Why String Theory Is Not Science (forbes.com) 288
StartsWithABang writes: Earlier this month, a conference was held devoted to the question of whether untestable scientific ideas like string theory and the multiverse are actually science or not. While many opinions were stated and no one changed their mind, the answer is apparent: unless you're willing to change the definition of science to include "this thing that isn't science," then no, string theory is not science. It's a theory in the sense of a mathematical theory — like set theory, group theory or number theory — but it isn't yet a scientific theory. Of course, it could become science, but that would require that it actually do the things a scientific theory does: make testable predictions that can be validated or falsified.
Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Insightful)
The classic example used by logical positivists in the early 20th century was any conjecture about the far side of the Moon. Until we developed spacecraft any statement about the half of the Moon we can't see would have been untestable in practical terms, but it would have been testable in principle.
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So, unless String theory is completely untestable in principle, regardless of potential future technological advances, it is science albeit science which is currently impossible to test with current technology.
That is what the article claims to be. It mentions that if we could test for Super-Symmetry it would support String Theory, but that String Theory is not the only theory that predicts it. The author claims that there is no test that can be done that would prove String Theory true as opposed to other theories.
No difference = equivalent (Score:5, Informative)
The author claims that there is no test that can be done that would prove String Theory true as opposed to other theories.
Unfortunately the author has proven many times that he does not understand particle physics in previous posts. The problem with String Theory is that there are far too many possible theories to consider (last count I heard it was around 10^500) to make detailed, concrete predictions. The second that we get an experimental signature for something like String Theory that number would collapse and theorists would be able to start studying the detailed predictions of a vastly smaller number of models. This would undoubtedly lead to some clever theorist coming up with signatures unique to String Theory which other, competing models would not have.
If you can't come up with ANY difference it would mean that the theories must be mathematically equivalent for all situations which are possible. We have had this happen in physics before. Matrix mechanics and wave mechanics are both different ways of doing the same Quantum Mechanics. Nobody worries about which is the "right" way because both make mathematically equivalent predictions.
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The second that we get an experimental signature for something like String Theory
What sort of thing would you do to get an experimental signature for String Theory?
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There are predictions out there that will need to be made. If string theory predicts them, then it is (up to that point) accurate. If it doesn't do a better job than some other theory or model, then it's still accurate (to that point) but then a decision needs to be made about what is the better model or theory to move forward with.
In the end, most competing theories are either going to be wrong or exposed as a more complicated way of saying the same thing. In practical terms, if we really believe that w
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Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
The condition for science is that it has to be testable in principle, NOT that it has to be testable within the limits of current technology. When Higgs came up with his theory there was no accelerator capable of testing it (although we did not know that at the time). So would that make the Higgs mechanism non-science until the 21st century when we built the LHC? Clearly not. So, unless String theory is completely untestable in principle, regardless of potential future technological advances, it is science albeit science which is currently impossible to test with current technology.
String theory is arguably not science not because it makes predictions we cannot test, but because it basically makes no predictions at all. Originally, when people realized the importance of 10-dimensional manifolds (i.e., of theories with 6 compact dimensions), there was a lot of excitement as people thought (and confidently said) that there would be one and only one suitable such manifold, which would have led to concrete (if maybe hard to test) predictions. But, now, there is a huge number (order 10^500) of such manifolds known, each basically allowing for a separate theory, and we have no idea which could be the right one.
Also, there is the pesky fact that predictions have been made about the foundations of string theory (that, for example, the LHC would detect the supersymmetric partners of existing particles), and they have not been born out by experiment,
Having said that, my personal feeling is that string theory is science, but science that is unlikely to be fruitful. Eventually, unless this changes, something else will come along, and it will cease to be the center of attention for theoretical physics.
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As I understand it, String Theory has one fundamental (and very odd) premise: that all particle masses are integer multiples of the Planck mass, with all known particles having a rest mass of 0, plus a bit of rounding error (OK, it all sounds fishy to me, so maybe I don't quite have that right). Anyhow, the discovery of particles with about 1 Planck Mass (obviously not point particles) would be an experimental triumph. And who knows what dark matter is - maybe there's a surprise waiting.
But other than tha
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The condition for science is that it has to be testable in principle, NOT that it has to be testable within the limits of current technology. When Higgs came up with his theory there was no accelerator capable of testing it (although we did not know that at the time). So would that make the Higgs mechanism non-science until the 21st century when we built the LHC? Clearly not.
