Religion Test For Nerds

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

The man was a priest who insisted that he kept his scientific theories separate from his theology.

Lemaître was one of two things, either a mega-hypocrite or he was fishing for a theory to justify his pre-existing beliefs.

I ask for proof and you give me speculation based in personal bias. Contrary to the man's actual claims, no less. By your own admission. Sorry, but that's not what I call proof.

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

The man was a priest who insisted that he kept his scientific theories separate from his theology.

Lemaître was one of two things, either a mega-hypocrite or he was fishing for a theory to justify his pre-existing beliefs.

I ask for proof and you give me speculation based in personal bias. Contrary to the man's actual claims, no less. By your own admission. Sorry, but that's not what I call proof.

Yeah, it's like I'm speculating that politicians lie.

I'm just waaaaaayyyyy off base by not assuming a priest would set aside his religious beliefs to pursue truth in science.

I'm sure Lemaître came up with the Big Bang purely out of his respect for the scientific method.

You're right, what was I thinking.

I find it interesting that Einstein didn't agree with him until AFTER Hubble came out with his data. That should tell you something about his theory.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

I'm sure Lemaître came up with the Big Bang purely out of his respect for the scientific method.

The man himself said he kept science and theology separate. I'm not going to call him a liar based on your biased interpretation.

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

I'm sure Lemaître came up with the Big Bang purely out of his respect for the scientific method.

The man himself said he kept science and theology separate. I'm not going to call him a liar based on your biased interpretation.

That's OK.

I'm plenty capable of calling him a lair all on my own.

I'm curious, do you believe what priests tell you in general, or just this particular priest?

originally posted by: AnarchoCapitalist
What the questions represent:

Do you believe material systems can display strongly emergent properties?

Answering yes means you believe consciousness is a by-product of organized unconscious matter, even though this violates reductionist principles.

Do you believe some matter exists that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means?

Answering yes means you believe dark matter exists.

Do you believe, in some areas of the universe, stable matter exists that violates the island of stability in nuclear chemistry?

Answering yes means you believe "strange matter" or "neutronium" or objects made out of pure neutrons (neutron stars) exist.

Do you believe infinitely dense point-mass particles exist, in violation of special relativity?

Answering yes means you believe in black holes.

Do you believe something can spring forth from nothing?

Answering yes means you believe in "fiat lux" or the Big Bang.

Do you believe the bending of nothing can impart force on something?

Answering yes means you believe gravity is a function of curving "spacetime."

Do you believe the Earth got its oceans by being bombarded by comets or from volcanoes?

Answering yes means you believe the story told by mainstream science.

Do you believe its possible for a gas giant planet to form from an accretion disk, "migrate" to within 0.015 AU of its host star, and be in a retrograde orbit?

Answering yes means you believe the story told by mainstream science. (This is just flat-out impossible no matter how it is modeled by mainstream scientists, yet we observe this happening in space.)

Do you believe the Earth formed from kilometer-sized boulders smashing into each other in space, which then turned into a gigantic pile of magma 400 km deep?

Answering yes means you believe the story told by mainstream science.

Do you believe objects the size of a large asteroid exist, that can spin around on their axis at 1200 hz, and emit a focused beam of energy that is detectable across galactic distances?

Answering yes means you believe the mainstream story about pulsars.

hmmm. no. You are assuming far too much in these analyses. Consider this one:

Do you believe some matter exists that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means?
Answering yes means you believe dark matter exists.

First, we consider the case where the answer is no. This means, the opposite of the affirmative is true. Thus, it is:
you DO NOT believe that some matter exists that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means
which means
you believe that no matter exists that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means

By definition, answering yes to this will mean the opposite of answering no to this, so the negation of the opposite of the affirmative. Thus, it is:
you DO NOT believe that no matter exists that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means
which means
you believe that there exists some matter that cannot be detected optically or by other electromagnetic means.

Simple enough right? But examine this statement. Nowhere does it imply that that means you believe in dark matter. In fact, dark matter is only an instance, or particular "something" that could, but doesn't have to, fit this description.

I am saying that all of your "yes" implications are all only sometimes true, and thus are usually false. You based an answer key off of something that is usually false, and thus the test results are invalid. You should really consider reformatting this test to something that is less open to interpretation and more definition and fact based.

originally posted by: AfterInfinity

originally posted by: AnarchoCapitalist

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

I'm no astronomer, so maybe we should get an actual astronomer in here to discuss this. Because I'm not sure you're an astronomer either.

