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In a true scientific setting, you'll never hear an idea be rejected because an authority figure or holy book said that it wasn't so. It will be rejected based on lack of supporting evidence.

That is not true. Leading scientists rejected the big bang theory when proposed because of a holy book. They merely did so due to hostility rather than faith. Students interested in string theory were advised not to do research in that area because authority figures in the scientific community were dismissive of the theory.

Then I suppose that those were not true scientific settings then, were they? Also, science doesn't have holy books; I think you're mistaken.

Are you talking about this source? If you scroll down, there's an illustration of the cosmos as described by the Bible, which the rest of that source covers.

No. That illustration is not what the bible describes, it is what interpretations that are making quite a stretch describe. Stretches of the nature that something being above the earth implies the earth is flat.

The interpretations are what people use to claim that the Bible says that the earth is a globe. But it actually says that the earth is flat. When you understand that the Bible is composed of stories written between 2000 to 3500 years ago, you see that it does have a place in history and that the things it describes are based on the knowledge and culture of those who wrote it. The notion of a spherical earth wasn't accepted until the 3rd Century in Greece, over 100 years after the last book of the Bible was written.

I'd also like to point out that you've completely ignored my statement that the Bible has been used to justify such atrocities as slavery.

Its an irrelevant straw man, off topic related to the church and science. Many scientists back in the day supported slavery and various atrocities as well.

No, it's quite relevant. It shows that religious minds are willing to use their faith to justify atrocities.

No it shows that human minds are able to use anything to justify atrocities. There are ample examples in modern history of human minds using some political writing to justify atrocities. There are ample examples of men of science using scientific theory and concepts to justify atrocities.

You'd be really hard-pressed to find someone who would try justifying an atrocity without religion; I haven't seen the rational or scientific equivalent of a meeting or message board where people openly claim their desire for a return to slavery or anything as equally horrible, especially today. Because your Bible is able to justify despicable actions, it is also in a sense advocating them. It's written (or divinely inspired) by god, who is infallible, so there's no reason for its followers to disagree with its teachings.

Catholics are not a majority of christians in the US. Also the graph shows that those believing in a literal interpretation are declining and those with faith believing in evolution are increasing.

So Catholics believe that the Bible advocates evolution while other Christians believe that the same bible argue against evolution. Also, you may have missed some of the other data in that source:

Catholics and various other denominations have nothing against evolution. The stats are US centric, basically you are cherry picking a subpopulation to artificially inflate the stats. Altering the conversation from christianity in general.

(Trimming the rest of the quote s

In a true scientific setting, you'll never hear an idea be rejected because an authority figure or holy book said that it wasn't so. It will be rejected based on lack of supporting evidence.

That is not true. Leading scientists rejected the big bang theory when proposed because of a holy book. They merely did so due to hostility rather than faith. Students interested in string theory were advised not to do research in that area because authority figures in the scientific community were dismissive of the theory.

Are you talking about this source? If you scroll down, there's an illustration of the cosmos as described by the Bible, which the rest of that source covers.

No. That illustration is not what the bible describes, it is what interpretations that are making quite a stretch describe. Stretches of the nature that something being above the earth implies the earth is flat.

I'd also like to point out that you've completely ignored my statement that the Bible has been used to justify such atrocities as slavery.

Its an irrelevant straw man, off topic related to the church and science. Many scientists back in the day supported slavery and various atrocities as well.

No, it's quite relevant. It shows that religious minds are willing to use their faith to justify atrocities.

No it shows that human minds are able to use anything to justify atrocities. There are ample examples in modern history of human minds using some political writing to justify atrocities. There are ample examples of men of science using scientific theory and concepts to justify atrocities.

Catholics are not a majority of christians in the US. Also the graph shows that those believing in a literal interpretation are declining and those with faith believing in evolution are increasing.

So Catholics believe that the Bible advocates evolution while other Christians believe that the same bible argue against evolution. Also, you may have missed some of the other data in that source:

Catholics and various other denominations have nothing against evolution. The stats are US centric, basically you are cherry picking a subpopulation to artificially inflate the stats. Altering the conversation from christianity in general.

40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years

And the fact remains that this survey also shows that this group is in decline.

Another 38 percent of respondents believe that humans have evolved from more basic organisms but with God playing a role in the process ... I'll admit that it's pretty vague because "playing a role in the process" doesn't tell us much about what god is supposed to be doing, but it shows that there are a lot of people on the fence about fact and faith.

Not really. As the church in question teaches, scientific discoveries are not in conflict with faith. There is no fence according to this church and those churches who share similar views.

In a true scientific setting, you'll never hear an idea be rejected because an authority figure or holy book said that it wasn't so. It will be rejected based on lack of supporting evidence.

