Science does not reveal truth

[Jonsa]

Just because everything in the world of science is open to debate doesn't mean that nothing in science is true.

there's all kinds of things in the world of science that are not at all open for debate. Many of them are called scientific laws.

 

[Glitch]

there's all kinds of things in the world of science that are not at all open for debate. Many of them are called scientific laws.

Incorrect. Everything about science is open to debate. When it ceases to be debatable it is no longer science, it has become religion instead.

 

[Jonsa]

Dude, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. Explain to us, in your own terms, how Godel's Incompleteness Theorem licenses someone to assign a truth-value to a paradoxical statement. Have fun with that.

I am lying.

 

[Jonsa]

Incorrect. Everything about science is open to debate. When it ceases to be debatable it is no longer science, it has become religion instead.

Sorry but the conservation of energy is not open to debate.

The law of gravity is not open to debate.

The laws of thermodynamics are not open to debate.

faith in religion requires gods and worship and the supernatural, something a basic belief in observable reality does not require.

 

[Visbek]

Incorrect. Everything about science is open to debate. When it ceases to be debatable it is no longer science, it has become religion instead.

Oh, really?

Do we still debate the validity of the laws of thermodynamics?

Do you question whether human beings need oxygen to survive?

Is there substantive debate about the mass of photons and electrons?

Does anyone suggest we should stop using quantification in physics?

Which scientists are expressing doubt that water is H20?

Does anyone really expect to proclaim that gravity is not one of the fundamental interactions of nature?

It's not 1600 anymore. Scientists do not personally test every single principle of science before performing experiments. A huge array of scientific claims are presumed by now to be true, and basically beyond any practical or genuine debate.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Yeah, that's because... it is anti-science. It doesn't help that in another thread, you were proclaiming "doctors get things wrong!" because the recommendations of pediatricians clashes with your political views.

And of course, there are lots of problems with the text you cut and paste, though you can't bother to actually address the problems. What a surprise.



"It is a fact that there are no facts" is a self-defeating claim. Thanks for demonstrating my point.

If you really work at it, I'd wager you can become more pompously sillier. Maybe not.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Dude, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. Explain to us, in your own terms, how Godel's Incompleteness Theorem licenses someone to assign a truth-value to a paradoxical statement. Have fun with that.

Once again, I am not your dude. Do not expect any further responses from me.

 

[Glitch]

Sorry but the conservation of energy is not open to debate.

The law of gravity is not open to debate.

The laws of thermodynamics are not open to debate.

faith in religion requires gods and worship and the supernatural, something a basic belief in observable reality does not require.

Of course it is, everything is. They are still putting Einstein's 104 year-old theory of Special Relativity to the test today by studying gravity waves. That is the purpose of science, to continually test new hypothesis about our observations to determine how accurate our perception or understanding of the universe may be. What you call a scientific or physical "law" is nothing more than empirical observations of physical behaviors that have been - and continues to be - tested using the scientific method. That means everything is open for debate.

There are no closed subjects in science. When you declare debate to be over, you have made it into a religious belief. Only religion is never debated, you either have faith or you don't. Science requires reason, whereas religion is the antithesis of reason.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Sorry but the conservation of energy is not open to debate.

The law of gravity is not open to debate.

The laws of thermodynamics are not open to debate.

faith in religion requires gods and worship and the supernatural, something a basic belief in observable reality does not require.

Some scientists claim E=MC2 has been proved, others claim it has been disproved. i.e. the impossibility for measuring absolute cold, or absolute heat.

The "laws of thermodynamics" are theory and have never been thoroughly proved.

The airplane that killed the beast defied gravity. Sorry about that "It was beauty that killed the beast."

"It is what we don't know that kills us." John Steinbeck in Of Mice and Men, First Edition Forward repeated in later edition author's Afterwords

I shall now go munch an apple. Shades of original sin.

 

[Jonsa]

Of course it is, everything is. They are still putting Einstein's 104 year-old theory of Special Relativity to the test today by studying gravity waves. That is the purpose of science, to continually test new hypothesis about our observations to determine how accurate our perception or understanding of the universe may be. What you call a scientific or physical "law" is nothing more than empirical observations of physical behaviors that have been - and continues to be - tested using the scientific method. That means everything is open for debate.

There are no closed subjects in science. When you declare debate to be over, you have made it into a religious belief. Only religion is never debated, you either have faith or you don't. Science requires reason, whereas religion is the antithesis of reason.

I see you aren't familiar with the difference between a scientific Theory and a scientific Law.



