Memes for science

Science and Technology
1

I haven’t been JUST listening to YouTube lately, but I’ve got the algorithms delivering me some pretty good stuff. I listened to this one while pulling up carpet today. Krauss had a chance to deliver a bunch of great one liners.

He gets a few moments in the beginning to talk generally, and uses a bunch of great quotes.
After 20 minutes the questions switch to talking about indigenous knowledge in schools. It gets a little repetitive.

“Science can’t prove things to be absolutely true. It can prove things to be absolutely false.” Nothing is true on all scales at all times. Be willing to be proven false.
“When the predictions we make are verified, and the tools we build based on those predictions work, it tells us we caught something crucial about nature.”
“Many scientists may be the opposite of humble, but science itself is perhaps the most humble of activities, because it doesn’t presume the universe was created for us or cares about us.”
Defines science.
“There’s no end of science as far as we know.”
“The process is the only known way to get knowledge about the world.” He says as an aside that “known” is being polite. “Wisdom may come from reflection, but knowledge comes from observation and testing.”
“I make things up all the time, but then I test them to see if they have anything to do with reality. Most of the time they don’t. As humans we’re allowed to do that. What’s anti-scientific is the dogmatic insistence that what you make up is true in advance of, or after testing it.”
Feynman - “First we guess, then we test.”
“Every time a student understands something for the first time, for them it’s the first time in the history of the universe that it’s been understood. It’s a process of discovery that we should celebrate by asking questions, by being willing to say ‘I don’t know’.”
“When journalism puts up two sides on a scientific debate, often, one side is just wrong. That’s great, you don’t have to have a balance. It’s useful to talk about how people went down the wrong path, and found the wrong answer, but you don’t have to give equal time to nonsense.”
“The whole point about science is that it works. It’s quite clear that certain claims are wrong or not useful. We don’t vote on the ideas we like. Nature determines what ideas work. Our job is to try and uncover what ideas do work.”
“There’s a well kept secret, but scientists are human beings. Reason is the slave of fashion. Human beings have a lot of reasons for what they do, they can be fooled, can be dogmatic, but the process of science overcomes the natural tendency to want to believe. If it’s done right.”

2

As usual, popular sayings that ‘feel’ valid are often contradictory. I find hypocritical beliefs from many modern supporters and promoters of science. Being aware of the ‘Christian apologetics’, I often find that some of their complaints are relatively valid even if used for nefarious reasons. For instance, if you took what these quotes say about OTHERS being simply, ‘wrong’, you cannot argue “Most scientists agree with…” That is, facts are not ‘democratic’ but the Institution of ‘Science’ (formal large organizations like universities) still votes ‘democratically’ among themselves. This makes the ‘Institutions’ commanding the lead in science POLITICAL!

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It’s not uncommon to confuse scientific consensus with voting. He talks about it implicitly throuhghout. It doesn’t matter how many agree, the scientific question is if it agrees with nature, with reality.

4

Distinction without a difference. I am aware of many attepting to derive exceptions, usually based upon some expectation that society should have FAITH in scientific authority rather than expect them to demonstrate why they hold some conclusion.

Note that I recently (about 6mths or more ago?) found a debate by Veritasium YouTube channel. He raised the VERY thing that I commented on one of those formal science sites and got censured for: explaining how and why some person’s relatively premature knowledge of electricity and waves was correct for interpreting that electricity does not recognize the end voltage differences without a form of lateral wave from the end where electrons are more dominant. [See my comment on The Big Misconception About Electricity - YouTube. Others WITH better formal qualifications responded to his own misintrepretation before I discovered and commented. ]

The problem I find with most modern graduates is that they are taught to first use math equations without knowing how these are derived and so they lack being able to understand how to reason using formal logic and prefer instead to INDUCE. The problem with inductive reasoning is that it favors the ‘voting’ mentality: the conclusion of inductive arguments is a ‘concensus’: where absolute certainty or lack of a formal logic proof exist, the concensus is to seek which of the uncertain conclusions is favored by majority or plurality basis.

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I’m aware of many people doing science wrong too. But science is still the way we determine what’s true. If it wasn’t, then we couldn’t be having this argument. You are saying there are people doing science wrong. What are you measuring that against?

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Why am I not allowed to be critical of ‘science’ without others thinking that I’m completely in denial of it wholesale? I am FOR science but have a particular set of disagreements regarding the fringe areas that can’t appropriately use the same kind of normal reason locally AND, where the purpose of science is LOCKING OUT those who cannot afford to compete. The original idea was to make science sufficiently easy for ANYONE to be able to actually do experiments and PARTICIPATE in the thought processes. This is no longer allowed, discouraged, or is out of reach for the average person.

