Science Lies!

[CharleyH]

As I understand it, Stella, a scientific theory can only be disproved. Any scientific theory comes with the unspoken caveat 'until we find out something that shows we're full of shit'.

Unfortunately, because the caveat is unspoken many non-scientists don't realize this.

I think you mean an hypothesis, love. A theory can be proved or not over time. One theory can exist for thousand of years (God exists) before it's disproved. An hypothesis can exist for a bit (meteor explosion killed the dinosaurs) before someone comes along and says it was a super volcano.

 

[Stella_Omega]

As I understand it, Stella, a scientific theory can only be disproved. Any scientific theory comes with the unspoken caveat 'until we find out something that shows we're full of shit'.

Unfortunately, because the caveat is unspoken many non-scientists don't realize this.

Sure, because theories that have been proven, are called "facts."
They don't have to be huge, galactic things. They can be as simple and succinct as "Chlorophyll is the green colourant in deciduous plantlife." Or, "Bluebird's feathers are due to the refractive structure of the surface of the vanes, and are not actually tinted blue."

(doing color theory right now, can you tell?

 

[WRJames]

Science does not lie. It's ever evolving. Any intelligent person is aware of that fact.

I take it you did not follow the link at the beginning of this thread?

 

[WRJames]

Yes. I challenge you to find a religious proclamation that is disproven within a year of its announcement.

Religious beliefs can only be disagreed with. Scientific theories can be disproven -- or, proven.

Well, I don't know about a year -- but there have been predictions made by religious authorities which did not come to pass -- the imminent end of the world, for example.

Most scientific notions that reach theory status last a bit longer than a year, also.

The realm of what might be considered "religious" is so ill defined that it's hard say. For example, it it's religious to claim that the world in four thousand years old -- well, that's something that's provable (and disproved). But that drifts into the realm of science -- sort of?

 

[SlickTony]

Wow.

I'm going to have another drink rather than bother to engage this nonsense.

Pass that bottle over here, sarahh.

 

[Weird Harold]

For example, it it's religious to claim that the world in four thousand years old -- well, that's something that's provable (and disproved).

How is it provable and disproved?

There's a thread on the GB about just that subject, and the general consensus seems to be that the Eath is probably 4.6 billion years old, but nobody can conclusively prove that anything even existed prior to their first memory.

The best interpretation of the evidence, that which answers the most questions, rests on assumptions about the way sedementary rocks formed and that radioactive elements have always decayed at the same rate as they are observed to decay in the present time.

There are however mathmatical models that challenge those basic assumptions -- especially those about radioactive decay rates -- that make the estimate of 4.6 billion years just as reliable as Ussher's biblical calculation placing Creation at 23 October 4004 BC (Ussher slacked of at the last and didn't bother to compute the time of day.)


Then there is the "common dreams" theory -- which is a relatively serious philosophical theory -- that the Earth works the way people "Think" it works -- IOW The earth really was flat and rome was at the exact center of creation until Johannes Kepler convinced enough important people that the Sun was at the center of the universe.

Reading your arguments in this thread, I'm not surprised that you confuse "Science" with "tenured academics with conflicts of interest."

 

[WRJames]

How is it provable and disproved?

There's a thread on the GB about just that subject, and the general consensus seems to be that the Eath is probably 4.6 billion years old, but nobody can conclusively prove that anything even existed prior to their first memory.

The best interpretation of the evidence, that which answers the most questions, rests on assumptions about the way sedementary rocks formed and that radioactive elements have always decayed at the same rate as they are observed to decay in the present time.

There are however mathmatical models that challenge those basic assumptions -- especially those about radioactive decay rates -- that make the estimate of 4.6 billion years just as reliable as Ussher's biblical calculation placing Creation at 23 October 4004 BC (Ussher slacked of at the last and didn't bother to compute the time of day.)


