Slashdot Mirror
New Theory Challenges Need For Dark Matter
New submitter elsurexiste writes "An Italian Physicist came up with a strange way to explain anomalous galactic rotations without dark matter, instead relying on the gravitational effects of faraway matter. The article explains, 'Conceptually the idea makes little sense. Positioning gravitationally significant mass outside of the orbit of stars might draw them out into wider orbits, but it’s difficult to see why this would add to their orbital velocity. Drawing an object into a wider orbit should result in it taking longer to orbit the galaxy since it will have more circumference to cover. What we generally see in spiral galaxies is that the outer stars orbit the galaxy within much the same time period as more inward stars. But although the proposed mechanism seems a little implausible, what is remarkable about Carati’s claim is that the math apparently deliver galactic rotation curves that closely fit the observed values of at least four known galaxies. Indeed, the math delivers an extraordinarily close fit.' As usual, these are extraordinary claims that divert from the consensus, so keep a healthy skepticism. The paper is available at the arXiv (PDF)."
I'm sorry, but "gravitational effects" won't sell popsci books. For the sake of our royalties, let's stick to dark matter.
faster than light neutrino measurements?
revolutionary-yet-pseudo-sciency sources of energy?
and now dark matter challenges?
coincidence or what?
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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I'm envious of anyone who actually understands anything the summary is talking about.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Also there was that Galileo guy too.
(Must be all the espresso they're always drinking.)
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Does this explain the gravitational lensing in the Bullet Cluster?
This is the kind of theory that could have be viable prior to August 2006. When the gravity isn't pointing towards the baryonic matter, we have to postulate that there's some dark matter for the gravity to point to. Or, as Sean Carroll put it
The name "gravity" is prejudicial as it presupposes a connection between the alleged force and weight! "Intelligent Falling" is the preferred term.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Yet another MOND which doesn't explain the Bullet Cluster and gravitational lensing curves.
It's called Intelligent falling.
Isn't this basically the same effect that creates the L1 point?
Well, THIS religious nutbar subscribes to the theory that gravity is really just the love felt between particles: just as absence makes the heart grow fonder, distance increases this attractive force, resulting in increased orbital velocities of stars.
Love makes the galaxy go 'round.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Your troll is about as insightful and useful as a First Post! or a Goatse.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
Disclaimer: I do experimental searches for dark matter for a living, so I may be biased in my judgement of these types of papers that crop up so often. There was a similar paper a few weeks ago from someone claiming that quantum vacuum polarization could account for dark matter PhysOrg link.
The issue with both of these explanations, is that they only address galactic rotation curves. Those are among the first and easiest to explain indications of the need for something like dark matter, but are not the strongest by a long shot. For instance, this guy's explanation can't explain things like the famous Bullet cluster , nor can they explain the evolution of structure formation or the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background which, in the field, are considered much stronger constraints.
The Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theory of cosmology fits all of the astrophysical measurements reasonably well, and has a nice tie-in to supersymmetric particle physics, which is one of the current leading theories. No one in the field will take any new theory seriously until it can reproduce ALL the phenomena at least as well as the current model (which of course is exactly how the scientific process is supposed to work!)
This is based on Einstein's field equation using perturbation theory to construct a solution for the examined case.
My bet is on general relativity once again delivering the goods. Quite a strike against the case for dark matter.
I remember reading some time ago that gravity isn't a pull, but a pushing effect. Essentially, gravity is a macro version of the Casimir effect.
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I don't understand why this theory is "implausible" and why the article is so dismissive of it. Dark Matter was created for the sole purpose of explaining the orbital momentum of stars. There is NO other evidence for it.
There is lot of other evidence for non-baryonic Dark Matter:
* Lack of MACHO gravitational lensing
* Existence of unexpected gravitational lensing in Bullet Cluster.
* CMBR measurements
* and more.
It isn't hard to modify equations to match the galaxy rotation curves, and if that was the only evidence for dark matter it wouldn't be so strongly favored.
Seriously, is that the most you can add to the conversation is a cheap shot at religion?
It wasn't a shot at religion, it was a shot at religious fanaticism. There's a difference, and pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best.
I will agree that if such a claim is made it should be picked apart but can we just hold off the hostilities until it happens? For once?
Hostilities were opened a long time ago. Your objection makes as much sense as saying to the captain of a US Navy ship, "I agree that if that Japanese ship over there shoots at us, we should blow them out of the water, but can we just hold off the hostilities until in happens?" in 1943.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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This. I think the author of the article is actually using dismissiveness as a device to disarm people. If he downplays it people perhaps won't feel as threatened. "It's crazy" but maybe it's true.
I would like some confirmation though that there really is NO other evidence of dark matter.
Perhaps even if this theory doesn't stand the test of time, it will highlight the actual reasons dark matter has grown to become so accepted in our understanding of galactic mechanics.
Dark Matter was created for the sole purpose of explaining the orbital momentum of stars. There is NO other evidence for it.
