Five Myths About Christmas (answered?)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

jblake47 writes:

Proof is the scientific evidence that certain issues can be tested and given exactly the same circumstances will produce the same results. If I can drop a pencil and it always falls to the floor and you try it and it produces the same results it's called the Law of Gravity. It's provable by repeatable testing.

 

Wrong. It's still a theory. Nothing is "proved" in science.

 

In fact, there are aspects of gravity that aren't settled, like whether gravity is quantized.

 

However, if it cannot be proven with evidence, then it stays a theory. We believe there is a "link" between apes and man, however, there is no scientific evidence that says we evolved from them.

 

There's a HUGE amount of evidence that says we did. In fact, humans ARE apes.

 

The evidence connecting the two is not there. Just because two things appear to be similar does not mean they are.

 

It goes way beyond appearance.

 

Now if I drop a pencil and it does not fall to the floor, there can be a very good reason for it. Scientific, too. If I'm on the international space station, the scientific laws that apply on earth do not apply elsewhere,

 

WHAAAT?

 

Sorry, an orbiting space station is obeying the same laws as someone on the ground.

 

By the way, modern medicine is based on scientific results, quackery is not.

 

So is relativity and evolution. Do you know what kinds of experiments have been done for each?

[Scoutfish]

Nah, what I said about the whole universe was completely made up on the fly, but I'll explain a little deeper:

 

Suppose you had a working model of a bicycle. Inside the frame where the pedal's axel is - is a hidden motor to cause the pedals to rotate which cuses the chain to work which in turn causes the rear tire to rotate>

 

Now, the motor isn't hidden to be hidden, but just hidden to not disrupt the look of the bicycle>

 

Okay, let's say this bicycle is on diplay at an engineering mueseum.

 

So anyways, the pedals are turning and the chain is moving and the rear wheel is turning too. The hidden motor is slow, but very a strong, hi torque motor.

 

This bike is also suspended by very thing wires.

 

Now, you reach out and grab one pedal and cause it to stop it's pattern of movement> But since the motor is strong and high torque, the bike suddenly starts moving - keeping with the p[revious movements of the pedals>

 

If you are standinga few feet away from the bike, you can now see that the bike is revolving based on a stationary pedal.

 

But if you were a fly who always lived on the bike seat, from your viewpoint and perspective , everything is still moving like it always has been - the same before the pedal was stopped.

 

So, what if a hundred yeasr from now, we "grab the pedal" ?

 

Again, I do not believe this, but want to explain that my example is not the same as suddenly thinking the earth was flat as that would be thinking backwards and digressing in our veiwsa> besides, that would also include ignoring our current knowledge based on discovery>

 

Discovering that the while solar system actually revolved around the earth in a way as to make it appeare that the earth revolved around the sun from out viewpiint would be a step forward in discovering new things based on observation beyond what we do now>

 

Of course, we know the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.

 

It revolves around Jupiter . HAL told me!

 

[packsaddle]

The fact that a pencil moves toward the earth is not a theory. It is an observation. I'm a bit sympathetic to your thoughts regarding 'gravity'. As far as I can detect, no one, not anyone, understands yet just what gravity IS. So maybe that is the direction you should be headed. but gravitational theory has to do with the way 'gravity' affects objects that have mass. The theory is what is used to predict, for example, the motions of objects with mass, relative to each other (as NJ mentioned) as well as to explain that the pencil released on the ISS is, in fact, also subject to gravity but is falling at a rate balanced against another force thus causing it to be 'weightless' (but not without mass). That pencil is in orbit in synchrony with the ISS, but not outside the influence of gravity. It is held in orbit by gravity.

 

Now, I can't prove that there ISN'T another force, call it 'phlogiston', by which the rest of the universe is 'pushing' against that pencil to force it to the earth and pushing against the orbiting pencil and the ISS in precisely the right way, thus producing an identical outcome to what we observe. That would be a matter for 'faith' if someone believed it. I don't know of those persons, though.

 

Regarding human ancestry, is there ANY evidence that you could recognize in support of the idea of a common ancestor?

But that has almost no relevance to the process of evolution. We do observe evolution, all the time, in many ways. It is easy to observe and quite repeatable. What I can't do is 'prove' that each of those observations is NOT a special miracle. That would be a matter for 'faith' to address and I have met persons who DO maintain such beliefs.

 

Regarding medicine, have you ever heard of thalidomide? Or...for that matter the medical proof that cigarette smoke causes no harm to the smoker? Or the medical proof that coal dust causes no harm to the lungs of miners? Those things are easy to find, probably plenty of more recent examples too. I've heard those claims of proof, even as dead people all around provided evidence against. I guess that in the case of lung cancer and black lung, those claiming proof had other motives. But for a while, a lot of people 'believed' the 'truth' of those 'proofs' (and made a tidy profit too!).

