Modern Science = BS

Nobody denied physical facts.  The only things that Duhem, or Gwynne, Larson, or myself have denied are imaginary explanations assumed to be reality.  I do not even deny the usefulness of a model as a useful way to analyze an interaction (to some extent), but when you talk of hypothetical concoctions such as electrons as reality, then you are the one that fails to distinguish fantasy from reality.

The fact that you do not know of any other way of understanding a certain bond than by molecular model does not mean that molecular theory is reality. 

This is the problem with the faulty Baconian scientific method.  Theoretical hypotheses are all too often assumed to be fact.  The adoption of Francis Bacon's hypothetical reasoning is the reason why invention and new technology are so often accompanied by myth.

Ummmm... Electrons as a myth?  Do you know how a cathode ray tube works?

You certainly are allowed to have your ill opinion of the mental health profession 17NOV, but many of us who have had personal experience with it have good reason to believe otherwise. Both my wife and my best friend are coincidentally bipolar, and I knew both of them before they began to receive treatment.  My friend Joy was such a slave to her mood swings that she found it difficult to sustain a relationship, jobs, and family relations were difficult. She was trapped in an endless destructive cycle that likely would have killed her. A small dosage of medication and a significant amount of therapy have brought out the person that I always new she was.  She is now married and starting a family.  THe same can be said for Janna. Even she admits that before treatment she made things impossible, but now she is a happy, even tempered individual who has been set free through the help of the psychological profession.

As for your woeful misrepresentation of scientific knowledge, you are greatly mistaken.  Scientists have not simply assumed the veracity of the atomic model and then stopped all inquiry.  It was arrived at through a multi-disciplinary process, supported by evidence.  THe atomic model is the only such construct that can adequately and simultaneously explain a host of observed phenomena:the photoelectric effect, semiconductors, Hall Effect, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, radiation, electrostatic repulsion, superconductance, chemistry, optics, and as one poster said, the operation of television sets.  It does all of this simply, eloquently, and without having to resort to tendentious argument.  Its not a matter of having an open mind or not, it is about the preponderance of evidence.

What reason do have to think that atoms do not exist? I'm not aware of another theory that explains the facts.

Quote from: 17 November on July 15, 2010, 10:20:04 PM

Nobody denied physical facts.  The only things that Duhem, or Gwynne, Larson, or myself have denied are imaginary explanations assumed to be reality.  I do not even deny the usefulness of a model as a useful way to analyze an interaction (to some extent), but when you talk of hypothetical concoctions such as electrons as reality, then you are the one that fails to distinguish fantasy from reality.

The fact that you do not know of any other way of understanding a certain bond than by molecular model does not mean that molecular theory is reality. 

This is the problem with the faulty Baconian scientific method.  Theoretical hypotheses are all too often assumed to be fact.  The adoption of Francis Bacon's hypothetical reasoning is the reason why invention and new technology are so often accompanied by myth.

Ummmm... Electrons as a myth?  Do you know how a cathode ray tube works?

17 November has never been able to explain why scientists use the atom all the time with no problem. The guy 17 listed, Pierre Duhem, died in 1917.  He can be thrown out.  Larson is just another person trying to find the theory of everything. He can join the long list of failures.   

Quote from: Lorddave on July 16, 2010, 03:30:02 AM

Quote from: 17 November on July 15, 2010, 10:20:04 PM

Nobody denied physical facts.  The only things that Duhem, or Gwynne, Larson, or myself have denied are imaginary explanations assumed to be reality.  I do not even deny the usefulness of a model as a useful way to analyze an interaction (to some extent), but when you talk of hypothetical concoctions such as electrons as reality, then you are the one that fails to distinguish fantasy from reality.

The fact that you do not know of any other way of understanding a certain bond than by molecular model does not mean that molecular theory is reality. 

This is the problem with the faulty Baconian scientific method.  Theoretical hypotheses are all too often assumed to be fact.  The adoption of Francis Bacon's hypothetical reasoning is the reason why invention and new technology are so often accompanied by myth.

Ummmm... Electrons as a myth?  Do you know how a cathode ray tube works?

17 November has never been able to explain why scientists use the atom all the time with no problem. The guy 17 listed, Pierre Duhem, died in 1917.  He can be thrown out.  Larson is just another person trying to find the theory of everything. He can join the long list of failures.   

Just because they're useful tools doesn't mean they accurately describe reality.  17 November is merely an instrumentalist.  I agree with him, it's more sensible to see it that way than to assume that they represent reality.  I think the best you can say is that atoms (and electrons) might be real; they are certainly useful, and by no means meaningless whether real or not.

