In order for a fairyologist to even exist, presupposes that fairies do exist. If such things existed, such a person would know more about them than either you or I.
This is garbage. Go read the transcript from the Dover trial. Irreducible complexity was thoroughly refuted long before the Dover trial, and during the trial it was shown exactly how.
As for the human genome project, I think you need to check your references. Francis Collins is not an ID supporter. He is a Christian but he does not support ID.
Uh, you're repeating essentially what I just said. In your previous post, it sounded like you were not making a distinction between the theory and the fact. Perhaps I didn't make that clear, but that is what I was getting at.
You're confusing facts and theories a bit which is kind of understandable. Let me put it this way. Gravity is both a theory and a fact. Regardless of what theory of gravity that you might use, there is no dispute over the fact that two bodies possessing mass will be attracted to each other. This is an observed fact.
We have a similar situation for evolution. Even if evolution (the theory) is wrong, there is more than enough evidence to show that evolution does indeed happen even if our description of how it works may be wrong.
What happened to the traditional Christianity that preached "love thy neighbor"?
Where have you been? That part of Christianity pretty much disappeared within days of Christ's crucifixion (assuming it even happened in the first place).
You can imply that there is bias all you want, but there is one very big difference between the two. The biologist has studied biology, the scientific process involved in researching the subject and is able to make an evidenced based critique of an ID argument.
Rebuttals from the ID camp contain no such expertise or references, and are usually based on long refuted arguments against evolution, but little or nothing that truly supports ID.
This isn't a case where he-said she-said attempts to discredit both sides will work. One side clearly has evidence on their side, and the other does not.
Unfortunately, no, we didn't get Phoenix in our color swath. In fact, it's going to be difficult to produce an image of much better quality than what we have already released (we're trying though).
There are two main problems: 1) The signal to noise isn't very good because we were looking through a lot of dusty atmosphere to get the shot, and 2) all the movement that was going on makes it very difficult to create a good seamless mosaic of all the CCD's together, which is what we usually do.
In short, there will probably be an improved version of this image coming out within the next couple of weeks, but it's difficult to say just how much better it will be.
In all likelihood, this is an artifact caused by a radiation event that hit a few pixels of the CCD chip while the image was taken. These are often called cosmic ray hits, although most of the time it's due to the radioactive decay of something local.
Artifacts like this aren't very unusual, most raw data from any CCD camera will have these if the exposure time is long enough. The raw data from Hubble is littered with these. In addition, the reason it's a streak is that the charge often bleeds to some degree, usually along the path that chip is read out from in the electronics.
I'm actually rather suprised at how cagey the Phoenix team has been about responding to questions about this artifact. These things are well known, and there's no big secret about them.
Listen up, you whipper snapper! What you are witnessing is a very sophisticated and nuanced art of gamesmanship that is only understood by people with uid's less than 10,000.
So go back to sleep and let the real men get on with their business.
Umm... No. The current presence of liquid water has not been confirmed. The best evidence that we've found so far is actually not inconsistent with a dry flow down a steep hill. The flows could still be water, and that can't be ruled out. However, it has not been confirmed.
The fact is, all of us really want there to be liquid water on Mars, it will be a major break through if and when it happens. However, no matter how tantalizing the images are, they still don't confirm the presence of water....yet.
Yes, your spelling and grammar are beside the point, however, it does make it difficult to understand your point. Which was the point I was making. That is not a point of intimidation, that is a point of fact. You need to understand that!! If I can't understand you, then there's no point in furthering the discussion.
When talking about a subject that requires expertise, you should defer to an expert on those subjects for which they have that knowledge. I did not state that I am scientist to intimidate you, I stated this fact to establish that I know and understand the issues involved. So far, you have not stated anything that indicates that you have the same level of knowledge about this subject that I do. If you feel intimidated by that fact, that's your problem, not mine. And by the way, I have a degree in computer science as well as physics, so don't tell me about scientists doing programming. I know how bad that can get. Honestly, I don't know what your native language and culture is, but I suspect you're accusing me of trying to intimidate you based on your background. This is not the case.
I have made the point about details, because details matter. You're claiming that there is a group mentality within science (and you'll be surprised to find out that I agree with you), however you have not even come close to explaining what this mentality is or how it operates. You are completely ignorant of it, and the examples that you are trying to provide do not illustrate it, nor do they even illustrate the point that you seem to be trying to make. You're trying to point out a problem in the scientific process, but when asked to provide an example, you don't provide one that makes your point, that's why the details are important. Otherwise you're arguing a point from the ether that may not even exhist.