As it happens, the post immediately above yours indicates otherwise; there's a lot of other evidence for it, or at least, there are a lot of other observations which fit nicely with the theory. Be careful about saying "there's no evidence" or "there's no other evidence" about pretty much anything in science, really -- there is so much new data coming in all the time that there's a good chance you're wrong.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Downloaded twice. Got an adobe error half way through the article.
that is expanding away from the center of the big bang explosion
There is no such thing as the center of the big bang. Until you at least understand that, perhaps you shouldn't waste your time coming up with cosmology theories.
"His name was James Damore."
Translation: "I'm not bright enough to think about orbital dynamics, so I'll just try to start an offtopic religion-bashing troll thread instead."
There is NO other evidence for it. So an entire new classification of matter that no one has ever (or can ever) seen, felt, or observed was created to satisfy this one anomaly. And yet, this is the industry standard, that 90% of all matter must be Dark Matter just because someone screwed up when calculating orbital momentum.
What's more implausible, that 90% of matter is something that we'll never observe except, conveniently, through the orbital momentum of stars, or that galaxies have a noticeable gravitational pull on objects in nearby galaxies over billions of years?
Which one is it? Also, the guy below beat me to the observations.
-Bucky
Granted, I don't know anything about physics so my comment is probably unwanted and useless; however.
I just want to say- what little I do know, I've always disliked dark-matter. It always seemed to be a case of "we can't explain 'x' - so let's claim there is dark-matter and that will make our hypothesis match what we observe."
OK, it's more than just that- and from people way more knowledgable than me; however, I've always wondered if it was just a stop-gap explanation that would one day be disproven. (which it hasn't been yet).
I'm grabbing my pop-corn, turning on physics Pay Per View and cheering on the anti-dark matter brigade in this fight. I'm hoping dark-matter turns out to be false. Not that I'm matterracist.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Indeed, stupid scientists made a big complicated theory about forces proportional to masses and then after doing experiments and finding that things fall the same regardless of mass, they cover up their error by adding even more factors!
Occam's Razor requires us to believe that stuff all falls at the same rate because God decided that was the best rate.
Why this rate? When God created the world, He made the rate of fall exactly enough that we could walk on two legs, while all Lower creatures cannot because the Falling Speed is not tuned for them. If Falling was even slightly slower or faster, your feet would hit the ground out-of-step and would not be able to walk - co-incidence? No, proof that God made the world for Man.
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.
-Niels Bohr
Just show the math and how it correctly models modern astronomical data.
I'll give you a hint, it doesn't even come close.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I don't understand why this theory is "implausible" and why the article is so dismissive of it. Dark Matter was created for the sole purpose of explaining the orbital momentum of stars. There is NO other evidence for it.
False. So completely and entirely false that I really can't see you being anything other than a troll, but on the theory that sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from malice, I'll point out what several others have already done above: the Bullet Cluster, various details of the CMB, and at various aspects of large-scale structure in galaxy clusters, up to and including the closure of the universe itself, are all evidence for Dark Matter of various kinds.
So all you've done here is declare, "I am completely ignorant of almost all of observational cosmology and THIS is my opinion on Dark Matter..."
After reading the first half of that sentence no one who knows anything about Dark Matter is going to be the least bit interested in what you have to say in the second half.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I am in the same boat as you.
Dark matter always sounded too far fetched for me.
The same is true for superstring theory.. it's not something I can get behind.
Maybe I have just contemplated the presence of a void for too long.
Science is not made by consensus, it is made by logic, mathematics, experiment, and observable facts. If you cannot provide clear, correct, and reproducible experiments and math, you aren't doing science.
There is no "consensus on dark matter", since nobody knows what causes galactic rotation to be the way it is. Any ideas of what dark matter might be at this point is just guesswork. You are entitled to your preferences, but just because a lot of people have certain preferences doesn't make those preferences "science".
This wrong-headed notion of a "consensus" in science has increasingly polluted science. I think it started with soft sciences like sociology and climatology, both of which lack simple, reproducible experiments, well-defined theories, and mathematical theories. Instead of providing those, "scientists" with political agendas then just ended up saying to politicians "we can't really prove it, but we are the experts; believe us". From there, this has spread to other sciences, including, sadly, physics.
Yes. ANY Coffee in America is overroasted dog shit
You jest, but
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal#First_Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal.2C_November_13
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Remember this story on Slashdot from 2005?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/05/10/10/1052224/good-bye-dark-matter-hello-general-relativity
"The CERN newsletter reports that a new paper by scientists at the University of Victoria has demonstrated that one of the prime observational justifications for the existence of dark matter can be explained without any dark matter at all, by a proper use of general relativity! What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?"
Impressive sounding claims that raised a big hoo-ha on Slashdot (and are echoed in similar replies to this story), until it was pointed out that the equations contained a mistake, such that the galaxy they modeled behaved as if it had a disk-shaped singularity embedded in it. A mistake that accounted for the observed effects in the model.
