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...both the mental world and the physical world for the sake of symmetry. (He says as much at one point.)

It's all math. That's all there is. That's all there ever was

Maybe I should start calling myself a New Age Pythagorean?

All are, in the end, accepted or rejected based on similar sets of assumptions.

All defy deep explanation and are only, arguably, "provable" by measure of a specific (though variable) set of instructions and assumptions.

Scientists admit that they most of their explanations for the most challenging scientific phenomena are really just best guesses based on observations and popularly accepted assumptions.

Is light matter or energy or both? They aren't sure. What the fuck magnets? Don't really know.

It's really not that different from the acceptance and dissemination of many religious dogmata.

You love ignorance!

That's a very dandy hobby to have, loving ignorance.

Unfortunately, it doesn't equip a thoughtful person very well to have a discussion about the mysteries of science.

If you have credentials, I could introduce you to a discussion board where we can continue the conversation with some active and retired Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientists.

The best conversations, honestly, are the ones in which we all admit that we don't know everything about everything, or even everything about any thing.

But you might prefer that other interest you have.

Nice article, by the way, about the LHC components. If you haven't been there, you've got to go.

If you are ever in Palo Alto, I'll set you up with a SLAC tour, Stanford has big magnets, too!

That will show the attributes of God and Grace the way we can with Gravity.
Also the effects on Universe by God and Grace, the way we can with Gravity.

Grace is such a bullshit Christian concept anyway. Pious nonsense.

Not knowing everything is not the same as knowing nothing.

I didn't mean grace the Christian way.

I meant grace in the aesthetic sense, more at "beauty".

Despite your seeming predisposition to shit on any examples, I'll happily indulge you.

Various religions offer explanations for the origins of life on Earth, and science offers theories but really doesn't know.

Ditto for the beginning of time. Big Bang Theory.

It's just a theory.

And, gravity, one of God's tools that keeps the elements of our solar system, galaxy, and universe in perpetual balance.

Go ahead and ask one of your scientist friends why bodies (with mass) are attracted to one another and they'll say "gravity".

Then ask what gravity is and they'll say, "well, things are attracted to one another", and they'll be able to provide some ways to measure and quantify this phenomenon, but they can't really explain the mechanism by which gravity works.

The faithful, however, can say with certainty that the Creator made gravity.

To keep shit from flying all over, well, creation!

What else do you want to know?

...but my understanding is that gravity is supposedly somehow related to curvature.

Not sure what happens when quantum mechanics enters the picture.

^^^oversimplified subject line.

You might have heard the expression, "finding new answers leads to having new questions" or similar.

This is like that; they still don't have the answers but are perpetually building conceptual models to explain phenomena.

This might be helpful:

But I am sorry for assuming you meant it in that way.

Other than that, you ignored my guestion about demonstrating attributes and effects.



I must bookmark that comment about the certainty of God.

It may well be a bullshit Christian Concept, like "the Trinity".

Possibly, if you read over my comments at a later time, you'll see my point.

Many concepts in science are matters of faith, they exist as theories, conditioned by supporting facts and suppositions but open to challenge and revision as new concepts are developed.
---Other concepts are pretty damned solid, like fire creates heat which can change the state of matter (boil water).

In religion, the same is true. Many concepts are accepted on faith (rather vigorously) and their adherents don't feel they need to defend them, like the beginning of life on Earth, or the afterlife, and they defy proof.
---Other concepts are pretty damned solid, like it's our duty as humans to be compassionate and helpful.

It's easy for me to see that, to different extents and in much different ways, both science and religion are partly built on faith and partly build on indisputable fact.

No biggie.

Have seen it before.

Science does not deal with faith the way religion does.

It is spurious and does not reflect how science works.

Others might want to chime in or not.

I see no point in writing a long post on how inaccurate this assumption is.

I appreciate that you don't see a reason to reply.

But for other readers, I'll say that it should be clear that I don't suggest that there's a particularly direct analogy so much as significant similarities.

People far too often think in binary concrete terms when, in fact and in practice, there are shades and subtleties, and it's in those shadows where live some of the most interesting details.

A Venn Diagram of religion and science would evidence a number of similarities, and these do not an analogy make.

That religion has proven untrue.

The same could not be said the other way.

