Science making it up

sullivlo

The_Captain wrote: »

There's a surprising amount of politics in science. Guys will cite a paper from a big name in their own work, in the hope that they'll in turn get cited on the big names next paper, thus raising their profile.

Journals will reject your work, then publish a list of rejected works hundreds long each month, but then allow that same paper in a future issue with no changes. A long list of rejections makes them look more exclusive, and have high standards, and therefore a more prestigious journal to be published in.

However, scientists in general are contrary folks. It's not groupthink, it's not sycophants following the senior scientists. They just love to poke holes in your work and tear your presentations apart. This is a good thing, in both the long and short term, because even popular theories will be shredded if there's anything in them that doesn't make sense, and mistakes will be lept upon

This.

The publishing process is so ridiculously flawed and open to abuse.

The other thing that always makes me laugh is people citing their own work in their next paper. I'm 100% guilty of that though. I noticed it the other day when I was reading a paper that my PI published last year. There were 7 citations of it - 4 of which were review articles with a collaborator (who was on the paper) as the corresponding author.

mickrock

The speed of light (and other physical constants) might not be so constant after all.

Yet the speed of light was set at a specific value in 1972. Fudge fudge.

From 23:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waMBY3qEA4

Stealthfins

The big bang theory is a load of ****e.
How can everything come from a big bang,straight away were lead to believe that everything began from a violent beginning.

I'm sure it was more mellow that the way science suggests.

endacl

Stealthfins wrote: »

The big bang theory is a load of ****e.
How can everything come from a big bang,straight away were lead to believe that everything began from a violent beginning.

I'm sure it was more mellow that the way science suggests.

The Big Boing?

mickrock

Stealthfins wrote: »

The big bang theory is a load of ****e.

The Big Bang is the one miracle that science allows itself.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

The Big Bang is the one miracle that science allows itself.

Not really. It's simply the most likely starting point for the universe we observe today, based on the state of the knowledge we have, based on the observations we have made, using the technology available to us. If something that doesn't fit with the model is observed, noted and verified, a change to the model will follow.

What's the problem?

Mena

endacl wrote: »

What's the problem?

'I can't understand it so it has to be wrong'. Personal incredulity at its finest.

Stealthfins

endacl wrote:

The Big Boing?

Ping pong goes the song...

endacl

Mena wrote: »

'I can't understand it so it has to be wrong'. Personal incredulity at its finest.

"It's widely accepted so I have to go the other way, even though I'm patently not equipped to argue either for or against", more like. Have you caught any of his classics on evolution?

Contrarianism + http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect = many of Mick's posts on matters of science.

Dohnjoe

mickrock wrote: »

The Big Bang is the one miracle that science allows itself.

Again, science isn't a set of beliefs, its a methodology

There are many theories which are just that - theories, and are constantly challenged

Some theories are widely accepted only because they are the strongest theories at that point in time.

Mantis Toboggan

https://youtu.be/Zgk8UdV7GQ0

Possibly already posted!

mickrock

Mena wrote: »

'I can't understand it so it has to be wrong'. Personal incredulity at its finest.

Terence McKenna said that The Big Bang is the "limit test for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything.”

Even if the Big Bang theory is true, it's difficult to come up with something more fanciful.

mickrock

mickrock wrote: »

Terence McKenna said that The Big Bang is the "limit test for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything.”

Even if the Big Bang theory is true, it's difficult to come up with something more fanciful.

Naah, the Big Bang can explain Creation; after all zero is equal to negative and positive and if the negative and positive get separated, then they will each continue to exist...

However, it doesnt explain where it happened.. In a nothingless vacuum? where did the nothingless vacuum come from... and we start all over again...

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

Terence McKenna said that The Big Bang is the "limit test for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything.”

Even if the Big Bang theory is true, it's difficult to come up with something more fanciful.

Somebody said something, therefore something?

Case closed then...

Stealthfins

Then there's the big crunch....

Dohnjoe

mickrock wrote: »

Terence McKenna said that The Big Bang is the "limit test for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything.”

As far as I know Terence McKenna has no expertise on the subject at all. He's just being personally incredulous with no scientific basis.

Even if the Big Bang theory is true, it's difficult to come up with something more fanciful.

Again, personal incredulity, have zero bearing anything.

bonzodog2

mickrock wrote: »

The speed of light (and other physical constants) might not be so constant after all.

Yet the speed of light was set at a specific value in 1972. Fudge fudge.

From 23:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waMBY3qEA4

Many thanks for linking that video. Most entertaining.
Metrologists - people that measure constant things. Hmm, bet their work is exciting!
Intellectual phase locking indeed!:D

Fleawuss

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Even as we speak, in a lab deep under the Vatican, DNA from the Shroud of Turin is being sequenced....

Going to be disappointing for the oul Vatican. Some 13th century dude going to be looking around in amazement!

Samaris

Fleawuss wrote: »

Going to be disappointing for the oul Vatican. Some 13th century dude going to be looking around in amazement!

It'll be Brendan Fraser.

It's always Brendan Fraser.

Maximus Alexander

endacl wrote: »

Pay attention now, Giocomo. Here's an opportunity for an appropriate use of the 'why' question.

Why?

syklops wrote: »

So I can smash your face in.

Banned.

endacl wrote: »

Ah. A 'flat facer'...

This was great. I enjoyed.

nozzferrahhtoo

faceman wrote: »

There is no such thing as dark matter.

Well there is and there isn't. "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" are place holder terms for our current ignorance. We know many things, and when we balance those things there is a lump of unexplained numbers in the equations. We have no idea really what they are, so we simply label them.

