The Science Delusion: has science become dogmatic?

[tmtomh]

You expended a lot of effort to say nothing, and flunked the test too.

One could say the same thing about your comments. I expended a little time in order to say more than that.

Since you've gone down the hostility route, Ron, I will say that this is not the first, or second, or third time I've seen comments from you that display the approach I described in my post.

 

[Ron Texas]

One could say the same thing about your comments. I expended a little time in order to say more than that.

Since you've gone down the hostility route, Ron, I will say that this is not the first, or second, or third time I've seen comments from you that display the approach I described in my post.

You are getting personal. Your post relies on circular reasoning and shows a complete lack of comprehension of what I was saying. Don't put words in my mouth.

 

[tmtomh]

You are getting personal.

As were you. Your prior comment was the equivalent of people on social media who respond to a thought-out comment with nothing more than a "HaHa" reaction emoji. If you don't want an observation about the nature of many of your comments, then don't tell other members they are "saying nothing" and failed your "tests."

 

[Ron Texas]

As were you. Your prior comment was the equivalent of people who respond to a thought-out comment with nothing more than a "HaHa" reaction emoji. If you don't want an observation about the nature of many of your comments, then don't tell other members they are "saying nothing" and failed your "tests."

It's not up to you. You didn't have to take issue with what I said in the first place. I find semantic arguments like yours to be particularly annoying.

 

[Robin L]

I'm more concerned about science becoming a means to accomplish non scientific goals. A local virologist has been regularly interviewed by the Houston Chronicle. Most recently he pulls out a model showing COVID-19 infections in Houston spiking by mid July. He does admit the model's assumptions are not robust. The model at healthdata.org, which is used by Dr. Birx, shows infections peaked recently and will gradually decline to insignificant numbers by August. This physician scientist is playing games. He may be trying to convince people to be careful, or he may have some other agenda. It's clear to me the model he selected was an outlier. Note that I think the reporter is a very good journalist, and I told her about this.

There's going to be different estimates of when the pandemic peaks for all sorts of reasons. This is how that sort of process works. No one knows yet if and it when there's a peak. These are guesses, some more educated than others. My uninformed opinion is it's going to get worse before it gets better.

 

[Ron Texas]

There's going to be different estimates of when the pandemic peaks for all sorts of reasons. This is how that sort of process works. No one knows yet if and it when there's a peak. These are guesses, some more educated than others. My uninformed opinion is it's going to get worse before it gets better.

That's a reasonable interpretation. Obviously, I hope it just gets better. Then, I see photos of hundreds of people in a swimming pool followed by a report someone there was infected. There are different models and multiple revisions to many of them. My gripe is our local expert cherry picked the worst one he knew about. He has taken flack for being too pessimistic before.

 

[Robin L]

That's a reasonable interpretation. Obviously, I hope it just gets better. Then, I see photos of hundreds of people in a swimming pool followed by a report someone there was infected. There are different models and multiple revisions to many of them. My gripe is our local expert cherry picked the worst one he knew about. He has taken flack for being too pessimistic before.

This is a good time to be pessimistic. Sometimes it's not paranoia. And the reality is that too many people in the USA want to get out, are getting out, and back into their usual habits. But this is not the time.

 

[Ron Texas]

This is a good time to be pessimistic. Sometimes it's not paranoia. And the reality is that too many people in the USA want to get out, are getting out, and back into their usual habits. But this is not the time.

I suppose it's not paranoia when they are really following you...

 

[farcurse]

I'm not familiar with Rupert Sheldrake's theories, yet I consider unsatisfactory the current state of scientific affairs, which requires postulating the Big Bang. It resembles ancient dogmas describing creation of then-known universes.

The universe we can perceive today is so much wider than the ones people imagined 10000, 1000, or even 100 years ago. What will it be 100, 1000, and 10000 years in the future?

So, what really was the Big Bang? Some kind of matter/energy/space/time transition from a higher-dimensional membrane? Start of a simulation "program" running on a "computer" built by some higher-dimensional species?

When you question the big bang, you have to be careful about what precisely you're questioning. Are you questioning the current cosmological models? They involve a singularity at the beginning, where quantities are infinite and not explainable by current physics. However, after the singularity these models make many quantitative predictions backed up by observations. Here are a few:

• From any vantage point (like Earth) the farther away you look the faster these points will be moving away from us. There's a lot of data involving galactic redshifts and supernova brightness that is consistent with this model and inconsistent with a steady state model where the universe is not expanding.
• If you go back before the first second or so after the big bang the universe was too hot and dense to form regular matter (atoms and molecules) and instead consisted of a soup of subatomic particles. We can calculate the relative abundances of elements that formed as the universe cooled down in the first hour after the big bang, and these match element abundances we measure using various astrophysical observations.
• About 300,000 years after the big bang the model predicts that the universe cooled enough for electrons to be bound to atoms. The universe became transparent and the relic radiation from this transition is visible today as the cosmic microwave background. This background looks mostly the same in different directions but slight (1 part in 100,000) differences in the temperature of this radiation form a spectrum that is precisely that predicted by cosmological models. This was predicted before we measured it, and the agreement between theory and observation is one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics (in my humble opinion).

There are many more testable predictions that come from the big bang model, but these are a few of the highlights. Regarding your comment about the size of the universe, the current model is consistent with a universe that happens to be only what we can see, but is also consistent with a much larger (even infinite) universe. We just can't see farther than light can travel since the big bang.