I'm not discrediting your hypothesis, because you haven't even made one yet. You're making a whole mish-mash of claims without giving proper evidence. In short, you are discrediting your own hypothesis by not understanding and adequately supporting your arguments.
The problem with replacing "randomness" with God is because it is imprecise, and in many cases, it simply wrong. Google for "God of gaps" and you'll find many explanations for why this is the wrong approach. It is more than a semantic issue.
String theory/Quantum Physics. Being much of the data requires a random varable. Many people in the sciencetific comunity Mocked the idea (Albert Einstine: God doesn't play dice). Now in an open comunity they would have taken the theory and looked at the numbers much more carfuly and sees that this theory even with the random elements seems to fit obersvations. For a large part these theory stayed alive by force of will continually forcing it back on topic. If the sciencetist who came up with the theory didn't have the same force of will, the sciencetist will say that is ludicrus and then they will go back to the lab thinking of something else.
Sorry, you don't understand quantum mechanics, and your grammar is so poor, that I'm not even sure what it is you are trying to say. But, in short, the example you give is actually the counter example of your argument. If Einstein's opinion were taken as gospel, then quantum theory would have been rejected simply by Einstein's force of will. Yet, it was not. It was the evidence that mattered, not anyone's force of will.
And as for Pluto, again, this is not a point of theory. Whether or not Pluto is classified as a full planet, a dwarf planet, or a giant comet does not impact the theory of gravity, or any other theory in any way. This is not an issue of who is right and who is wrong, it's a question about how we should classify a thing in the absence of a good classification system. There is no right or wrong answer here that impacts any theory. Pluto will not stop going around the sun because we've decided that it is not a planet.
I also find it instructive the way you conflate Darwinism with genetics. This is a fallacy of composition: the Intelligent Design movement criticizes one, and only one proposition, that Darwinian natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the biological world as we see it.
You're wrong about the ID movement only being critical of a single proposition though. Have you ever heard of the wedge document? Or any of Phillip Johnson's writings on this subject? The wedge document makes it pretty clear that the ID movement isn't just against evolution, it's against any scientific theory that does not contain God in some form (whatever that means). And their actions bear this out. Some Bush appointed NASA PR flunky recently went after a scientist for talking about how his work confirmed some aspect of the Big Bang, and the flunky stuck his neck out about the Big Band only being a "theory" (the usual creationist weasel words)
Let me also point out that these folks are making demonstrably false claims about physics as well (the YEC's don't like radio-active dating for example and often claim that the physics is wrong).
In other words, the ID movement has a much bigger, and much more insidious, agenda than you are claiming.
Well, I'd say that American "fundamentalism" is a different beast and has a different history than the European brand (although I'm not absolutely certain of it).
At it's core, Christian fundamentalism in the US started out as a reactionary movement to some European scholarly analysis of the text of the Bible (that alone should tell you something about the difference between European fundamentalism and the US brand).
Over the years, the movement has become more reactionary and increasingly radicalized towards anything that might question their fundamentalist principles. Hence, this is a much bigger issue in the US than it is elsewhere.
Look at any new scienctific theory or even the is pluto a planet or not debate. They are in it to make themselfs look good (Just like the rest of the human race) Many of todays scienctific concepts are not around because of strong numbers but force of will, mixed with good numbers. (but the force of will normally gets others to come up with the good numbers). The scienctific comunity has never lived those ideals they push. They are just as petty and emotional as the rest of us.
Please provide one, just one example of a scientific theory being generally accepted by the community based solely on the basis of popularity or the force of will. And please define what you mean by "good numbers." As a practicing scientist, I haven't the slightest idea what you mean by this.
The Pluto issue is not an issue of theory at all, but one of classification. And the problem is a lot more subtle than you're making it out to be. And while we're at it, please explain how the debate over Pluto's classification is designed to make anyone look good.
Note: I'm not claiming that scientists are without egos and bias, and I'm not saying that scientists don't make mistakes. I am claiming that you are making misleading statements about scientists and the scientific process that are are not backed up by evidence.
I do think your characterization of creationists is essentially correct, but lumping in the scientists with them as having the same fears does not match the available evidence. If scientists were truly afraid to have their ideas challenged, there would be no scientific progress, ever, and there would be no scientific journals where scientists publish their work, because most challenges come about through publishing in journals. In other words, your characterization is just plain wrong.
But the fact the good sciencetist are getting ostersized for intelegent design (the most liberal version of such) where they replace the word "random" with "God's intent" (which for a being of infinate wisdom and intelegence can seem random to us) is kinda going over the edge.