That is not true. Leading scientists rejected the big bang theory when proposed because of a holy book. They merely did so due to hostility rather than faith. Students interested in string theory were advised not to do research in that area because authority figures in the scientific community were dismissive of the theory.

Are you talking about this source? If you scroll down, there's an illustration of the cosmos as described by the Bible, which the rest of that source covers.

No. That illustration is not what the bible describes, it is what interpretations that are making quite a stretch describe. Stretches of the nature that something being above the earth implies the earth is flat.

I'd also like to point out that you've completely ignored my statement that the Bible has been used to justify such atrocities as slavery.

Its an irrelevant straw man, off topic related to the church and science. Many scientists back in the day supported slavery and various atrocities as well.

No, it's quite relevant. It shows that religious minds are willing to use their faith to justify atrocities.

No it shows that human minds are able to use anything to justify atrocities. There are ample examples in modern history of human minds using some political writing to justify atrocities. There are ample examples of men of science using scientific theory and concepts to justify atrocities.

Catholics are not a majority of christians in the US. Also the graph shows that those believing in a literal interpretation are declining and those with faith believing in evolution are increasing.

So Catholics believe that the Bible advocates evolution while other Christians believe that the same bible argue against evolution. Also, you may have missed some of the other data in that source:

Catholics and various other denominations have nothing against evolution. The stats are US centric, basically you are cherry picking a subpopulation to artificially inflate the stats. Altering the conversation from christianity in general.

40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years

And the fact remains that this survey also shows that this group is in decline.

Another 38 percent of respondents believe that humans have evolved from more basic organisms but with God playing a role in the process ... I'll admit that it's pretty vague because "playing a role in the process" doesn't tell us much about what god is supposed to be doing, but it shows that there are a lot of people on the fence about fact and faith.

Not really. As the church in question teaches, scientific discoveries are not in conflict with faith. There is no fence according to this church and those churches who share similar views.

And many prominent scientists rejected the big bang theory, and string theory, etc. Eventually they came around. So did those within the church regarding Copernicus as more data became available and tools (telescopes, mathematics) improved.

It's not quite the same. In a true scientific setting, you'll never hear an idea be rejected because an authority figure or holy book said that it wasn't so. It will be rejected based on lack of supporting evidence. In a religious setting, if an idea contradicts what the religion teaches, there will either be someone who says that it can't be possible since it's against scripture or there will be a new interpretation made for when the fact contradicts a section of the holy text.

Imagine that we're looking back on scientific history and we find some writings of Aristotle who believed that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. We know that that isn't true, so instead of saying that he was wrong, we interpret his writing. When he said "heavier" he really meant that an object resisted more wind. See? He was never wrong! Would you be convinced by this assertion? I doubt it.

The specifically cited biblical passages linked to in previous posts did not seem to state that the earth was flat, and seemed to show that the proponent's interpretation of scripture was quite a stretch.

Are you talking about this source? If you scroll down, there's an illustration of the cosmos as described by the Bible, which the rest of that source covers.

I'd also like to point out that you've completely ignored my statement that the Bible has been used to justify such atrocities as slavery.

Its an irrelevant straw man, off topic related to the church and science. Many scientists back in the day supported slavery and various atrocities as well.

No, it's quite relevant. It shows that religious minds are willing to use their faith to justify atrocities. And it's also important given that the Bible has a number of passages condoning slavery. I haven't seen any interpretations for what those are actually supposed to mean.

I was unable to find any genuine scientific claims for slavery, but I was able to find plenty of recent things like this 17-page message Baptist board thread from 2009 [NSFW] that use the Bible to justify their desire for it. These people are using the same Bible that you do. The only difference is that you have your own way of abstracting and interpreting the text so that you can feel free to safely ignore these passages. You do this because, despite god saying that it's okay, you know that slavery is wrong. (And yes, I'm comfortable making this assertion of your views on slavery because, given your dismissal of my argument, it seems that you wouldn't be in favor of treating people as property.)

Catholics are not a majority of christians in the US. Also the graph shows that those believing in a literal interpretation are declining and those with faith believing in evolution are increasing.

So Catholics believe that the Bible advocates evolution while other Christians believe that the same bible argue against evolution. Also, you may have missed some of the other data in that source:

40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years. ... Another 38 percent of respondents believe that humans have evolved from more basic organisms but with God playing a role in the process. ... A mere 16 percent of respondents subscribed to the belief of "secular evolution

And many prominent scientists rejected the big bang theory, and string theory, etc. Eventually they came around. So did those within the church regarding Copernicus as more data became available and tools (telescopes, mathematics) improved.

It's not quite the same. In a true scientific setting, you'll never hear an idea be rejected because an authority figure or holy book said that it wasn't so. It will be rejected based on lack of supporting evidence. In a religious setting, if an idea contradicts what the religion teaches, there will either be someone who says that it can't be possible since it's against scripture or there will be a new interpretation made for when the fact contradicts a section of the holy text.