This sort of physics paper is exactly the type of preliminary result that needs to be mulled over before it front-page attention. It's pretty close to being flame-bait (and thus just ends up making everyone look stupid, except for the handful of physics experts who knew what they were talking about).
When God created the world, He made the rate of fall exactly enough that we could walk on two legs, while all Lower creatures cannot because the Falling Speed is not tuned for them. If Falling was even slightly slower or faster, your feet would hit the ground out-of-step and would not be able to walk - co-incidence? No, proof that God made the world for Man.
Finally the long awaited proof that Ostriches are the work of the devil!
The factors in an orbit : the current velocity body, and the force acting on it (and how that velocity and force change over time). If the velocity is perpendicular to the centre of mass, and if force is just right, the body will orbit in a circle. If it is too strong, it will fall in on an elliptical orbit, and if it is too weak or the object is moving too fast then it will fall outwards on an elliptical orbit or hyperbolic escape arc.
So, presumably we know the velocity of the stars at a particular distance out, but our calculations say that at that speed they should not be in a stable orbit at that radius.
Firstly, who says that they *are* in a stable, near-circular orbit? If they are already in elliptical orbits, then they will mostly be going faster than they would if they were in a circular orbit at that position.
What do we know about the velocity of the stars? Do we just know their speed? Do stars weave about as they go around the galaxy, caught in a complex dance with all the neighbouring stars? Could this account for faster apparent motion than a simple orbit around the galaxy?
What about relativity? Half the mass of the galaxy is 30,000 light years away, does that mean that its gravitational influence has to take into account this 30,000 year time delay in the gravitational influence reaching us? If you figure out the gravitational effect of the galactic core based on where we were 30,000 years ago, does that change the force vector? Or, am I just being simple-minded in thinking of gravity travelling like that?
I'm guessing your god knows how to lose weight fast?
Galaxy rotation is only one of several phenomena that dark matter is needed to explain. In fact MOND does a better job, if that's *all* you want to explain. But it completely strikes out as an explanation for the other stuff.
If this only addresses rotation curves, it will strike out too. Are the authors so ill-informed that they are unaware of this?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There are couple of experiments out there waiting for dark matter particles to directly collide with ordinary matter and trigger a piezo-electric charge certain ordinary matter setups. These collision are predicted extremely rare due the emptiness of ordinary matter. Soem of the experiments claim to have detected some such collision already.
Uhm... the big bang wasn't an explosion. Space itself is expanding: there's nothing for a shock wave to pass through.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Dark Matter was created for the sole purpose of explaining the orbital momentum of stars. There is NO other evidence for it.
Actually that is *not* the only reason the dark matter hypothesis exists.
And even if it was the only anomaly that needed explaining, it still *would* need explaining.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So if the "expected galactic rotation curve" is based on Keplers laws then we have a problem. My own calculations do not support a decline in velocity with radius based on simple newtonian gravity. Every time I google the topic Keplers laws come up, which simply do not apply to stars in a galaxy. Is this reliance on Kepler real, or does everyone dumb it down by referencing something we all learned in first year physics?
If someone told me they pray to the tooth fairy, I'd smile and hope that it brings them peace and happiness. There are a lot of atheists here that could use a deity to teach them not to be an asshole.
what if it makes them miserable? would that make the tooth fairy less real?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
It wasn't a shot at religion, it was a shot at religious fanaticism. There's a difference, and pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best.
What is the difference?
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Athiesm takes as much of a leap of faith as belief in a diety or dieties.
In exactly as much as Russel's Teapot does as well.
I am willing to take the leap of faith that proclaims... THERE IS NO TEAPOT!
Occam's Razor requires us to believe
Or what? He'll cut us?
what if it makes them miserable? would that make the tooth fairy less real?
Does it matter?
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
uhm... I think his point was that fighting started BEFORE 1943.
I think you were agreeing with him?
No quite sure....
What if it makes *YOU* miserable?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Does it matter?
Only if it's dark.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
It was meant as an example of just that sort of confusion. The American commander let the Japanese come right up to them, had all the advantages, then let the Japanese shoot first.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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Odd how the fanatical, radical athiests get away with trolling so easily, and sometimes get modded up. Athiesm takes as much of a leap of faith as belief in a diety or dieties.
That's "deity". And atheism requires no leap of faith. Just the opposite, it's a lack of faith in things which require faith.
More if you've actually experienced a diety.
Nobody has. Yes, I know you'll probably claim you have, but I don't believe you. Religious nutters always love to talk about how their relationship with god has transformed them, but on closer examination the supposed relationship is always rather distant, so much so that the most plausible explanation is that the nutter is inventing it in his or her own mind. We know enough about human psychology to understand how the mind can delude itself into creating a relationship with a being that doesn't really exist.