I also POSIT a theory that I KNOW I can prove but am deliberately being shut out. From it, I can prove why the Big Bang is flawed and how we have to reverse Einstein’s intepretation that space bends due to matter indirectly where I can show that matter is literally made up of curved lines that are OPEN ended, not closed as some string theories hold. As such, I have my own background that I cannot simply ignore. Yet, I am not even allowed to question prior theories in PUBLIC forums.

I dare you to try to comment or ask questions ABOUT Steady State theory beyond the two SAME insulting paragraphs that ridicule this significant and prior popular theory. How has this been so thouroghly censored out UNLESS there is something political at play? We can get fake news with easier lack of oversight than the harmless history of Steady State that COULD be a lesson in practice even if it were wrong.

I also hold that all political and religious thinking originally derived non-religiously and IN the hands of the intellectual ‘scientists’ of the past. The example of the intentional dismissal and, where possible, annihilation of evidence, that I arose with you here last time regarded the Noah’s Ark myth(s). It wouldn’t matter if I COULD directly prove that the ancients were more intellectually aware of dinosaurs and the geological layering that is shared around the known world that turned INTO myth. What is ‘scientific’ OR ‘rational’ falls to a more and more proprietary bias of those who inherit the throne so to speak and turns the prior meaningful wisdom into religio(n)* divorced from its original rational(e)*. [Edit at the braces to correct grammer.]

For instance, sacrifice of the worst kinds were very necessary means to prove one will not break a contract. Yet, since literal sacrifice lost its need as record keeping advanced by increased literacy and improved technology, the old alters that used to ‘prove’ ones’ sincerity lost association to the original non-religious use of them.

7

That’s where you’re wrong. In politics “Truth” “Honesty” is treated with utter cynicism and contempt - truth is something to misrepresent, not something to learn from.

Science is a totally different undertaking, even if not every scientist always lives up to ideal perfection of honesty, but it is the standard and the thing that carry’s if not the day, the years. Honestly assessing accurately recorded real substantive evidence and drawing intelligent conclusions, always open to new evidence and learning, that’s the way of science! All the while honesty is the behavior that is expected, and deception is a betrayal.

In politics the dirty tricksters win the day and are worshipped, truth of the matter be damned.

See, right there. You are dependent on a dishonest rendition! No Scott! Scientist want people to think for themselves, engaging the critical thinking skills.

Well because that’s what your words sound like, you misrepresent science, I don’t have to be able to understand anything else about your person insight, but I do know you’re dishonest about your opponent, and that says a lot about your veracity, and that will color all our interaction (always does). Ever think you bring on rejection based on the merits of what you write? Nothing to do with you personally, we don’t know you, we can only read your words and build an impression on that.

Then you lose me.

=======================

Here’s another example of how science works, Concilience of evidence
The 2 key points that climate skeptics miss - Vox

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Okay. The Big Bang theory is one perfect example. It cannot logically be true given it relies necessarily on the singularity as representing a literal origin in our universes’ time and space. The Steady State theory by contrast asserts that we cannot infer a literal origin. It is based upon treating time as equal to any other dimension (like Einstein’s General Relativity). The Perfect Cosmological Principle that the SS-Theory asserts says that we cannot interpret the past as having a distinctly different physics and so we have to default to expecting what we see as an illusion if it doesn’t fit in with our normal everyday local physics.

That Big Bang was proposed by a Catholic Priest is NO coincidence. I assure you that this theory is ONLY acceptable FOR political reasons: a Steady State interpretation removes even the need to assume a Diestic belief.

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I’m athiest and lack ANY reason to seek political favor. YOU, and not me, READ into me by some stereotypical belief (?). To continue on the example of the Singularity of the BB-theory, it is LOGICALLY flawed based upon

(1)Permitting OPEN interpretation of distant phenomena to GO AGAINST local reality, such as having an infinitely dense point where all matter and energy magically existed. This example is like believing …

[From Wikipedia on this title this]: "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is a reductio ad absurdum challenge to medieval scholasticism in general, and its angelology in particular, as represented by figures such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. It is first recorded in the 17th century, in the context of Protestant apologetics.

(2) Geometrically, a singularity cannot be presumed unless you KNOW that either time and/or space certainly exists on the other side of it. But even the Singularity cannot be seen. It is in essence, the “infimum” or lower bound that is hidden and so may not literally exist. AND where it is likely just an apparition like the vanishing point in 3-D drawings, it REASSERTS Zeno’s paradoxes as literally true. That is, if you could go back in time, you could never reach that singularity and thus makes ONLY a ‘steady’ state theory logically eligible for further inspection. (“steady” for meaning things will look the same in time as well as space.)