 

Merlyn, I'm thinking you know better, and maybe I'm reading you the wrong way, but just a reminder that populations evolve, not species. The confusion is what occurs when persons use terms imprecisely or when the terms are imprecise to begin with.

[vol_scouter]

packsaddle,

 

We do know what gravity is. Mass curves space-time proportional to the size of the mass. It is thought that the force is mediated by gravitons but they have not been found. The question that does not seem to be answerable by physics (though who knows in the future) is why there is gravity. For that matter, why are there 4 basic forces is not answerable.

 

Have watched this discussion with great interest and I must say that Merlyn is most close to being right about science. Beavah and others do not understand science very well. If the gedanken experiment proposed by Beavah wherein all knowledge was erased would lead to a similar experience in learning about the laws of physics - see Feynman's thoughts for an eloquent expression of this. The only difference that I have with Merlyn on this subject is minor but scientists work on beliefs as well. They may feel that they have more evidence than a religious believer but they still put stock in beliefs alone. Examples abound as in above, the belief in gravitons based on the mediators of force for the other three forces. String theory believers have confidence that the universe is multi-dimensional although at this point there is no evidence to support that idea. Tachyons were invented because they could be constructed mathematically. Those are beliefs based on convictions that cannot at this time be proven or disproven. That is very similar to religion.

 

So Merlyn, we agree on science with that difference.

[packsaddle]

Heh, heh, that might make it clear to you but I'm still on square one. I'm afraid I'll have to accept your explanation as a gesture of 'good faith' and hope I never have to make a wager on it.

 

P.S. think there's a chance that 'they' will ever change their minds about that explanation?

 

Edit: I just remembered the answer to your 'why' question. I had memorized that answer way back in Catechism...to glorify God!

That seems to work for a lot of people for those questions of purpose.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[vol_scouter]

Packsaddle,

 

That would make the logic circular though more likely, ellipsoidal.

[Scoutfish]

Of course< i always remember what my 9th grade science teacher told us:

 

Most scientists are firm believers in God, but have a curiosity that just won't sit still.

 

They have no doubt God created it, they just wnt to figure out why hi.s creations work.

 

They start out taking their fathers watches apart to see how they work.

 

Soon, they take their mom's toasters apart to see how they work, then their older brothers bicycles.

 

Then they keep getting more advanced and more complicated>

 

befoe you know it, they have a pretty good grasp on things when they discover God has a great sense of humor.......

 

How do they know this? The DuckBilled Platypus!

[BartHumphries]

The ellipse (curve) that the Earth makes around the Sun is exactly the same as the ellipse that the Sun would make around the Earth, if the Sun rotated around the Earth, from our perspective. In fact, from our viewpoint on Earth, we cannot tell, strictly from looking at the Sun, which rotates around which. It's the planets that really give it away. If the Earth rotates around the Sun, then everything is easily explainable. If the Sun rotates around the Earth, then you have planets regularly stopping and going backwards for a while for some inexplicable reason (perhaps as harbingers of bad times or something).

 

So, yeah, the whole "bicycle on a set" thing is a decent thought experiment as far as it goes, but if the fly were as intelligent and as equipped with telescopes to look out and see the human being grabbing the pedal and the wires and the walls, etc., as we are to be able to observe the space immediately around our planet, then he would soon be able to figure out what was going on.

 

So, we can come up with several thought experiments which suggest that we don't have a clue about what's going on around us in the world. We're actually pretty certain about a lot of things. This doesn't mean that things are proved beyond a shadow of a doubt -- even when scientists are pretty darn sure that he knows what's going on, as Feynman said, he is still in some doubt.

[packsaddle]

vol_scouter, I'm curious. How do (would) you exclude the phlogiston idea? What is so 'wrong' about phlogiston?

 

Let me play devil's advocate. If I was a person who had no prior exposure to science or religion, and I was presented with both the 'phlogiston' explanation for gravity and the 'force mediated by gravitons' explanation, by what logical process could I arrive at the truth?

 

In your estimation of your fellow citizens, which alternative do you think the average person would most likely choose: the one in which they can directly observe the effect or the one which uses invisible and perhaps imaginary things? Heh, heh, and which one is which?