Religion is never debated? Seems the history of all major religions seems to contradict that statement.

The difference is that science is inherently agnostic - it doesn't have a problem with being proven wrong based on observable evidence. One cannot say the same for most religious dogma.

 

[Jonsa]

Some scientists claim E=MC2 has been proved, others claim it has been disproved. i.e. the impossibility for measuring absolute cold, or absolute heat.

The "laws of thermodynamics" are theory and have never been thoroughly proved.

The airplane that killed the beast defied gravity. Sorry about that "It was beauty that killed the beast."

"It is what we don't know that kills us." John Steinbeck in Of Mice and Men, First Edition Forward repeated in later edition author's Afterwords

I shall now go munch an apple. Shades of original sin.

There isn't a scientist worth the ink on their degree that think E=mc2 has been disproven.

I am well aware of the philosphical limitations of measurement. I think practical science is comfortable with 99.9999999999999999999999% accuracy for ALL practical purposes, if not all research ones.

 

[Mach]

Modern science in western thought began long before Europeans came to the Americas.

I referred to Ancient Greece, that basis for western thought....

The internet has all sorts of this stuff for free. I've read a lot of it, because I didn't know either.
Western philosophy - Wikipedia

Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics such as Thales (c. 624 – c. 546 BC) and Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC), and eventually covering a large area of the globe.[1][2] The word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek philosophía (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" (φιλεῖν phileîn, "to love" and σοφία sophía, "wisdom").

The scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, and the writings of (at least some of) the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors. This included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics).

 

[zyzygy]

But we do not know what the absolute truth is, all we can do is chip away at what is not truth
until only truth remains.

How do you know that there is an absolute truth?

 

[OldFatGuy]

There isn't a scientist worth the ink on their degree that think E=mc2 has been disproven.

I am well aware of the philosphical limitations of measurement. I think practical science is comfortable with 99.9999999999999999999999% accuracy for ALL practical purposes, if not all research ones.

Was Einstein Wrong? - The New York Times

Indian Researcher claims Einstein's equation inadequate - Education Today News

Oops!

There are more, but now you should be able to understand.

 

[OldFatGuy]

I referred to Ancient Greece, that basis for western thought....

You said "American, philosophy is where the sciences originated."

 

[OldFatGuy]

How do you know that there is an absolute truth?

The absolute truth, my wife is demanding I serve her dinner and leave the computer alone. My god speaks, I must obey, or else I sleep on the couch tonight.

Hungry women are scary.

 

[Jonsa]

Was Einstein Wrong? - The New York Times

Indian Researcher claims Einstein's equation inadequate - Education Today News

Oops!

There are more, but now you should be able to understand.

Er, the 2011 CERN announcement was premature - it was quickly determined to be a MISTAKE.

Sharma was quickly proven to be out to lunch.
Why This Himachal Officer'''s Challenge to Einstein'''s Theories Don'''t Make Sense

 

[Visbek]

Once again, I am not your dude. Do not expect any further responses from me.

Translation: You don't understand Godel's theorem, and can't defend your assertion, and you use a term that isn't even an insult to try and duck out. No surprise there.

 

[OldFatGuy]

Er, the 2011 CERN announcement was premature - it was quickly determined to be a MISTAKE.

Sharma was quickly proven to be out to lunch.
Why This Himachal Officer'''s Challenge to Einstein'''s Theories Don'''t Make Sense

Have a blast, there are others. Including in a letter from Einstein to Eddington. You know Eddington, the guy who when told only three men understand E=MC2 incredulously said "Yes, who is the third?"

And now Black hole research is providing a differing view of energy and mass relationships. Have fun learning.

Oh, and the Cern conclusion has been redrawn and is standing tall.

 

[rjay]

It was a mortal sin for Catholics, because a Pope was responding to an economic issue.

Science is just another belief system.

No it is not.

Science is used to provide us the best answers given the available evidence. As more evidence becomes available the answers provided may change.

Here is the big difference between science and religion. If we were to wipe out all human memory. In 2000yrs time, science would be putting forth the same explanations to describe the same phenomenon as they do today.
There would be entirely new religions with entirely new explanations than those offered today. Much like today, the religious explanations would depend on where you were born and what your parents and your community think is true.

 

[Visbek]

I am lying.

sigh

I hate to break this to you, but: While both the Liar Paradox and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem rely on paradoxes generated by recursion, it does not follow that "every paradox generated by recursion is addressed by Godel's Theorem." Nor, as I posited, does Godel's Theorem indicate a method to assign a stable truth-value to those types of recursive paradoxes.

