Science requires overcoming childhood understanding

[lazs2]

socialism and secularism has killed more people in modern times that religion.

Anyone...   any group who has too much power is a threat.

As for booze and his total faith in science..  science is theory... the scientific fact of today is just something that will be disproved the next.   I have lived long enough to see them change their minds hundreds of times.

That is fine... that is what science is about.. where it gets ugly is when they want us to live our lives.. to modify our lifestyles and give up freedoms based on their latest theory.... or.. when they kill people based on a theory or a ban or whatever not well thought out.    Not proven.

They can't even tell me if butter is good or bad for me from one year to the next... I certainly don't care to put much stock in their theories of what the universe is all about and how it came to be.   I certainly do not want to have to modify my behavior based on their weak theories on what makes the globe heat and cool and by how much.

lazs

[AKIron]

This weeks parade magazine reminded me that science may require overcoming a lot more than just our "childhood understanding". With 2/3 of the energy in our universe being completely undetectable by any current methods or theories I think we may have to reevaluate all of our so called knowledge.

[Holden McGroin]

Dark energy is a hypothetical explanation to the apparent accelleration of the universal expansion.

There is an observed phenomemon (expansion acceleration) and a theoretical explanation.

so "With 2/3 of the energy in our universe being completely undetectable by any current methods or theories" is not entirely correct.  We can observe and explain its effects.

We have done that on many other physical phenomenon, such as gravity:  We see that it's associated with mass, and that it attracts stuff, and it may attract because it warps spacetime, but what it really is is beyond our current knowledge.  All we can do is just observe and explain its effects.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Dark energy is a hypothetical explanation to the apparent accelleration of the universal expansion.

There is an observed phenomemon (expansion acceleration) and a theoretical explanation.

so "With 2/3 of the energy in our universe being completely undetectable by any current methods or theories" is not entirely correct.  We can observe and explain its effects.

We have done that on many other physical phenomenon, such as gravity:  We see that it's associated with mass, and that it attracts stuff, and it may attract because it warps spacetime, but what it really is is beyond our current knowledge.  All we can do is just observe and explain its effects.

Dark energy is only the description of a force we think exists to explain said expansion. I think it's a stretch to call it a theory. I could as easily (and quite possibly more accurately) call it the will of God.

[Holden McGroin]

Theory:  a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

I think it qualifies

[AKIron]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Theory:  a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

I think it qualifies

The term dark in this phrase doesn't mean only that it is not observable but also represents our understanding, or lack thereof, of it's nature.

That there must be something which we cannot observe, but of a nature similar to that which we can, suggests to me insecurity whereby we are reluctant to consider our current theories false. This reluctance is human nature and one of those attributes that require overcoming for there to be true knowledge imo.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by AKIron
The term dark in this phrase doesn't mean only that it is not observable but also represents our understanding, or lack thereof, of it's nature.

That there must be something which we cannot observe, but of a nature similar to that which we can, suggests to me insecurity whereby we are reluctant to consider our current theories false. This reluctance is human nature and one of those attributes that require overcoming for there to be true knowledge imo.

Gravity is unobservable... we only see it's effects.

The nature of gravity is that it is somehow intertwined with mass and it is a fundamental force of nature.  

What gravity really is is unknown and much debated.  Particle physists look for gravitons.  Nobody has seen them yet.  There is some indirect evidence that gravitational radiation exists from observations of pulsars and that suggests gravitons exist, and gravitions are but a possible explanation of gravity.  But fundamentally, what gravity is is unknown.

[moot]

I think it's a stretch to call it a theory. I could as easily (and quite possibly more accurately) call it the will of God.

Scientific dead end.   What would the use of that be?
Were microwaves fake too?  We're only getting started on our way to understanding all we can, and it will never be "Godly" since it would take us infinity to understand the infinite, so what's the big deal?
The supernatural should be kept where it belongs: out of rational discourse.  There have been, are, and always will be loose ends in our attempts to make sense of things, and dead ends like "Hey - I know - It's the hand of God" are no use.

If God really is "God", then everything is "him".. no more, no less; including all the things we have understood and those we will in the future.
You have to admit the incongruity of saying both that God is infinite etc, and comparing anything we do or think (that includes anthropomorphisms such as pretending to know anything about such a thing as God) with God.

Apples and oranges.

[lazs2]

I don't care if you think it is a form of energy not yet discovered or god or... the effects of the tooth fairy and bigfoot partying with aliens..

So long as you don't want me to live my life based on what you think it wants.

lazs

[AKIron]

What I or any other human alive think God wants of you lazs means little or nothing. What he wants of you is between you and him and I think he is more than able to make that known to you. But you knew that.

[AKIron]

Gravitons, curved space, or maybe even interactions at the quantum level with dimensions we can  only imagine. Theories are fine until they become knowledge which blinds us to the truth.

[moot]

You mean an irrational thing such as faith would interfere with a rational one such as science?.. How?
How is knowledge ever anything else than truth?

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by moot
You mean an irrational thing such as faith would interfere with a rational one such as science?.. How?
How is knowledge ever anything else than truth?

For the first question, ask Tycho Brahe.

The second question:  One can have knowledge of astrology, sasquatch, or nessie, or knowledge of the language of Klingon or Elvin. All those are knowledge of false.  

I suppose one can argue that knowing they are false is truth, but knowing that Bilbo Baggins had ugly feet is knowledge of false.

[Bluedog]

Originally posted by Gunthr
this seems appropriate, but in the face of the Arstechnica piece...

MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES

'T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Alien toys, cast adrift through time,
Washed up on our shore,
Fall into the hands of children
Who wonder what they're for.
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
If they learn to think a different way, they'll be gone from you
Before you know it...

Move the beads upon the wire frame
Make one disappear.
Learn to guide the people in the cube
You see so crystal clear.
There is more in heaven and on earth
Than your parents dream.
If you try, you'll understand at last
'Bout the way things seem.
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
Now they learn to think a different way, and it's just as true,
But you don't know it...

Little girl no longer speaks in words
You can understand.
Little boy, no longer quite content
With his blocks and sand.
One dark night, you hurry to their room
Wakened by a cry,
Just in time to watch them fade away
Who knows where or why (where or why)
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
These two learned to think a different way and now they're gone from you.
How could you know it?

Alien toys, cast adrift through time,
Washed up in the reeds.
Little girl tries to tell her friend
'Bout the sliding beads.
'T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
And the mome raths outgrabe.
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Outgrabe!

What happened to the Bandersnatch, Jubjub bird and the most important of all, the Jaberwokee??

[Gunthr]

What happened to the Bandersnatch, Jubjub bird and the most important of all, the Jaberwokee?? - Bluedog

i thank our English friend 'Bounder' for supplying the original poem by Lewis Carroll:

That bit is Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (Dodgson)


This is how it should go

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



__________________  - Bounder