You may be questioning the singularity at the beginning. There physics breaks down, and to understand that probably requires some unified theory of quantum gravity. People have been working on this for many decades, but it's a hard problem. Finally, even if we achieve such a theory we'll always be left with the unanswerable question "why is there something rather than nothing?" I have no insight there.

I'm new to this forum and both of my posts have been about physics. Sorry, I do love the audio discussions!

 

[BDWoody]

I'm new to this forum and both of my posts have been about physics. Sorry, I do love the audio discussions!

It's ok...we're a bunch of nerds too.

Cheers, and welcome!

 

[raistlin65]

No, the world is being taken over by propaganda. Those with the means see to it that it gets into print or on the internet and make sure that their message gets out. Many who claim to be experts are not. But the messages that get out are produced by those who have the means, the will and the desire to get their message across. Science has nothing to do with the case. Science is about something else entirely.

Yep. It's a consequence of the Internet and social media. Prior to 2000, mass communication was TV, print journalism, and radio. Certainly, there was some manipulation of the content before then. But nothing on the scale we are seeing now.

 

[SimpleTheater]

He explains that scientists across the globe consistently record different measurements for the gravitational force or the speed of light. Despite this, they maintain that their variation is due to experimental error, and not an actual change in these so-called constants.

Scientists are always open to new discoveries, so he should run these experiments exactly the same over and over. If after peer review he has made no experimental error, then he will be hailed a hero by the scientific community. If he wants to do none of the hard work and just philosophize about the possibilities he should write a book, which is apparently the choice he made.

 

[mhardy6647]

Oh, in terms of the original post's thesis: Scientists get dogmatic all of the time -- it is (IMO, as a scientist) the kiss of death for a scientist when he/she/they do, too.

And (again, IMO), the worst thing a scientist can do is think he/she/they know all there is to know in their discipline. Again, the kiss of death (IMO) for an effective scientist.

The Newtonian view of the universe fit (and still fits) much of human experience more than adequately well. There were just a couple of loose ends... but a true revolution in physics was tied to sussing out what was goin' on with those loose ends.

Science is not a thing - it is a philosophy; a way of thinking about/approaching things.
In the past decade or so, the word (more to the point, the concept) has been ever-more mis-applied (again, IMO).
E.g., I throw up in my mouth cringe a little (sometimes a lot) every time I hear the words settled science on broadcast media.

I've posted this before, but I post it again. I feel bad for the generation of students I teach every fall in Boston -- they get all of the modern, trendy, state-of-the-art fluff, but I am not sure they have much of a grasp of the fundamental meat of experimental science. Not how to do it, but why we approach things the way we do. I certainly try to at least dip their toes in it.

 

[Wombat]

It's not up to you. You didn't have to take issue with what I said in the first place. I find semantic arguments like yours to be particularly annoying.

Ron, ASR is a forum rather than a noticeboard.

Replies and feedback to posts are the norm and can agree, disagree, question, counter or elaborate as part of discussion.

 

[Putter]

I know I'm probably just stirring the pot, but the main reason I responded to Mr. Texas post was that it had nothing to with the original topic.

A local virologist (read PhD scientist) makes a prediction based on an unspecified model. It may be close to what happens or the model Deborah Birx is using, (the IHME model) may be closer to the reality. NEITHER IS A DOGMA. They're just educated guesses by experts.

As far as experts running the world, with the Internet everyone's an expert. None of this spending 10 years of schooling and maybe 30 years in research. No, we can look it up on Internet!

Frankly, the whole thing should have put on the CoVid thread.

 

[Ron Texas]

Ron, ASR is a forum rather than a noticeboard.

Replies and feedback to posts are the norm and can agree, disagree, question, counter or elaborate as part of discussion.

Your bias is obvious. Get off my back. Your political agenda is extreme. Stop pretending to be a choir boy.

 

[Wombat]

Your bias is obvious. Get off my back. Your political agenda is extreme. Stop pretending to be a choir boy.

It seems from your posts that you aren't comfortable with anything but confirmation or agreeance with what you say. Your irascibility often surfaces when replies are otherwise.

A more sensible reply than the one quoted above would be appropriate.

 

[Ron Texas]

It seems from your posts that you aren't comfortable with anything but confirmation or agreeance with what you say. Your irascibility often surfaces when replies are otherwise.

That seems to be your problem.

 

[Maxicut]

A true person of science does not outright-dismiss the findings of others or force another person into a sitution where they feel the need to defend themselves, no matter how stupid or irrelevant their view may seem. A true scientist looks to understand the reason's the other person came to their conflicting conclusion(s), with the hope of attaining new knowledge There is no room for a closed mind or a bad attitude in any of the sciences & this is particularly true with digital audio.

There are a million variables that effect the playback of digital audio that are not entirely explained by how perfect your 1s & 0s are delivered. Throw into the mix the non-scientific variable of your personal music-listening experience & you have an argument that will never be agreed upon in forums like this & it's made especially hard when the same half-dozen or so closed-minded, dismissive, self-appointed experts troll just about every forum post here. Unbelievably though, all the mysteries of digital audio were understood years ago in the pro-audio world, which is where all those 1s & 0s you listen too originated from in the 1st place. There's no snake oil, no misconceptions & no Google, just standards that have come about from years of pooled learning, training & experience.

It may not be true with all the sciences, but with audio, science has to run directly in parallel with experience & one cannot do without the other.

 

[Wombat]

That seems to be your problem.

Oh, Mark Twain, you were so wise. Disengaged.