To wit: Godel's first theorem is that for any formal axiomatic system capable of generating arithmetic, there will always be a (recursive) theorem that cannot be proven within that formal axiomatic system. If your system excludes those types of statements (e.g. Principia Mathematica's meta-logical structure), then it is incomplete. If your system allows those types of statements, it will be inconsistent (as those G sentences cannot be consistent), which renders the formal system useless (via the principle of explosion).

Godel wasn't trying to legitimize recursive paradoxes. He was using them to show one of the limits of specific types of formal logical systems, such as the one Whitehead and Russel developed in an attempt to defend their logicism.

At best, the Liar Paradox is just an example of the type of recursive structure that Godel leveraged. He certainly wasn't saying "we can now say that the Liar Paradox is true."

Thus, a claim like "it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths" is still self-defeating.

The only possible option is to declare it as a dialetheia, which generates its own raft of problems, including the fact that defending "it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths" relies on far more than just one purported absolute truth, including "dialetheias exist" and "humans can properly identify dialetheias" and " 'it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths' is in fact a dialetheia" and so on.

 

[trblmkr]

OK. I have not posted in months as I found it bringing out the worst of myself. I found it necessary to respond to this post as it caused me to convulse on the floor of my office in an anti math seizure. I feel so small.

 

[Visbek]

Some scientists claim E=MC2 has been proved, others claim it has been disproved. i.e. the impossibility for measuring absolute cold, or absolute heat.

sigh

There is really no doubt that E=MC[SUP]2[/SUP] is valid.

It certainly is not the case that every single last scientific claim by Einstein was correct (nor does anyone make that claim). He was famously wrong about the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, for example. Ironically, he was sometimes right in his errors -- e.g. Einstein developed the idea of a cosmological constant in 1917 almost as a hack to make relativity work; abandoned it in the 1930s; and it was revived in 1998 when scientific evidence showed that the universe was expanding. Similarly, he posited gravitational lensing, but thought it would be too small for humans to observe; it was first observed in 1979.

More to the point, though, is that while there will certainly be adjustments to specific aspects of relativity (and QM), it is extraordinarily unlikely that a new physics will supersede relativity in the same way that relativity superseded Newtonian physics. E.g. The chances that we will revert to a physics that uses an absolute frame of reference for space is pretty much near zero. Even if it did, that new physics would have to incorporate or explain all of the empirical data we've gathered which is successfully explained by relativity and its claims that there is no absolute frame of reference.

By the way, the proper term is absolute zero. There is no need to "measure" it, because we already know it is 0º K. We also already know, without a doubt, that it is utterly impossible for any region of space to ever be 0 Kº. (Do you know why? I do.)

Scientists also postulate that the maximum possible temperature is 1.416785(71)×10[SUP]32[/SUP]º K. Measurement isn't really the issue, it's that we don't have the physics yet to explain what happens beyond that point. Developing that new physics will be huge -- but since it will be a quantum theory of gravity, it won't actually supersede relativity or QM in the same way those theories superseded their predecessors. Rather, it will explain the conflicts between them.

The "laws of thermodynamics" are theory and have never been thoroughly proved.

Congratulations, you just failed 9th grade physics.

P.S. no one is conducing any experiments to disprove the laws of thermodynamics. In fact, you have to be a bit of a moron to believe in claims about "perpetual motion machines" which do so.

 

[OldFatGuy]

No it is not.

Science is used to provide us the best answers given the available evidence. As more evidence becomes available the answers provided may change.

Here is the big difference between science and religion. If we were to wipe out all human memory. In 2000yrs time, science would be putting forth the same explanations to describe the same phenomenon as they do today.
There would be entirely new religions with entirely new explanations than those offered today. Much like today, the religious explanations would depend on where you were born and what your parents and your community think is true.

You prove my point. You believe in science.

There is a young Masai boy who believes in cattle.

 

[Jonsa]

Have a blast, there are others. Including in a letter from Einstein to Eddington. You know Eddington, the guy who when told only three men understand E=MC2 incredulously said "Yes, who is the third?"

And now Black hole research is providing a differing view of energy and mass relationships. Have fun learning.

Oh, and the Cern conclusion has been redrawn and is standing tall.

Oh please.

Black hole research is not offering a differing view of "energy mass relationships". Black hole research has consistently matched the predictions of the theory.


And Cern was a mistake and the original claim does not stand.

I wonder if its a function of not knowing what one doesn't know or knowing what clearly isn't.