 

Edit: Bart, that ellipse thing is a little troubling. I always have a few students who enter college still thinking that the seasons are caused by the elliptical orbit and the distance of the earth from the sun. I will tell them that we were, yesterday, precisely at perihelion. They will still cling to the idea. A few also 'know' that the universe is only 10,000 years old.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[BartHumphries]

Thanks, packsaddle. Henry Cavendish did a very famous experiment (which now has his name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment ) which basically took two massive automobile-sized balls of metal carefully hung on a rotating pivot, which was then slowly (very, very, very slowly) rotated nearer and farther and nearer two other much smaller balls on the outside of the rotating area and we were actually able to see (and measure) the attraction of the small balls to the mass of the large balls. Just like pretty much all famous experiments, it's been repeated over the years with greater and greater precision. So gravity itself is pretty much agreed upon. How exactly it works, we're not really sure -- gravitons or whatever, who knows, there are some good explanations (some of which are, admittedly, better than the other good explanations) for different ways that this can happen. Point is, there isn't a force coming downwards that causes things to fall. It's because of the weight of the objects because we can measure this force due to gravity very very exactly. EDIT: I just went to the Wikipedia article and it appears that the balls used originally were actually fairly small -- I guess it's just nowdays that people are hanging "cars" to test this out.

 

There's also astronomy. We can measure and record where things are in the sky very exactly and we can deduce the masses of things because we know how gravity works on Earth. We can then take those calculated masses and use that to compare how things "should" move if that is correct and these calculations are always correct. This is not circular reasoning -- let me explain. For instance, there were some slight anomalies in the orbits of Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter. Neptune was found and that pretty much solved the case, except for some even slighter anomalies that still persisted. Some people who were good with math and tedious fiddley stuff calculated roughly where some sort of planety thing would have to be in order to cause these anomalies and after almost a hundred years Pluto was discovered (give them a break, Pluto is incredibly small and difficult to make out, and easy to miss). There's all the comets, etc., there aren't really any surprises in this realm, except a few which I'll get to in a moment.

 

Then there are the satellites. We have some extraordinarily sensitive and complicated satellites orbiting Earth right now. We all know about leap days, extra days sometimes inserted into the calendar to make the years match up because the number of days in a year don't quite exactly match up with the season lengths. Well, there are also actually leap seconds because the Earth is moving slower or faster at any given moment (see Kepler's Second Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion#Second_law and the fascinating animated gif there) and thus the number of seconds in a day is constantly changing. Because basically nothing natural, anywhere, exactly matches up with any sort of strict bookkeeping, we can't predict leap seconds for more than about six months in advance. That's not usually a big problem as it would normally take thousands of years to be off by even a minute or so. It does become a problem, though, because we know that Einstein was right, there is a time dilation as an objects speed increases. Remember those incredibly sensitive satellites? Well, they move really fast and we can measure their time dilation very exactly, especially since we constantly have to communicate with them to update how many leap seconds will need to be added at any given moment, because we have to maintain strict time synchronization for so many things to work. We can also use these satellites to test our theory of gravity and everything just works spot on.

 

We're also pretty sure that there's no ether (or air or waves pushing on anything or something like that out in space), because of these satellites and our measurements of flying foreign bodies (like comets). Everything holds together and everything seems to add up neatly enough that nobody really has a problem with gravity, except for a few things, like the Voyager distance anomalies, the speed of the outer edges of rotating galaxies, etc., but most of these are explained away by something else or another. I could go on about the things that we don't really understand and that are troubling to the theory of gravity, but the point is that we can be fairly certain that there are no phlogy-whatevers coming from anywhere and pushing on anything. It's just not happening or satellites and comets wouldn't work like they do (since they're falling in constant circles and even if you tried to go by the vast weight of space pushing down and being opposed by the slight distance between the Earth and a satellite, then just like the rays of the setting/rising sun, some of the phlogys would be skimming along the surface of the earth and opposing/helping the forward motion of the satellite and these forces wouldn't exactly cancel in all directions including downwards because the satellite is moving in a circle and we see no evidence that this is happening, so it's most likely not happening).

 

That's why we're pretty sure we know what gravity is and what it does (although how it does it can be somewhat up for debate, but it is definitely related to the mass of objects and it's a pull, not a push), so there are quite likely no phlogy-whatevers.

 

Also, Santa Claus was real, it's all explained in the book by L. Frank Baum, the guy who wrote The Wizard of Oz. See, Santa actually lives in the Enchanted Valley (not the North Pole -- we've flown there and there's nothing there) and he flies through the air by... (This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

[packsaddle]

Bart, I'm still playing you-know-who's advocate....

All you've shown is that your system seems to work better than the alternative. But did you really give the alternative a fair chance? Shouldn't the alternative be taught alongside 'conventional' gravitational theory in physics classes, in order for the students to make up their own minds?

 

One correction. I have a colleague who studies atmospheric processes and properties. He studies the atmosphere surrounding the International Space Station. That thing IS a satellite, isn't it? You telling me there are no atmospheric forces operating on the ISS?