BB-theory fails at its defining feature: that there was a magical time when some fixed quantity of energy and/or matter appeared suddenly and instantly. That ‘bang’ was what the insult was about by Hoyle. Can you or anyone prove that this occurs normally here and now?

This is just one example of a good handful of them.

Also note that what you just asserted by “words sound like misrepresent science,” you are telling me that you are judging me based upon HOW I speak and this makes it ‘political’ since it is judging another based upon social etiquette or lack of it rather than content. You also picked the exact word that the misrepresents me in a way that the mere accusation in science forums justifies discrimination regardless of any further defence. When I pissed off someone at one site, I suddenly had a “reputation” marker that intentionally (and politically) targeted me as though i am the idiot. Note that “misrepresent” IS THE SAME word used to explain why I was censored on the site relating to the topic on Veritasium I just linked regardless of any defence. Or do you ‘believe’ that “misconception” is mine on that link?

I’ll hold my breathe if I expect to get even a response on YouTube given it isn’t in ‘Tweet’ form, just another point about how scientists are so removed from the general public.

10

I can’t have a debate with you, perhaps write4u, he keeps up on that end of the science better than I do.

I’m more down to Earth and philosophical, and my own personal revelation is that there is a profound fundamental divide that goes under recognized and ignored, to our own detriment.

It’s real simple, but I believe it’s a necessary prerequisite before anything else about our Earth, our selves, body, mind & interactions, our cosmic origins, etc, can really start to make sense, in context with the life you and your body are traversing. That is:

Explicitly recognizing the Fundament Divide between Physical Reality and our Human Mindscape.

One rational conclusion from such a recognition is that simply the fact of our being here and now, is proof that the Universe and our Earth and we humans followed one, and only one, particular path.

Infinite potentials perhaps, still, ultimately we are the product of only one specific physical evolutionary pageant. We are a product of Earth, and God is a product of Humanity.

It is ours to do our best to understand it.

Instead, too often people are so self-absorbed in the brilliance of their own ideas about reality, that they never actually give it a thought, then without noticing wind up lost within the maps of their mind, rather than achieving an awareness of the territory.

Heck the entire Abrahamic mindset exemplifies this self-absorbed, ego-blinkered assumptions as demonstrated by the three major (powerful) religions. Still the fact is that philosophy and science evolved out of these blinkered religious outlooks. The legacy continues to hobble humanity’s understanding, as witnessed by the the general state of current event.

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citizenschallengev4, I think you posted a response you meant for the Daniel Dennet thread. There I asked if you were referring to the Athropic Principle, in case others might be interested in the cross post’s reference.

By the way too, I liked that book of his too. It’s a favorite. I liked it so much that I had to tell this girl I met about it and ended up giving it to her but didn’t get it back. [“Darwins Dangerous Idea”]

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You know, it actually seems like a silly thing to me.
Or at least the Anthropic Principle never made sense.
Like when I heard the sports announcer actually say “the team that makes the most goals wins.”
and I’m thinking,
aaannnnnddddddd thee point is?

Self help books also come to mind suddenly, but it late and I need to shut it down.
Later

13

What is so hard to imagine? Since there are no “Gods”, being an Atheist, religion had to come from realities we normally experience. Also, if NO religion existed, we would still have had temples with sacrificial alters that simply just got abandoned when it no longer had function. Or do you think that religion supercedes normal everday survival and must have evolved independent of secular reality?

Temples were literally the first meeting places for tribes as they begun to settle down. They needed a means to PROVE which tribe owned what when they got back to harvest crops. Idols were used to aide in this by representing ‘tokens’. Sacrifice is used to demonstrate that the parties will keep their contract or treaties. The religious factors were secondary and only took over as ''mispresenting" their cause. That Jesus also mistook the Roman’s construction of the Temple in Jerusalem as a place that shouldn’t exist for trading was a perfect example of how religion stole the original meaning of those places. The ‘idols’ of different cultures are means of proving by ‘signature’ who owns what. So the temple was mostly ‘economically’ established and based upon LAND ownership claims initially.

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Why can’t i ask a question without you assuming that I assumed something that i did not?

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When you dare me to comment on a scientific theory, you’ve pretty much told me you are not serious. Language like that has nothing to do with scientific methods, which is the topic of this thread. If you have some evidence or logic for your defense of SS, then go ahead and present it. There are decades of discussion on that, and I’m not a physicist or cosmologist, so there won’t be a lot I can say about, so challenges to intelligence or willingness to consider your data just don’t land.