Quote from: sokarul on July 16, 2010, 03:03:32 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on July 16, 2010, 03:30:02 AM

Quote from: 17 November on July 15, 2010, 10:20:04 PM

Nobody denied physical facts.  The only things that Duhem, or Gwynne, Larson, or myself have denied are imaginary explanations assumed to be reality.  I do not even deny the usefulness of a model as a useful way to analyze an interaction (to some extent), but when you talk of hypothetical concoctions such as electrons as reality, then you are the one that fails to distinguish fantasy from reality.

The fact that you do not know of any other way of understanding a certain bond than by molecular model does not mean that molecular theory is reality. 

This is the problem with the faulty Baconian scientific method.  Theoretical hypotheses are all too often assumed to be fact.  The adoption of Francis Bacon's hypothetical reasoning is the reason why invention and new technology are so often accompanied by myth.

Ummmm... Electrons as a myth?  Do you know how a cathode ray tube works?

17 November has never been able to explain why scientists use the atom all the time with no problem. The guy 17 listed, Pierre Duhem, died in 1917.  He can be thrown out.  Larson is just another person trying to find the theory of everything. He can join the long list of failures.   

Just because they're useful tools doesn't mean they accurately describe reality.  17 November is merely an instrumentalist.

Atoms accurately describe reality so I don't know what you are trying to get at.  17 November is closer to someone living in the dark ages than anything.   
 

I agree with him, it's more sensible to see it that way than to assume that they represent reality.  I think the best you can say is that atoms (and electrons) might be real; they are certainly useful, and by no means meaningless whether real or not.

Might nothing.  There is some many experiments that show atoms to be real it's not even funny. 

Just because they're useful tools doesn't mean they accurately describe reality.  17 November is merely an instrumentalist.

Thank you.

I would ask others even if they persist in disagreement to at least understand the reasonin the above quoted statement.

---------------------------------------

To EireEngineer on mental health - two things:

1)  I am not about to tell anyone what to do with their own family, but

2)  For every single person who apparently does better because of psychiatric medication (especially over an extended time), I can show you over a hundred who the worse because of it.  I would never settle for psychiatric medication for any dependent for whom I was responsible.  A temporary cure for an emergency perhaps at the most - but psychiatric medication as a way of life is in my opinion abnormal for anyone and everyone.  And the abnormality lies not with the misinformed patient but with the psychiatrist who misdiagnoses and uses an inferior method of treatment due to any variety of shameful reasons such as a failure to correctly understand a problem which all too often blows a small problem all out of proportion.

http://www.breggin.com/

Everything is a model. Take particle wave duality. In the popular press this is usually interpreted as thing being a particle and a wave. In practise what it really means is that under certain conditions describing some as a particle or a wave (or even a field) makes more sense. Take light. At very high energies we think of light as a particle, at lower energies a wave, at very low energies a field, yet fundamentally its the same thing with different amount of energy. Im sure if I could 'see' what it really was it would be none of the above, infact there probably isnt a word for what it really is. There in lies the problem, maths is the only accurate description we have, when we try to explain it by analogy we fail because there are no words we fall back to comparisons with things we can explain like waves and particles.

I don't disagree that a model is correct because it works. But when a model works as spectacularly well as the quantum mechanical model of the atom, its probably on the right lines. When the explanation seems to tortured its because we're going so far beyond what our minds can picture if you can't follow the maths then your relying on analogy with everyday situations. Richard Feynman was uniquely good at constructing good analogies, although they are still just that.

Quote from: sokarul on July 16, 2010, 03:03:32 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on July 16, 2010, 03:30:02 AM

Quote from: 17 November on July 15, 2010, 10:20:04 PM

Nobody denied physical facts.  The only things that Duhem, or Gwynne, Larson, or myself have denied are imaginary explanations assumed to be reality.  I do not even deny the usefulness of a model as a useful way to analyze an interaction (to some extent), but when you talk of hypothetical concoctions such as electrons as reality, then you are the one that fails to distinguish fantasy from reality.

The fact that you do not know of any other way of understanding a certain bond than by molecular model does not mean that molecular theory is reality. 

This is the problem with the faulty Baconian scientific method.  Theoretical hypotheses are all too often assumed to be fact.  The adoption of Francis Bacon's hypothetical reasoning is the reason why invention and new technology are so often accompanied by myth.

Ummmm... Electrons as a myth?  Do you know how a cathode ray tube works?

17 November has never been able to explain why scientists use the atom all the time with no problem. The guy 17 listed, Pierre Duhem, died in 1917.  He can be thrown out.  Larson is just another person trying to find the theory of everything. He can join the long list of failures.   

