





Spark of Life






[Image Source:  Giovanni Dall'Orto]

If that all sounds a bit abstract, it is.


Sources: Interface [via Arvix], Arizona State Univ.

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RE: Personally
By ingwe on 12/14/2012 1:55:01 PM , Rating: 3

Evolution + Big Bang + Quantum Physics + Relativity are Scientific Theories that can be proven, observed, and used to predict future outcomes.

Intelligent Design is a Belief. It explains nothing. It predicts nothing. It can't be proven. It can't even be observed (complexity exists but its existence means nothing by itself!). It has no mathematical laws or principles. It is simply not science.

By comparison, we know for a fact that Evolution occurred. You can walk into any natural history museum and touch fossils. We can even see it occur in real time.

As Stephen Hawking said, and was immediately damned for, the Universe does not need God. It's a self regulating, self sustaining bubble of space and energy. Anything beyond our Universe is meaningless because we could never observe it.

I am not quite sure where you got some of these ideas. Science is about two key ingredients: observation and theory. What you have listed, Evolution, The Big Bang, and Relativity are (as you correctly stated) theories. Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background, gravitational lensing, and red shifting are examples of observables. Understanding this is important because you CANNOT PROVE a theory. You can only disprove a theory. A theory is our best idea of how observations fit together. Observations are used to corroborate or invalidate theories. This is the very basis of science. To say that we know theories are true is totally antithetical to science. Science talks not in definites, but in likelihoods.

What I said above is what I believe the general consensus of the scientific community is. The following is more personal opinion: Theories without any observables are practically religion. You can believe them or not based on what you think is logical. Yes, String Theory has a lot of beautiful math, if it fails to make predictions that are observable it should not be generally accepted. People who do so are making a decision based purely on what they feel is correct and want to believe, hence my comparison with religion. In a related vein, people can think whatever they want to about the origin of things. We can observe nothing from before the surface of last scattering (~380,000 yrs after the big bang by estimates, but that is just a theory). As such we can make almost no observations about anything before then and thus anything before that is mostly conjecture and is therefore mostly outside of the realm of science. Instead it is a question for philosophy and religion. Again this is only my opinion.

A note of qualification: I have a degree in Astrophysics for whatever that means here. Probably not much...

RE: Personally
By Ammohunt on 12/14/2012 3:48:43 PM , Rating: 1
Because of the human condition your observations are unique to you. You can't "prove" others observations are the same as yours since you can't perceive through others senses. Sure you can get consensus from others that their observation are similar however again they are a collection of unique observations rather than single proof. Otherwise 20 respected people on an acid trip could prove purple elephants are real.On that same note you cannot disprove anyone's individual observations for the same reasons above.