Imagine that we're looking back on scientific history and we find some writings of Aristotle who believed that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. We know that that isn't true, so instead of saying that he was wrong, we interpret his writing. When he said "heavier" he really meant that an object resisted more wind. See? He was never wrong! Would you be convinced by this assertion? I doubt it.

The specifically cited biblical passages linked to in previous posts did not seem to state that the earth was flat, and seemed to show that the proponent's interpretation of scripture was quite a stretch.

Are you talking about this source? If you scroll down, there's an illustration of the cosmos as described by the Bible, which the rest of that source covers.

I'd also like to point out that you've completely ignored my statement that the Bible has been used to justify such atrocities as slavery.

Its an irrelevant straw man, off topic related to the church and science. Many scientists back in the day supported slavery and various atrocities as well.

No, it's quite relevant. It shows that religious minds are willing to use their faith to justify atrocities. And it's also important given that the Bible has a number of passages condoning slavery. I haven't seen any interpretations for what those are actually supposed to mean.

I was unable to find any genuine scientific claims for slavery, but I was able to find plenty of recent things like this 17-page message Baptist board thread from 2009 [NSFW] that use the Bible to justify their desire for it. These people are using the same Bible that you do. The only difference is that you have your own way of abstracting and interpreting the text so that you can feel free to safely ignore these passages. You do this because, despite god saying that it's okay, you know that slavery is wrong. (And yes, I'm comfortable making this assertion of your views on slavery because, given your dismissal of my argument, it seems that you wouldn't be in favor of treating people as property.)

Catholics are not a majority of christians in the US. Also the graph shows that those believing in a literal interpretation are declining and those with faith believing in evolution are increasing.

So Catholics believe that the Bible advocates evolution while other Christians believe that the same bible argue against evolution. Also, you may have missed some of the other data in that source:

40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years. ... Another 38 percent of respondents believe that humans have evolved from more basic organisms but with God playing a role in the process. ... A mere 16 percent of respondents subscribed to the belief of "secular evolution

Consider the following passage from Feynman's Cargo Cult Science:

Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that
kind of a disease.

I think Feynman was optimistic, in the last sentence...

Galileo's publications on the heliocentric model were censored by the church. Even around this time, people used passages from the Bible to argue that the earth was flat and immovable. These are the same passages that are used by the Flat Earth believers, which I'm sure you've seen already.

By the way, "scientific" observation (pre-classical greek scientists, indian scientists (200s?), somewhat recent chinese scientists {1600s?}, etc) has been used to explain that the earth is flat too. Poor instruments (human eyes), poor observations (ground level), poor model (earth far larger than assumed), ...

Yes, and our knowledge was updated when it was proven wrong. It's a contrast to the unchanging word of god which requires 'interpretation' for it to make sense.

The fact that god has not returned to clarify things now that we have a greater level of sophistication says nothing. My understanding is that he is more of a scorekeeper right now, not an active player.

What is your understanding of god acting as a scorekeeper based on? Scorekeeper of what, anyway?

Besides, what is the necessity, we are learning to figure it out. Perhaps that is part of the plan, our evolution? :-)

What was the necessity of god to speak in metaphor to the sheep herder about universal mechanics? It would have been much more useful for him to tell the sheep herder how to better care for his sheep! :P

When you start interpreting parts of the Bible to mean different things, you start abstracting the base of your faith. This allows you to extend the ideas of that god beyond what the holy book actually says and start making interpretations about god's personality, behavior, actions, and supposed plans for humanity. A lot of these things that you've mentioned, from him acting as a scorekeeper for some divine plan for us to him whispering truths about the universe in metaphor to a shepherd, are vague because they're based on that abstraction. You can't justify these particular beliefs of yours with passages in context, so they have to be invented through the 'interpretation'. This is something that god himself warns about; this passage is used by many different Christians to show that those who change the meaning of the Bible will be punished personally by their god.

History is littered with scientists who make mistakes, like Prof. Nageli dismissing Mendel's papers on inheritance with the comment "Too empirical, not rational enough!". Another case is described by Feynman in Cargo Cult Science:

Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.

If your scientific model predicts something specific regarding increased human CO2 emissions, and the resultant average atmospheric temperature over a specific period of time, and gives us some error bars, what are you going to say when reality diverges from your predictions? Will you abandon your model entirely, or insist on a never ending stream of ad hoc special pleadings?

Global Climate Models are based upon known physics, so no, if in the future the models diverge from prediction, as they have not done so far, scientists will not say, "Well, I guess we were wrong about the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, so we'll throw those out and start over." Rather, if discrepancies are found, the models will be improved to model the underlying physics with greater accuracy and detail.