Just because they're useful tools doesn't mean they accurately describe reality.  17 November is merely an instrumentalist.  I agree with him, it's more sensible to see it that way than to assume that they represent reality.  I think the best you can say is that atoms (and electrons) might be real; they are certainly useful, and by no means meaningless whether real or not.

Well considering an electron is described as a particle with mass that has a negative electrical charge I'd say that if we could prove that a particle exists with these properties, we can prove electrons exist.

We've fired off electrons (or what we call electrons) for decades.  (See Cathode Ray Tube). 
The particles emitted from a Cathode Ray Tube have mass (can be measured) AND have a negative electrical charge(also measurable).  If that isn't proof of an Electron then I don't know what is.

And yes, a model is good real or not.  But consider this:

An atom of matter can become an ion and brought back to a neutral state very easily.  So at the very least we can say with absolute certainty that matter has the capability to be both positively charged and negatively charged.

This is another interesting point, the one of definition. Someone, Nov 17th I think, asserted that the idea of the atom was imposed upon up by the Greeks and it is a misapprehension we have been living under ever since. I don't really agree with this, we use the word 'atom' as it is based on the idea of a fundamental, indivisble unit upon which everything is based. I don't think what we call an atom would be recognsied as such by the greeks as it is neither indivisble nor fundamental. We may have stuck with the word but the concept has changed out of recognition. Lorddave makes a similar good point about the electron. If you define the electron as a spin half field with 511KeV mass and -1 charge then it exists, you can call it Colin if you want and say the electron is a filthy lie, the entitiy still exists.

They can say that it is my bias from many years of moving photons and electrons around, but I do see evidence of the existence of both everyday.  Until you can come up with a convincing model that can satisfactorily explain all the phenomena the atomic model does, soryy but you have nothing but whining.

They can say that it is my bias from many years of moving photons and electrons around, but I do see evidence of the existence of both everyday.  Until you can come up with a convincing model that can satisfactorily explain all the phenomena the atomic model does, soryy but you have nothing but whining.

Don't feed it.
If you look at his link, you'll see that the guy just has beef with the concept of the electron cloud.
He claims that the nucleus is the atom, and the electrons are just energy fields, which is technically true.
By and large its just one huge semantics debate about which parts should be called the atom, and what is matter or energy.

Everything is a model. Take particle wave duality. In the popular press this is usually interpreted as thing being a particle and a wave. In practise what it really means is that under certain conditions describing some as a particle or a wave (or even a field) makes more sense. Take light. At very high energies we think of light as a particle, at lower energies a wave, at very low energies a field, yet fundamentally its the same thing with different amount of energy. Im sure if I could 'see' what it really was it would be none of the above, infact there probably isnt a word for what it really is. There in lies the problem, maths is the only accurate description we have, when we try to explain it by analogy we fail because there are no words we fall back to comparisons with things we can explain like waves and particles.

I don't disagree that a model is correct because it works. But when a model works as spectacularly well as the quantum mechanical model of the atom, its probably on the right lines. When the explanation seems to tortured its because we're going so far beyond what our minds can picture if you can't follow the maths then your relying on analogy with everyday situations. Richard Feynman was uniquely good at constructing good analogies, although they are still just that.

You are giving a very good explanation that will be accepted by almost any good scientist or philosopher.

But when cheap philosophy is concerned, every FE "theorist" seems to consider himself a brilliant expert. Calling everything that is not a flat Earth "a model" and the flat Earth "truth" is just a way of pretending they have something to argue.

In real life, what they do not want to accept is that the human brain is filled with models that permit the processing of the sense's input. In fact, nothing reaches the upper levels of consciousness without going through this inner processing. Just think how paredolia works, or how unreliable the witnesses are in the judicial system. In fact, all of us can see, if we want, how a newborn processes the model of a face with very simple experiments.

In the end, we cannot receive any information in the way a photographic camera, or a sound recorder does. We receive the information, unconsciously compare it to the models already created in our brain, and get a conscious register of the information, already patterned into a model.

Quote

Assuming that a hypothesis is a fact, after its been rigorously peer reviewed and verified, is science.

No. An unproven hypothesis cannot be considered as fact.

You kind of need to prove it before you can treat it as fact.

Dear Tom,

    I have a feeling you were a terrible listener in elementary school, because you clearly don't understand the Scientific Method, nor its importance.  Hypothesizing doesn't make the rest of the process biased.  A hypothesis is necessary to do any sort of experimentation.  Name any of your "Rowbatham Experiments", which you claim to be "pure experimentation", and they will actually have a hypothesis. 
    Secondly, hypotheses are not assumed "facts" like you think they are.  That whole point of experimentation, analysis, and conclusion is to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
    Before arguing over the Scientific Method, please make sure you actually know how it works.