It's sad how so many athiests think religion is anti-science, and how they somehow think that you can have science or religion but not both, when over half of scientists are in fact religious.
It's sad when anyone otherwise dedicated to science decides to compartmentalize their mind so they don't insist on the same standard of proof for the existence of god as they do everything else. But not unexpected given that scientists are members of society, and society is soaked in god delusions.
Nevertheless, scientists are significantly more atheistic than the general population. To be successful at science, you must at least partially integrate the logical, empirical view of the universe which is the backbone of science. Anyone with that philosophical orientation who also allows God out of that don't-think-about-this-logically mental compartment quickly notices that science has eliminated the need for a god to explain anything, and how laughable the evidence for every human religion is. This is a fast track to atheism, or religious-in-name-only (identifies as religious, but doesn't really believe, attends services irregularly for social value and lingering love of the ritual).
You don't have to be a bona fide trained scientist to notice those weaknesses either. I deconverted from Catholicism because the religious and scientific instruction in their own schooling got me to notice what a shaky foundation the religion had. (I include the religious instruction because so much of it was concerned with how much better and more logical Catholicism was than other religions, yet it was easy for me to see through the apologetics and realize that the criticisms actually cut both ways.) 20+ years later, with a much more sophisticated understanding of all the issues I first explored at age 13, I still have not found a reason to believe in any god.
I wish everyone would stop the damned trolling. It annoys me and detracts from slashdot. This thread is no place for a religious discussion. And if they don't believe in a diety why do they even mention one?
Oh noes mcgrew can't handle that other people disagree with him about the existence of his magical sky daddy. He wants unearned hands-off don't-go-there respect, the respect religion has gotten for millenia just because It's Religion! And therefore Untouchable!
It wasn't a shot at religion, it was a shot at religious fanaticism. There's a difference, and pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best.
Oh, come come -- this is a story about how many of us scientists don't just believe in invisible tea-sets in space (Russell's accusation of religion), we believe there's more invisible tea-sets (dark matter) than visible matter! And bet millions of dollars of research funding on that belief. While the chap who's saying "maybe there's no dark matter" is fighting an uphill battle. Trying to knock religion isn't going to do anyone many favours in this thread.
Hostilities were opened a long time ago. Your objection makes as much sense as saying to the captain of a US Navy ship, "I agree that if that Japanese ship over there shoots at us, we should blow them out of the water, but can we just hold off the hostilities until in happens?" in 1943.
An utterly misleading analogy -- to make it more realistic you'd need a large number of sailors to be simultaneously on both boats and (same study) only a small minority of the US Navy ship's crew to be actively hostile to the Japanese ship.
"Athiesm takes as much of a leap of faith as belief in a diety or dieties"
Yes. And not collecting stamps is as much of a hobby as collecting them.
"It's sad how so many athiests think religion is anti-science"
Maybe because, well, it is. While science can't accept the 'argumentum ad auctoritatem', it is the only valid one for (theist) religion.
"if they don't believe in a diety why do they even mention one?"
It might be because people like you don't stop talking about it.
The Bullet Cluster result shows that some form of unobservable matter exists. But we already know that: brown dwarfs, rogue planets, etc.: that kind of "dark matter" has been observed, just not in the amounts to explain galactic rotation.
Ummm ... No.
The Bullet Cluster result shows that some form of matter that does not interact with baryonic matter except through gravity is present. The "dark" in "dark matter" doesn't just mean that we can't see it, it means that it doesn't interact with baryonic matter in any way except gravitationally. It not only doesn't emit electromagnetic radiation, it doesn't absorb it, and furthermore it doesn't even collide with it.
In the Bullet Clusters, two interpenetrating clusters are radiating furiously in the X-ray wavelengths due to gas, dust, etc. collisions at intergalactic velocities. The amount energy lost to these collisions is enough to actually slow down the clusters. And yet the gravitational lensing from the clusters shows the majority of their masses separate from the visible clusters. This is exactly what we would see if the majority of the cluster mass is nonbaryonic, and quite the opposite of what we would see if the mass was cold baryonic matter.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm going to nitpick your nitpicking, because there's some really objectionable stuff in it.
Oh, come come -- this is a story about how many of us scientists don't just believe in invisible tea-sets in space (Russell's accusation of religion), we believe there's more invisible tea-sets (dark matter) than visible matter!
That's ridiculous. Russell's tea-set analogy was to illustrate how a person who believes in religion does so without any positive evidence or reasoning. The hypothetical believer in space teapots believes in them in spite of the fact that not only have none been found wandering about the solar system, there's no reason to expect them to be present in the first place.
Dark matter does not fit that criticism in any way. It's an attempt to explain an interesting conundrum:
1. We think we know a lot of physics. Relativity and quantum theory aren't unified, but they each work very well in their respective domains.
2. We've been finding that there isn't enough visible mass (where by visible I mean "in the electromagnetic spectrum", not just the human range of visibility) to account for the observed gravitational interactions between many cosmological objects.