I can’t evaluate a claim that you were unfairly treated on another forum, first because you didn’t link it, and second, I don’t have skills in that field. I can’t argue with those people because I don’t have the knowledge. I don’t call that “being shut out”. I can understand an explanation of science designed for a non-expert, but that’s very different from evaluating a theory.

I agree it takes time and money to get the knowledge, to attract the funding, and sometimes that’s not fairly distributed. That’s partly a product of the culture that existed a hundred years ago or more, we know discrimination took place then, and that it still does. We also know it’s getting better. The LHC is my favorite example, just look at any picture of the people there.

The line that I’ve never heard you draw is between the principles that you and I agree are the actual scientific methods, and “fake news”, “being shut out” and other accusations you make. You provide random examples and vague stories.

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Where’s that clapping icon.

Serious successful scientists are the ones who are their own hardest, most skeptical, critic.

I didn’t say there’s no God, what I said is that God is created from with the human heart and mind.

With Earth being created by the cosmos.

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No, I am saying that you cannot find hardly any historical information that is NOT derogatory and severely incomplete about Steady State and that if you were to TRY to find competent dialogue with a real scientist anywhere regarding this theory it is non-existant. What you do find are Big Bang proponents being the ones to speak about it AND a certain effort to hide its signifant arguments from the public.

The ‘dare’, for instance, is to go to say, the Wikipedia page on “Steady-state model” and try to ask any question that isn’t itself CENSORED, especially where you DO raise a questions asking about it. I can’t recall what I asked there given it was IMMEDIATELY ‘flagged’ and deleted without being answered.

Go to the talk on the Wikipedia page here: Talk:Steady-state model - Wikipedia. You will see it broken up such that you cannot make sense of what those originally censored were saying. The first part is responding to who knows because the original complaint is not there,…only the Big Bang proponent’s response. You can also notice that a lot of material has been censored. My own comment doesn’t even have a note. The tendency for me is that I DO raise appropriate questions and arguments, they get deleted wholesale without even a notice. The notices are left for those who make clearly obvious argument errors given it seem okay to permit someone who CAN’T reason as sample of others stupidity for not embracing Big Bang theory by default.

I don’t get your interpretation of me where I happen to use ‘trigger’ words that happen to coincide with derogatory political use. I don’t assert “fake news” for science. I can’t find the quote where I used it but you likey missed the context. What I do hold is that people who DO science are as vulnerably ‘corrupt’ as the average person in any other occupation. So scientists are not immune to ‘corrupt’ thinking and actions just because the study itself is valid and sound. Science on the issues of the fringes are of very significant interest to politics and religion given particular science foundations can alter or affect MOST people of the world. Big Bang theory is predominantly the LEAST harmful to the religious for the most politically liberal of them. And IF science threatens the religious or other political foundations, those theories that CAN definitively close the door to them will make the people NOT want to support science and thus discourage funding BY governments, etc. These are real political issues.

Note that I’m arguing in this thread ON your OP. So I’ll leave the particular arguments about those theories or my own for different threads. I was using them as samples regarding the point about the memes of science being rhetorically ambiguous. What gets missed to me from my experience is how the same beliefs and sayings get used debating AGAINST others where it is effective (in a socially political way) while their opponents have the same kind of argument to show their own hypocrisy. I find a lot of comparable ‘memes’ from both religion and science that get used against the other without noticing them. And I noted an example from what you said regarding faith in authorities.

I think you likely agree to the concern about the confusions that occur when using ‘memes’ for science that can at least be construed as hypocritical or contradictory among them.

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On Topic: Meme (?) example of conflict:

“Nothing is absolutely certain.”

Re: Science must always remain tentative and yet if one takes this meme literally, what does it say about the meme itself? It begs at least one absolute belief, …that “Nothing is absolutely certain but this sentence.”

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These were the memes that I noted earlier but thought to add that I still remember being confused as a kid trying to make sense of the term, “educated guess” or "hypothesis" when speaking about general methodology. If science is the root of education and this process is universal, then what was the first question other than an unqualified ‘guess’ that legitimizes the process?

Semi-related to this (as a kid) I couldn’t figure out why the common arguments about “setting goals” should exist without first being able to experience a sample of the goal. You can’t crave chocolate BEFORE ever tasting it, right? So I thought it odd to hypothesize given it seemed to be ‘setting a goal’ prior to having the evidence.

The initial hypotheses have to come from everyday living and philosophical analysis, not science proper. Then and only then do you have the ‘education’ through experience enough to make a guess to test for.

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You’re throwing out terms like “real scientist” without saying what that means. There are real published articles about SS, so your statement is a non starter.