You're completely misunderstanding the null hypothesis - it is not the "no change" hypothesis. Let's say you have a hypothesis "smoking causes lung cancer". The null hypothesis is not "there is no change in smoking" or "there is no change in lung cancer". The null hypothesis is "there is no causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer".

Don't try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs. You are engaging in what Richard Feynman referred to as "cargo cult science", trying to sound "sciencey" and gain credibility by using scientific jargon the you don't understand. But these scientific terms have actual meanings. "Null hypothesis" has a very specific and unambiguous meaning in science--it is the hypothesis of "no change" or "zero difference." That's what the word "null" in "null hypothesis" means: zero. So the null hypothesis with respect to smoking and cancer is: "there is zero difference in the incidence of cancer between smokers and nonsmokers." Note that there is no mention of "cause." The concept of "null hypothesis" belongs exclusively to statistics, which does not address causality. Thus, any statement with the word "cause" in it cannot be a null hypothesis.

As Feynman writes, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool." Scientific disciplines such as mathematical modeling and statistics were developed to help scientists protect themselves against the natural human vulnerability to wishful thinking and self-deception.

You are also mistaken in imagining that "GCM models which start with the assumption that CO2 drives global average temperature." In fact, GCMs start out by simulating the basic underlying physics. The conclusion that increasing CO2 would result in an increase in temperature was a prediction of these models, not a starting assumption. And in fact, the models indicate that many things can drive changes in global average temperature: changes in the earth's orbit, changes in other greenhouse gasses, changes in the sun's energy output. At this point, scientists have had to step away from the models and look at the real world to see what is actually changing: the earth's orbit hasn't changed; other greenhouse gasses have not increased enough to account for the warming; the sun's output hasn't changed; ENSO/PD has been around for a long time--there is no evidence that it has changed (even if there were some plausible mechanism whereby it could produce long-term warming, which there isn't).

Prove me wrong by succinctly stating what observations of CO2 and global average temperature, over any time period you'd like to specify, would overturn the assumption that CO2 drive global average temperature.

The models predicted the modern warming before it happened. But of course, one can always say, "That's not good enough, what if it stops warming tomorrow, and the temperatures 100 years from now are the same as today?" Similarly, one could be a gravity skeptic, and say "What if objects stopped falling tomorrow? Wouldn't that disprove gravity?" And I suppose it would-

that the earth was a flat disc hanging from some sort of object despite the fact the Bible says the very opposite!

Sorry to burst your bubble but the entire flat earth belief system is based on the Bible:

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

Additionally, Isaiah 40:22 says circular not round. They have completely different meanings hence my reference to flat disc. The Bible also says numerous times the Earth is in a fixed position, another fallacy.

I've never heard of this belief before so I can't say much on it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative

I'd have to research this further to be sure but I would figure that an "ice age" would have similar effects on earth's geology as a world wide deluge.

To be forthright, I'm no geologist but it's hard to imagine how a flood and ice age would cause identical let alone similar geological changes. They are very different phenomena. Not much need for an ark for an ice age either. What's more, if such an ark and loading of it were a true event the design, building, and logistical feat of it would by far dwarf anything mankind has accomplished since. This includes any space stations, landing on the moon, or any other engineering feat in modern history. A person capable of believing such a story without a shred of good evidence is capable of believing anything and it doesn't say much good about them.

a good example might be the practice of blood letting or the idea of the four temperaments

These aren't good examples because they aren't science and neither is shamanism. Pre-scientific endeavors to solve the mysteries of nature may or may not be true, but they simply aren't science. Perhaps a better example of your intended point would be something like string theory, but then I would say that isn't science either because it's untestable at this point. Do you have a real example of a currently generally accepted scientific theory you claim is false? I know some who doubt electromagnetism, yet they refuse to touch nodes of high current when offered.

These types of arguments of "remain skeptical of science" always seem so absurd to me coming from the religious. Of course I'm skeptical of science, but science has offered evidence and proof whereas religion has offered none after thousands of years of trying.

Man made Climate Change is the biggest scam in history.

If it's man made who the heck are we affecting every planet in our solar system also?????

I really love the way it is possible nowadays to instantly find the answer to that, which you must have known about but you didn't bother to list here. It's an excellent illustration of exactly what this case is about. Scientific truth requires you not just to not just mention your own evidence but also explain away the evidence on the other side. Probably you guys need to start reading things by Feynman. Here's one to start you. Have a look at how the article I referenced not only points out your statement is wrong (Mars and Jupiter are not warming) but then goes on to address in detail the evidence behind your claim (the warming on other planets is explainable by other means).

However the difference is, slashdot posters don't have science as part of their job title. That's why you don't need to resign and the guy who's running the journal should. When he decided to take on something outside his area he had an extra duty to be sure he had consulted the areas experts. Probably he did his best and he failed deeply. If he continues on as the journal's editor then people will have difficulty believing the other articles in the journal have been correctly verified.