Then there is the "common dreams" theory -- which is a relatively serious philosophical theory -- that the Earth works the way people "Think" it works -- IOW The earth really was flat and rome was at the exact center of creation until Johannes Kepler convinced enough important people that the Sun was at the center of the universe.

Reading your arguments in this thread, I'm not surprised that you confuse "Science" with "tenured academics with conflicts of interest."

What??? I hope you are being frivolous.

 

[Weird Harold]

What??? I hope you are being frivolous.

Nope, almost completely serious. The purported age of the earth at 4.5 billions years is indeed an estimate based on assumptions that cannot be proven or disproven -- namely that the conditions exist now and have been measured for something like one billionth of the estimated age of the earth are constants and have always been constants. It's like watching one frame of a twelve-hour miniseries and trying to reconstruct the plot.

If those assumptions are wrong -- as in the philosophical "common dream" argument, then the entire framework built on those assumptions is wrong.

The necessary changes in "scientific thinking" might be small -- as the change from Newtonian Physics to Einsteinian Physics -- Newtononian physics is still a good working estimate of the way the universe works but Einstein expanded physics to explain some things Newton couldn't even measure.

Or, the change might be so great and so widespread that entire branches of "science" would disappear.

If the "constants" we base many of the assumptions on were to change, then the whole universe would change and possibly change in such a way as to seem it had always been in the new configuration -- If that happened, how would we ever be able to detect the change?

Whenever some significant change in science comes along, there has always been a group of Old Guard that opposed and derides the new information -- usually "tenured academics," teachers who are to old and too certain of the subject to accept that their entire academic career is gone for nought because they were "wrong."

An example closer to your original assertion, is the reception Joseph Lister and his disciples received when they suggested that doctors do something so unhealthful as to wash their hands between patients -- or heaven's forbid, wash their hands with a dilute solution of Carbolic Acid to make sure they were clean.

Proponents of "GermTheory" and "antiseptic" practices were hounded out of hospitals, had medical degrees revoked, and had numerous indiginities heaped upon them -- but they eventually prevailed; prevailed to the point where your panel raised a very relevant concern about the chronic overuse of antibiotics and the rise of resistant strains becaue the entire medical community considers anyone who does NOT subscribe to "germ theory" an ignorant savage.

And, I might point out that the opponents of Lister's Germ Theory didn't even have the added incentive of a conflict of interest to tip their opinion against experimental data.

 

[Pure]

note to weird h

There's a thread on the GB about just that subject, and the general consensus seems to be that the Eath is probably 4.6 billion years old, but nobody can conclusively prove that anything even existed prior to their first memory.

The best interpretation of the evidence, that which answers the most questions, rests on assumptions about the way sedementary rocks formed and that radioactive elements have always decayed at the same rate as they are observed to decay in the present time.

There are however mathmatical models that challenge those basic assumptions -- especially those about radioactive decay rates -- that make the estimate of 4.6 billion years just as reliable as Ussher's biblical calculation placing Creation at 23 October 4004 BC (Ussher slacked of at the last and didn't bother to compute the time of day.)

i agree with WR, here. the point is vastly overstated.

Weird H adds,
Nope, almost completely serious. The purported age of the earth at 4.5 billions years is indeed an estimate based on assumptions that cannot be proven or disproven -- namely that the conditions exist now and have been measured for something like one billionth of the estimated age of the earth are constants and have always been constants. It's like watching one frame of a twelve-hour miniseries and trying to reconstruct the plot.

If those assumptions are wrong -- as in the philosophical "common dream" argument, then the entire framework built on those assumptions is wrong.

this is a bit like the "just another theory " approach of creationists.

the point is that Ussher is neither theory nor science. his proposed 4004 BC is just bunkum, and literalists quickly poked holes in it, during his time, and came up with allegedly better dates. but it's not a scientific process.

weird h is attempting to use arguments for general skepticism, to put 4004 on the same footing at 4 billion years ago. they are not. the latter is based in the evidence.

it's true that assumptions are made about radioactive decay rates: it's called 'uniformity of nature' or the principle "the future resembles the past." maybe these are wrong. but this is not the issue behind Ussher's wrong speculations.