There are no good scientists that are being ostracized for holding creationist ideas. There are some people with a strong scientific background who have pretty much stopped doing any credible science and started promoting non-scientific ideas as science, and they are receiving valid criticism for it. Replacing "random" with "God's intent" is not a scientifically valid thing to do, and if you really understood the scientific process, you would understand why it isn't a valid idea.
Actually, the earliest concern over greenhouse gases that I'm aware of was proposed in 1896, by Svante Arrhenius. The American Institute of Physics has a pretty extensive bibliography as part of their review paper on this subject, which goes back even further than this.
There is dark matter. There is more evidence for it besides galactic rotation curves. Lookup the virial theorem and galactic cluster binding energy (in other words, without dark matter there's not enough mass to hold galactic clusters together). Google the Bullet Cluster, in this specific case they have been able to detect a distinct separation between the dark matter and visible matter. There is definitely something there, even if we don't know what it is.
That's not really true. The orbital cameras around Mars have detected new craters from impacts that occurred in just the last few years. Here's just one example.
Well, you're more or less correct, however what I was getting at is that, there is a detectable difference between a string and point particle at high enough energies. So scattering strings would have different properties than scattering point particles. That is how you would make the detection, theoretically.
Well, let's just take something really simple. String theory predicts the existence of...wait for it...strings (or branes depending on which form you are talking about) and extra dimensions. If the geometric structure of one of these things could be detected, that would be THE thing that would confirm the hypothesis beyond any shadow of a doubt. Directly detecting a string though runs into what I alluded to in my previous comment. The energies required to do this are beyond anything we are currently capable of, and may be beyond anything we will ever be capable of.
Detecting the extra dimensions is another route, but we haven't been able to detect these either, and there seem to be good reasons why we might not be able to see the extra dimensions, although there have been attempts.
So that leaves us with other predictions, like super symmetry, Hawking radiation, higher energy particles, etc, but none of these things are necessarily incompatible with any of the competing ideas. So making the string hypothesis stick is going to be very difficult without some other theoretical break through that predicts phenomena that are more easily within the bounds of our technologies.
Well, the fact that other theories also predict the same effect means that a confirmation of the effect validates all the theories that predict the phenomenon, without really distinguishing one from the other. Although if the magnitude of the prediction varies between different theories then it is possible to distinguish one from the other. For example, this was how general relativity was confirmed for the first time during an eclipse. Both relativity and Newtonian gravity predicted that the sun would deflect the light of background stars, however, relativity predicted the amount of deflection was twice the amount of Newtonian gravity. The amount of deflection was measured during an eclipse and found to exactly match the prediction of general relativity.
So such observations potentially validate all the theories that predict them, but don't necessarily allow us to distinguish which one is right, unless there are details in the predictions that allow us to distinguish one from the other.
Actually, I am a physicist by training. And while you are correct about the more formal definition of theory, colloquially most physicists and scientists in general are not nearly as precise talking amongst themselves as you suggest. I agree that it is sloppy though. mea culpa.
Actually, there are a great many phenomena that string theory explains, the subject of this story, for example is potentially one of them, there's also some things about black holes (like Hawking radiation) which string theory predicts, but other theories also predict Hawking radiation.... plus there's a whole host of things that it predicts that occur at very high energies. But that's essentially the problem with string theory. The kind of things string theory predicts that would confirm it require energies that we are simply incapable of achieving, and the more mundane predictions made by string theory also happen to match predictions by competing non-string theories, making it pretty much impossible for string theory to distinguish itself using modern technologies.
That being said, I think string theory is beautiful, however, it could very well turn out to be the most beautiful theory of physics ever constructed as well as the biggest dead end.
You are confused, and here it is laid bare right here:
Yes I do. Reason is based on faith
Reason is not based on faith. It is the other way around. Reason is based on logic. Nothing, not even God has the ability to change the fact that 1+1=2 without changing the definition of what 1+1 means. That is basis of reason. These things are true because they are constructs from which we extrapolate. If you can not define your universe in a logical fashion you can not reason, and you can not have faith, because faith is the conjecture that reason can not make. But without reason, faith does not exist, because without reason it is impossible to have any level of certainty at all. You can not believe in God without a reason, even if the reason would not be considered a good one, the reason is there. Faith comes from knowing that the reason is insufficient. You would not believe in God if you had never heard of Him. The very fact of hearing of Him, is a reason to believe, not necessarily the best of reasons, but a reason none the less. Faith is the leap beyond that.