First, science is all about proofs, and religions don't go around trying to prove theories, so it's no surprise that science has more frequently shown a religious idea to be wrong that the other way around.

However, this is not always the case. There are cases when religions have been right and the science wrong, but it was not a matter of religion "proving" science to be wrong so much as science evolving to correct itself and come into alignment with the religious practice or understanding which was right all along.

It's not a contest, they're two very different worlds, but both depend upon forms of faith.

Were science caught up to religion?

I needed to use that somewhere....

At different times and in different places, dietary and hygienic practices that were religious in nature have turned out to be healthy habits as proven by science, medical science that didn't exist at the time.

It's a bit of a pointless exercise, though, as science and faith are simply in different businesses and have different purposes for being.

You would want to see an example is which religion was proven to be right where science was wrong and I KNOW you'll want a scientific proof for that.

Do you see the paradox there? If the criteria for proof, for truth, is scientific then it's a biased criterion.

I might flip and ask when did science ever prove that there aren't afterlives?

Who stated they had similarities, I was the one who disagreed,

You also stated their were times science had to catch up with religion, I asked for examples.

The quote is ludicrous, science can do fine without religion.

And past lives!? Really, FFS, past lives?

.

I meant your use of it was ludicrous.

Einstein in no way was talking about any formal religion or belief in the supernatural.

I see too many out of context Einstein quotes.

That is pathetic. First, what science has made any claim about the existence of an afterlife? Would that be physics? Chemistry? Biology? Be specific.

Second, are you fucking kidding me? A "past lives" claim? Rilly?

Math is rigid, science is fuzzy indeed but maths are frequently used to verify scientific theories.

please name those cases.

And then you'll dismiss it but here it is anyway:

Historically, many faith based dietary directives have stood in opposition to accepted medical "wisdom" of the time and, by modern scientific standards, turned out to be valid.

Similarly, hygienic and prophylactic practices were long established, and existed during periods that "science" saw no need for them.

There is a great deal that science has learned from various religions, large and small, and good scientists are open-minded to these.

Some of the best in science have learn a lot from non-scientific sources by being curious and open-minded.

Happy Monday!

Lots of religions have dietary restrictions, you made a claim that science somehow rejected one or more of these restrictions and that subsequently the rejected restriction was "proven" beneficial. So name one such restriction.

that are a no-no. Pigs, you know, are filthy. And, you know, bacon kills.

Now exactly what science was overturned by dietary restrictions against eating pork?

...which, I would argue, promote a pretty shitty diet.

Further, modern science would probably agree.

Now, no religion set out to overturn or disprove science, they don't do that, they just establish their beliefs and these turn out to be "smarter than science" sometimes.

Science is there to set science straight on their mistakes.

Hell, it happens every day.

You're killin' me with your science!

Your claim was that religion overturned science. When asked for an example you hedged. When pressed you emitted "dietary laws". When pressed again for a specific dietary law that overturned scientific knowledge you now have now come up with "food pyramids were inaccurate". Science is a process that moves toward greater knowledge - at least you are sort of getting that part, but I am still waiting for your specific example of religious knowledge overturning scientific knowledge. So far, I think even you will have to admit, you have come up with NOTHING.

You have just demonstrated you are completely ignorant on the subject of science.

You'll get more out of a scientist when asking them about gravity than you will out of any believer, from a lowly christmas/easter person all the way to the freaking pope.

Yes, the Big Bang Theory is just a theory. AND, gravity is a phenomenon (not a theory) but how and why it exists is not fully resolved and is a matter of several theories. The Wikipedia entry for "gravitation" contains the word "theory" no fewer than 49 times.

If there weren't so many toxic people on the Internet, I would be happy to share with you my curriculum vitae.

You and a few others seem unwilling to accept the fact that science is fallible and has historically done nothing but correct itself, (much to it's credit).

At other times, however, some scientists have been reluctant to accept that they are, or were, wrong about a thing.

Respectfully, you would not do well in the field as you demonstrate a bit of emotion and seem to enter into a discussion with your mind already firmly fixed on a conclusion.

Frankly, I think you are embarrassed to have been out-reasoned and have nothing but insults left in your portfolio of responses.

Carry on.

you are the one posting right wing, creationist talking points while admonishing everyone else on their close mindedness.