what weird h ignores is both scientific procedures and practical ones.
we all operate on 'the future will resemble the past': so does Weird H.

i will illustrate Weird H's fallacy. a defendant was seen inside a bank pointing a gun, and caught outside the bank with (apparently) stolen money. his fingerprints are found in the bank and on the money. people saw him leaving the bank [as did a camera], just before others saw him outside the bank [as did another camera]. in short, there is vast evidence, some of it objective.

the legal and practical question is "did he do it?" and the evidence is presented. weird h comes to the defense. he says, "isn't it possible that the witnesses had a common dream". Yes. Confronted with the camera evidence, he says, "what do we really know about preservation of images? isn't it possible that film recorded a face with one look and was transformed, coincidentally into the accused's face." Yes. But we know about persistence of images and properties of film. But Weird H says, "you know the properties of past bit of film looked at, under certain consditions of nature. how do you know the properties of this film. can you PROVE that this film didn't behave in a completely different way?"

the whole effort would be laughed at, for a practical judgment has to be made; analogously scientists make 'best judgments': here is the moons path as computed. so we aim the rocket here. it works. Weird H can come along and say "you ASSUMED that natural constants had the same value; so you in fact had no way to be certain where the moon would be." true enough, but there is enough certainty, practical certainty, to proceed.

the same practical certainly gets Weird H out of bed and dressed in the morning and headed for the bathroom. even if, on waking up and seeing the clock, he thinks "you know i could still be dreaming" and even if he thinks "can it really be proven that the bathroom still exists, up the hall, in the same place as yesterday?"

 

[Weird Harold]

the point is that Ussher is neither theory nor science. his proposed 4004 BC is just bunkum, and literalists quickly poked holes in it, during his time, and came up with allegedly better dates. but it's not a scientific process.

Ussher is not the only one to calculate the date of Creation, and other luminaries, including Isaac Newton differed by all of 75 years. The basic premise for calculating the date of Creation -- that the King James Version of the Bible is literally "God's Word as revealed to the translastors of the original texts through divine inspiration" -- is in the opinion of most rationalists seriously flawed.

However, the mathematics -- the "Science" -- behind the 4004 BC date is valid and a reproduceable, peer reviewable process.

weird h is attempting to use arguments for general skepticism, to put 4004 on the same footing at 4 billion years ago. they are not. the latter is based in the evidence.

Nope, 4004BC is nowhere near the same footing as 4.5 billion -- the basic assumptions are much better and the number of questions answered is much higher. But the issue is PROOF or DISPROOF, not the "preponderance of evidence."

i will illustrate [distort] Weird H's fallacy. a defendant was seen inside a bank pointing a gun, and caught outside the bank with (apparently) stolen money. ...

the legal and practical question is "did he do it?" and the evidence is presented. ... Confronted with the camera evidence, he says, "what do we really know about preservation of images? isn't it possible that film recorded a face with one look and was transformed, coincidentally into the accused's face." ...

There are differences between "guilty byond reasonable doubt" and "by a prepoderance of evidence" and between "defense arguments" and "successful defense."

I could make the absurd arguments you propose, but I'd be a damn poor defense attorney -- unless I was deliberatly trying to set up a retrial for my client on the grounds his attorney was an idiot.

However, Icould and would attempt to raise doubt about every bit of evidence possible including raising the capabilites of photoshop and CGI software over the photograhic evidence.

The "common dream" philosphical argument is an unprovable mind game that used to be used to illustrate the point that scientists should never forget that all of science is based on the principle of "As it was and always shall be" -- which is the original wording of the assumption "the future resembles the past."

It is, FWIW, a residue of the fact that modern science has it's roots in religious orders and theological debate.