There's a difference: it was possible long before the LHC to test the Higgs theory for consistency. The Higgs made predictions about how other particles (not the Higgs) would interact with each other. Those could be tested in accelerators which were not energetic enough to produces the Higgs directly.
String theory? Not so much.
Hypothesis (Score:2)
In that case wouldn't it be a hypothesis? It's untested and, beyond filling some gaps in quantum theory and relativity, it hasn't been mathematically proven.
So it's a hypothesis, right?
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By that logic:
* The Big Bang Theory is not Science,
* hell, most of Astrophysics is not science either
Science is nothing more then Applied Philosophy.
What makes the Philosophy (of Science) interesting is in the trying to Apply it. If we tossed out every scientific philosophy simply because we didn't have a way to (yet) test it, Science would remain an incredible narrow domain. Science is supposed to be about Truth. Once we start artificially limiting how the Truth is arrived at you have a cult / dogma.
Bel
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What if their goal isn't to make a testable prediction that diverges from the current best theory, but merely to explain more elegantly what's already explained? Shouldn't that count as scientific progress too?
After all, heliocentrism didn't make any prediction that a sufficiently elaborate theory of epicycle couldn't explain, it merely stated that the equations of motion were simpler if you put the Sun at the center.
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They are getting better at insanely complicated math though...
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We have to have world class mathematicians working on it and they're not getting anywhere.
But they are making progress! Every couple of weeks, someone adds a couple of new dimensions, to improve the model.
I think we should just cut to the chase scene, and decide that we are living in an Abstract Hilbert Space of infinite dimensions, and be down with it.
Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that its equations are quite elegant and simple -- because its goal was to unify the fundamental forces... and by doing so, created so many variables, functions, and possibilities, you can describe just about any universe that might exist. Each particle exists in 11 dimensions with varying degrees of freedom -- and we have few hints at the shapes of those hidden dimensions. Pinning it down to our universe is hard -- really hard. Like 10 ^ 99 possibilities hard. And, there's still the possibility that it's wrong, but there are a very long list of possibilities to go through before they can figure that out. Even if they find one that matches perfectly, just because the math agrees doesn't mean it says anything about how the universe really works -- just that the math works.
But, say you want to describe fundamental forces -- easy... the equations for light, gravity, strong force, and weak force look identical in string theory except for a function tacked on the end -- same for particles and their properties. (Also, as the energy level reaches a certain point, the forces converge towards a point where they are all equal.... as if they are all aspects of the same force that split into different dimensions.)
The same sort of thing was done to predict the Higgs. Equations were written as if all particles were massless plus some function based on interaction with the Higgs. Without the Higgs, the equations were ugly and none of the equations for the particles looked alike, but factor in the Higgs, and they all fall beautifully into place as identical plus some Higgs function. So much was based on this math, that it was understood that it HAD to be right -- years before the particle from the field was discovered.
The irony is -- string theory is a bit like creating epicycles to make the Earth the center of the solar system in the sense that string theory was created to unify the forces -- and in doing so, necessitated the creation of multiple curled up dimensions. It made some things very easy by postulating something strange. Einstein described gravity as the curvature of spacetime, and this gave string theorists the initiative to do the same with the other forces. It may be right -- it's probably right... it looks right in how elegant the math is... but... there's no way to test it -- yet. The theory says more about what can be rather than what must be, so it'll be a while before it matures enough to be called true "science."
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Uhh.
The holographic principle comes from string theory the strongest indications of it, AdS/CFT is a part staring theory.
Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
But that's not what string theory does. Instead, it predicts everything. No, not everything we have observed, EVERYTHING. No negative or positive finding tests string theory, it just suggests more knobs to twiddle. The one shining hope is that if we don't find supersymmetry, it is dead as a theory since it cannot accommodate a universe without.
It could be forgiven all of that if it made things more tractable, but it doesn't.
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Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is, supersymmetry (SUSY) is the only theory that even attempts to explain why the masses of particles are as small as they are -- including the Higgs particle. Without SUSY, the Higgs, W, and Z bosons become nearly infinitely massive due to loops in their feynmen diagrams. It's the SUSY that cancels out infinities in a lot of equations to make the string theory results make sense.
Many expect SUSY particles (sparticles) to start showing up at a multiple of the Higgs mass -- say... close to the Higgs mass or an order of magnitude higher, but not much higher. Sparticles are a good candidate for dark matter, but they're unlikely to be detected by the LHC.
