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The Moment of Truth For BICEP2
StartsWithABang writes: Earlier this year, the BICEP2 team shook up the world by announcing the discovery of primordial gravitational waves: a signal from the earliest stages of the Universe, going all the way back to before the Big Bang! By looking at the photon polarization data, they claimed to have surpassed the gold "5 Sigma" standard for announcing a discovery in physics. But recently, that's been walked back, as there could have been a systematic error at play: simple emission from our own Milky Way. Later this month, the Planck team will release their results, and either confirm or refute BICEP2. Here's where we stand on the eve of that announcement.
Whenever I read articles about astrophysics, it always sounds very detached from reality. This work usually ends up making big assumptions based on radio waves that were supposedly detected in some way. We aren't talking about ones that are visible to humans, either, like light from stars. Then there's often talk about how it's the "remnants of the Big Bang" or something vague like that. And then they start throwing around numbers that we couldn't possibly be sure that we're measuring correctly. Even after reading into this subject in depth, and even taking college courses on it back in the day, it's still almost a religion in many ways.
That's right. All those fancy-pants "scientists" are actually idiots and frauds. Nothing they say can be trusted.
Have you ever seen a neutron or muon? Experienced time dilation? Put a particle into a superposition of states? I suppose you can call most of modern science religion if you doubt what you can't perceive with your own senses. That's actually what a significant percentage of the population is starting to do, unfortunately...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Whenever I read articles about astrophysics, it always sounds very detached from reality.
It's not but I can see how it might seem that way. A lot of the physics is pretty out there and not all of it can be experimentally confirmed, at least not directly. The logical underpinnings and evidence used are fairly sound but there is a LOT we don't really know. There is a lot of "if A is true then B must be true" going on but sometimes we're not actually sure A is really true. It's not faith but much of it is very theoretical. Almost everything relating to stuff like black holes should be taken with a huge grain of sodium chloride.
And then they start throwing around numbers that we couldn't possibly be sure that we're measuring correctly.
Sometimes that is true and sometimes it isn't. There are plenty of measurements we are quite confident about. Others not so much. Unfortunately for the lay person it can be hard to tell the difference. Apparently sometimes it can be difficult for those in the field to tell the difference too sometimes.
They reason they're no longer trusted is because they make big announcements of amazing results and then... later have to admit that they were wrong. Or, worse, they don't admit they're wrong, and we have to wait for someone else to retry the experiment and find that out for themselves.
What you're describing as the "reason they're no longer trusted" is called the scientific method: science is trustworthy precisely because when people are wrong, they admit it. Either that, somebody else proves them wrong.
Do you expect this shit to sprout from the head of Zeus or something?
All scientists outside the massively politicized field of climatology know this.
Climatology has only been politicized by people who aren't climatologists. The actual scientists get along just fine.
Do you expect this shit to sprout from the head of Zeus or something?
Why yes, yes they do. They demand something written down they can accept without thinking about it. Which leads to this thread. Arguments from personal incredulity.
One of the funniest arguments that springs from the mouths of those who hate science is personal incredulity.
"Because, since I don't understand something, it cannot be correct. Therefore: God, or ancient aliens, or that guy on Youtube that heats his entire house using a couple clay flowerpots and two tea candles".
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not quite. We mock them when they believe their priests/pastors/whatever tell them bold-faced lies that can't possibly be true. You know, things like a 6,000 year old earth, jesus riding dinosaurs, faith healing, speaking in tounges, transubstantiation, and how their souls are going to be harvested by that alien space-ship hiding in Hale-bop's comet tail. Stuff like that is laughable, and if you believe in it, yeah, that's an easy laugh.
There are also the people that mock the religious sorts for trusting priests/whatnot on matters that are unknowable. The afterlife, who/what kickstarted the big-bang, and why we're all here. And philosophical issues. Yeah, those people are kind of dicks and I don't find that sort of humor all that productive. I see where they're coming from though, I mean, if the thing is unknowable.... why trust that guy over any of the other people preaching their flavor?
As for us expecting everyone to trust scientists, hey man, we have a pretty robust system of NOT trusting those scientists until they have a pretty good argument. If someone finds reason to question them, that is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged, whereas the religion side usually responds to questions with excommunication and damnation. Some of the religions have demonized the idea of being a skeptic. And skeptics can believe in things, you know. It's not like they're in a perpetual state of untrust. They can approach something, be skeptical, look at the facts, and then accept it.
Anyway, all that aside, you're fighting against people who believe in the scientific method. Good luck with that.