Like most people, I move through life on the assumption that myperception of the world matches reality and don't spend much time worrying about whether or not I'm stuck in a "Groundhog's Day" movie. I do semi-cnsciously rely on newtonian physics in my everyday life to keep the iced tea in my glass until I'm ready to drink it and predict when I have enough space in traffic to get out of my apartment complex -- which I think is more attention than most people put on "science."

As far as I'm concerned, the earth is at least 51 years old, probably 120 -- unless my grandmother lied to me about her direct experiences of the world in the 1890's -- and anything beyond that is theoretical with varying degrees of probablity.

Whe I was a child, Dinosaurs were cold blooded reptiles with scales instead of feathers (or a cosmic joke perpetrated by the creator to test man's faith in the liteeral word of the KJV.) Science has remade Dinosaurs in my lifetime at in at least three different ways -- they were warm-blooded, they aren't reptiles, and many of them had feathers. (the literal truth of the KJV still says they're a cosmic joke.)

Scepticism is the very foundation of "Science" and "PROOF" of past evenets is almost never more rigorous than "a preponderance of the evidence."

 

[talldarknhandsome]

For those of you with great faith in science, a cautionary tale. A panel of medical "experts" has ignored the facts so badly that they have provoked legal action by the Connecticut Attorney General. Here is the press release. This is not a trivial matter -- this group established guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease that were simply wrong -- with very serious consequences. Doctors who defied these "expert" guidelines had their licences suspended. One was hounded to suicide. Patients suffered -- and insurance companies did not pay.

Which just goes to show that having a bunch of eminent scientists proclaim that something is true does not guarantee it. How many other scientific "truths" are wrapped up in the politics and egotism of human interaction?

Of course, religion takes a lot of heat on this forum for the same reasons -- but let's not forget that scientists are human beings, subject to the same failings that may obscure their objectivity.

To mistake one scientist as being representative of all of science and every scientist is a logical fallacy.

If you want to criticize science, I'd suggest reading some philosophy of science. This will describe how science arrives at it's answer and a critique should start from there.

Just because some scientists are mistaken doesn't invalidate the whole enterprise of science. In fact, most theories in science rest on shaky evidence, to begin with. The process of science is to go forth from that starting point by modifying theories, finding suitable evidence, going through peer-review, and debating the evidence until, one day, a theory survives that explains the phenomena correctly. Science is a process and requires years and decades to produce, it is not a magical machine that you can dump evidence into and magically get the correct answer. During those years and decades, some scientists will get things wrong.

Remember this: gravity is only a theory. But, to say science is completely flawed is also to invalidate gravity and say it does not exist. Much of engineering, physics, and astronomy would be invalidated simply because your critique of science can't see the forest for the trees.

Unfortunately, religion does not work this way. If a religion says that 'God exists' then the religion is going to believe that, no matter how much contrary evidence exists in favor of the thesis, 'God DOES NOT exist'.

Given the two choices of siding with an explanatory model that responds to changing evidence (science) and one that doesn't (religion), I'd side with science any day.

 

[WRJames]

To mistake one scientist as being representative of all of science and every scientist is a logical fallacy.

If you want to criticize science, I'd suggest reading some philosophy of science. This will describe how science arrives at it's answer and a critique should start from there.

Just because some scientists are mistaken doesn't invalidate the whole enterprise of science. In fact, most theories in science rest on shaky evidence, to begin with. The process of science is to go forth from that starting point by modifying theories, finding suitable evidence, going through peer-review, and debating the evidence until, one day, a theory survives that explains the phenomena correctly. Science is a process and requires years and decades to produce, it is not a magical machine that you can dump evidence into and magically get the correct answer. During those years and decades, some scientists will get things wrong.

Remember this: gravity is only a theory. But, to say science is completely flawed is also to invalidate gravity and say it does not exist. Much of engineering, physics, and astronomy would be invalidated simply because your critique of science can't see the forest for the trees.

Unfortunately, religion does not work this way. If a religion says that 'God exists' then the religion is going to believe that, no matter how much contrary evidence exists in favor of the thesis, 'God DOES NOT exist'.

