On 7/24/2010 8:49 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:35:54 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>> Which is my point: They (at least the loud atheists) tend not to know
>>> much about religion.
>>
>> I think the guys who wrote the books (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc) probably
>> studied it pretty well.
>
> Those are the ones I think of when I think of the "loud" atheists.
>
> Jim
Well, actually Dawkins never even raises his voice.. lol Seriously 
though, I do have to wonder if the word being used in this context 
really "is" loud, as in the morons that show up on scienceblogs once in 
a while, claiming to be atheists, then proceed to show that they have a 
badly distorted understanding of religion, science *and* atheism. But, 
yeah, despite the odd fact that most of them would, compared to say 
Rush, look like a wall flower, the most common, at least from the 
religious, word used for them is "strident".

Thing is, you won't find a *lot* of difference in content, though 
perhaps a bit more... aggressiveness, between say, PZ Myers, who *might* 
be argued, if you ignore the number of posts, or comments to posts, 
where he mentions the number of Bibles, other religious texts, etc., he 
has read, along with various appologestics people keep sending him, how 
he got to be an atheist, and so on-

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

and something like The Chaplain, who uses the name because they **used 
to actually be a priest**-

http://thechapel.wordpress.com/

Both have said, to critics, more or less, "We are not addressing the 
nice ones, or some theology that doesn't *exactly* match what we are 
using as an example, we are addressing the sort of idiocy we actually 
have to deal with, and the damage it causes to society. If you are not 
one of these people, then why are you here complaining?"

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void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> >> Based on what? Observation?
> >
> >    Pretty much, yes. Observation in the sense that GR has hold up pretty
> > well in a very large amount of different experiments (including things
> > like gravitation lensing and orbital measurements of the Moon).
> >
> Same argument could have, at one time, been made about Newtonian 
> physics. The first examples of where that didn't work where people 
> going, "Yeah, but.. what about in this case?"

  Are you claiming you have a better theory than general relativity?

  You make it sound like it was a general consensus among the scientific
community that singularities cannot exist (because their physical properties
cannot be described with the GR equations and because they seemingly violate
many rules of QM). From what I have seen, it's the exact opposite: Scientists
don't seem to have any problem in talking about singularities (in both black
holes and at the beginning of the big bang). It sounds to me like the
consensus is more like "as long as we don't have a physical model which
explains singularities away, the *simpler* assumption is that this prediction
of GR is correct", and hence they talk as if they could be assumed to exist.

> Even the explanations 
> go something like, "And then once you travel past the horizon you get 
> torn apart and there is nothing but chaos.", which is a fairly lame way 
> of saying, "We don't have a damn clue, but something has to happen, and 
> its the only thing we can think of, if GR applies." That's not even a 
> description, its a wild guess, with no details at all.

  Now you are making a blatant straw man.

  Countless papers, publications, PhD theses and books have been published
about the properties of the interior of a black hole. These are extremely
complicated and lengthy dissertations, often with such advanced math (using
very advanced mathematical tools such as tensors and such) that even most
professional astrophysicists have a hard time understanding them.

  When an astrophysicist who *does* understand the geometry of the interior
of a black hole is asked for a short explanation targetted at laymen, he's
not going to make a 4-hour lecture with all the GR equations and the lengthy
derivation required and highly advanced terminology. He's going to use short
similes and allegories. Just because he uses similes and allegories doesn't
mean he doesn't understand what's going on.

  Your allegation that these astrophysicists "don't have a damn clue" is
just inane. You are basically claiming that the people who make their
living from understanding GR don't understand GR.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:49:36 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Well, actually Dawkins never even raises his voice.. lol Seriously
> though, I do have to wonder if the word being used in this context
> really "is" loud

Maybe "vocal" is a better word. :-)

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Which is my point: They (at least the loud atheists) tend not to know
>> much about religion.
>
> I think the guys who wrote the books (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc) probably
> studied it pretty well.

I haven't run into them online.

I didn't say "famous".

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> writes:

> though, I do have to wonder if the word being used in this context
> really "is" loud, as in the morons that show up on scienceblogs once in
> a while, claiming to be atheists, then proceed to show that they have a
> badly distorted understanding of religion, science *and* atheism. But,

Yup. Those are the kinds of guys I run into.

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On 7/24/2010 1:47 PM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<sel### [at] npgcablecom>  wrote:
>>>> Based on what? Observation?
>>>
>>>     Pretty much, yes. Observation in the sense that GR has hold up pretty
>>> well in a very large amount of different experiments (including things
>>> like gravitation lensing and orbital measurements of the Moon).
>>>
>> Same argument could have, at one time, been made about Newtonian
>> physics. The first examples of where that didn't work where people
>> going, "Yeah, but.. what about in this case?"
>
>    Are you claiming you have a better theory than general relativity?
>
>    You make it sound like it was a general consensus among the scientific
> community that singularities cannot exist (because their physical properties
> cannot be described with the GR equations and because they seemingly violate
> many rules of QM).