Dark matter is one possible answer for this problem. There might be matter which is hard or impossible to observe via EM spectrum emissions, so the only way we can notice it at cosmological distances is its gravitational influence on other matter. This is in no way analogous to Russell's teapot, because it is a hypothetical explanation for an observed fact, not a context-free irrational belief in a ridiculous notion.
And bet millions of dollars of research funding on that belief. While the chap who's saying "maybe there's no dark matter" is fighting an uphill battle.
This is nonsense, because the "maybe there's no dark matter" side has in fact been able to get funding. So far the "there's probably dark matter" side seems to be winning. That doesn't mean there's a religious belief in DM, just that it seems to fit the observable facts reasonably well, while the alternate theories proposed to date (modifications of existing physics, such as MOND) have generally failed to pass basic smell tests (such as whether they can reproduce well known experimentally verifiable phenomena).
If there suddenly isn't any need for dark matter anymore, what are we going to do with all that dark matter?
Nothing to see here.... please keep moving. Mind the lights....
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. ~~ Hunter S. Thompson
The paper linked in the summary is essentially a rehash of this written in 2008:
http://www.mat.unimi.it/users/carati/pdf/atenemissing.pdf
This article essentially states that the far field gravitational effects of distant galaxies are not negligible. This is the essential meat of the idea.
From the article linked in the summary:
"In the literature, there are several papers which illustrate different ways in which the distribution of matter can be estimated, starting for example from the measured distribution of luminosity of the galaxies. We take instead the simpler path which consists in assuming a functional form for [local gravitational potential], with a minimal number of parameters and then trying to determine these parameters by a best fit with the observed rotation curves."
This part really bugs me. Why does the author completely ignore the luminosity distribution of the test galaxies. At the very least this means that all the pretty graphs you see when scrolling through the pdf are misleading.
You know, a while ago there was this little problem with nuclear reactions. A very good model supported by lots of observations showed that some momentum was missing in fusion reactions. Some physicist (his name was Pauli) created an entirely new particle that no one had ever (or can ever) seen, felt, or observed to satisfy this one anomaly. And yet, it became accepted throughout physics that these "neutrinos" actually existed.
Just like neutrinos, dark matter WAS postulated to solve a particular problem, but as we looked into it, the concept solved lots of OTHER problems as well. No other theory solves all those problems as well. So just like the neutrino, most of the people with a clue are pretty sure that dark matter is real... we just don't know the details of what exactly it is yet.
In fact, neutrinos have most of the right properties to be dark matter, except that other observations rule them out.
It's ok, I expect it from people who can't do any critical thinking and believe in fairy tales in the literal sense.
Liberty.
I can't wait for some religious nutbar to claim that an "intelligent" gravity theory should be joined to any other existing theory in scientific discussion.
You mean "intelligent falling"?
Recall that the effect on the rotation of galaxies is not the only observation ever made that supports the dark matter theory. There was an article on Slashdot a while ago - I couldn't find it here but I found another summary of the same findings. Astronomers observed a region where two galaxies had collided and found gravitational lensing occurring in a region of space where the visible matter was not located.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
It's because Atheism is a religious position. Thus, having taken a religious position, they do what many others who have a religious position does, a rubbish everyone else. The joke is that it seems most athiests don't recognise this.
On the other hand, I'm agnostic so I just laugh at both sides.
Rational thought is the only true freedom
Actually, not. ANY coffee in the USA ( which is not congruent to "America", I am sorry to break the news to you ) is overrated horse piss. QFD
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Two things lead me to dismiss this immediately:
1. It is very easy to fit rotation curves to data. The errors are quite large. There are many, many theoretical rotation curves (caused by dark matter) that match the data.
2. Even IF this guy can explain rotation curves, he doesn't explain how galaxies form in the quantities we see (which based on current data requires dark matter) and what causes gravitational lensing. He would have to propose an entirely separate mechanism for these things.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Hopefully this helps you understand where the idea of 'dark matter' came from. (Hint: arses don't seem to be an element.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
And I always thought the intelligent part would be to either a) not fall or b) fall and not hit the ground [HHGTTG]
I bet Pastafarians aren't too bothered by dieties.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If someone told me they pray to the tooth fairy, I'd smile and hope that it brings them peace and happiness. There are a lot of atheists here that could use a deity to teach them not to be an asshole.
If religionists were all perfect and atheists were all assholes, you might possibly have a point.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
An utterly misleading analogy -- to make it more realistic you'd need a large number of sailors to be simultaneously on both boats [amazon.com] and (same study) only a small minority of the US Navy ship's crew to be actively hostile to the Japanese ship.
The majority who weren't hostile, or tried to be on both boats at once should, of course, have been summarily executed as traitors. During a war, if you're neutral you're helping the enemy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Why should anyone else's beliefs make you miserable? Does not compute.
