‘there is a vast corporate conspiracy to suppress these theories’.

When the truth is:

The theories contradict the data at hand.

So if you look at Zuezzz’s posting history you will see why I bring this up.

 

[Zeuzzz]

‘Electric Stars’
‘Electric Universe’
‘The Big bang Never Happened’
‘Alternates to cosmological redshift’
‘Thunderdoltsbolts of the Gods’
‘Plasma universe’
‘Plasma cosmology’
‘Iron sun’

Then look up
‘Disproving General relativity’
‘Setterfield speed of light not constant’

Bow the reason to do this is then once you find these sites, especially Thunderdolts and all the people who want to ‘prove Einstein wrong’, you will see a common thread amongst many of the arguments:
“My theory is not accepted because of the blindness of the mainstream community’, and that ‘there is a vast corporate conspiracy to suppress these theories’.

When the truth is:

The theories contradict the data at hand.

So if you look at Zuezzz’s posting history you will see why I bring this up.

Stay on topic. And don't blame anyone else for bringing it up either.

Just remembered a short chapter I thoroughly enjoyed from Alexander Shulgins TiHKAL http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cosmology/bigbang.html

Awesome that he has basically the same views as me on this subject.

 

[schrodingasdawg]

Just remembered a short chapter I thoroughly enjoyed from Alexander Shulgins TiHKAL http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cosmology/bigbang.html

Awesome that he has basically the same views as me on this subject.

I lol'd. I particularly found amusing his claim that the cosmological redshift is due to "older photons" moving with a "slower time scale." Sure, mainstream cosmology---in spite of being pretty well-formulated and based on considerable amounts of observational evidence---should be dismissed off-hand because it "sounds religious," but we should accept a vague, probably nonsensical notion with no theoretical framework and no testable predictions given.

Guy's probably been doing too many tryptamines.

 

[Reality Check]

Just remembered a short chapter I thoroughly enjoyed from Alexander Shulgins TiHKAL http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cosmology/bigbang.html

Awesome that he has basically the same views as me on this subject.

Awesome ... outdated, bunch of rambling about his personal opinion.
You did notice his misinterpretation of the Big Bang as a "super explosion"?

But if you take away his snide "religious" reworking of the Big Bang theory, his movie analogy is quite good.

The stuff afterward is strange:

• The Big Bang does not address the origin of the universe. So what? That is its definition - a theory of what happened to the universe after it bgan - if it did begin.
• He was ignorant of the fact the the CMB was not always predicted to be a "absolutely uniform level of radiation". It was initially predicted to have a uniform black -body spectrum in the 1940's and then predicted to have fluctuations (Harrison, E. R. (1970). "Fluctuations at the threshold of classical cosmology". Physical Review D 1: 2726–2730. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.1.2726.).
  COBE, WMAP (and now Planck) were started to measure these fluctuations which they found.

Of course that web page is the author's opinion from 1997. Given the WMAP results it is unlikely that they hold the same opinion.

 

[Reality Check]

...Guy's probably been doing too many tryptamines.

In case no one else gets the joke:
Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin (born June 17, 1925 in Berkeley, California) is a Russian-American pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer.

Definitely worth a LOL!

 

[paximperium]

In case no one else gets the joke:
Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin (born June 17, 1925 in Berkeley, California) is a Russian-American pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer.

Definitely worth a LOL!

I'm assuming you're aware where Zeuzz usually posts on the net? He tends to post in physics and drug-user forums.

 

[Complexity]

Stay on topic. And don't blame anyone else for bringing it up either.

Just remembered a short chapter I thoroughly enjoyed from Alexander Shulgins TiHKAL http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cosmology/bigbang.html

Awesome that he has basically the same views as me on this subject.

The issues he raises are relevant.

If I had written your posts, I wouldn't want them brought up again, either.