Also, we know that string theory can give the same answers as other quantum theories for known values... so it's not "wrong" so much as it's a different way to do the same math... but ST requires SUSY because it's a necessary result of the math. If you compute a universe that allows both bosons and fermions, then for each boson, there is complementary fermion and vice versa -- only SUSY predicts that they have the same mass, but clearly they don't -- so the symmetry is broken.
If no sparticles are found at higher energy levels, then someone will have to explain what's wrong with particle physics in general -- because the math works.... so, what is it about the math that is correct that we're incorrectly interpreting as reality? Even if string theory is discounted in favor of another theory... you can wipe out the theory, but not the math. The math is just a different formulation of a problem to get the same answer. If I say 3 + 2 = 5, and the 2 is the sparticle in my theory... then when we find sparticles don't exist, what the heck is it that I'm adding to 3 to make it 5 ?!?!? There must be some unknown physics that string theory is describing as super particles that may actually be something else we don't understand. We don't even know why the symmetry is "broken" in the current theory to begin with.
Supersymmetric Corrections (Score:3)
Problem is, supersymmetry (SUSY) is the only theory that even attempts to explain why the masses of particles are as small as they are -- including the Higgs particle. Without SUSY, the Higgs, W, and Z bosons become nearly infinitely massive due to loops in their feynmen diagrams.
Not quite. Only the Higgs is affected since it is the only scalar particle. Its mass does not become even vaguely close to infinite they just get dragged up to the Planck-scale at 10^19 GeV. SUSY is not the only possible explanation: Large Extra Dimensions solves the problem by reducing the Planck scale to ~10 TeV or so (but introduces other problems like why do protons appear stable).
Sparticles are a good candidate for dark matter, but they're unlikely to be detected by the LHC.
Only the lightest sparticle is good candidate for Dark Matter and, if produced, it can be detected at the LHC by the missi
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The math happens to produce known correct answers if you twiddle it right, but so what? There are many incorrect equations that when constrained tightly enough happen to give a few right answers for all the wrong reasons. Given a set of data points, you can always construct an equation that contains all of them. What's 11-6? AHHA!, it's 5, that's exactly the number we were looking for!
You don't need anything so exotic as string theory to have the math suggest odd reflections of reality. I've seen it in a si
Re:Only if you Exclude Technological Limits (Score:5, Interesting)
What if their goal isn't to make a testable prediction that diverges from the current best theory, but merely to explain more elegantly what's already explained? Shouldn't that count as scientific progress too?
An excellent question! Yes, more elegant explanations of existing phenomena are definitely a big part of science. The unification of electricity and magnetism is an example . But that unification led to new predictions that the non-unified models did not. Yet, even if string theory was able to make the same predictions as the standard model and no new predictions then, hell yeah, it is would be science. The problem is that it makes no predictions. Well, to be more accurate, it makes way too many predictions which is pretty much the same thing.
You see, explaining what has already been explained involves making testable predictions. String theory does not do this which is why it is not science. That doesn't mean it is worthless to pursue.
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It is.
That is not my understanding. If we could build an accelerator that could reach the Planck scale then we could test quantum gravity and study the emission of gravitons, quantum decay of black holes etc. which I understood String Theory made predictions for. Certainly with the Large Extra Dimension theories which the LHC looks for the different theories can provide different signatures in particular circumstances for effects leading up to Black Hole formation.
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"If we could build an accelerator that could reach the Planck scale"
That's a big if. And until testable it is not science.
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If string theory is untestable in principle, how do you explain the existence of tests?
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Link to a few please.
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"Expanded solar-system limits on violations of the equivalence principle" James Overduin, Jack Mitcham and Zoey Warecki, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 31, Number 1. IOP: http://m.iopscience.iop.org/ar... [iop.org] arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1202 [arxiv.org]
"Four-Qubit Entanglement Classification from String Theory", L. Borsten, D. Dahanayake, M. J. Duff, A. Marrani, and W. Rubens
Physical Review Letters 105, 100507. APS: http://journals.aps.org/prl/ab... [aps.org] arxiv http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4915 [arxiv.org]
"Permutation orbifolds an
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... all they've got are string theorists. (Score:2)
Obligatory: Unscientific [xkcd.com]
Wouldn't it be more properly referred to as (Score:2)
a theoretical physics model?
Re:Wouldn't it be more properly referred to as (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It is a model. It might even be a useful model with some explanatory power. But the same can be said of many belief systems. The only difference is that the other belief systems have been shown to be inaccurate by showing their contradictions with reality. With string theory, we are not aware of any specific such contradiction yet.