Free Martian Whores!
Translation: "I'm not bright enough to think about orbital dynamics, so I'll just try to start an offtopic religion-bashing troll thread instead."
Bashing religion is never off topic in a scientific discussion. Personal delusions have no place in a discussion of the objective truth.
Ecrasez l'infame.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
True. A lot of athiests are good people, and a lot of churchgoers are assholes+. Example: Newt Gingrich. How big an asshole would one have to be to divorce your wife for another woman while your wife is dying of cancer?* And how in the hell can anybody even contemplate voting for this toilet scum?
The GP probably thinks all athiests are assholes because of assholes like Richard Dawkins, and the assholes on slashdot who have to interject their faith that no diety exists, in every goddamned thread, and in the most disrespectful way possible.
I say if you have a Jesus fish or a Darwin legfish on your car, you should drive with the utmost courtesy so as not to make your fellow Christians/athiests look bad (guilt by association).
* I don't believe Gingrich is a Christian, I think he pretends to be one to get the evangelical votes.
Free Martian Whores!
How would a being intelligent enough and powerful enough to create an entire universe NOT?
Free Martian Whores!
The absense of a deity is as unfalsifiable as the presence of one. The existance of neutrinos was unfalsifiable in the 17th century. When one has experienced a thing, one can no longer deny that thing's existance, scientifically falsifiable or not.
Going on evidence alone, the only logical choice is agnosticism; "I don't know" considering that there are witnesses to this unfalsifiable phenomenon.
Free Martian Whores!
Not the beliefs, but the actions they take based on those beliefs or the restrictions they place on your own life based on those beliefs most certainly can. An overused and cliche example, but if their beliefs say I need to be burned at the stake for being a heathen, I'm pretty sure that's going to make me miserable. Not terribly likely in the modern day, I admit, but there's plenty of things that do.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
In this context, http://www.quantum-espresso.org would probably be best.
Every end has half a stick.
"Athiesm takes as much of a leap of faith as belief in a diety or dieties"
Yes. And not collecting stamps is as much of a hobby as collecting them.
That's an argument (and a valid one) against saying that athiesm is a religion, which it obviously is not, although many athiests (e.g., Dawkins) are evangelical in their anti-religion; like a man who wants to outlaw the hobby of collecting stamps. It isn't an argument against the fact that disbelief needs as much faith as belief.
"It's sad how so many athiests think religion is anti-science"
Maybe because, well, it is.
Then please explain why over half of all scientists are in fact religious?
While science can't accept the 'argumentum ad auctoritatem', it is the only valid one for (theist) religion.
No, in fact it isn't for everyone. Anyone who seeks God will find him, but you'll never find what you're running away from. And what's not to like about the ten commandments and loving one's neighbor? What's to not like about a religion that worships life itself (Bhuddism)? What's not to like about teaching people to love their enemies and do good to them that harm them (Christianity)?
Science asks and answers "how." Religion asks and answers "why". One why I don't understand is why anyone would lead such a meaningless existance? Sooner or later you will die. Sooner or later there will be no trace you ever existed. Sooner or later the human race will become extinct, as all species do. Sooner or later (ok, much later) the sun will go supernova and destroy half the solar system. What's the point in living if that's all there is to life?
"if they don't believe in a diety why do they even mention one?"
It might be because people like you don't stop talking about it.
It was an athiest who started this very thread with an anti-religious rant. In fact, about the only time I see religion mentioned at slashdot at all it's an athiest bashing it for no reason and usally completely off the topic. The one exception I can think of is a troll named "preacher jake" or some such nonsense.
But when someone bashes my religion, by God I'm going to defend it.
I will admit that there is one thing wrong with all religions -- slimeballs who pretend to be religious (Newt Gingrich, Osama Bin Laden, that guy in Florida who demonstrates at soldiers' funerals, Pat Roberston, etc) to further their own agendas and spew shit that isn't in the bible (or Koran or other texts) at all.
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I don't know of any other country in the world named America, do you?
If you want to get pedantic, then you can call it The United States of America. However, for shorthand it's nearly always been called America.
Whether you like it or not.
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You should include a condition in your statement if you don't want to be seen as a liar, unless you've drank every coffee in the country. Maybe you meant any chain's coffee? I'm sure you know that there are plenty of ethnic restaurants from all over the world in most major cities.
Without proof either way, yours is the only logical position (note that some of us have been shown proof, albeit not scientific proof, and it's nothing we can show others).
I journaled about my friend Amy last week, she's the kind of agnostic that wants to believe but hasn't really met God. Her boyfriend, Tim, was an athiest who actually did find God a few Sundays ago. They're both homeless, staying at the Salvation Army shelter. One of the requirements is they have to go to church (even though they're athiest and agnostic). She was telling me that something hit him hard in church, he started crying, now is almost evangelical. "Seek and you shall find".
He's also been sober since then; oth of them are horribly addicted to alcohol.