I think "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" were bad names for them. It makes it sound like we know what they are. We do not. One speaker I listen to often suggested "Dark Gravity" might have been better, but even then it is still misleading as to the level of our knowledge. For all we know about them, he says, we may as well have called them "Fred" and "Wilma".

GeneralVanilla wrote: »

when its something so extremely ridiculous and sophisticated and intricate I start to wonder.

There is a phrase called "Argument from incredulity" that comes to mind here.

GeneralVanilla wrote: »

But for some of the weird way out stuff which sometimes has one species reacting to another the numbers just seem wrong.

Then by all means run the numbers and let us see your workings

endacl

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

This was great. I enjoyed.

It did indeed, as they say, "escalate quickly".

:pac:

Capt'n Midnight

Fleawuss wrote: »

Going to be disappointing for the oul Vatican. Some 13th century dude going to be looking around in amazement!

Obviously there was transfer from the original shroud.

Fleawuss

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Obviously I believethere was transfer from the original shroud.

FYP.

GeneralVanilla

Oh here we go. This is exactly why I said 'secretly'. Dare question the current consensus and and not only will god get dragged into it, and pushed in your direction, you'll be expected to present a thesis which changes contemporary understanding too.

Well, I'm getting back in line. Nice and safe.

The emperor's clothes are indeed marvellous. And anyone who says otherwise obviously is an emperor hater. Im glad I'm not an emperor hater.

Samaris

It's okay, GeneralVanilla, scientists will continue to research and learn and write their ideas and test them, and science will continue to move forward, but there will always be people on earth who will complain about it.

But really, when your original post on the topic included "Dawkinite-fedoras" and that "tsunami of pizza crumbs and red bull spittle would have come through my screen" as part of your protest why you go against the current scientific consensus from people who actually, you know, study it, you can't honestly be surprised when you don't get taken too seriously.

Science doesn't yet have all the answers. Scientists will -never- have all the answers. The scientific method is just the best way we have so far of getting to them. Evolution has far too much going for it as an explanation to just throw out as Dawkinite fedoras (whatever that even means). And it really is a bit weak of an argument to throw out one name and discount all the work that other people have done - wait, DAWKINS? Arrrgh.

The main issue with these debates on skepticism in science is that half the time, people are bringing feelings to a fact-fight as John Oliver put it about Newt Gingrich dismissing FBI stats in favour of "people don't feel safe".

Emperor's New Clothes? Nah, just that there's no point arguing what colour it is when someone is deliberately staring at the wall. But as long as you do that, you'll never actually quite know if the scientists are leading you up the garden path or not, will you?

Dohnjoe

GeneralVanilla wrote: »

Oh here we go. This is exactly why I said 'secretly'. Dare question the current consensus and and not only will god get dragged into it, and pushed in your direction, you'll be expected to present a thesis which changes contemporary understanding too.

Well, I'm getting back in line. Nice and safe.

The emperor's clothes are indeed marvellous. And anyone who says otherwise obviously is an emperor hater. Im glad I'm not an emperor hater.

"The sun is how big? no way, that's too big, that's just crazy, look how small it is in the sky.. oh what, I can't question the consensus? oh I guess I gotta fit in or else I'm a science-hater"

Incredulity followed by indignation

MRnotlob606

faceman wrote: »

Science is great, yay! Look at us with our iPhones and nuclear power.

But science hasn't always got it right. The world was once flat. Dogs were pack animals. Lightning doesn't strike twice.

All turned out to be bollocks.

So it's probably fair to say science believes things today that will be proven as nonsense in the decades to come.

For example. Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, the two crazy Swedish ladies who tried to kill themselves in a fit of rage on the M6 motorway in the UK in bizarre circumstances. Science explained their actions as 'folie a deux', otherwise known as 'shared psychosis'. (Where delusionary beliefs get transmitted to other people.)

I'm pretty sure this will be debunked in the years to come.

What other science stuff do we believe nowadays that you're pretty confident is nonsense?

Science has its faults, but it is a more empirical, evidence based research method that has been a lot better than metaphysics and religion in interpreting the world around us. Science moves in paradigmatic shifts. How can you blame Science for considering the earth was flat? That was the prevailing idea at the time, until it was falsified by renaissance thinkers who challenged the status quo, even if meant excommunication from the Catholic Church.

nozzferrahhtoo

GeneralVanilla wrote: »

Oh here we go. This is exactly why I said 'secretly'. Dare question the current consensus and and not only will god get dragged into it, and pushed in your direction, you'll be expected to present a thesis which changes contemporary understanding too.

Loving your hyperbole and persecution complex there. I have not seen the like of it since another user ran off the forum never to return.

However I note that to support your manufactured narrative you had to ignore the people (like myself) who do not conform to it. I neither pushed god into it, or in your direction, nor asked you to present a thesis.

ALL I did was suggest you look into the phrase "Argument from incredulity" AND ask you to show the numbers to which you referred. YOU mentioned "the numbers", not us. All I did was ask you what the numbers were. A small citation is hardly a "thesis" now is it?

The_Captain

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Science has its faults, but it is a more empirical, evidence based research method that has been a lot better than metaphysics and religion in interpreting the world around us. Science moves in paradigmatic shifts. How can you blame Science for considering the earth was flat? That was the prevailing idea at the time, until it was falsified by renaissance thinkers who challenged the status quo, even if meant excommunication from the Catholic Church.

People haven't thought the world was flat from pre-historical times. The church was on board with the idea of a round earth and was in fact one of the biggest contributors towards science. The only controversy was when astronomers put forward that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. In fact, the pope of the time fully supported Copernicus and his theories, while protestants inc Martin Luther had major objections to it