I don't think we should have any problems with models, as long we understand very clearly that they are only models. Like Newton's laws - they are strictly inaccurate but as approximate models of reality that are valid under some limited set of conditions, they remain useful.
Re:Wouldn't it be more properly referred to as (Score:5, Informative)
There are too many floaty numbers inserted and whenever the numbers don't work more floaty numbers and dimensions are added in to make the "theory" work. Books written about this "Not even Wrong", "The Trouble with Physics". There may be others, those are just two I am familiar with.
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even... [amazon.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-... [amazon.com]
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So you have a problem with the mathematical hypothesizing that is involved in string theory? Hypothesis generation is an integral part of science.
The fact that the degree of adjustment required in string theory is unsatisfactory to you is perhaps indicative of the fact that string theory is a poor model of reality. On the other hand, it could indicate that reality is actually rather messy.
It is true that simplicity and elegance often seems like characteristics of correct models of reality. However, "messine
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Hypothetical, like any fantasy book, yes.
I have no problem with mathematical hypotheses, I am sure they are quite fun for those who play with them. The only issue I have is when any fancy thoughts like pretending they somehow are linked to reality come up. From what I gather, very good math progress has been made when attempting string theory work. Sort of like Disaster Area Tax returns, they advance the state of the art.
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Science is all models, so if it is a theoretical physics model then it is science.
String Theory is Science (Score:2)
RS
There is no string theory. (Score:2)
First, there is no string theory. There are a bunch of theories we call string theory. There are a bunch of theories that we call string theory, abut no basic priciples that are clearly laid out yet.
Second, even if we had a specific theory, we still do not know how to make calculations.
Third, general relativity was in the same situation. For a long time all it predicted was Mercury's perihelion precession and that could be done with alternate theories of gravitation or even extra planets. It wasn't until
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hy.poth.e.sis
a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation:
What is the limited evidence?
This has been known for a long time (Score:2)
There are a lot of pseudo scientists out there and it is not helped by masses of typically arrogant people that think they know what science is in the first place.
People confuse POLITICS with science. Bring up something about science and they'll say stupid things like "well X number of people agree with me" which isn't science. That is politics. Or you'll see something along the lines of "look at my nifty idea... all the numbers add up"... great... still not science... not unless you want to include Dungeon
Re:This has been known for a long time (Score:5, Insightful)
I think cargo cults are pretty science-ish.
The observed a correlation between airports and cargo planes arriving.
The formed a hypothesis that constructing something that looks like an airport and control tower would bring the cargo airplanes.
They tested the hypothesis, by building the airport etc. It didn't work.
They (correctly) knew that something made the cargo planes come; so they tried to improve their emulation of the airport operations etc.
Sure if was fundamentally wrong. But it WAS the scientific method in action. Observation, hypothesis, experiment...repeat.
Its no different than heliocentric astronomy. We kept trying more complicated and elaborate constructions to predict the planetary motions, but it just kept failing because it was wrong.
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Except it doesn't work.
Watch the video again. Cargo cult science "looks" like science... only it doesn't work.
You can't get around that. This is what ultimately stopped sophists from dominating western philosophy. Stoic Empiricism.
It. Does. Not. Work.
You can spin your theories till your head spins off... it won't work if you don't do it properly. And if you don't do it properly then it isn't science.
And because I'm sure you're going to presume to nitpick me here and thus miss the entire point... let me be v
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They had "faith"... and that faith made it not science because when the evidence came back that the hypothesis was bunk... they just doubled down.
What evidence? Failure to succeed is not evidence that the hypothesis is bunk; especially if there is room in the hypothesis for additional refinement.
Science does this all the time. Consider the 'planet vulcan', which many (if not most) scientists believed existed, and searched for. And the repeated failures to find it were attributed to calculation errors, inadequate instruments, etc... but they kept trying. Building better instruments, refining the calculations... until General Relativeity explained the
Does explanation have a role in science? (Score:4, Informative)
David Deutsch argues that it is core:
https://www.ted.com/talks/davi... [ted.com]
Also, string theory is surely as testable as quantum mechanics. It's just currently impossible to say which is more valid.
The original meaning of begging the question (Score:4, Insightful)
They start with the premise that string theory is untestable, and come to the conclusion that it is untestable.
String theory is gibberish (Score:2)
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Tiny vibrating strings? That explains everything! But why not tiny vibrating llamas? I bet the math would still work out, plus that would make the theory somewhat interesting.