I certainly hope an "actual" astronomer shows up here. I come prepared to wage academic jihad on their religious beliefs.

By the way, the Big Bang theory does NOT say that something comes from nothing. According to the theory, all of the matter in the universe was condensed into one tiny space before it exploded in the Big Bang. That's not "nothing".

Strike one for your test.

But at the very least, you have provided an opportunity to be educated on the finer points of cosmology. The thread is not without its benefits.

There are theories that show the universe came from nothing (not a tiny dot, literal nothing).

I have learned not to argue with AC, even when his facts are proven wrong he doesn't care and trudges along like a good little soldier.

a reply to: PhysicsAdept

OK, so for the nitpickers:

Do you believe certain types of matter exist that cannot be detected by optical or electromagnetic means?

That should cover the "it's buried in the ground so we can't detect it" baloney responses.

Dark matter is the only "matter" I'm aware of that cannot be detected by such means. If you know of another, I'm certainly interested to know about it.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
There are theories that show the universe came from nothing (not a tiny dot, literal nothing).

I have learned not to argue with AC, even when his facts are proven wrong he doesn't care and trudges along like a good little soldier.

I'm a personal believer in something coming from nothing, but that belief violates conservation laws. Obviously I disagree with conservation laws in this respect. Mainstream science however seems to feel this is a heresy of the highest order.

It is a contradiction to believe in the laws of conservation and believe in a something from nothing theory. One or the other is wrong. So which is it?

originally posted by: AnarchoCapitalist
a reply to: PhysicsAdept

Dark matter is the only "matter" I'm aware of that cannot be detected by such means. If you know of another, I'm certainly interested to know about it.

Right, that you are aware of. Not knowing that something doesn't exist doesn't disprove its existence. That's my argument here.

originally posted by: PhysicsAdept

originally posted by: AnarchoCapitalist
a reply to: PhysicsAdept

Dark matter is the only "matter" I'm aware of that cannot be detected by such means. If you know of another, I'm certainly interested to know about it.

Right, that you are aware of. Not knowing that something doesn't exist doesn't disprove its existence. That's my argument here.

That's a good argument to have but it doesn't apply to my question. My question was, do you believe certain types of matter exist that cannot be detected by optical or electromagnetic means?

So if a person believes there is one, or a billion, different kinds of matter that can't be detected by the means listed, that counts as a yes. If they don't believe, or are uncertain, that counts as a no because they don't presently believe it exists. I'm not asking if a person believes that it could exist, I am asking if they presently believe such matter exists.

It's a religious belief.

I said in my explanation that it means a person believes in Dark Matter if they answer yes, which it does. It's specific to Dark Matter, at this point in time, because Dark Matter is the only "matter" that fits the description. It is not an ambiguous explanation.

originally posted by: AnarchoCapitalist
a reply to: PhysicsAdept

OK, so for the nitpickers:

Do you believe certain types of matter exist that cannot be detected by optical or electromagnetic means?

That should cover the "it's buried in the ground so we can't detect it" baloney responses.

Dark matter is the only "matter" I'm aware of that cannot be detected by such means. If you know of another, I'm certainly interested to know about it.

We have a dark matter expert here on ATS and he's already said he's not sure if dark matter can be detected or not. He's part of a team making a new dark matter detector which will either detect something or it won't. There's no way to tell in advance what the outcome of the experiment will be.

I believe there are observations pointing to dark matter. I'm also aware people have tried to interpret these observations differently and some physicists still apparently consider MOND a viable alternative to dark matter, but I think they are in the minority.

Before the Higgs was detected I thought there was a chance it would be detected, and it was detected.
Now before dark matter has been detected, there are at least three options I consider:

1. Maybe dark matter exists, and will be detected more directly in a new experiment.
2. Maybe dark matter exists and will not be detected aside from the experiments already pointing to its possible existence.
3. Maybe the explanation for dark matter observation sis something other than dark matter, like MOND, or another alternative, or some combination of alternatives.