Love,
Me

Quote from: Tom Bishop on December 14, 2009, 03:27:10 AM

Quote

Assuming that a hypothesis is a fact, after its been rigorously peer reviewed and verified, is science.

No. An unproven hypothesis cannot be considered as fact.

You kind of need to prove it before you can treat it as fact.

Dear Tom,

    I have a feeling you were a terrible listener in elementary school, because you clearly don't understand the Scientific Method, nor its importance.  Hypothesizing doesn't make the rest of the process biased.  A hypothesis is necessary to do any sort of experimentation.  Name any of your "Rowbatham Experiments", which you claim to be "pure experimentation", and they will actually have a hypothesis. 
    Secondly, hypotheses are not assumed "facts" like you think they are.  That whole point of experimentation, analysis, and conclusion is to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
    Before arguing over the Scientific Method, please make sure you actually know how it works.

Love,
Me

So my conclusion of an experiment can prove my hypothesis?  Holy ghost!

So my conclusion of an experiment can prove my hypothesis?  Holy ghost!

Just because you think the results of your experiment justify your hypothesis doesn't mean your hypothesis is a fact.  Get it peer reviewed.  Have someone duplicate the experiment.

And your results hardly led one to believe that moonlight is harmful.  You can't even apply your findings to any other organisms other than plants.

As to my experiment, why would I apply plant findings to other organisms that are different than plants? That would be just silly. They aren't the same! Animals have their own evidence.

Anyways:
Ok, I thought you would pick up what I was getting at but I guess not.

So my conclusion of an experiment can prove my hypothesis?  Holy ghost!

The whole moonlight thing was a joke anyways.  Since plants are immobile, its not like they can hide from moonlight, yet they are still here.

The whole moonlight thing was a joke anyways.  Since plants are immobile, its not like they can hide from moonlight, yet they are still here.

Wow, just wow...where to even start. You suggesting that plants are immobile or proposing that inability to hide from something renders it harmless...my goodness

Animals have their own evidence.

Such as?  I'm sure something such a concept as "MOONLIGHT HARMFUL TO ANIMALS & HUMANS" would rock the scientific world.  Yet it remains un-rocked.

  And surely "THE EARTH IS FLAT" would rock them harder.

Quote from: EireEngineer on September 03, 2010, 11:00:28 AM

The whole moonlight thing was a joke anyways.  Since plants are immobile, its not like they can hide from moonlight, yet they are still here.

Wow, just wow...where to even start. You suggesting that plants are immobile or proposing that inability to hide from something renders it harmless...my goodness

How about your inability to discover any actual harm to plants.  Wind, after all, isn't deadly yet you yourself have said that these plants will grow those cells in the presence of a constant wind.

Until you can prove that plants are physically harmed (you know, actual damage or decay) while being able to conduct photosynthesis, I'm afraid all you have is a reaction to a 4 day study.  (Why you chose to end it due to equal cloud cover is beyond me.)

Where are people coming up with these random numbers  

They are harmed! Collenchyma is very costly to the plant. Look up how metabolically expensive it is! If you put a plant in an environment with high winds it IS being harmed!
Luckily, the groups were in a climate cotrolled green house where there was no wind in the environment!

Where are people coming up with these random numbers  

They are harmed! Collenchyma is very costly to the plant. Look up how metabolically expensive it is! If you put a plant in an environment with high winds it IS being harmed!
Luckily, the groups were in a climate cotrolled green house where there was no wind in the environment!

Which random numbers?

I'm not debating that collenchyma is costly to a plant. (I don't know exactly how much)  But what I AM telling you is that just because more collenchyma grew doesn't mean the plant was harmed.  You neglected to show any physical damage, dead cells, or other signs damage which means that all you showed was that collenchyma can be stimulated to grow without physically harming the plants. 

And where are you getting high winds?  I said constant winds. 

Yes it does. It only grows in excess due to mechanical stress.

Yes it does. It only grows in excess due to mechanical stress.

Or exposure to moonlight, apparently.

It only grows in excess due to mechanical stress.

Hold dem horsey ranger! Are you saying that moonlight promotes growth in plants?!

Life is very harmful.

Yes it does. It only grows in excess due to mechanical stress.

See this is the problem.
You discover something new "like that these cells grow in moonlight" then say "no, that's impossible".  I mean, come on.  You said yourself there's no mechanical stress and if it only grows with mechanical stress that means it's impossible for it to grow.  The moonlight doesn't produce mechanical stress.

Quote from: Ichimaru Gin :] on September 03, 2010, 03:06:49 PM

Yes it does. It only grows in excess due to mechanical stress.

The moonlight doesn't produce mechanical stress.

Proof?