Step 1: Assume string shaped llamas.
The concept is often unscientific (Score:4, Funny)
For example, the theory that all matter is made up of small, indivisible bits (atomos) is unscientific. Whenever you find a new smallest building block (atom) there's a chance you'll find they're built by even smaller blocks (a core of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons) and that protons again are made from even smaller particles (quarks). And maybe the quarks are built from superstrings. And maybe the superstrings are build from something we don't even have a name for yet. That doesn't make them bad ideas to guide scientific research and design experiments. Just like causality is a rabbit hole with no end, even if we could explain the whole formation of the universe back to the Big Bang we'd always be looking for what caused the Big Bang. And what caused that which caused the Big Bang. Scientific exploration is an educated guesswork, you take some observations and try to find a system or pattern or formula and if the results don't contradict reality, great. It's obviously even better if you can predict something new, but if I find that E = mc^2 and show a few reproducible examples it's up to the rest of the scientific community to find a contradiction where E != mc^2. I feel it's a bit like that with superstring theory, if we got multiple theories that both come to the same results then either they're different formulations of the same model or there will be distinct differences that are at least hypothetically testable.
I Never Really Understood that Prediction Thing (Score:2)
It worked great when we really did not understand anything about the Universe. But now when quite a lot is already known, there is a hell of a to less you can predict. Like all the current accepted theories, they predicted things, but now their predictions are just known facts, so if someone come up with the theory of tectonic plates today, it could never be a science, as all predictions you can make with the theory are already known facts. It just seems wrong, that if a prediction is not made in time, then
Best way to convert a "non-science" stickler (Score:4, Funny)
If you find yourself talking to a person who dismisses talk of multiverses or string theory as no better than talk of the supernatural, just ask them what a person would see while falling into a black hole. They will proceed to tell you their version. Then ask if someone outside the hole can ever verify anything they just said. They will say no, communication won't work from inside an event horizon to the outside. Then ask, if everything they said is all based on conjecture and extrapolating known laws, and can't be experimentally verified, why do they feel it merits discussion?
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The Atom was Just a Theory. (Score:2)
I think we have to be careful here, as the atom was only a theory for over a hundred of years.
There is also an issue that classical physicists would not want to believe that their theory fits into anything larger, as Newtonian physicists likely did not want to believe in relativistic physics, as religious types did not want to believe....
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Re: Climatology (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't take long for the peanut gallery to weigh in.
Re:Climatology (Score:5, Informative)
An untestable theory is one that can never be tested, even with infinite time and resources. For example, "the universe was created as-is five minutes ago." Maybe that's true, but there's no way to test it. Even if you had a time machine, it still couldn't be tested. There is no experiment that can be imagined to test this.
In the case of string theory, the author claims that string theory makes no predictions that distinguish it from the standard model. That is, if you perform an experiment, you will not know if it is supporting string theory, or if it's just a natural result of the standard model.
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Do you see what I did there?
Re:Climatology (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unfortunate that it has been proven false many, many times, but not every scientific theory has to be true.
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Whoops I flipped the ordering around somewhere in the middle here and fixed above. You got the point anyway
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Actually some of the basic premises of astrology have been proven correct.
Premise number one is that you can use the stars as a calendar, I doubt that anyone would deny that now.
Premise number two, that the time of birth affects someones success in life. Originally the idea that someone born in times of plenty (varies in region and livelihood) will have more success then someone born in times of famine such as late winter. Not sure of studies on this but it seems reasonable and worth studying. Presently the
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The problem with judging climatology based on average temperature after X years is this: All you have to do is come up with a hand full of models in a reasonable distribution around where we already are. The more models, the better chance you have of being "uncannily accurate". See the problem? It's just like the old stock market trick of finding 256 analysts who make buy/sell recommendations on 8 stocks. Then you interview the "genius" who made 8 correct calls.
In the case of climate, the model is much
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The problem with your stock analogy is that you assume there is a way to beat the averages long term. Replace the stock market with flipping a coin. If you have a room of 1024 people that all pick different permutations of heads and tails you will get one person that picks 10 in a row. Are they good at it? No, the odds are still even on each toss. This is the problem with finding a stock picker. You can find someone with a perfect record but as soon as you invest with them they have no better odds at pickin
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As long as enough people with enough dollars believe in the prophet his prophecies will come true. Of course at some point the whole thing mathematically becomes a pyramid scheme that comes crashing down.