How can I be upset that the EPA wants to tie up companies in "red tape" when this is happening in our country? Why don't the solar companies get the same red tape? Oh, right, they don't produce a byproduct that is often dumped in nearby water. I'm sure the site of solar panel farms suffers the same environmental scrutiny that your poor "hobbled" coal and nuclear power facilities face. It's just that the byproducts and environmental effects appear to be okay for local residents.

I doubt the local Chinese residents are all that happy with it, but their government won't let them talk about it.

Remember NIMBY is the same as OITBY (only in their back yard).

You can't even get a permit let a lone build a nuclear or coal power plant because of EPA regulations and red tape.

You're not going to hear much sympathy from me. I've been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, I've seen what natural water should look like. By my own first hand account, there is none of that on the East Coast.

So let's see here, after some shallow checking on Google News we have: Frack water to be dumped in Niagara Falls, the EPA has been completely ignoring Anacostia River pollution and the dead zone in the Chesapeake is growing. And that's just news from the last couple of days. How can I be upset that the EPA wants to tie up companies in "red tape" when this is happening in our country? Why don't the solar companies get the same red tape? Oh, right, they don't produce a byproduct that is often dumped in nearby water. I'm sure the site of solar panel farms suffers the same environmental scrutiny that your poor "hobbled" coal and nuclear power facilities face. It's just that the byproducts and environmental effects appear to be okay for local residents.

It's like watching a race between two people running and one person get's hit by a car every third step they take and acting surprised the other runner is doing so well. It's a rigged race and the desired outcome shouldn't be a huge surprise.

The way I see it, is it's more like two people racing and one person pouring crude oil along the entire race path and then sliding on it with a sled and beating the person that's trying to run through it. Meanwhile the people who live near the race track are drinking shit in their water. Think I'm making that up? Go ask the residents of West Virginia who get to watch their entire state terraformed into slag. PA's natural gas boon could result in the same thing if we don't have that evil evil evil "red tape."

I'm not the original author, but you can see some of the arguments flat-earthers used here: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

The Bible is full of references to a flat earth.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/1flat90.html

The overwhelming majority of human progress has come from people who were or are highly religious.

That's because it took us 5,000 years of civilization to grow past our need to attribute everything we didn't understand to a mysterious power. Today we actually have the cognitive fortitude to admit our ignorance and lack of imagination. Those evolved among us do anyway.

Your "deeply-held belief", which is undoubtedly simply a circumstance of conceptive chance, rather than a profound understanding of theology and introspection, is not shared by a statistically significant number of modern scientists. So this silly claim you parroted (made up by far more intelligent religious hacks, good job crediting them by the way) proving religious belief has anything to do with scientific endeavor is plainly bullshit.

But go right ahead. Continue to take the coward's way out and claim that some deity is responsible for your mental failures if that helps you look in the mirror. Just do us a favor and quit trying to rewritite history as well.

Nice try, I'll give it that.

But there are about 10 dozen reasons why this can be considered fake, and that the real motive behind the video is to try and brainwash the public into thinking the Earth is round.

Like as if. For those who are still in denial, this is what would happen if the Earth was round:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/flat/rounwrld.jpg

Well, this PROUD flat-earther will NOT BUDGE.

Thanks for playing.

I don't know if administratium undergoes fusion or fission, but it's worth a try

I'm a (professional) synthetic chemist who occasionally dabbles in the fields of pharmacology and microbiology. I know the molecular principles behind events such as protein functionality, nerve transmission, photosynthesis and other life-y things and it scares the CRAP out of me how complex and fast it is. We each of us are an entire world of kludged complexity, relying on subtle edge effects to effect thought on a timescale unimaginably slow compared to the bustle of our atoms. If a molecular interaction was two cogs turning together, each human being would be a rube goldberg machine ten light-minutes across, that took a million years just to decide whether to order a starter or not.

I also believe in a Biblical God who knows all of this, and knows how it works together, and who KNOWS MY NAME AND LOVES ME. You think I was awed before? I'm devoting my life to the study of his works, and I will never ever understand even the tiniest fraction of the possible complexity.

Less anecdotally, I agree that pseudo-science is rife, see Feynman's essay on cargo cult science. Most people don't understand you need to go out of your way to try and prove yourself wrong first.

Yes, actually, I have read it; also with the Screwtape Letters. I can't stomach the Narnia series, though.

Lewis' argument boils down to "Christianity is true because it provides a moral code and is pleasing." I don't believe that to be a valid criterion for truth. Furthermore, what pleases Lewis may not please me.

The Bible told us the earth was round, then science eventually reached the same conclusion.

The bible actually specifies a flat earth, and it takes quite a bit of wiggling to interpret it otherwise.

The Bible told us to have stable marriages and families, now we realize that telling kids they can have all the sex they want with no consequences isn't *quite* the best idea.

