Science - It's No Longer Science As We Knew It - It's Now Full of Statements of Blind Faith

The Ultimate Scientific Conjecture; it's no longer science as we knew it!

I have always held the belief that science is sacrosanct, comprising of a series of proven, testable and tested facts and theories that have stood the test of time. I have been obviously very wrong, damn wrong. Here is proof of my ignorance.

There is a theory known as string theory a popular theory in science so revered and yet so unscientific! Sounds ridiculous. Yes it is, a scientific theory that is damn unscientific, a downright statement of blind faith, note I say blind faith not just a statement of faith. There is a world of difference between faith and blind faith.

For a start, for starters like me, The NewScientist issue of 15th August 2009 gives me the little simplistic introduction of the problem that the string theory endeavored to solve.

As most of us may not know, physics lack one coherent theory to explain the workings of nature from the minute blocks of nature to the large bodies like planets and the stars.

The NewScientist publication points out that the two existing theories that explains most of the stuff observed in nature, that is the theory of gravity and the quantum theory do contradict and hence cannot both be true.

Stephen Hawking also mentions this contradiction in his best seller, the Brief History of time. In an attempt to reconcile the two, the string theory emerged. The magazine goes on to say that 'there is no agreement on how to get to one coherent theory.

To attempt to solve the problem,a theory referred to as String theory is the avenue preferred by most physicists, it melds gravity and quantum mechanics by arguing that everything in nature arises from the vibration of tiny strings in 10 dimensional space time'.

That is too heavy especially for me the terminology used and wow in ten dimension!??! I can hardly grasp anything beyond '3D' i mean three dimensions. Just hold your breath, You need not understand a bit of what I just quoted. I need not because the New Scientist goes on and speaks in a more common language.

Before I quote the criticism of the NewScientist, I consider a book review of two works criticizing the string theory.

A book review of two works of reputable scientific scholars highlight the great comedown of science that is the string theory. Lee Smolin and Peter Woit, two scientists criticized the string theory independently in their books. The books are 'The trouble with physics: the rise of string theory and the fall of science' and 'Not even wrong;

The failure of string theory and the search for unity in physical law' authored by the two scientists respectively. The theory has been the dominant area of research in the last 20 years in the domain of unifying the two laws of science and as the authors note, ' the promise of the theory has remained unfulfilled' As the book review notes. In science,a theory should make a prediction that should be tested and proven either true or false.

Les Smolin and Peter Woit concludes that 'String theory is unscientific because it has made no prediction that could prove it to be wrong or else.

Another reason for dismissing the string theory approach is that it has so many variations of it, so much so that it is impossible to tell which is right. Its malleability, its flexibility also calls in for doubt, it is easily adaptable to adopt new discoveries that come into light and this has led many a prominent scientists including Richard Freyman, to say that 'string theorists do not make predictions, they make excuses'

Compare the theory as a ruler to measure the universe and its laws.

Having a task of measuring the length of many objects you need a ruler. The ruler has to be stable and reliable. Just imagine having a ruler that is malleable and elastic, will you ever get the true measurements? This is the nature of the so called string theory, It is well said that apart from telling you something about the size of that thing or object that you are measuring, the process of measuring can also tell you something about the ruler, in this case, if you get the measurements of two objects to be equal yet the one is twice as long as the other, you can judge the reliability of the ruler.

The authors continue to say that there is something worse, 'the string theory has become more mathematically elaborate and its practitioners have begun to manipulate it as though the traditional scientific means of verification are totally unnecessary' The authors goes on to say that 'Even physicists and mathematicians are at odds over whether string theory is a series of abstract puzzles or whether it says anything about the real world!

Obviously without testable predictions, it has little to say about the real world, if it speaks to human beings at all' As the authors reckon that, the idea that beauty, especially beautiful mathematical models can point to scientific truth served Einstein well but sadly for science, it may have misled the later, our generation of theoretical physicists!The authors conclude that 'the string theory is a mere conjecture and unworthy of being called a theory at all!