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Atheism is as much of a religious position as being homeless is another housing choice.
Not joining the game in no way means you are part of it.
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Well, that depends on the religion, and the problem is that many of the "religious" really aren't, they go against their own religion for their own gain while merely pretending to be religious, the "wolves in sheep's clothing" as it were. Pat Robertson and that guy from Florida who demonstrates at soldiers' funerals come to mind. I'd bet Pat Robertson has converted far more Christians to athiesm than Richard Dawkins could ever dream of converting.
These people piss me off too, probably more than they piss off an athiest. Take these anti-gay "Christians", for example, who don't read their own bible. "God hates fags?" No, God may not like homosexuality, but he loves gays as much as you love any program you write. The ones who bash gays in the name of Jesus who turn out to adulterers are the worst; self-seekers who haven't read "take the ceiling joist out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck from your brothers' eye". Homosexuality is little mentioned in the bible (mostly in the old testament), but adultery is one of the biggies as far as Christian-Judeo sin is concerned, one that Moses brought down.
The "conservative Christians" are the worst. Conservatism goes against everything Christ taught. Tea party tax haters? "Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's." Welfare for the poor? "It is better to give than recieve."
Anyone who tries to restrict your actions based on their own morals is far from a Christian. "Judge not, lest you be judged yourself". Hell, the very foundation of Christianity is forgiveness. If you can't give it, how can you expect to receive it?
The stake burning is a good example. Nowhere in the bible does it say you're supposed to burn wiccans, but plenty caught fire a few hundred years ago. "Thou shalt not kill", but there are plenty of these fake Christians who are both war hawks and for the death penalty. How could a real Christian possibly be for the death penalty? They may say "well, deuteronomy says stone adulterers", but the new testament says to forgive them ("let he who is without sin cast the first stone"). Why are these bible thumpers not eating a kosher diet if they're all so old testament on everybody?
The Bhuddists worship life itself, but when I was in Thailand two separate Bhuddist stuck guns in my face. Meanwhile, one woman chastised me for killing a fly. But that's just how people are.
There's nothing on earth that can't be used for evil.
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Ah, so I think we're almost on the same page. It appears you're assuming people *should* keep their personal religion personal, in which case I agree with you entirely that whatever crazy ol' belief they have is perfectly fine by me (barring some child abuse, etc.). From my slightly more practical approach that people often don't keep personal religion personal, and tend to let it overflow into their politics and other aspects of how they treat others, it definitely can be a problem, and then I do consider it my business to push back some in self defense.
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interesting...you said
>>>I mean, "dark matter" sounds menacing and strange. Had they called it "candy matter"
I know that just because you are using an ad homonym attack on my argument via contextualizing my perspective as 'afraid' doesn't mean you don't have an important point to make.
So, disregarding your ad homonym dicta, I found this (paraphrased):
>>Just because the simplest explanation tends to be the best doesn't mean it is always the best
That's something I can address. You can't fight my balanced approach with unbalance and rebrand it as 'the balanced approach'...you are advocating going against confirmed observations. That's progress, of course, but it must be accurate, precise, falsifiable, and verifyable (among other things...ethics...)
Just because you can make a spreadsheet and modeling software output the result you want doesn't mean you get to turn science on its head in an instant.
Let me be clear: Dark Matter research is interesting and helpful, but its significance is out of proportion to the level of scientific rigor relative to other science that it contradicts.
So that's balance. My approach is skeptical yet open and optimistic and its the right approach.
Dark Matter researchers or researchers intersted in Dark Matter, or whoever should do all the research you want and I will look at it with interest. BUT I DECIDE when it is the best option on the table.
The only thing I am 'afraid' of is that your perspective might be the prevailing perspective in many academic and research institutions.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm going to nitpick your nitpicking, because there's some really objectionable stuff in it.
Ah, the myth that "I object" is equivalent to "there's some really objectionable stuff".
Oh, come come -- this is a story about how many of us scientists don't just believe in invisible tea-sets in space (Russell's accusation of religion), we believe there's more invisible tea-sets (dark matter) than visible matter!
That's ridiculous. Russell's tea-set analogy was to illustrate how a person who believes in religion does so without any positive evidence or reasoning.
Which itself is a false claim, and well-known to be so. There's a very good argument to say that Russell's teapot is a crock and has always been so -- empty rhetoric derived from the false notion that "I don't rate the evidence or reasoning they are using" is the same as "they are not using evidence or reasoning". But here (and in the long paras I snipped) you are essentially pretending it's not ok for beliefs you like but is ok for those you don't like -- to the point of using "...belief in a ridiculous notion" later as part of your argument as to why you think it's ok to apply to religious beliefs. That's the false logic "if I like the conclusion the steps must be ok."