The bible told men they must impregnate their brother's widows or face death, too. Furthermore, I don't know anyone who is in favor of telling kids that sexual intercourse comes without consequences. Also, the bible says to circumcise your kids, and we know now that there is no reason to do so.

After thinking about it. Logically! I have decided that reason is the best way to determine what to do, not consulting a bunch of stories told by a gang of illiterates who have been dead for two millennia.

When will the conspiracy end!

Read my reply above, then go read Dr. Richard Feynman's speech entitled "CARGO CULT SCIENCE" and then tell me if you still think there didn't need to be a third group. Because the point isn't what they wanted to test, the point is they weren't testing all the relevant aspects of the situation in order to have a meaningful conclusion.

All together, the evidence for magnetic monopoles "is now overwhelming", says Steve Bramwell, a materials scientist at University College London and author on one of the Science papers and one of the arXiv papers. ...

Even without directly seeing one, Bramwell says that he is certain that the monopoles are there. "I don't think anybody could question it after this flurry of papers," he says.

This mentality is a good example of what Joel Spolsky calls fire and motion. You just keep moving, keep publishing, keep innovating, and your opponent is so busy trying to catch up or deal with your earlier work that you gain huge momentum. Sometimes unstoppable momentum. People just can't deal with the information overload.

When the crystals are chilled to near absolute zero, they seem to fill with tiny single points of north and south. The points are less than a nanometre apart, and cannot be measured directly. Nevertheless, Morris and other physicists believe they are there.

For 30 years, physicists have believed that the universe is made up of tiny vibrating dimensional strings which only they are clever enough to understand. A fine idea, except it turns out not even they are clever enough after all. Nevertheless, they persist in this belief because the mathematics is beautiful. Likewise, many physicists persist in their belief in magnetic monopoles because the concept is beautiful, or some other such rubbish. Look! It even makes Maxwell's equations symmetric. So what? What's so important about having symmetric equations. Unsymmetrical ones are so much more interesting!

There's only one arbiter in physics, and science in general. It isn't a "flurry of papers". It isn't "beauty" or "symmetry" or "elegance" or "coolness". It isn't how many people agree with your viewpoint. It isn't how many journalists you can get to print words like "overwhealming evidence" in headlines. It isn't how much "supporting (online) material" you can find to back you.

The one, only, and final arbiter is the experiment. An honest to gods experiment. It finds things. It separates truth from fiction. You can try to twist the meaning of the result this way and that, throw back the grenade and carry on with your fire and motion, but in the end the results of all those experiments will finally weigh down your dishonesty and halt your advance.

There are no magnetic monopoles. You can try to separate north and south pole. You can even construct models of "magnetic charge" and dipoles if you like. But in the end, you can't get a north pole without having a corresponding south pole, very, very close by.

Modern science, and worst of all physics, is in a deplorable state. Cargo cult scientists,frauds, charlatans, fakes, and deluded true believers(Yes I'm serious about that last link) have saturated certainly the media circuit, but I fear many physics departments as well. Sensationalism and media attention are now as never before, deciding what the "consensus"* in science should be. It's disheartening to see the world lose its faith in the method of observation, hypothesis, experiment and above all skepticism that has served it so well for so many centuries.

P.S.
*Before the cranks jump in; No, I do not in fact, doubt the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Not very many scientists are religious: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm Those that are do have a problem, they just choose to ignore it.

First, the National Academy of Sciences self-selects its members. I'd say that there's a good chance that a feedback loop could form that builds in a bias as to who gets in.

Second, I'd lay odds that most of the religious folks who are actually part of NAS (where the survey was taken) probably didn't bother to return their ballots. Basically they would be thinking "what business is it of yours what I believe?".

The survey has been discussed quite a bit, and it's been mentioned that it's not worth much.

Not very many scientists are religious: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm Those that are do have a problem, they just choose to ignore it.

But they just obtained it, isn't it ?!? I would second administratium , but they found too much protons

Idunno, you'd have to ask the manufacturer

It's probably going to generate extremely toxic dihydrogen monoxyde and diamonds. Greedy corporate bastards will get all the bling and we chumps will drink a known poison.

BAN DHMO!

This very subject was addressed, very eloquently as usual, by Richard Feynman in his famous Cargo Cult Science lecture.

Many scientists apparently (really good scientists who are peer-reviewed and everything, not necessarily the creation science/ID folks) tend to more often than not believe in a creator of some sort.

Really? A quick Google search seems to contradict that, but maybe you have some sources to point to?

Not that it really matters. Just because someone who is really smart believes something blindly doesn't mean that he is right. Really smart people can be really stupid in many ways. Just look at how geeks who excel at computers are often less than comfortable interacting with other people. Should you have a geek with social phobia tell you how to interact with other people because he's extremely good at programming?

