NOAH'S ARK GREAT FLOOD Update

[Mighty AC]

You don't even know if there was indeed a bang, never mind what preceded the bang.

If it was another bang....then call it the bang bang....instead of the Big Bang (since you won't know either which of the two is bigger). Then you're really screwed if somebody came up with the hallucination that there was third bang! Or a fourth!

Btw, weren't you the one who talked about OBSERVATION? Hallucinations count?

We do know there was at least one bang, there may have been many more. Yes, physicists have learned this through observation.

Humans didn't ever observe a Triceratops directly, but we have found fossil evidence of its existence. The rapid expansion of the universe, or at least a region of the universe near to us that we can detect, also left traces in the form of microwave radiation that we can observe.

We can also observe other portions of the electromagnet spectrum including visible light. When you look up at the sun you are seeing an image produced, on average, 8 minutes and 20 seconds in the past. Our sun is very close, but scientists have observed radiation emitted from stars so distant the light is billions of years old. Hence, they have observed information from the distant past, much closer to the rapid inflation event that spewed matter into our portion of the universe.

Cosmologists have pieced together these observations into the current picture of the universe. Just like archaeologists piece together fossils and geological evidence to form a picture of the past on earth.

[betsy]

Scientists, you are fallible. Get off the pedestal and join the common herd

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/04/scientists-fallibilty-self-criticism-question

[betsy]

Humans didn't ever observe a Triceratops directly, but we have found fossil evidence of its existence.

What are fossils????

Edited January 8, 2013 by betsy

[betsy]

We do know there was at least one bang, there may have been many more. Yes, physicists have learned this through observation.

Humans didn't ever observe a Triceratops directly, but we have found fossil evidence of its existence. The rapid expansion of the universe, or at least a region of the universe near to us that we can detect, also left traces in the form of microwave radiation that we can observe.

We can also observe other portions of the electromagnet spectrum including visible light. When you look up at the sun you are seeing an image produced, on average, 8 minutes and 20 seconds in the past. Our sun is very close, but scientists have observed radiation emitted from stars so distant the light is billions of years old. Hence, they have observed information from the distant past, much closer to the rapid inflation event that spewed matter into our portion of the universe.

Cosmologists have pieced together these observations into the current picture of the universe. Just like archaeologists piece together fossils and geological evidence to form a picture of the past on earth.

The big bang theory describes the development of the universe from the time just after it came into existence up to today.

The most important concept to get across when talking about the big bang is expansion.

http://science.howst...ang-theory1.htm

That's cool. No problem with the Bible.

Edited January 8, 2013 by betsy

[g_bambino]

No problem with the Bible.

Your personal interpretation of metaphorical words in one translation of a version of the Bible, you mean.

[Mighty AC]

That's cool. No problem with the Bible.

Oh, good. As far as I know it doesn't clash with Goodnight Moon or The Cat In The Hat either. Then again, to a believer the bible can never have a problem right? When it is proven wrong, believers first deny the evidence then later claim the passage is just figurative or allegorical. The geocentric universe, the stationary, flat, edged earth and the tiny stars were thought to be fact by the bible's creators.

[Bonam]

The sad thing in this thread isn't betsy's blind faith, but the people who speak on behalf of the scientific viewpoint and yet make gross errors in their characterizations of science, like the horrendous bastardizations of "relativity" and "wave collapse theory" that people talked about on page 14. That's what gives believers in religious nonsense their ammo: the lack of knowledge of people that supposedly "believe" in science and yet say all kinds of BS that is scientifically wrong and easily refuted. There are so many horrendously wrong statements in this thread, so wrong they make me wince just to read them, that it makes it easy for someone like betsy to point at them and be like "See! That's wrong! Science is dumb!", when the problem isn't at all with science but rather with the people posting about it...

Edited January 8, 2013 by Bonam

[betsy]

Oh, good. As far as I know it doesn't clash with Goodnight Moon or The Cat In The Hat either. Then again, to a believer the bible can never have a problem right? When it is proven wrong, believers first deny the evidence then later claim the passage is just figurative or allegorical. The geocentric universe, the stationary, flat, edged earth and the tiny stars were thought to be fact by the bible's creators.

Back to post #275!

So, what are fossils????

Edited January 8, 2013 by betsy

[g_bambino]

When it is proven wrong, believers first deny the evidence...

Back to post #275!