Given the two choices of siding with an explanatory model that responds to changing evidence (science) and one that doesn't (religion), I'd side with science any day.

Ah, you miss my point completely. We all understand that science makes mistakes -- "honest" mistakes, which science earnestly attempts to correct. Here is an instance where the scientific establishment deliberately misrepresented the facts. Not as individuals, but as a prestigious scientific body with the power to supress any dissent.

And your characterization is religion is nonsense. Religions are constantly challenging their doctrines. As for the evidence one way or the other for the existence of God -- an atheist will dismiss anything that might hint at God as being random chance, or "just the way things are." I'm sure if the Angel Gabriel appeared and showed off the portals of Heaven, it would be dismissed as a hallucination.

 

[Pure]

note to weird h

WHThe "common dream" philosphical argument is an unprovable mind game that used to be used to illustrate the point that scientists should never forget that all of science is based on the principle of "As it was and always shall be" -- which is the original wording of the assumption "the future resembles the past."

It is, FWIW, a residue of the fact that modern science has it's[sic] roots in religious orders and theological debate.

Like most people, I move through life on the assumption that myperception of the world matches reality and don't spend much time worrying about whether or not I'm stuck in a "Groundhog's Day" movie. I do semi-cnsciously rely on newtonian physics in my everyday life to keep the iced tea in my glass until I'm ready to drink it and predict when I have enough space in traffic to get out of my apartment complex -- which I think is more attention than most people put on "science."

===
I'm not sure where youre coming up with this "As it was and always shall be" principle, and why you think it's the "original wording" of the simple statement, assumption that /the future resembles the past/ [FRP]

I don't think there is any such "original wording"; i'd suppose you can find the claim or implication in any number of ancient texts, who would, as you say, in some sense be 'religious'.

I'm not sure what your evidence is for modern science has it's[sic] roots in religious orders and theological debate.

Founders of modern science, leaving aside the Greeks and Islamic astronomers, is usually linked with the likes of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, to name a few, and none were of a 'religious order' so far as I know.

I think too, you missed or ignored a main point of mine: it's not as if one day, some would be scientists said to themselves "You know, the future resembles the past; i can't prove it, but i'm going to assume it, and start investigating [say] the diurnal path of the sun." And thus science got under way.

ALL your practical activity, and that of every plant, animal, homo habilus [http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/ha/hab.html], and human is based on the FRP principle. Why should a deer go back to the same water hole for water, if the water might not suit your physiology, since it changed overnight?

We "know" the sun will rise tomorrow. We've seen it thousands of times. But these observations do not inescapably "prove" that it will rise tomorrow. All induction, no matter how solid--i.e., observation of cases--has a logical gap, which cannot be bridged without adding the FRP assumption "the future resembles the past." IOW, if you want an "airtight" argument, based on observations O1, O2, O3, etc of the sun rising, you must include the crucial premise of FRP, if you want to DEDUCE [as oppose to induce] that the sun will rise tomorrow.

All 'learning', including that of an earthworm is based on the future resembling the past, else why would an earthworm learn to take the left turn in a T maze. Even the patterning exhibited by plants, e.g. phototropism can be said --in a manner of speaking-- to depend on the assumption.

Note this is not the same issue as the "maybe it's all a dream" assertion.

The bottom line is that if a literalist, or 'young earth' person debates a scientist, and has to say, "i have my assumptions but you have yours as well, for example, FRP, that the future will resemble the past", then he has lost the debate. for the young earth person has that same assumption. the point his opponent would make is that the young earth person carries additional baggage, further assumptions, e.g., that somebody took down dictation from God. and from a scientific POV, one is always to prefer *minimal* assumptions.

if we assume "the future will resemble the past," we need not additionally assume, say, that the writer of Genesis was Moses, who was taking dictation from God; that Matthew took down the words of Jesus, in secretarial fashion.

the scientific "disproof" of religion, e.g. the existence of God, is ultimately, "we can ignore all these assumptions and do just fine."
hence the newer and better definitions of atheism do not say "disbelief in God", but rather "absence of beliefs about 'God'"

 

[Weird Harold]

I'm not sure where youre coming up with this "As it was and always shall be" principle, and why you think it's the "original wording" of the simple statement, assumption that /the future resembles the past/ [FRP]

I don't think there is any such "original wording"; i'd suppose you can find the claim or implication in any number of ancient texts, who would, as you say, in some sense be 'religious'.

