T
Thing
Guest
Poor thing never gets *any *thanks… imagine a thread with out any-thing in it… sheesh.
I capitalized Scientific Knowledge because some people here (not you) equate it with God, which we capitalize.I am not sure why you capitalized “Scientific Knowledge” and “Truth” but to assert that “scientific knowledge may not even be converging on truth” is a fairly sweeping statement, one which includes all of the sciences, and thus it reflects an unhealthy degree of skepticism about the achievements of the human mind.
Great Catholic scientists like Louis Pasteur, Galileo, Alessandro Volta, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, André-Marie Ampère, Pierre Duhem, and numerous others, would certainly disagree with your skeptical attitude.
I will give just one example which serves as a clear refutation of your claim: during the 20th century man has finally achieved a truly scientific picture of the cosmos. The 20th century represents a giant leap towards achieving truth about our universe. QED
Uh-oh – a theory being modified! Ricmat and buffalo are going to have a problem with that…Because of that, the Big Bang theory had to be modified to take them into account (notably, with the inclusion of dark energy into the equation, the calculated age of universe changed - before that the calculated age of universe was in conflict with the apparent age of the oldest observed objects).
When you change it enough, isn’t it a bit ridiculous to keep calling it the same theory? Give it a new name, and say that the old theory is obsolete and INCORRECT. Don’t insist that it was always correct, and will always be correct.Uh-oh – a theory being modified! Ricmat and buffalo are going to have a problem with that…
Of course!When you change it enough, isn’t it a bit ridiculous to keep calling it the same theory? Give it a new name, and say that the old theory is obsolete and INCORRECT. Don’t insist that it was always correct, and will always be correct.
Many sciences have acquired an immensely better understanding of their subject matter. Today, I finished reading “The Double Helix” by James Watson. Watson and Crick’s resolution of the structure of the DNA molecule was a great achievement, one that answered many questions in biology as well as opened the door to many new discoveries.Some scientific areas are probably converging toward an coherent explanation of Truth.
Love of one’s own opinion rather than love of the truth is always a problem with humans, but your vague (unspecified) rant has no value because you have not tied it to any examples in regard to the topic of this thread.But in some disciplines man has fooled himself into believing what he wants to believe instead of the truth.
I think you are yanking everyone’s chain.I’m not trying to yank your chain here, but ironically the one example you put forth as converging (the cosmos) is one that I believe is way off base. Scientific (mathematical) models of stars, galaxies, and StA’s favorite, planetary accretion, insist that gravity is the primary force behind everything. But the gravity model needs to continually add more “epicycles” (band-aids) just like the geocentric model of the solar system, in order to “work” properly. A much simpler model is available, which makes successful predictions and scale working models of observed phenomena (which the gravity model does not do). See this web site (one of many, but a good place to start).
A universe that is approximately 15 billions years old (actually it appears to be closer to 13.66 billion years) is difficult to conceive. On the other hand, Aristotle believed the universe had existed from all eternity. What is a universe formed 13- 15 bya compared to Aristotle’s eternally existing universe?I am unable to discern the realities of the opinions of being that is 15,000,000,000 years old.
Jim, You are correct about dark matter. Any attempts by physicists and astronomers to measure it, either directly or indirectly, have not met with any success. From what I understand dark matter is theoretical in that it helps to explain where all the missing matter in the universe is, it accounts for what is perceived as a lack of matter that should be there, but isn’t. There are physicists that, however, do doubt that dark matter really exists and are working up models that count for the size of the universe without having to make use of dark matter.From what I am able to discern, the Big Bang Theories have three hypothetical beings or entities.
The First one has been addressed, the Second and Third have not been addressed recently. They may have been addressed but this thread has moved really fast and I have not been able to keep up with it.
First, the dark energy field
Second, non-baryonic (dark matter)
Third, the inflation field
Also, from what I am able to discern, no evidence of these hypothetical beings have been observed.
Are some of these statements correct or incorrect? Or, are these still open to further investigatin?
Thanks!