You note, "...we see no evidence that this is happening, so it's most likely not happening." You're using the lack of evidence to conclude something. Show me the evidence that it's NOT happening. And, by all means, GET that alternative theory of gravity into the classrooms!

[Jay K]

Scan the treatise? If I can find it...I read it long ago.

[vol_scouter]

Packsaddle,

 

I fail to understand your question. Phlogiston was postulated to be fire that was contained within substances that allowed them to combust, rust, etc. Physics and chemistry eventually described what was actually occurring and the theory was dropped. Had nothing to do with gravity unless I am missing something.

 

As far as what the ordinary US cities would view as a valid scientific explanation, I fear that they would show little understanding and would pick the wrong explanation as much or more than the right one. People spend more time reading about what actors and actresses are doing than reading anything scientific. Merlyn is right that science is not decided by the vote of a committee, rather with time the field accepts a theory as the most correct known interpretation of natural phenomenon. As we have worked for centuries in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, the changes to currently accepted theories tend to be incremental more often than paradigm shifting. That doesn't mean that paradigms will not be changed. Certainly, the classical Newtonian version of gravity is severely changed conceptually by general relativity though the change in calculations of the orbits of the planets is very small. In fact, for most human purposes, Newtonian physics works just fine but our understanding of what gravity is and how it is mediated has been dramatically changed. However, experience tells me that most do not understand even the Newtonian physics let alone have any conception of general relativity. Similarly, the human body is fantastically more complex than it was thought to be even 25 years ago. The more that we understand about cell biology, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc, the more that we discover that we do not understand. Then try to integrate quantum mechanics into that milieu and you find a complexity that at this time we cannot understand. As we get better with bioinformatics, we will be better able to master the information in the complexity.

 

Long winded reply that can be summed up by saying that there have been several folks posting on this topic here that are obviously educated and thoughtful folks who do not understand science, so why would we expect the 'man on the street' to have even a basic understanding?

[packsaddle]

Vol_scouter,

Edit: I'll answer that last question first. Because the 'man on the street' is who will determine the ultimate fate of the country and his understanding of science, or lack thereof will be part of that determination. AND, the way you and I ask and answer questions in public has the potential to affect the understanding of that 'man on the street'.

 

I didn't use the term 'phlogiston' with intent to confuse things for jblake47 - or you. I didn't mean to imply a relationship between gravity and combustion. My apologies, I just used the term because I like the word (and the story from the days of alchemy). So I applied it in the way I applied it. If it helps I'll call it 'nophliston'. That work any better? Nophliston, the mysterious force that is exerted by the rest of the universe which pushes the pencil toward the earth when the pencil is released.

 

So, If I was a person who had no prior exposure to science or religion, and I was presented with both the 'nophliston' theory for gravity and the 'force mediated by gravitons' theory, by what logical process could I arrive at the truth?

After all, if those gravitons have never been found, as you say, some logical process is all that is left for the guy to use to exclude one or the other of the two theories, right? Otherwise, as far as he's concerned, one theory is as good as the other.

 

I asked that question about your opinion of your fellow citizens because I was curious about your opinion regarding your fellow citizens. That's all. I'm not sure how to make it clearer than that.

I'll repeat the question.

In your estimation of your fellow citizens, in real life which alternative theory do you think the average person would most likely choose to believe: the one in which they can directly observe the effect or the one which uses invisible and perhaps imaginary things?

 

Keep in mind that while you're correct about consensus not being the way science works, I'm not asking about that. I'm asking about what people would choose to 'believe' is true, given those two alternatives.

One more thing, I'm not going to get upset if you have no idea which choice people would choose, I don't know either. I'm just hoping you do, or maybe someone else does.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[vol_scouter]

Packsaddle,

 

Got you. So it is my experience that as humans, we most like theories that meet with the reality that we see in everyday life. So the quantum world is totally foreign to our everyday experience which means that the 'man in the street' would favor a different explanation. The desire to relate a scientific theory to everyday experience affects all of us and shades even the approach of scientists but our training better allows us to accept theories that are very foreign to our experience. The other aspect that colors acceptance of theories is the desire to make ourselves (humans) important. So many people really believe in magic. Magic gives supernatural powers to people. It makes humans in charge of nature. When we consider how insignificant our little planet is in the galaxy, let alone the universe, it is clear that the self importance is silly but it is a commonly held belief.

 

So I believe that the man in the street picks theories based upon illogical reasons that on some level makes them feel better about the theory - it is something that I understand based on my experiences or it is magic that makes man important. That is my take on you question. Obviously, it is based only on my anecdotal experiences which may have no relationship to reality.