I'm not sure what your evidence is for modern science has it's[sic] roots in religious orders and theological debate.

Look to the educators who shaped the way the 'founders of scientific thinking' and you'll find no more than two degrees of sepaeration from the "Society of Jesus," aka Jesuits Monks. Eventoday, principles devoped and codified by the Jesuits are the mainstay of both educational and scientific endeavors.

One of the basic elements of the early Jesuit world view was the catechism "as it was and always shall be" and that element of their world view is the basis for the essential premise that the world can be understood by man through scientific investigations.

You carefully avoided naming proto-scientists like Johannes Kepler who was a "church astromer," but that's really irrelevant -- at the very beginnings of "the history of science" as the "western world" reckons it, the only source of enough education to be a scientist or philospher was the Catholic Church and principally the Society of Jesus, who specialized in education and "investigative philosphy" (for lack of a better term.)

If you ignore the influence of the Jesuits on the "history of science," you're ignoring MOST of the history of science completely or misunderstanding it.

 

[Pure]

note

there are undoubted jesuit connection with both descartes and galileo; thank you for reminding me of it.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ENLIGHT/DESCARTE.HTM

Born in 1596, Descartes studied under Jesuits, who stressed the method of acquiring knowledge over everything else, even the content itself--unlike other universities which stressed the rote memorization of a massive amount of classical and scientific material. This gave rise to Descartes's life-long obsession with how knowledge is acquired rather than the substance of knowledge itself.

===============

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/sj/scientists/clavius.htm

When Galilei Galileo invited Cardinal Bellarmine to see the new-found wonders of the sky in his telescope, Bellarmine's gratitude led him write Galileo: "your affection will be reciprocated if I ever get an opportunity of doing you a service". Soon the opportunity came and it was to Clavius that Bellarmine turned to confirm the findings of Galileo, which resulted in Bellarmine's gentle treatment of Galileo.
Galileo was a rather celebrated and frequent visitor to the Jesuit Roman College. His friendship with members of the Society of Jesus started in 1587, when, at the age of 23, he met Clavius, and continued for the rest of his life. The number and contents of Galileo's letters to Clavius show that he was a good friend of Clavius
.
The latter was able to needle Galileo about seeing Jupiter's four moons only because Galileo drew them on the lens of his telescope. Other letters demonstrate the fact that Clavius' support for the heliocentric teaching was the preponderant reason for its acceptance among the learned. In the time of his distress it was to Jesuits like Clavius that Galileo turned. At one point the Jesuits of the Roman college having confirmed his discoveries of the motion of the earth honored Galileo with a three day celebration.

The Dominican scholar William Wallace, O.P. in his book Galileo's Early Notebooks (Notre Dame 1977) has demonstrated, by using the internal evidence of terminology, word order, symbols, and authorities quoted that much of Galileo teachings came from nine Jesuits teaching at the Roman College.
====

Let's look, however at a your statements,

A.the principle of "As it was and always shall be" -- which is the original wording of the assumption "the future resembles the past."

