General > Off Topic
Two arguments that give the creationists the upper hand.
shvarz:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70124175443.htm
Testlund:
Shvarz has the links we need!
Ok, so they think they will be able to prove if string theory is wrong, but not if it is right.
rsucoop:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---
--- Quote from: rsucoop ---...Yet he claims to have spoken the words of the bible to its writers...
--- End quote ---
Wrong on three counts. First, the bible is not God's words personally. It's the words of various saints and prophets (and some horny kings. Song of Solomon reads like porn ). Second, He hasn't ever said or made any claims to humanity at large except through the saints and prophets, meaning that it's the saints and prophets that say that the bible is the Word of God, that God exists, that He's a good guy and should be trusted, etc. Not God himself (unless you've had some miraculous visitations yourself). Third, I don't think it's ever been clamed as proper doctrine that God does not want proof of his existance. It's just sort of been assumed that way by people who misunderstand the whole premise of God: that there's a benevolent dictator subtley directing the course of human development and the world at large in order to cause humanity as a whole to grow and progress, and individuals specifically to grow and progress.
All taken together: believing the bible is the word of God requires faith, and does not cause the logic of God's existence to unravel at all. It just adds an extra level of complexity.
--- Quote ---Also, you should look into the String Theory.
--- End quote ---
Load of hogwash that demonstrates the dangers of pure speculation without empirical backing. "Oh yeah, the whole universe makes sense if you just presuppose that there are a dozen or some dimensions we can't detect at all." Pfft, that's like me saying "oh yeah, my homework is done, and it's all correct, but you can't see that because it's in a special language I made up." Talk about a case of the emporer's new clothes.
--- End quote ---
Ah, but the logic it is derived from is very basic, and does not rely on deranged lunatics hearing voices. Every thing has mass. All mass is energy (Einstein's theory of relativity). All energy is movement, with all Newtonian laws applied one can see how this aplies to say, light or magnetism. So all mass has a frequency. All particles have a frequency. Therefore it is most likely that we are all just made of vibrations, or strings if you will. There isn't much speculation involved, not like the speculation that some God exists. Furthermore, it does not matter who wrote the bible, the basis was that God had to prove he existed to the prophet or the saint by speaking to him. If God exsisted, he wouldn't have to talk to the prophets. Beyond that, Mark Twain makes many good remarks on why its so obsurd to even believe in a God (or at least one that pays any attention to the Universe). Finally, if God doesn't exist and the saints say he does, then God cannot exist by virtue of their writing (Yet if God does exist, then why is he not runnign the Universe? Better yet, why is he not creating more universes and dimensions). Because under saint prestense, god is all-knowing and all-powerful, so it would only make sense that a simple planet would be a waste of his effort (he would already know the outcome of anything he did, and he would know that before humans can do anything to help it, the Universe will hyper-expand). So this idea of a God in the bible sense has many logical errors, making it ilogical and irrational. But the idea of a God who somehow built something seems abit odd too. Why build something that you'll outlive if you're so smart? Seems like a big waste of time if I was god. Sort of like doing this
Also, its odd that a believer of God would deny that there aren't more dimensions that cannot be percieved with limited 3 dimensional sensors. After all, is that not what religion is abou? Some higher place out of sight, even when using the Hubble Space Sattellite. Also, your analogy does not seem to fit. You're comparing some language that cannot be interpreted (but can be percieved) to something which cannot be percieved yet can be interpreted.
(BTW, time is the 4th dimension. Can you see time? Einstein's proof is 100% accepted and solid. And many things are beginning to show that this fact is the case).
EricL:
--- Quote from: Testlund ---Ok, so they think they will be able to prove if string theory is wrong, but not if it is right.
--- End quote ---
This is the way science works. The only disiplines where you can prove something in the affirmative are a few braches of pure, unapplied mathematics. Everything else, there are no "proofs". You formulate a therory then look for ways to falsify it. If you can, you then refine the therory. Most laymen don't get this - that science is not about proving things, but rather about formulating competing theories and then eliminating the ones you can by falsifying them through evidence, observation and experimentation. Scientists receive tremendous alcolades and kudos from their peers for disproving their own theories - it's one of the greatest things a scientist can acheive - formulate a therory and then disprove (I.e. refine) it. Unlike the common usage of the term 'therory' where it means "speculative and unproven", a 'therory' in science is one of the strongest statements there is. It means "a consistant, generally accepted framework for something that has withstood scrutiny and has yet to be disproven".
Only religon claims to have all the answers and proof in the positive. Ask your religious leader "what experiment could I perform where if the results came out a certain way would falsify your claims?" If they answer "none", run away quickly. They are either deluded or want your money. Any scientist worth their salt should be able to rattle off a dozen experiments that if performed with a specific outcome would invalidate their favorite theory. Darwin himself indicated several such (I remember irreducable complexity was cheif amoung them) that if shown to be the case, would cause him to repute his theories. Of course, no credible evidence of these has ever been presented.
shvarz:
I'd say that Eric a bit romanticizes the relationship between scientists and their theories - most scientists hold to their favorite theories a bit more tightly than you may imagine from his description. Even when someone shows their theory wrong, they tend not to believe the result until they see it for themselves (or until it is reproduced in multiple studies). But the general idea is quite correct - you cannot prove that a theory is always right, because that would require experiments under all possible conditions everywhere and every time and that is impossible to do. But finding a single inconsistency in a theory breaks the theory down and necessitates a new theory. All science is done that way.
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