Don't forget deflect, MAC.

[GostHacked]

The sad thing in this thread isn't betsy's blind faith, but the people who speak on behalf of the scientific viewpoint and yet make gross errors in their characterizations of science, like the horrendous bastardizations of "relativity" and "wave collapse theory" that people talked about on page 14.

Scientists and some here know that Wave Collapse Theory is really just that at this stage. A theory. However, it is a theory based in science and is essentially a work in progress. It may not even turn out to be a valid theory once more science is done. That's not a bastardization and does not give any more ammo to the god believers in order to counter science. The answer to things like Wave Collapse Theory and String Theory is that we know and understand that they are still theories and have to be tested more in order to become fact (repeatable tests with the same conclusion).

That's what gives believers in religious nonsense their ammo: the lack of knowledge of people that supposedly "believe" in science and yet say all kinds of BS that is scientifically wrong and easily refuted.

Well when we are talking about theories, we at least understand that they are as such until more work is done. Sure the theories won't help the argument because they are just that until further work is done to verify. The theory of relativity has been proven as correct with the information we currently have. We may yet discover something that replaces the Theory of Relativity, but it's the best one we have at the moment.

The religious and those who believe God created everything won't be convinced by science at all. Also how do you describe and portray something scientific to someone who simply does not have the capacity to understand what is being talked about regarding science? All the correct facts about testable theories can be put forth, but ignored based on faith.

When on the religious side there is no need to test or to theorize as they believe they have already been given the answers. Many who are talking about the science in this thread at least understand that it is the best explanation we can verify independently with the current tools and procedures we have.

There are so many horrendously wrong statements in this thread, so wrong they make me wince just to read them, that it makes it easy for someone like betsy to point at them and be like "See! That's wrong! Science is dumb!", when the problem isn't at all with science but rather with the people posting about it...

That does not make science look dumb, it makes those people look dumb. The processes and procedures are solid, but that does not meant there are not flaws with the scientific community. We can take climate change as an example of how the scientific community comes to a consensus about something instead of doing the hard science and fact finding to support a certain view. There are many conflicting consensus about what climate change is doing to the planet and to our way of life. A consensus is not fact and is more of a general agreement among the scientists. This is dangerous for science as a whole as a consensus is not scientific at all. So here one can say that they are taking this climate change thing on faith, not on real knowledge encompassing all factors Terran and beyond.

[Canuckistani]

Er hum - a theory that's been further verified is still a theory. All of science is theory - some theories are taken as axiomatic, but there really is nothing like unassailable truth in science. That's what gives it it's power - the theories are changed as new information comes in. It's also it's limitation - science can't reveal fundamental, unalterable truths. Just read an article that said that even the laws of physics, gravity say, may not be the same throughout the universe. That really opens up the ground beneath science because a fundamental assumption is that the laws are the same universally.

Just to back that up:

The laws of physics might change depending on where you are in the universe, claims an Australian team behind a recently published journal article. The paper, appearing in the October 31 issue of Physical Review Letters, asserts that observations of over 300 distant celestial bodies show that the strength of electromagnetism may change at different places in the universe. However this claim has been greeted with much skepticism within the scientific community.

http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2011/11/another-law-of-physics-broken.html

The point is, science can't actually prove that the laws of physics are universal. It just assumes it.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Canuckistani

[Guest Manny]

The geocentric universe, the stationary, flat, edged earth and the tiny stars were thought to be fact by the bible's creators.

And defended staunchly by scientists of the time, against the (scientifically) heretical views of other men such as Copernicus, Gallileo, and Giordano Bruno.

[Mighty AC]

So, what are fossils????

I almost missed this since it was edited in, 20 minutes after your original post. Surely, you have an idea of what a fossil is or you can look up a more detailed explanation. So just get to your point.

[GostHacked]

Bonam...

Back to post #275!

So, what are fossils????

And yet whatever the science minded people are putting forth are giving the religious more ammo to counter them? Can one really convey a message properly to the religious when we see this kind of thing?

What is a fossil? Really? This question needs to be asked? For what purpose? To make the science minded look stupid?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil

I guess the question is what type of fossil is Betsy is referring to.

[g_bambino]

All of science is theory - some theories are taken as axiomatic, but there really is nothing like unassailable truth in science.

So, it's not a truth that the Earth rotates around the Sun (originally also a theory condemned by the religious powers that were)?