They never made it to today. Yesterday was their last day. One day it will be your turn. You do not believe that at that time you will face your Creator, but what if your belief about God and judgment were wrong? What if Jesus was right about the things He said and did?
You're going to have to do better than that. Pascal's Wager? Please. By the way, I never said I believed or disbelieved in anything, only in your narrow minded conception of God's works. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that God is not the petty tinkerer that ID proponents and Biblical literalists have made Him into. I know and understand far better than you do what it means to be uncertain about the world around us, about how it is impossible to know anything for certain, your patronizing tone is quite amusing though, you talk about not being able to know anything for certain, but you miss the point entirely because you miss that there are many things for which we can have a high degree of certainty about. No scientific theory will ever be proven, but a good theory can be shown to have a good reason for believing it, simply conjecturing that your theory can make just as much logical sense as evolution isn't good enough, and it never will be.
Let me put it this way, let's just suppose for the sake of argument that ID is correct. Then what? What are the consequences for medicine? How do we use that theory to predict how to treat disease? How is it in anyway useful at all when if we encounter something we don't understand, we simply state that the designer made it that way? How is that useful and conducive to progress?
Slashdot Mirror
In order for a fairyologist to even exist, presupposes that fairies do exist. If such things existed, such a person would know more about them than either you or I.
This is garbage. Go read the transcript from the Dover trial. Irreducible complexity was thoroughly refuted long before the Dover trial, and during the trial it was shown exactly how.
As for the human genome project, I think you need to check your references. Francis Collins is not an ID supporter. He is a Christian but he does not support ID.
Uh, you're repeating essentially what I just said. In your previous post, it sounded like you were not making a distinction between the theory and the fact. Perhaps I didn't make that clear, but that is what I was getting at.
You're confusing facts and theories a bit which is kind of understandable. Let me put it this way. Gravity is both a theory and a fact. Regardless of what theory of gravity that you might use, there is no dispute over the fact that two bodies possessing mass will be attracted to each other. This is an observed fact.
We have a similar situation for evolution. Even if evolution (the theory) is wrong, there is more than enough evidence to show that evolution does indeed happen even if our description of how it works may be wrong.
What happened to the traditional Christianity that preached "love thy neighbor"?
Where have you been? That part of Christianity pretty much disappeared within days of Christ's crucifixion (assuming it even happened in the first place).
You can imply that there is bias all you want, but there is one very big difference between the two. The biologist has studied biology, the scientific process involved in researching the subject and is able to make an evidenced based critique of an ID argument.
Rebuttals from the ID camp contain no such expertise or references, and are usually based on long refuted arguments against evolution, but little or nothing that truly supports ID.
This isn't a case where he-said she-said attempts to discredit both sides will work. One side clearly has evidence on their side, and the other does not.
Unfortunately, no, we didn't get Phoenix in our color swath. In fact, it's going to be difficult to produce an image of much better quality than what we have already released (we're trying though).
There are two main problems: 1) The signal to noise isn't very good because we were looking through a lot of dusty atmosphere to get the shot, and 2) all the movement that was going on makes it very difficult to create a good seamless mosaic of all the CCD's together, which is what we usually do.
In short, there will probably be an improved version of this image coming out within the next couple of weeks, but it's difficult to say just how much better it will be.
In all likelihood, this is an artifact caused by a radiation event that hit a few pixels of the CCD chip while the image was taken. These are often called cosmic ray hits, although most of the time it's due to the radioactive decay of something local.
Artifacts like this aren't very unusual, most raw data from any CCD camera will have these if the exposure time is long enough. The raw data from Hubble is littered with these. In addition, the reason it's a streak is that the charge often bleeds to some degree, usually along the path that chip is read out from in the electronics.
I'm actually rather suprised at how cagey the Phoenix team has been about responding to questions about this artifact. These things are well known, and there's no big secret about them.
Listen up, you whipper snapper! What you are witnessing is a very sophisticated and nuanced art of gamesmanship that is only understood by people with uid's less than 10,000.
So go back to sleep and let the real men get on with their business.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Umm... No. The current presence of liquid water has not been confirmed. The best evidence that we've found so far is actually not inconsistent with a dry flow down a steep hill. The flows could still be water, and that can't be ruled out. However, it has not been confirmed.
The fact is, all of us really want there to be liquid water on Mars, it will be a major break through if and when it happens. However, no matter how tantalizing the images are, they still don't confirm the presence of water....yet.