Other options to the solution of the problem to the workings of nature, the solution to the theory of everything, like one highlighted by the new scientist known as the 'loop quantum gravity' (whatever that is) fair no better, as the New scientist admits. That is modern science for you. What a great comedown for science! Or has science ever been high on the pedestal? I doubt! It's still the old fruitless human snooping into the God's business.

Do you still believe in science as the path to the truth? I conclude and agree with Naseem Taleb the skeptical empiricist and a Riskmanager who admires science and who observes that science is good but individual scientists are dangerous. Indeed the herding and group think is not a reserve for the lowly and we men and women on the streets, The NewScientist mentions that groupthink is also quite common even among scientists.

Do you still believe that science is still faithful to its creed of remaining scientific?

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Faith And Science-An Unnecessary Battle

The battle fronts have been the same for hundreds of years, each side wrongly claiming the beliefs of the other to be heresy and seeking any means other than reason to defeat them. Juries, federal court, ballot boxes, kings, mass propaganda, even punishment have been used to try to wipe out the dissenting opinions, yet they continue. For the purpose of this article, we'll define true faith and true science, apply those definitions to the current battle lines of evolution and environment, and discuss the possibility of a reasonable consensus... all in one article. First, we must dispose of fake faith and fake science to remove the noise and confusion of extremism from the issues. In doing so, I run the risk of offending religious people and scientists, alike.

Real Faith-vs-Fake Faith: For the purpose of this article, real faith is pursuit of the truth through belief in a God, superior to humans, who created us and the universe, who is the repository of all truth and knowledge and who gave us the rights and responsibility to care for the Earth. Real faith is expressed when we seek the truth from our Creator, love and help each other, and conserve and protect our environment. Jesus Christ defined real faith when He said that the whole law of God is summed up in two rules...Love God...Love your neighbor as yourself. Fake faith is when we use the mantle of faith, with our titles, robes and political influence to promote extremist views and to condemn and punish others who don't agree with those views. Great recent examples of fake faith are the Inquisition, Islamic extremism and religious leaders like those claiming earthquakes, terrorist attacks and hurricanes are all God's punishment for our "sin." When real faith is combined with extremism, it becomes fake faith. Real faith treats with love and patience, those who disagree. Fake faith tries to shut them up before the truth becomes obvious.

Real Science-vs-Fake Science: For the purpose of this article, real science is the pursuit of knowledge through a system of empirical investigation and testing. Real science is expressed when we seek to prove every theory by exhaustively attempting and failing to disprove it. Fake science is a lot like fake faith. That's when we use the mantle of science, with it's letters, lab coats and political influence to promote extremist views and to condemn and punish others who don't agree with those views. Some great recent examples of fake science are the court battles to prevent the teaching of any theory but evolution in schools and the massive worldwide effort generally described as global warming.

As an example of what I've been told is typical among the academic class, Dr Robert Lee, published in the Australian Rationalist number 70, an 11 page article containing about 4 pages of his scientific specialty, 1 page of footnotes, and 6 pages of heavily biased political opinion. At one point he says "No reasonable person these days can deny the truth of global warming or that it is the result of human activities." As good as I assume he is in his specialty, his statement is fake science because it seeks to shut up those who disagree by calling them unreasonable. This is how fake science is similar to fake faith, it seeks to quiet dissent before the truth becomes obvious. Real science welcomes opposing theory because it provides a new opportunity to advance knowledge.

Evolution In Light Of Faith And Science: Evolution is one of those theories who's detractors got shouted down over a couple hundred years of history until it is now accepted as fact. Yet, real science will tell you we have absolutely no empirical data that proves evolution or disproves it's chief competing theory, called "Intelligent Design." First, we have no reliable dating method beyond 10,000 years because there were no records kept. For those who say the fact that we can see stars millions of light-years away is proof of our age, I would ask when we measured the distance? Let's say the stars are that far, though, who has proven the Universe wasn't created in motion with all the light waves in place? You know...a pump has to be primed with water before it can pump anything. Maybe that's the way light works. Where is the empirical evidence of intermediate species? I know now we're altering species through genetic manipulation, but, have we created an atom out of nothing? Have we taken a mixture of amino acids and created a new single-celled organism that lives and reproduces? How can we say with any seriousness that we know how it happened, then? I'm not trying to disprove the theory of evolution, just to say that it has not been proven by the rules of real science.

