Do you believe the scientific community in 2020?

Very well said. I should have changed my "monumental flaw" post to reference mostly those within the celebrity group that more often than not post utter nonsense claiming to be facts.

I don’t see how it is begging the question:

Perhaps my word choice could be improved or at least clarified. The “assumption” of consistency of the physics of the universe over time and space is not taken a priori as a premise. It is a conclusion as a result of extensive observation. Though there is no mathematical/logical proof that it can’t be false, everything we know so far suggests it is true.

I could give you some imagined scenarios where it could be false, but as interesting (and uncomfortable) as it might be to think about, there’s just no evidence for it.

That would be called history. The value of science is that it is not just descriptive, but also predictive.

And then the claims and predictions are evaluated for their consistency with reality.

“The future” is not a fixed reference point, and it eventually ends up in the past. We can pick up the bits of evidence left behind. Plus, we are time travellers going at a rate of one second per second. We get multiple ways to check the predictions. They’re pretty damn accurate as well as incredibly precise, in many cases. And when they’re not, they’re refined until they converge with reality.

Yes, and science helps reduce the impact of those biases or incorrect beliefs by having consistency with reality be the final arbiter.

I wonder, what do you understand to be science?

You know what? For sake of argument let us suppose that we know the future will be different. What impact would that have on science? Would physics change gradually? That would perhaps just require adding some time dependence to quantities we thought to be constant—not a huge deal. Would the change be abrupt? Assuming we survived the transition, would there still be order in the universe to understand? If so, then the process of science would be just as valuable and it simply would be a ‘reset’ of previous knowledge and require rechecking everything.

As interesting as these questions may be in a philosophical sense, I fail to see their relevance in practice. I haven’t envisioned any scenario that undermines current scientific efforts or approaches. It’s like trying to conjure up a variable that we haven’t detected and speculate on its impacts.

Meanwhile, in the face of everything which we know suggesting consistency, what reason is there to suggest an inconsistent future? The “assumption” of consistency is falsifiable. Non-consistency is not falsifiable and also introduces unknown additional complexity, much like Russell’s teapot. By Occam’s razor, the former is preferable. None of this is absolutely definitive, but the evidence and probabilities are very much on one side.

Well, I hope at least someone has fun reading all this.

If so, those people consider incorrectly.

The scientific community, and its consensus in particular, is an emergent property. It is not defined by any one person or group, though there is certainly a usefulness to having science popularizers.

The analogy of an average is helpful again. For a six-sided die, averaging out the values of the rolls will eventually converge to 3.5, despite there being no such value on the die. The average is an emergent property. Similarly, the scientific consensus is an emergent property which no one person necessarily holds exactly.

Consensus, like an average, has the benefit of being stable and on average more correct than any individual data point or person.

Science!

Ohh, don’t know about that.
Pretty sure suckers are born every day is consistent throughout history.
World leaders don’t want educated independent thought from the masses, yeah, consistent.
People are too dumb or stubborn to move from areas where things don’t grow well and will starve, but still have no problem making more babies to starve and continue the cycle.
Haters gotta hate and lots of people will still root for the Dallas Cowboys, again consistent :slight_smile: Alright this one fits into “very short time frames” on a cosmic scale.

It’s all in fun people, lighten up.

I am seeing the word ‘Consensus’ a lot in this thread, what if the group of scientists gathered are all like minded?
The consensus is going to be biased in favour of their like mindedness, completely nullifying the result, yet it would still be a consensus of scientists and released as such.
It was the consensus of most climate scientists that the weather would turn nasty in about 2040/50 yet here we are NOW with severe climate change and very quiet climate scientists :smiling_imp:

Cheers David

Good point. Consensus is like the convergence of an average. It emerges once a pattern becomes clearer, typically on more established topics. On newer topics or the cutting-edge research, scientists are anything but like-minded, as Dr.Phillip pointed out.

Scientists have to be creative and kind of opinionated to explore new ideas. So is there a consensus or not? Again like averages, initially there isn’t and eventually one emerges.

Note that the analogy isn’t perfect since scientists aren’t a random process, and a learning algorithm would probably be a better analogy or model, but it’s sufficient for illustrating the point:

You can find a consensus statement on most any interesting medical or scientific question, it’s a think people do for reference and standard of care purposes.