Your poor quiver!

Odd how you can take my objective and factual reportage of the history of science and call it "right wing creationist talking points".

As I suggested earlier, an objective scientific mind might present an alternative viewpoint but they wouldn't resort to insult.

You entertain me, Lordquinton.

The term "flailing about" comes to mind as I reflect upon your content-less responses to me.

Care for a life preserver?

and see where most of the word theory is mentioned. At the end under unaccepted alternatives.

There is a reason they call what Newton found Laws.

Good grief, edhopper, the work "unaccepted" isn't in the article at all.

And the fact that historical and recent alternatives are listed 'strongly suggests' that some of them are wrong.

You see, they are theories because the very smart science people know that they aren't certain of many things, that they are ideas based on faith that their suppositions are likely accurate.

Faith, it's your friend.

That isn't how science works at all.
Listen to Tyson, belief and faith have no role in science.
They don't have faith, they make an assumption and then look for evidence to support or reject it.
They don't believe things in spite of evidence. That's religion.

You are so completely off the track here.

And your grasp of the scientific method seems questionable at best.

With physics, people reject, modify or accept the models based on how well they predict outcomes of experiments and other observable data. There isn't a scientist worth his or her weight that would say the model is what is actually occurring. As if an electron were a itty-bitty BB or a light field actually behaved like water. At the nano scale, the best we can use in translating the math into language is clumsy metaphors.

As far as your grasp of electromagnetism, it seems to come from the '50s.

The Standard Model classifies light as a phenomenon with wavelike behavior, particle behavior, and behavior unique to light. To think it is one or the other is to misuse scientific language, as silly as thinking of the lingusitic characteristics of quarks (charmed, strange, etc.) as actually having meanings related to our typical understanding of "charm" or "strange" or whatever.

It really sounds like it is time for you to read a current textbook. I've used Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics in my classroom with great success.

I smiled at seeing you refer to it.

You might consider reading it. Anyone who uses the phrase "just a theory", lacks comprehension of the scientific meaning of the word. You might also consider the word, hypothesis, which is where the modifier "just" is usually appropriate.

You are partially correct that there are assumptions that scientists make, even if it has to resolve down to the minutia of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. More human-centered assumptions revolve around the unproven base truth that the human mind can actually comprehend universe, or that the scientific method works universally.

God, grace and gravity, besides being a (perhaps) unintentional homage to Simone Weil, have little else in common. Proof of God is elusive at best. Grace is totally subjective and varied.

The best verbal description of gravity at this time is that it is a curvature of spacetime. Repeated experiments have shown this description withstands close scrutiny. As people conduct further research, the details of the description will probably increase, but it will (probably) always be a curvature of space-time.

And this is to be expected.

Adherents, devotees, believers, and stubborn fundamentalists in science and other disciplines are often rigid in their beliefs.

As I've mentioned above, my favorite scientist friends accept the fallibility of scientific theory.

I'm really tempted to bring up this conversation to my 999 friends, but they can be pretty nasty. I was surprised to learn that about them, that some are nasty, some seem racist and xenophobic, but I'd like to hear what they have to say.

For onlookers, here's a comprehensible read on the nature of "theory" that isn't going to be found in Hewitt which, after all, is a high school physics textbook and, by definition, needs to speak from position of certainty-- that's the nature of public education, that all things are known and students should shut up and listen to the facts.

Your excerpt fails to support your implication that theories are as unreliable as religious dogma.

Only an idiot claims theories are immutable.

The excerpt, a paper titled "Even theories change", shows that you have poor justification for the phrase "just a theory". The modifier "even" is there specifically because theories rarely undo themselves, but that science usually builds upon them.

Special relativity did not replace classical mechanics, but was simply a more accurate model, sort of the difference between a sketch of Mona Lisa and a painting of Mona Lisa. No one argues that a sketch or a painting are Monal Lisa the person.

I have a growing doubt regarding your bonafides. I also found this sentence -

"I'm really tempted to bring up this conversation to my 999 friends, but they can be pretty nasty. I was surprised to learn that about them, that some are nasty, some seem racist and xenophobic, but I'd like to hear what they have to say."

par for the course.

The things that don't go away when you stop believing in them.