Yes, your spelling and grammar are beside the point, however, it does make it difficult to understand your point. Which was the point I was making. That is not a point of intimidation, that is a point of fact. You need to understand that!! If I can't understand you, then there's no point in furthering the discussion.
When talking about a subject that requires expertise, you should defer to an expert on those subjects for which they have that knowledge. I did not state that I am scientist to intimidate you, I stated this fact to establish that I know and understand the issues involved. So far, you have not stated anything that indicates that you have the same level of knowledge about this subject that I do. If you feel intimidated by that fact, that's your problem, not mine. And by the way, I have a degree in computer science as well as physics, so don't tell me about scientists doing programming. I know how bad that can get. Honestly, I don't know what your native language and culture is, but I suspect you're accusing me of trying to intimidate you based on your background. This is not the case.
I have made the point about details, because details matter. You're claiming that there is a group mentality within science (and you'll be surprised to find out that I agree with you), however you have not even come close to explaining what this mentality is or how it operates. You are completely ignorant of it, and the examples that you are trying to provide do not illustrate it, nor do they even illustrate the point that you seem to be trying to make. You're trying to point out a problem in the scientific process, but when asked to provide an example, you don't provide one that makes your point, that's why the details are important. Otherwise you're arguing a point from the ether that may not even exhist.
I'm not discrediting your hypothesis, because you haven't even made one yet. You're making a whole mish-mash of claims without giving proper evidence. In short, you are discrediting your own hypothesis by not understanding and adequately supporting your arguments.
The problem with replacing "randomness" with God is because it is imprecise, and in many cases, it simply wrong. Google for "God of gaps" and you'll find many explanations for why this is the wrong approach. It is more than a semantic issue.
String theory/Quantum Physics. Being much of the data requires a random varable. Many people in the sciencetific comunity Mocked the idea (Albert Einstine: God doesn't play dice). Now in an open comunity they would have taken the theory and looked at the numbers much more carfuly and sees that this theory even with the random elements seems to fit obersvations. For a large part these theory stayed alive by force of will continually forcing it back on topic. If the sciencetist who came up with the theory didn't have the same force of will, the sciencetist will say that is ludicrus and then they will go back to the lab thinking of something else.
Sorry, you don't understand quantum mechanics, and your grammar is so poor, that I'm not even sure what it is you are trying to say. But, in short, the example you give is actually the counter example of your argument. If Einstein's opinion were taken as gospel, then quantum theory would have been rejected simply by Einstein's force of will. Yet, it was not. It was the evidence that mattered, not anyone's force of will.
And as for Pluto, again, this is not a point of theory. Whether or not Pluto is classified as a full planet, a dwarf planet, or a giant comet does not impact the theory of gravity, or any other theory in any way. This is not an issue of who is right and who is wrong, it's a question about how we should classify a thing in the absence of a good classification system. There is no right or wrong answer here that impacts any theory. Pluto will not stop going around the sun because we've decided that it is not a planet.
I also find it instructive the way you conflate Darwinism with genetics. This is a fallacy of composition: the Intelligent Design movement criticizes one, and only one proposition, that Darwinian natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the biological world as we see it.
You're wrong about the ID movement only being critical of a single proposition though. Have you ever heard of the wedge document? Or any of Phillip Johnson's writings on this subject? The wedge document makes it pretty clear that the ID movement isn't just against evolution, it's against any scientific theory that does not contain God in some form (whatever that means). And their actions bear this out. Some Bush appointed NASA PR flunky recently went after a scientist for talking about how his work confirmed some aspect of the Big Bang, and the flunky stuck his neck out about the Big Band only being a "theory" (the usual creationist weasel words)
Let me also point out that these folks are making demonstrably false claims about physics as well (the YEC's don't like radio-active dating for example and often claim that the physics is wrong).
In other words, the ID movement has a much bigger, and much more insidious, agenda than you are claiming.
Well, I'd say that American "fundamentalism" is a different beast and has a different history than the European brand (although I'm not absolutely certain of it).
At it's core, Christian fundamentalism in the US started out as a reactionary movement to some European scholarly analysis of the text of the Bible (that alone should tell you something about the difference between European fundamentalism and the US brand).
Over the years, the movement has become more reactionary and increasingly radicalized towards anything that might question their fundamentalist principles. Hence, this is a much bigger issue in the US than it is elsewhere.
Look at any new scienctific theory or even the is pluto a planet or not debate. They are in it to make themselfs look good (Just like the rest of the human race) Many of todays scienctific concepts are not around because of strong numbers but force of will, mixed with good numbers. (but the force of will normally gets others to come up with the good numbers). The scienctific comunity has never lived those ideals they push. They are just as petty and emotional as the rest of us.