This is one of the problems with a consensus “it’s a thing people do for reference” the consensus is then referred to as fact, not the opinion of a group which is what it is.

On the news today it was stated that a consensus of scientists said that the planets formed gently, not violently, going against the consensus held for over 60 years

Their “proof” is an image showing one small asteroid that had collided with another one gently, way out in the Ort cloud :weary:

As an aside :- Wish I could ask them how two small planets collide gently :person_facepalming:

Cheers David … who really does respect scientists, but not the ones looking for their 15 seconds of fame.

I think this latest study adds one example to a body of evidence suggesting that the gentle formation hypothesis may be true. The gentle planet formation hypothesis has actually been debated for about 15 years. This one example doesn’t establish a scientific consensus applying to all the planets, even though the study’s author seems to be making some sweeping claims about the new discovery.

That one is fairly dim…the forces are small because the objects are small. The forces will get bigger over time as mass increases. I can’t believe anyone would publish something so easily deconstructed.

nope, too much PC and virtue signaling in scientific community today.

I don’t think the evidence yet shows what happened with larger masses merging. They’re saying the process by which the various particles collided in this particular case was slower and more gradual than depicted under the hierarchical accretion theory - with the various bodies orbiting each other before slowly merging. They didn’t indicate what, if any, evidence there is to support your apparent assertion that the process was more violent and accelerated for larger masses.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00380-2

Good Stuff Elsewhere

One particular annoyance to hear is when the phrase "it hasn't be scientifically proven" is thrown around in a careless manner and in such a way as to denounce a very real experience that really can't be easily proved scientifically at the moment, but is still real nevertheless. It's like saying the universe doesn't exist because we can't prove it 100%. There is a saying that science and metaphysics eventually have to meet and crossover each other. This is becoming much more true today than in the past with all the advancements in quantum mechanics.

In what way is it “careless” to conclude that some cause and effect relationship, or the existence of some phenomenon, hasn’t been proven scientifically, when it can be tested scientifically? You can say anything you imagine is “real,” in the sense that you can really imagine it. And many people have hallucinations. That doesn’t mean: 1) that a scientific test is not appropriate; or 2) that it is careless to state the current scientific evidence, or lack of it, relating to that phenomenon.

In fact, it might be careless NOT to make clear that something hasn’t been scientifically proven. Example: the alleged connection between vaccines and autism. Another example: regular scares about the sources of illness that are passed from person to person and can cause panic and other anti-social responses. Another example: many products advertised as being effective in curing or preventing disease, without any scientific evidence substantiating the advertising claims.

The bottom line is that, if you wish to believe in things without scientific proof, you have that right. You also have a right to declare that you think your experience is very real to you, even without scientific proof. However, other people have a right to believe only in what is proven scientifically, and to declare that such proof doesn’t exist for one phenomenon or another.

^^ Agreed. What I like about this thread is that it has stayed civil and hasn't been closed. Somewhat of a first here at BLF considering the topic.

If you’re curious where science came from, and why you’re allowed, nay expected, to think for yourself, this is worth reading:

I never asserted anything, just said that it goes against the teachings that scientists have taught for over 60 years or so.
As to support for my apparent assertion, oh please, stating that the actions of two minor planets weighing in at many billions of tonnes would be the same as two objects that would weigh in the region of maybe 1,000 tonnes is laughable at best.
The general consensus of all scientists is that our own moon came into being because of a violent collision between a minor planet and our own planet, which could not happen with a ‘soft’ collision.
Agree to disagree :wink:

As for scientific proof as to what happened in prehistory, how can any theory be proven. unless someone has invented a time machine.

Cheers

Is this thread still alive? Where are the trolls and the flames?

When you embrace a thought pattern and accept it as a truth, i.e. when you program your subconscious mind for it, it will mold and shape your experience creating your reality. It is a powerful energy shaping act which involves a lot more than you may think.

So why should I be believing into someone else?

First and foremost you should believe wisely, learning to believe if required. You should believe for the highest and best. You should believe in The :-) Light. You should believe in your self-development. Essentially, you should believe in anything you wish to experience. I understand many of you may not be able to believe in many things yet, this is understandable and development level related.

If after reasonable manifesting time something you believe doesn't comes along, you either did it wrong or something is likely blocking it. You need mind reprogramming then.

Back to my lair.