There's no rulebook in nature that says certain particles must interact. For example we know photons exist, but we've never seen them interact with each other. We think it's possible according to theory, but have so far not been able to build an experiment to see the interaction. We know far less about dark matter but similarly the fact we've seen no interaction yet doesn't mean we never will. I'm pretty sure one day we will observe photons interacting. I'm not as sure we'll find dark matter interactions.

Sorry none of this fits into your over-simplified "yes or no" questions, but real physics is a lot more complicated than that.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Sorry none of this fits into your over-simplified "yes or no" questions, but real physics is a lot more complicated than that.

Look, I'm sorry if you're having a hard time with this, but the question is simple. It has a binary yes or no answer. I don't care what present experiments say. I don't care what past experiments say. I don't care if there is one form of dark matter or another form dark matter. I don't care about any of that. All I want to know is if you presently believe that it exists or not. That is it.

Belief has nothing to do with how things actually work. I can believe that stars are actually burning piles of manure.

Really, arguing about this is to distract from the core point of the OP. Belief is the foundation of mainstream cosmology. All of those listed things are, at the present time, unproven theory.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

"I'm just waaaaaayyyyy off base by not assuming a priest would set aside his religious beliefs to pursue truth in science. "

I think you are. Religious scientist like Isaac Newton furthered science, his aim was to explain the creation mathematically, which is aim of all scientist, regardless of their religious beliefs.

The laws that rule our Universe don't have to be but they are all definitely weighted on a knife-edge that allow our universe and life to flourish. So either God is great or we are have all won tattslotto a billion times over. Perhaps that is even more mysterious than the creation itself and drove people like Isaac Newton into science.

a reply to: glend

Newton never proposed his own take on a creation myth and Newton wasn't a priest.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I find it interesting that Einstein didn't agree with Lemaître until AFTER Hubble came out with his data. That should tell you something about his theory.

If his theory was purely stemming from a sudden understanding of the "numbers," Einstein should have looked at the "numbers" and agreed with him right off the bat. Numbers don't lie, right? So was Einstein just stupid?

Einstein was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. He could see his theory being perverted, even though the math was correct. Correct math does not necessarily mean correct theory.

So, that means the basis of Lemaître's theory was not purely out of math, part of it came from his ideology. Part of Lemaître's theory came out of how he decided to interpret the universe.

There are numerous 'problems' with cosmology when viewed from the perspective that it is trying to explain the universe without really knowing why. Current observations can only take you so far. Don't forget Einstein regretted the inclusion of the cosmological constant in his field equations - his 'biggest mistake' - although it turns out that the +C was needed when Hubble's observations appeared to show the expansion of the universe.

It is in fact easier to make observations fit a certain way of thinking or belief system because you can pick and choose which experiments confirm your 'intuition' and disregard those which oppose it. This is where science becomes hard because it involves disregarding the human preconceptions of which we are all predisposed to.

Magnificent thread.

Strangely my answers were clustered mostly around
'Maybe, but I'm sure we can come up with a better hypothesis.' And
'Mu: this question is broken/based on untenable assumptions'

The one I'm torn on is: can something come from nothing. Because if you assume linear time the answer must be yes. Linear time does not like turtles all the way down. But circular or notime explains even less.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

I'm a personal believer in something coming from nothing, but that belief violates conservation laws. Obviously I disagree with conservation laws in this respect. Mainstream science however seems to feel this is a heresy of the highest order.

I might have mentioned earlier that "nothing" is technically impossible. There is always "something". Look it up.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

There are theories that show the universe came from nothing (not a tiny dot, literal nothing).

They are theories, not facts. Time may see them disproven entirely. Who knows?

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

That's OK.

I'm plenty capable of calling him a lair all on my own.

I'm curious, do you believe what priests tell you in general, or just this particular priest?

I believe in innocent until proven guilty.

originally posted by: JonMel77
It is in fact easier to make observations fit a certain way of thinking or belief system because you can pick and choose which experiments confirm your 'intuition' and disregard those which oppose it. This is where science becomes hard because it involves disregarding the human preconceptions of which we are all predisposed to.

I don't think it works that way.

Quantum mechanics experiments opposed everybody's intuition and one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Edwin Schrodinger said:

www.quotationspage.com...

I don't like it and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.
--Erwin Schrodinger commenting on Schrodinger's equations

He won the Nobel prize for that work too.