Back to the serious

Sep 28, 2007 13:21

There's the New York Times showing its damn liberal bias again. Article about the film Expelled, and about how several scientists, including PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins (you can find his website yourself, I'll bet) were interviewed under false pretenses (they believed they were being interviewed for a different movie called Crossroads, which ( Read more... )

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izuko September 28 2007, 20:54:43 UTC
I think the term supernatural is a bit absurd, in the first place. If something we consider "supernatural" exists, then it must be natural. What is called supernatural falls into four categories ( ... )

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caduceuskun September 28 2007, 21:54:49 UTC
String theory is probably one of the most widely accepted, or at least considered, theories trying for the unification of quantum theory and relativity theory, but it's hardly the only one, and there are lots of scientists who don't buy it, just like there are a lot who don't buy dark matter and dark energy, and even some who are dubious about the Big Bang theory as it's presently formulated. I've been reading a lot of articles about this stuff lately, though I don't have any of the links at the tips of my fingers at the moment. Basically like you're saying, predictability is one of the big things that makes a theory accepted, and one of the biggest problems with string theory, at least the last I heard, was that you can't really make any testable predictions using it; as opposed to quantum and relativity theory, the predictions of which are consistently are born out by experiments. They just don't work together right now, which is why things like ST exist. The arguments and discussions about advanced theoretical physics are a ( ... )

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izuko September 28 2007, 22:07:38 UTC
I've seen many who treat String Theory like it's gospel. And, in fact, will look at you as if you had denied the existence of oxygen, were you to question it. Kind of like those of us who denied global warming were looked upon like ignorant buffoons, even a year ago (hell, even as recently as this summer, some global warming scientists and at least on politician recommended Nuremberg-style trials for us).

These days, many scientists seem to be distressingly wedded to their pet theories, for either financial or political reasons (or maybe just ego).

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izuko September 28 2007, 20:44:37 UTC
"Any claim, any explanation of an event, definitely falls within the scope of science. That’s because science is a method of investigation."

Funny how people only remember that when it's in their best interests. But when questions like intelligent design come up, we get "that's not science." Evidently, moving goalposts IS part of science.

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izuko September 28 2007, 20:57:09 UTC
I should probably explain why the Intelligent Design issue bothers me so much. It's that, whenever you have people unwilling to honestly discuss and debate a point, when they won't even let the hypothesis be discussed in a serious manner, my "they're hiding something" alarm goes off. Much like I imagine your alarm goes off when the Administration refuses to allow legal counsel for detainees. Same "Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark" feeling.

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caduceuskun September 28 2007, 21:47:18 UTC
It has been, man. Pretty much every leg intelligent design has to stand on has been either debunked by evidence or shown to be a logical fallacy. If you want actual books, there is Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism and Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (though that second one is playing nice in that it says religion has authority over the realm of the supernatural, which I obviously disagree with, since I don't believe there is a "supernatural). Further, there's this, which tells about a Q&A session with William A Dembski, one of the leading proponents of Intelligent Design, in which a bunch of undergrads demolish his arguments, and there's this which links to a explanation of how a major argument of Michael J. Behe, another major ID supporter, is really not very correct. The reason scientists are saying ID is not science is because it's not science. It's a big ol' argument from the gaps, where the ID guys say, "Well, evolution theory doesn't explain this, so there must have been a ( ... )

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izuko September 28 2007, 22:26:03 UTC
It has been, man. Pretty much every leg intelligent design has to stand on has been either debunked by evidence or shown to be a logical fallacy.No, they haven't. Whenever ID starts getting into laying out the details, we get "it's not scientific, don't bother us." You even do it IN THIS VERY REPLY. If it's wrong, then argue that it's wrong. If the science it is based on is flawed, then show it. If the conclusions that are drawn are flawed, then show it. (in general, we don't have to get into the battle here) But, for the love of URD, don't sit here and say that science is a method of investigation, and then use the holy name of science to restrict what can be investigated. Because that is a double standard ( ... )

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