[Canuckistani]

So, it's not a truth that the Earth rotates around the Sun (originally also a theory condemned by the religious powers that were)?

Whilst most scientists and philosophers accept that absolute truth is unobtainable, there has been intense debate about exactly what constitutes proof.

This argument is closely related to the realism and antirealism debate, which questions the nature of reality.

Scientists gradually approach the truth, by refining and adapting theories, whilst understanding that they will never find perfect proof.

The scientific theory involves making observations, and integrating them into previous research.

After a period of peer driven acceptance, the theory will become 'scientifically proven'. To reach this level, a scientific fact must be reproduced, independently, by many scientists.

When enough scientists become convinced about the validity of the results, they are assumed to be true.

Read more: Truth and Theory - How to Construct Theories Reflecting Reality

[Mighty AC]

And defended staunchly by scientists of the time, against the (scientifically) heretical views of other men such as Copernicus, Gallileo, and Giordano Bruno.

Good point! Yes, science adopts better evidence once it is provided and drops old theories when confirmed.

Jean Baptiste Lamarck hypothesized that giraffes evolved longer necks by yearning to reach higher and higher leaves. Modern biologists don't have to pretend that this is a figurative tale that was really hinting at natural selection, they just write it off as being incorrect.

[Bonam]

Scientists and some here know that Wave Collapse Theory is really just that at this stage. A theory. However, it is a theory based in science and is essentially a work in progress. It may not even turn out to be a valid theory once more science is done. That's not a bastardization and does not give any more ammo to the god believers in order to counter science. The answer to things like Wave Collapse Theory and String Theory is that we know and understand that they are still theories and have to be tested more in order to become fact (repeatable tests with the same conclusion).

Well when we are talking about theories, we at least understand that they are as such until more work is done. Sure the theories won't help the argument because they are just that until further work is done to verify. The theory of relativity has been proven as correct with the information we currently have. We may yet discover something that replaces the Theory of Relativity, but it's the best one we have at the moment.

I wasn't disputing the existence, correctness, or status of these theories. Rather, I was pointing out that the things people said about these theories a few pages back was completely and utterly incorrect and in fact not even related to said theories.

Examples:

Within science it's a serious question, as it has something to do with the fact that "events" in "reality" as defined by scientists are actually mere "potentialities". "Reality" itself only exists when the wave function collapses into a single state after interaction of an observer.

Wrong.

And that idea is fraught - what degree of consciousness is required to collapse the wave function.

Silly question.

If it's a matter of probabilities, why does the wave function seem to collapse in the same way each time, and for every observer?

It doesn't.

Not necessarily. Relativity says the experience can be completely different, for each observer.

No, it doesn't.

The_Squid, on 04 January 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

The experience of what?

GostHacked, on 04 January 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

The experience of anything. You and I may go see a band playing live. My experience compared to yours at the same venue can and will be different.

Absurdly unrelated to relativity.

Sure it does. You can't both occupy exactly the same space, so each of you will, relativistically speaking see something different. And that assumes that your two brains would see the same thing if you stood in the same space - not so, not by a mile. We see in part what we expect to see, each of our sensory organs function slightly differently, and our brains function very differently.

Again, completely unrelated to the theory of relativity.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Bonam

[Canuckistani]

@bonam: ..

The nature of observation has often been a point of contention in quantum mechanics,^[7]because quantum mechanics describes the experiences of observers with different numbers than it uses to describe material objects. With the notable exceptions of Louis DeBroglie, Max von Laue, Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein,^[8] who believed that quantum mechanics was a statistical approximation to a deeper reality which is deterministic, most of the founders of quantum mechanics believed that this problem is purely philosophical. Eugene Wigner went further, and explicitly identified it as a quantum version of the mind-body problem.^[9]

....It can be predicted using quantum mechanics, absent a collapse postulate, that an observer observing a quantum superposition will turn into a superposition of different observers seeing different things. Just like Schrödinger's cat, the observer will have a wavefunction which describes all the possible outcomes. Still, in actual experience, an observer never feels a superposition, but always feels that one of the outcomes has occurred with certainty. This apparent conflict between a wavefunction description and classical experience is called the problem of observation (see: Measurement problem). The founders of quantum mechanics were aware of this problem, and had varying opinions about its resolution. These views reflect different stances on an argument which is anything but resolved today:...