Those of us who believe that we and the Universe were created by God are acting in faith. The surprise is, those who believe in evolution are acting in faith, as well. One places their faith in the intelligence, power and inerrancy of God. The other places the same faith in humans. Given your knowledge of human events, past and present, where do you feel we should place our faith...in humans or in God?

Environment In Light Of Faith And Science: Considering that 40 years ago the climate experts were worried about a catastrophic event called global cooling and predicting a new ice age, it's amazing to me that the global warming advocates get anything beyond a sympathetic pat on the head. Still, this theory is gaining worldwide acceptance as fact and as the basis of policies to massively restructure the world economy. Again, I'm not going to try to disprove the theory, just to show that the theory has not been proven according to the tenets of real science. The question of warming is unproven scientifically, because of unreliable temperature data beyond 100 years ago, coupled with biased data on ice caps and sea level. North pole shrinkage has not been balanced in the data with the increase in size of the Antarctic continent. There were no historical sea level measurements taken to support the "rising" sea level claim. Even if it were rising, the data doesn't account for other possible causes, like wave erosion and sub-sea geological events.

But, let's assume the world is warming and the sea is rising as they say. No empirical data exists to prove this is anything more than a normal fluctuation of our environment. The factors involved in this are vast. The sun's radiation, volcano's, space dust, the total bio balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen and many other factors are interrelated and interact with each other as they fluctuate. To say we understand how all of this works is a gross exaggeration...we can't even measure most of it. To say humans caused it...well...you can draw your own conclusions. I don't recall the source, but one global warming expert I recently read, stated that we know so little about how all these factors interact that any "solutions" we adopt now could cause the very global warming we're trying to prevent. The whole ethanol issue serves to demonstrate his point. After science insisted for decades on the environmental benefits of ethanol, laws were passed to force us to retrofit our energy, automotive and agricultural industries to use it. Now, further studies, considering the whole production and shipping process empirically prove that fossil fuels are less environmentally harmful and less costly. Global warming is well worth a serious investment in study...but just study...until we're doing more than guessing.

This doesn't mean things can't be done for the environment. Most of what the global warming extremists claim to want are just good conservation practices. True faith and true science have absolutely no disagreement on the ideals of conserving resources, reducing pollution, finding alternative and renewable energy resources, etc. These are goals we share! People of faith have a great sense of responsibility for the environment and everything in it...we believe we were given that responsibility by God. In fact, introducing a fake science issue like global warming into the discussion makes it more difficult to work together to solve the real problems. There really isn't a battle between true faith and true science...we just have to get past the extremism.

Finding Knowledge And Truth: Both faith and science have their "boys who cried wolf." Their rants serve no purpose but to destroy the credibility of those they claim to represent. Unfortunately, when there really is a wolf, no one will believe it. As our two issues point out, if scientists stick to true science and the faithful, true faith, we can find much in common. All the background political noise of fake science and fake faith are removed and we're left with the pursuits of knowledge and truth...which are the same thing.

Truth without knowledge is useless. Knowledge without truth is delusion.

Jesus said, "if we continue in His teaching we will know the truth and the truth will free us." We must know the truth before it can free us. We must continue to pursue the truth to ever have a hope of knowing it. The faithful pursues truth from a spiritual perspective and the scientist, from the physical, but we both seek to grow in our knowledge of the truth. In this pursuit, by resisting the distractions of extremism, we can learn and grow and work together in trust, to build a very promising future for all of us.

Glen Williams is Webmaster for http://www.web-church.com an Ordained Minister, Founder and CEO of E-Home Fellowship (EHF), Inc. He has been active in ministry since 1989. You can comment on his articles at Web-Church Christian Forums

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.