No I am not. I know that the majority of scientists think singularities 
happen. Heck, even by the arguments being made here, that they are 
non-zero size, just begs the question, "Ok, so.. how big of a non-zero?" 
What I am saying is that people wouldn't be looking at alternatives, if 
everything about it was all so nice and rosy and well understood, as you 
claim, and certainly not one of the most prominent scientists of our 
time. Beyond that, what you have is predictions that can't be tested, 
about what goes on, which only make sense if they are right, which they 
might not be, precisely because they violate other rules. That someone 
can explain, with or without allegory, what they think is going on in a 
black hole doesn't mean its certain that its happening, and you **do** 
have to explain, as part of your theory, why all those other rules stop 
working. Since many of them, especially in QM, are "recent" additions, 
its impractical to say that there "are" explanations for that. But, you 
are correct in one thing, neither of us is experienced enough in the 
field to have a clue if, never mind what, the explanations may be.

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void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/07/did-time-exist-before-the-big-bang.html

>   Unrelated to the point itself, but I couldn't help but notice how the
> article uses the word "theory" with the *colloquial* meaning rather than
> the *scientific* one (the more scientific term would have been "hypothesis"
> or perhaps even "conjecture").

>   If even scientific publications confuse the colloquial and scientific
> meanings of the word "theory", is it any surprise that laymen do that too
> (and hence all the arguments of why the theory of evolution is "only a
> theory")?

  This got me thinking: Given that the word "theory" is used with two
completely different meanings even in scientific publications, being
hence a potential source of confusion, why don't they start using a
different, more unambiguous term for "scientific theory"? For example,
"scientific model", or simply "model".

  For example, evolution is an observation and "the theory of evolution"
is a model that describes how it works. Wouldn't it, thus, be more aptly
named "the model of evolution"?

  Likewise, for example, "they theory of relativity" is a model that
describes how some observed physical phenomena work. Wouldn't it, thus,
be better named as "the model of relativity"?

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                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> different, more unambiguous term for "scientific theory"? For example,
> "scientific model", or simply "model".

It used to be the "law of gravitation", so we already have a word that 
scientists have seemed to become reluctant to use. "Newton's laws of motion" 
and "natural laws" and "laws of physics" all seem to still like that term.

I'm happy to call it the law of evolution. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > different, more unambiguous term for "scientific theory"? For example,
> > "scientific model", or simply "model".

> It used to be the "law of gravitation", so we already have a word that 
> scientists have seemed to become reluctant to use. "Newton's laws of motion" 
> and "natural laws" and "laws of physics" all seem to still like that term.

> I'm happy to call it the law of evolution. :-)

  I think "law" is a much stronger term than "model". If I understand
correctly, a "law" of physics consists of proven axioms which can be
assumed to be true and are not subject to any kind of change (unless
our very understanding of the universe changes radically).

  For example, conservation of angular momentum can be considered a law
of nature, but the "newtonian laws of gravity" is a misnomer which should
be better called "newtonian theory of gravitation" (or, as I am suggesting
here, "newtonian model of gravitation").

  I would call the theory of evolution a "law" because it's a model
constantly subject to change and fine-tuning.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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I am back again, I might as well answer this one, even if it won't help 
explain my point. ;)

On 22-7-2010 1:48, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> yikes, my mind boggles again as it does everytime when someone uses 
>> the phrase "before the big bang".
> 
> I know that *our* time started with the big bang. But you're giving no 
> indication that there wasn't something out there for the "big bang" to 
> have come from.

Even if the 'energy' of the Big Bang came from 'somewhere' the time in 
that 'somewhere' has no relation to our time, it is neither before or 
after, it does not necessarily run in the same direction as ours.

>> There is no before, because there was neither space nor time for 
>> anything to happen.
> 
> How do you know, if your physics doesn't cover or explain the event?
> 
> *That* is what we're asking.  You have a singularity. You're assuming 
> there's nothing on the other side of the singularity. Why is that?

Because of the nature of this singularity.

> In other words, why are you so convinced that
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce
> is actually necessarily incorrect?

That is not a true Big Bang theory with a singularity. In such models 
you might indeed have a time before the moment of greatest density as 
long as the universe keeps a finite size.

> I'm sure this guy publishing letters in Nature's Physics journal is 
> simply confused by the counter-intuitive nature of physics, right?
> 
> http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v3/n8/abs/nphys654.html

No, it is just that he is apparently (can not read the full paper) using 
the term Big Bang for something it didn't mean when I was studying. IMHO 
he is using it in a way that is still considered incorrect. Yet, I can 
understand why he does so if he wants to get a paper in Nature.

> I'm quite comfortable with the concept that time started with the big 
> bang. I just don't know that there's actually *evidence* for that beyond 
> the fact that the math we use *breaks down* at the big bang. In order 
> for you to definitely assert that there was no time or space before 
> then, you actually have to explain how you know, instead of just 
> handwaving that because you're right, I'm mistaken to ask how you know 
> you're right.

I have all the time been aware that there are other theories than the 
Big Bang. All I have tried to say is that in a true Big Bang theory you 
have a moment in time and space where time and space are created. That 
is what a.o. causes the mathematical problems. In any such theory there 
is by definition no time or space before, or it wouldn't have been created.

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