This is nonsense, because the "maybe there's no dark matter" side has in fact been able to get funding. So far the "there's probably dark matter" side seems to be winning. That doesn't mean there's a religious belief in DM, just that it seems to fit the observable facts reasonably well. That doesn't mean there's a religious belief in DM, just that it seems to fit the observable facts reasonably well, while the alternate theories proposed to date (modifications of existing physics, such as MOND) have generally failed to pass basic smell tests (such as whether they can reproduce well known experimentally verifiable phenomena).
I didn't say there was a religious belief in DM -- read the post again. I said that scientists had sufficient belief in DM to bet research money on it (we don't often spend our limited funding on research we think will fail), not that nobody was betting the other way. The uphill battle the chap betting the other way has to fight is that there's a prevailing consensus belief the "undetectable explanation" (and an undetectable explanation can always be constructed to fit the data perfectly -- we can imagine what we like -- whereas his explanations, being detectable, have to face the higher bar of both being empirically testable and fitting the data). That means, whether he's right or wrong, he has a tougher furrow to plough.
"It isn't an argument against the fact that disbelief needs as much faith as belief."
Except that it is. It doesn't require faith to disbelieve what hasn't been seen, can't be reproduced and can't be articulated into a coherent theory. Saying that believing that there's somewhere an almighty though invisible flying spaghetti monster is no more an act of faith than not believing it is the same kind of argument than saying that not collecting stamps is a hobby. But, anyway, it's an analogy so if you don't think it to be a proper one, good for you, I don't give a damn.
"Then please explain why over half of all scientists are in fact religious?"
Cognitive dissonance produced by early exposition to young brains.
"what's not to like about the ten commandments and loving one's neighbor?"
This is twice a non-sequitur. On what hand, what has to do the virtues of the ten commandments with the fact that the god that the bible describes is a reality or not? On the other hand, what has this to do with the fact that a theist religion is the supreme argument by authority which is the absolute opposite to anything acceptable by science?
"Science asks and answers "how.""
But not every path to find the answers is a valid one for science and the path of "this is so because god told me and command it to be that way" is absolutly out of scope.
"What's the point in living if that's all there is to life?"
That's the trade of the philosopher and I for one don't find a satisfactory answer to be "god knows".
"I will admit that there is one thing wrong with all religions -- slimeballs who pretend to be religious"
Why does this seem to me so much like the "true scotchman" fallacy?
In fact, neutrinos have most of the right properties to be dark matter, except that other observations rule them out
their masses are way way too small to account for dark matter. I remember a back-of-the-envelope calculation that shows that if you packed enough neutrinos into galaxies to account for the missing mass currently accounted for by dark matter, their interaction cross sections would end up being large enough to be observable. We don't see anything spraying off those interactions, so that can't be the explanation
-Bucky
MOST of the right properties.
The point is, non-baryonic dark matter isn't really some magical substance with previously unheard of properties. Neutrinos exhibit all of the required exotic properties.
If you're talking Starbucks, Peets, etc. I'll have to agree.
But "any" espresso? Here in San Francisco, all the major local roasters do really light roasts. If you try Blue Bottle or Four Barrel coffee you won't find dark roasts at all.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
That's probably because he was not entirely competent, not because he was unsure of hostilities. :-)
The logical conclusion is "I don't know"
However, like Russel's teapot, the logical inference is... that without evidence, we should assume something extraordinary doesn't exist.
I proclaim there is a large human settlement on the dark side of the moon that is invisible due to advance cloaking technology provided by an alien race that arrived in 4000 BC to help Egyptians to build pyramids.
This... is equally as plausible (scientifically speaking) as the God of Genesis (or Brahama of the Mahapuranas). Must I run around giving "equal treatment" to the potential existence of this colony, or should I presume, lacking evidence, that is probably doesn't exist.
Ah, so I think we're almost on the same page.
Yes, it seems so to me. I'm as annoyed with Jehova's Witnesses as any athiest is. That "Jake" troll annoys me to no end.
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However, like Russel's teapot, the logical inference is... that without evidence, we should assume something extraordinary doesn't exist.
I find that a universe coming into being from nothingness, complete with creatures sentient enough to wonder where stuff came from and how stuff works to be pretty unbelievable. I find that eyeballs wired to a brain to come from evolution alone to be pretty unlikely.
It also seems that a universe coming out of nothingnesss from nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.
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It also seems that a universe coming out of nothingnesss from nowhere violates the laws of thermodynamics.
So does a dude in a white toga making it appear with a sneeze.
I find that eyeballs wired to a brain to come from evolution alone to be pretty unlikely.
We were made in God's image. Where did his eyeballs come from? SuperGod?
You have to believe in a big "appearance" at some time, no matter what it was that was appearing.
Given which "big bang" is more plausible... one that produces a superbeing that happens to have two arms and two legs and eyes and things... that can create universes and is really really vindictive, a tad unstable and extremely needy..... or a physical process that sets in motion a series of events according to a few dozen simple rules...
I can tell you which I find more plausible.
But I guess that's where the thought process diverges.