Why is it dogmatic reactionary A-Theists get so shrill when someone might be open to the possibility of, or find comfort in the practice of a belief

Well first of all, there are no dogmas in atheism. Atheism is not an ideology, but describes the lack of faith in God. Atheism has no rules, no holy books, scriptures, characters, powers, or anything like that. There are no dogmas to accept.

But anyway, I don't know what atheists you are referring to. Atheists can get rather peeved with religious people who try to force their religion down their throats, though.

You fools, you are all wrong. The truth is that we live IN the hollow earth!

3) science works the way the peer community thinks it should -that is science-. And right now the community accepts this behavior.

I subscribe to Richard Feynman's idea of scientific integrity, which I suppose is why I don't fit into the "peer community."

Quoth Feynman:

It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

You say no one is lying. Maybe so, but it seems very common, especially in "science by press release," to be quite selective with the truth.

Ever look into Gyrogenerators? So evil! Have to have one!

You need to rent Around The World In 80 Days - not the fictional movie(s), the A&E documentary with Michael Palin.

Sure, tell me another one.

according to this http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/solarsys.htm apparently quite a few...

Mercury: Doesn't do any good, and you can't see it.
Venus: Environmentalist can use to show clobal warming gone wild.
Uranus: Too many gas-planets.
Neptune: Another unnessecary gas planet.
Pluto: (Already dealt with).

The keepers are:
Earth: For obious reasons (Unless you go for the Red Dwarf solution).
Mars: Too much money spent to get rid of.
Jupiter: It's so big.
Saturn: Those nice rings everyone loves.

So the real question is which one they decided to keep...

There are innumerable "free energy machines" in the public domain for you to have a gander at; won't do you much good...

Reminds me of this device, which took me a while to find the problem (it wasn't until I tried to mentally trace where the field lines would go that I saw the flaw).

Getting past the ad-heavy blogodreck, the company's actual web site is Steorn. There is a critical Wikipedia article on Steorn. The company has been making noises about this since last year.

Steorn says they can't patent the thing, and that's why they're so secretive, but the USPTO takes the position that perpetual motion machines are patentable. All they ask is a working model. Their official position is: "With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device."

There have been some good fake perpetual motion machines. David Jones, who wrote as "Daedalus", for New Scientist, had a bicycle wheel on a stand which rotated endlessly with no visible source of power back in the 1990s. This was a really good demo. It was stolen from its display by some students, who returned it embarrassed that they couldn't figure out how it worked. It continued to rotate while they had it. One of his machines is at the Vienna Science Museum, still turning.

....why shouldn't we let nature decide what is best for us.

I fount some reasons and I hope they may sway you.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sciquote.htm

Arguments against seeking knowledge........

A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
        Alexander Smith

Every honest researcher I know admits he's just a professional amateur. He's doing whatever he's doing for the first time. That makes him an amateur. He has sense enough to know that he's going to have a lot of trouble, so that makes him a professional.
        Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958) U. S. Engineer and Inventor.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot. -Albert Einstein

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. - Albert Einstein

  Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. -Albert Einstein

But I am swayed by the arguments for pursuit of science.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
        Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher, mathematician. ... the scientist would maintain that knowledge in of itself is wholly good, and that there should be and are methods of dealing with misuses of knowledge by the ruffian or the bully other than by suppressing the knowledge.
        Percy Williams Bridgman (1882-1961) U. S. physicist, Nobel Prize, 1946.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night,
God said: "Let Newton be!", and all was light.
        Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.
        Sherlock Holmes, the fictional creation of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British physician and novelist.

  One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have. -Albert Einstein

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.
        Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) French mathematician.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night,
God said: "Let Newton be!", and all was light.
        Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet.

The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.
        Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) English biologist.

0. "No one now living will die" -Jesus circa 30AD
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; --John 11:25, meaning Lazerus died, and is alive now alive because of Jesus.

and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"-- John 11:26, meaning that if you are still alive and believe in jesus you won't die in the first place.

The meaning of this passage was changed when Jesus and a bunch of his buddies DID die, and now is taken to mean 'spiritual life' vs 'physical life'. But the meaning is clear if you don't base your reading on the assumption that Jesus is always right.

1. Earth is flat, assumed to be true in the bible.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm
Isaiah 11:12
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. (KJV)

Revelation 7:1
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. (KJV)

Job 38:13
13 That it might take hold of the ENDS OF THE EARTH, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? (KJV)

Jeremiah 16:19
19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ENDS OF THE EARTH, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. (KJV)

Daniel 4:11
11 The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the ENDS OF ALL THE EARTH: (KJV)

Matthew 4:8
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; (KJV)

2. Sun revolves around earth
How can you deny this one? Galileo was threatened with burning at the stake, by your 'spiritual leaders' of the day, for busting this myth. Christians believed the bible told them that the Sun went around the earth when that was 'common knowledge' and once that was proven wrong they re-read the bible and now they claim that it says the earth moves around the sun. How convenient.

Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth." (Heb. 1:10)
"He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter, forever and ever." (Ps. 104:5)
"For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on them." (I Sam. 2:8)

3. Animals/Woman created AFTER man
You got me here, the bible does say god created animals before man. It also says that woman was created out of a rib and that man was created whole, in his present form, without ancestors, out of dirt. Huzzah for magical superpowers.

4. Animals created whole in current form
Genesis clearly states that the animals were created in the first week. Trying to sneak in arguments like "But it could have meant God evolved the animals" or other twaddle is just an attempt to make the bibles nonsense relevant in the face of being proven wrong. If that's what the bible 'means', why didn't anybody figure it out before darwin? If this isn't in the bible, why do the fundies insist on teaching it in school? Or is this the beginning of yet another GREAT WEASELING by christians to change the bible to fit what science has proven instead of old wives tales and superstition?

Job tells us that God is above "the circle of the Earth" and the "earth is suspended upon nothing".

It is a miracle that NONE, not one of the ancient wrong beliefs about scientific FACTS can be found in the original texts of the Bible. Interpretations of both science and the Bible have often conflicted however. There is no reason to correct the Bible because it is free of error

There is no reason to correct the Bible because it is free of error. Any so called errors are either mistranslation or just plain old-fashioned unbelief of things beyond the human understanding.

Because we are not God, the only alternative left is to believe, or of course, as you seem to have chosen, not to.

See this.

Glad to take the fun out it.

See Mark Twain's example of the dangers of extrapolation.

1. Ten percent of all car thieves are left-handed.
2. All polar bears are left-handed.
3. If your car is stolen, there's a 10 percent chance it was taken by a polar bear.

Since the NSA has a patent [purdue.edu] on a technique I think it's a little more than theory

Unfortunately, the Patent Office is not exactly the gateway of quality you seem to think it is. Here's a link to Patents for Unworkable Devices, featuring a dozen perpetual motion machines that have slipped through the Patent Office's "no perpetual motion machines" rule. Lest you think this is ancient stuff, one of the most recent patents was granted in 2002.

Just because the NSA has patented a recovery device doesn't mean they can recover your data. They may just want people to believe they can recover your data. (Before I get flamed, yes, I believe this is a valid patent for a working device. I'm just pointing out it doesn't have to be.)

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hell.htm

Now this means we can't equate Dell with Hell in terms of heat output?

Yeah, but it's still colder than heaven.

Well, we all know how useful extrapolation is for predicting events.

could you explain how the magnetic flux of a permanent magnet retains the same strength over time

The gravitational attraction of a given mass of matter also remains constant over time (proton decay notwithstanding), but I would also ridicule any PMM based on known gravitational forces.

Keeping an open mind does not preclude rejecting extraordinary claims (unless there is correspondingly extraordinary evidence, which is clearly lacking here).

Be careful what you dismiss as pseudoscience

Good advice indeed -- but given that the inventor claims something that has never been demonstrated in a reliable or repeatable way, and has huge reams of both experimental and theoretical evidence against it, and has furthermore been repeatedly used in hoaxes and frauds over the years...

May I suggest easily-google-able sites detailing the unworkability of PMM's in general, and electromagnetically-based ones in particular:

http://www.phact.org/e/z/freewire.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion_mach ine
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm
http://www.kilty.com/pmotion.htm
http://www.phact.org/e/dennis4.html
http://burtleburtle.net/bob/physics/whythere.html
http://commons.bcit.ca/physics/rjw/pmm/text/em_pmm s.htm

As a liberal Christian, I have a certain passionate hatred for creationism. I despise creationism because it makes Christians look like a bunch of narrow-minded idiots. For example, I was reading in a Christian newspaper an article about the ICR, which stated the earth was young, and cited four reasons for this. All four reasons [1] have been long-since refuted over at Talkorigins.org or the Evolution Wiki. I was able to refute three of the four points off of the top of my head.

I have seen creationist after creationist come to this Creation-Evolution debate board I lurk on, tell us the Earth must be young because of XXX and that we are all wrong. Once we present to them some scientific evidence that the Earth is old, they get real quiet real fast.

Basically, believing in an old Earth is only possible when a creationist is in a serious state of denial. Case in point: The only people who believe in a young Earth have a religious reason for doing so. Many Christians believe in an old Earth; not one atheist believes in a young Earth.

[1] The original offending article can be seen here. The refutations can be found here (just because you can come up with one case where we got different dates doesn't mean the 99+% of cases where we get the same age via different techniques is invalid) here, here, and here (the refutation is for creationist claims for c14 levels in coals, but the process in question can make diamonds have c14 atoms also).