B.It is, FWIW, a residue of the fact that modern science has it's[sic] roots in religious orders and theological debate.

you claim (A.) there is an 'original wording' of the future resembles the past (FRP) principle. what is your source on this? are you claiming
"As it was and always shall be" was come up with by Jesuits?

i doubt there is an original form of FRP, and doubt it came from Xian orders.

i have given some evidence above that your B.[first part] claim of a connection of modern science and 'religious orders' is true enough. in the case of Descartes, the ideal of rigorous pursuit of knowledge was instilled.

in the case of Galileo, it seems that the mathematics of certain illustrious Jesuits was important for him. what math has to do with "theological debates", i'm not clear, nor do you reference any 'theological debates 'which may have influenced specific scientists.

i have no general problem with the claim that sometimes some religions [or components thereof] are friendly to science, and the 9th and 10th centrury islamic scientists, who were philosophers as well, are an example. it might be mentioned, iirc, that the Jesuits were not representative of the official church and were, iirc, out of its favor, at certain periods.

 

[xssve]

This is easy: science is peer reviewed, based on replicable results based on empirical data - if it isn't peer reviewed and dissent isn't taken seriously, it isn't science, it's politics.

 

[xssve]

Ah, you miss my point completely. We all understand that science makes mistakes -- "honest" mistakes, which science earnestly attempts to correct. Here is an instance where the scientific establishment deliberately misrepresented the facts. Not as individuals, but as a prestigious scientific body with the power to supress any dissent.

And your characterization is religion is nonsense. Religions are constantly challenging their doctrines. As for the evidence one way or the other for the existence of God -- an atheist will dismiss anything that might hint at God as being random chance, or "just the way things are." I'm sure if the Angel Gabriel appeared and showed off the portals of Heaven, it would be dismissed as a hallucination.

I don't think he's saying religion doesn't change, but it really reflects only a consensus of public opinion and private agenda, it's social engineering and any basis in the empirical method is strictly coincidental.

Empirical evidence constitutes a final authority in science, if the explanation doesn't fit the facts, then the explanation requires revision.

Religion, by positing the unprovable existence of an entity for which there is no empirical evidence as a final authority, starts out in an abstract, relativistic wasteland, and it can, and does, pretty much go all over the map. Insofar as religion stumbles upon any eternal truths at all, again, is pure coincidence, and since all religious truths are strictly arbitrary, there is never any guarantee that the matter is settled.

 

[WRJames]

I don't think he's saying religion doesn't change, but it really reflects only a consensus of public opinion and private agenda, it's social engineering and any basis in the empirical method is strictly coincidental.

Empirical evidence constitutes a final authority in science, if the explanation doesn't fit the facts, then the explanation requires revision.

Religion, by positing the unprovable existence of an entity for which there is no empirical evidence as a final authority, starts out in an abstract, relativistic wasteland, and it can, and does, pretty much go all over the map. Insofar as religion stumbles upon any eternal truths at all, again, is pure coincidence, and since all religious truths are strictly arbitrary, there is never any guarantee that the matter is settled.

Aren't your last two posts in direct contradiction to each other? What is the difference between the "peer review" required for science and the "consensus" required for religion? Or are you now substituting "empirical evidence" for peer review?

As for religion starting out with some sort of first assumption and going on from there -- what nonsense! It's true that Medieval scholasticism may have operated that way -- but that's not religion, it's a perversion of philosophy.

Just take a look at the encounters with God that created some of the great religions -- people try to run away from God as quickly as possible. Mohammed thought he was going crazy. These people did not reason their way to God -- God came to them.

Of course, it doesn't happen very often, and it's easy enough to say it never happens at all. You can't conjure up God in the same way that some scientific experiments can be reproduced. But, by the same token, we don't claim that a volcano never erupted, just because it is not erupting right now, or that a comet never hit the Earth, just because no one witnessed the event.

 

[xssve]

Two words: empirical evidence.

Religion is a consensus formed around arbitrary opinions and mystical forces, science is consensus formed around examination and explanation of empirical phenomena.

All human institutions are formed around consensus and prone to all the same potential for human error, but the difference between empiricism and magical thinking is the difference between a man and a clever ape.

 

[Weird Harold]

you claim (A.) there is an 'original wording' of the future resembles the past (FRP) principle. what is your source on this? are you claiming "As it was and always shall be" was come up with by Jesuits?