Eugene Wigner reformulated the "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment as "Wigner's friend" and proposed that the consciousness of an observer is the demarcation line which precipitates collapse of the wave function, independent of any realist interpretation. SeeConsciousness and measurement. Very technically, Wigner identified the non-linear probabilistic projection transformation which occurs during measurement with the selection of a definite state by a mind from the different possibilities which it could have in a quantum mechanical superposition. Thus, the non-physical mind is postulated to be the only true measurement apparatus.^[16] This interpretation has been summarized thus:

The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal)

minds

, which perform

measurements

on the brain causing wave function collapse.

^[16]

Henry Stapp has argued for the concept as follows:

From the point of view of the mathematics of quantum theory it makes no sense to treat a measuring device as intrinsically different from the collection of atomic constituents that make it up. A device is just another part of the physical universe... Moreover, the conscious thoughts of a human observer ought to be causally connected

most directly and immediately

to what is happening in his brain, not to what is happening out at some measuring device... Our bodies and brains thus become...parts of the quantum mechanically described physical universe. Treating the entire physical universe in this unifed way provides a conceptually simple and logically coherent theoretical foundation...

^[30]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind%E2%80%93body_problem

The question is not nearly as cut and dried as you make it out to be. There is no one true answer to this question.

[cybercoma]

I'm not sure who's more the child in this debate.

Really? You're not sure?

[Bonam]

That's all well and good, and philosophy and metaphysics are interesting topics to discuss, but they aren't relativity or quantum mechanics. Nor are they strictly "science" at all. Further, if one wishes to intelligently discuss the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, one should first have a deep understanding of quantum mechanics, which no one on this forum does.

[g_bambino]

most scientists and philosophers accept that absolute truth is unobtainable

Oh dear. I have a suspicion of what you're getting at, but am not certain. Can you expand on how the observed and calculated rotation of the Earth around the Sun is not an absolute truth?

[Guest Manny]

Good point! Yes, science adopts better evidence once it is provided and drops old theories when confirmed.

Jean Baptiste Lamarck hypothesized that giraffes evolved longer necks by yearning to reach higher and higher leaves. Modern biologists don't have to pretend that this is a figurative tale that was really hinting at natural selection, they just write it off as being incorrect.

Yes, it does that. My point is, science and religion are not things in themselves, outside of the minds of man. Scientific knowledge exists in our minds. Our understanding of it is fallable. I'm repeating my self here, because some people didn't get it or refused to the first time.

We would be foolish to worship science as though it were a thing in itself that contained the real truth, because it isn't. It's close to the truth, and it tries to be true, but it contains human error because it comes from us. Errors in interpretation, errors due to subjectivity, or due to interference of the observer. Only very recently have we come to realize this. And there is no reason to suspect there won't be further "earth shattering" revelations about nature through science tomorrow.

Science tries to be self-correcting. Unfortunately it's not as good at being self-correcting as you would like to believe. Those scientists who made radical breakthroughs in understanding had to be fearful of criticism and personal attack, not only by the church but by other established scientists as well. See, there is no dichotomy, it's the nature of the "beast".

[Mighty AC]

I mostly agree. Science is just a method of of inquiry and it's the best we have. Certainly, the body of knowledge it produces is not perfect but it gets closer to being so, every day. As a whole science is humble, truth seeking and self correcting. It does not profess to have all the answers; in fact, it readily points out gaps in our understanding and seeks to fill them in.

Like you said science isn't a "thing" though. It is millions of individual humans working on millions of problems. Like in every area of life some of these humans make mistakes, or lie, cheat and steal for personal gain. It's unavoidable. However, studies have shown that nefarious acts within science are very rare. In very active areas of science, misinformation is corrected quickly. In less active areas it takes longer, but all is corrected in time.

[Mighty AC]

Religion on the other hand is pretty much the opposite of science. It is far from humble as it arrogantly professes to have the answers. It is not truth seeking, as it claims to already have the truth. It is not self correcting and actually denies, discredits and forcefully threatens those who provide information contrary to religious beliefs.

Religion doesn't just lie, cheat and steal for personal gain it slaughters those that disagree with it. Now I wouldn't care if people wanted to believe in a set of rules based on the collective knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern goat herders, in the comfort of their own home. People are free to believe crazy things, if they so desire. However, religion is a powerful force that tries to impose it's own ignorance on society as a whole.