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Actually, the 100 years is very important. The actual prediction is more likely to be something like: "if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the same rate, then ...". The prediction relies the values of other factors, which are not controlled. An experiment in which all the variables are not controlled is not a valid experiment.
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Aye, there's the rub. First, only one planet. Second, difficulties with the "awhile" parameter. Make it too short and you're just testing long-range *weather* forecasts which is not where the controversy is. Make it too long and the theory changes so that the argument becomes "that's an old model, we know better now". Do they really know better, or are they just moving the goal posts?
I think climatology is in a grey area in this regard. In theory, it's testable and thus science. In practice, it's pol
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[climatology] is yet to make a successful prediction.
1. Polar amplification.
2. Stratospheric cooling
You now have two well known examples of large scale natural phenomena first observed in climate models, there are many more, google is your friend, my community service is done.
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since when have you ever cared about substantiated arguments?
especially on the topic of the climate, where you repeatedly make unsubstantiated, and even well disproven, statements, even within this very thread ?
no choice but to throw the BS flag on that play.
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Somewhere on Earth, it's cold. Therefore global warming can't be happening. If it was happening right now, it would be warm everywhere. QED
Re: Climatology (Score:5, Insightful)
You're joking, but that is actually what a "Warm Earth" (i.e., not an ice age) looks like: no year-round ice anywhere. It doesn't get much warmer at the equator, but it gets a lot warmer at the poles.
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You seem to be confused about which side is taking a lot of money to fudge the data.
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The coal industry, natural gas industry, oil industry, big agriculture, real estate agents who sell ocean front properties or places where hurricanes are common, etc.
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Everything you said just annoys me.
Liberals don't receive any more money from government than do Conservatives. I can't speak for everyone, but WE don't ask for "bigger government" just to get more -- a lot of us might not get welfare. We just have a bigger tribe; meaning, we care about things beyond our family, team, church, country. People. None of us want "more regulations" -- just the RIGHT ones. You know who sponsors most of the regulations? Big companies. You know who does MOST of the Medicare fraud?
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Yes, but in this case it does matter since String Theory is a scientific theory (or at least claims to be).
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Nonsense.
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Example:
A: "All rodents are mammals, but a weasel isn't a rodent, so it can't be a mammal." B: "You're an asshole."
B's reply is not necessarily ad hominem. There is no evidence that's his abusive statement is intended as a counter-argument. If it's not an argument, it's not an ad hominem argument.
Utter nonsense. It is quite obvious that B's statement is intended as counter-argument, because it was stated as reply to A's statement. Further, insult has replaced any logical argument, but it's still being used as an argument. So it most certainly is ad-hominem, according to the definition.
If B had said instead: "I'm not going to argue with you because you're an asshole," THEN it would be
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Propose string theory 200 years ago and it would be the leading model today as it would have made lots of predictions and all the experiments used to prove the standard model would have instead been used to prove the string model.
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I submit the answer to the theoretical basis of control systems is fuzzy logic, which happen to be very robust and pragmatic.
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Our short lives and limitations do cause us to have attachment to things that have stood extremely tiny tests of time and perspective though. Relativity has been around for how long again? Could you show me how big that mark is on even the tiny geologic timescale let alone the believed age of our universe? Measurements of radiation seem to match it? Cool. But the timescale we believe
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You also can't prove that He does. Yes, there are proofs that he exists but they all depend on the reader already believing that He does. That's because the question isn't one that can be proven by either logic or scientific examination; either you believe or you don't. String theory, however, is intended to be provable by experiment and/or observation. That doesn't, of course, mean that we can currently test it, it just means that its proponents hope to come up w
This is of course true (Score:3)
Re:This is of course true (Score:5, Insightful)
You're correct though, that's historic evidence of evolution. Those phenotypes were modified by changes in the gene sequences like those we've seen happen in labs. And some of those gene sequences we've extracted, mapped out and compared to living organisms. So evolution is a proven.
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The reality is that most of geology and palaeontology are on the same level as history, as being theories about recorded facts, rather than 'science'. This doesn't make them worthless - as a hard scientist who is now working for an MA in history I've got a dog in this race - but their claim to be 'science' is dubious.
Everybody knows history can't be independently reproduced and verified in the lab, but I think you're underestimating the value of scientific research to lend credibility to a particular version of it. Like if a woman claims you made her pregnant, a DNA test would be a good start. Of course she might have stolen a tissue from a hotel room where you entertained yourself. Or she's got a genetics lab that can create a sperm cell from a strand of hair. It's not absolute proof and even if it were written down, t
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Informative)