No, the Jesuits did not originate that catachism, it's a basic premise of the Catholic/Protestant/Christian beliefs. FWIW, it is a belief in an unchanging world can probably be traced at least as far back as the roots of "Old Testament" Judaism.

Because it is a basic premise of the Jesuit World View, it is also a basic premise of what the Jesuits taught their students -- which is in turn a basic premise of what Jesuit trained schollars turned into the Western World's definition of "Science."

That basic world-view is also the root of the principle "if it can't be repeated, it's not Science" as well as FRP.

Whether it's worded as a religious catechism or as the "Scientific Principle" it is still the root of the essential principles and axioms taught to the founders of "modern science" by the Jesuits.

However, it is an axiom that is under some pressure by advanced scientific thinking -- like quantum mecahanics and the mathematical calculations of the "date" of the Big Bang -- Space-time cannot have had the same properties immediately following the Big Bang as it does today because the math describing it breaks down the closer you get to the actual instant of the Big Bang.

In that respect, the date of the Big Bang and the date of Creation are equal; they're just solutions to mathematical models that may or may not have some corelation with reality. They're Both subject to the GIGO rule.

 

[WRJames]

No, the Jesuits did not originate that catachism, it's a basic premise of the Catholic/Protestant/Christian beliefs. FWIW, it is a belief in an unchanging world can probably be traced at least as far back as the roots of "Old Testament" Judaism.

I don't agree -- I think it's a Hellenistic construct that got superimposed on Christianity. God is depicited in the Bible as experimental, changing -- and the world of the Bible is anything but static.

 

[Weird Harold]

I don't agree -- I think it's a Hellenistic construct that got superimposed on Christianity. God is depicited in the Bible as experimental, changing -- and the world of the Bible is anything but static.

By the time the Jesuits were dominating European educations, it was firmly established as Catholic Doctrine. It is NOT a concept unique to the Jesuits or Christianity or Hellenist Greeks or any other group or culture.

The fact that official Church Doctirne ignored the mutability of Creation due to God's tinkering in the Old Testament is irrelevant to the time frame when Jesuits were training the proto-scientists who are credited with founding "real science."

However, the basic point is that the principle of FRP and its corollary "the past resembles the present" are basic assumptions which being challenged more and more often.

One example of how they're being challenged is the "Channeled Scablands" in Eastern Washington. The accepted and conventional thinking was always that the erosion features of the Scablands required millions of years to create, but evidence from recent ice-dams in Iceland and elsewhere have shown they could have been created in as little time as just a few weeks -- or even just a few days -- as Glacial Lake Missoula drained catastrophically.

The new theory of how long it took for the Scablands features to form implicitly challenges a LOT of basic assumptions about geology and how (sedimentary) rocks weather and form. (the fact that creationsists apparently have jumped on the Scablands and ice dam data to support a "single flood" explanation doesn't help change conventional thinking, but the basic premise of thousands or millions of years being required for erosion to make significant changes is forever busted.)

FWIW, the new explanation of the Scablands is meeting (has met) the same kind of tenured academic resistance and opposition as chronic Lyme disease got from your original example.

 

[oggbashan]

Association

I saw this thread next to another and read the thread title as

Scouries Lies

Is that an assumption or a theory?

Og

 

[rgraham666]

The preponderance of evidence makes it a theory, in my opinion.

 

[WRJames]

By the time the Jesuits were dominating European educations, it was firmly established as Catholic Doctrine. It is NOT a concept unique to the Jesuits or Christianity or Hellenist Greeks or any other group or culture.

The fact that official Church Doctirne ignored the mutability of Creation due to God's tinkering in the Old Testament is irrelevant to the time frame when Jesuits were training the proto-scientists who are credited with founding "real science."

Actually, I was refering more to the scholastic notion that God is unchanging -- which got carried over into Protestant thought also, with some really stange consequences.

Aren't you ignoring the great role the Arabs had in founding scientific thought?
Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (965-1040), later known to Europeans as Alhazen, is often credited as the founder of the scientific method.