In my previous post I tried to address all three of your points. I was talking both about dark energy (point 1) and dark matter (point 2)From what I am able to discern, the Big Bang Theories have three hypothetical beings or entities.
The First one has been addressed, the Second and Third have not been addressed recently. They may have been addressed but this thread has moved really fast and I have not been able to keep up with it.
First, the dark energy field
Second, non-baryonic (dark matter)
Third, the inflation field
Also, from what I am able to discern, no evidence of these hypothetical beings have been observed.
Are some of these statements correct or incorrect? Or, are these still open to further investigatin?
Thanks!
Don’t want to sound arrogant, but nothing could be farther from truth. Dark matter has been observed indirectly since 1933. People seem to think that somebody was trying to come up with some theory and because hi equations did not match, he threw in some theoretical ‘dark matter’ mathematical mumbo-jumbo to make up for it. This is not the case.Jim, You are correct about dark matter. Any attempts by physicists and astronomers to measure it, either directly or indirectly, have not met with any success. From what I understand dark matter is theoretical in that it helps to explain where all the missing matter in the universe is, it accounts for what is perceived as a lack of matter that should be there, but isn’t. There are physicists that, however, do doubt that dark matter really exists and are working up models that count for the size of the universe without having to make use of dark matter.
ChadS
At a conference I was corrected by a cosmologist: I said 13.7 billion years; he said “Actually it’s 13.715 years.”A universe that is approximately 15 billions years old (actually it appears to be closer to 13.66 billion years) :
Here’s an article which also talks about dark matter (and redshift as well…a bonus).Don’t want to sound arrogant, but nothing could be farther from truth. Dark matter has been observed indirectly since 1933. People seem to think that somebody was trying to come up with some theory and because hi equations did not match, he threw in some theoretical ‘dark matter’ mathematical mumbo-jumbo to make up for it. This is not the case.
It’s actually the other way around. People have been observing gravitational effects without any apparent source for them. It’s not that there was something black that could not be recognized against a black background - it’s ‘see through’.
There is something both inside galaxies and in intergalactic space that does not give out any kind of energy (light, radio…), nor does it absorb energy - the only thing it does is exerting a gravitational field. We don’t know what it is, but we call it ‘dark matter’.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter for information about observational evidence.
See home.slac.stanford.edu/pressreleases/2006/20060821.htm for some recent development in the study of dark matter.
The correct answer is “13.715 billion years, until we find out that it’s not the right answer either.”At a conference I was corrected by a cosmologist: I said 13.7 billion years; he said “Actually it’s 13.715 years.”
Our knowledge is asymptotic.The correct answer is “13.715 billion years, until we find out that it’s not the right answer either.”
Your faith is strong.Our knowledge is asymptotic.
I just glanced over the Wikipedia article and in the first paragraph it says it is a “conjectured” form of matter that is “undetectable by its emitted electromagnetic radiation” and whose existence can only be “inferred.” The “indirect” observation is a way to explain variations in the movements and gravitational fields of galaxies and galaxy clusters. I realize that dark matter isn’t some physicists mumbo-jumbo that was made up to plug in gaps, yet other attempts to describe it have had to rely on hypothetical entities like axions and isn’t made up of atoms.Don’t want to sound arrogant, but nothing could be farther from truth. Dark matter has been observed indirectly since 1933. People seem to think that somebody was trying to come up with some theory and because hi equations did not match, he threw in some theoretical ‘dark matter’ mathematical mumbo-jumbo to make up for it. This is not the case.
It’s actually the other way around. People have been observing gravitational effects without any apparent source for them. It’s not that there was something black that could not be recognized against a black background - it’s ‘see through’.
There is something both inside galaxies and in intergalactic space that does not give out any kind of energy (light, radio…), nor does it absorb energy - the only thing it does is exerting a gravitational field. We don’t know what it is, but we call it ‘dark matter’.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter for information about observational evidence.
See home.slac.stanford.edu/pressreleases/2006/20060821.htm for some recent development in the study of dark matter.
Yes, both are true.Your faith is strong.