Please provide one, just one example of a scientific theory being generally accepted by the community based solely on the basis of popularity or the force of will. And please define what you mean by "good numbers." As a practicing scientist, I haven't the slightest idea what you mean by this.
The Pluto issue is not an issue of theory at all, but one of classification. And the problem is a lot more subtle than you're making it out to be. And while we're at it, please explain how the debate over Pluto's classification is designed to make anyone look good.
Note: I'm not claiming that scientists are without egos and bias, and I'm not saying that scientists don't make mistakes. I am claiming that you are making misleading statements about scientists and the scientific process that are are not backed up by evidence.
I do think your characterization of creationists is essentially correct, but lumping in the scientists with them as having the same fears does not match the available evidence. If scientists were truly afraid to have their ideas challenged, there would be no scientific progress, ever, and there would be no scientific journals where scientists publish their work, because most challenges come about through publishing in journals. In other words, your characterization is just plain wrong.
But the fact the good sciencetist are getting ostersized for intelegent design (the most liberal version of such) where they replace the word "random" with "God's intent" (which for a being of infinate wisdom and intelegence can seem random to us) is kinda going over the edge.
There are no good scientists that are being ostracized for holding creationist ideas. There are some people with a strong scientific background who have pretty much stopped doing any credible science and started promoting non-scientific ideas as science, and they are receiving valid criticism for it. Replacing "random" with "God's intent" is not a scientifically valid thing to do, and if you really understood the scientific process, you would understand why it isn't a valid idea.
Actually, the earliest concern over greenhouse gases that I'm aware of was proposed in 1896, by Svante Arrhenius. The American Institute of Physics has a pretty extensive bibliography as part of their review paper on this subject, which goes back even further than this.
See The Discovery of Global Warming
There is dark matter. There is more evidence for it besides galactic rotation curves. Lookup the virial theorem and galactic cluster binding energy (in other words, without dark matter there's not enough mass to hold galactic clusters together). Google the Bullet Cluster, in this specific case they have been able to detect a distinct separation between the dark matter and visible matter. There is definitely something there, even if we don't know what it is.
But no FRESH ones.
That's not really true. The orbital cameras around Mars have detected new craters from impacts that occurred in just the last few years. Here's just one example.
Well, you're more or less correct, however what I was getting at is that, there is a detectable difference between a string and point particle at high enough energies. So scattering strings would have different properties than scattering point particles. That is how you would make the detection, theoretically.
Well, let's just take something really simple. String theory predicts the existence of...wait for it...strings (or branes depending on which form you are talking about) and extra dimensions. If the geometric structure of one of these things could be detected, that would be THE thing that would confirm the hypothesis beyond any shadow of a doubt. Directly detecting a string though runs into what I alluded to in my previous comment. The energies required to do this are beyond anything we are currently capable of, and may be beyond anything we will ever be capable of.
Detecting the extra dimensions is another route, but we haven't been able to detect these either, and there seem to be good reasons why we might not be able to see the extra dimensions, although there have been attempts.
So that leaves us with other predictions, like super symmetry, Hawking radiation, higher energy particles, etc, but none of these things are necessarily incompatible with any of the competing ideas. So making the string hypothesis stick is going to be very difficult without some other theoretical break through that predicts phenomena that are more easily within the bounds of our technologies.
Well, the fact that other theories also predict the same effect means that a confirmation of the effect validates all the theories that predict the phenomenon, without really distinguishing one from the other. Although if the magnitude of the prediction varies between different theories then it is possible to distinguish one from the other. For example, this was how general relativity was confirmed for the first time during an eclipse. Both relativity and Newtonian gravity predicted that the sun would deflect the light of background stars, however, relativity predicted the amount of deflection was twice the amount of Newtonian gravity. The amount of deflection was measured during an eclipse and found to exactly match the prediction of general relativity.
So such observations potentially validate all the theories that predict them, but don't necessarily allow us to distinguish which one is right, unless there are details in the predictions that allow us to distinguish one from the other.
Actually, I am a physicist by training. And while you are correct about the more formal definition of theory, colloquially most physicists and scientists in general are not nearly as precise talking amongst themselves as you suggest. I agree that it is sloppy though. mea culpa.
Actually, there are a great many phenomena that string theory explains, the subject of this story, for example is potentially one of them, there's also some things about black holes (like Hawking radiation) which string theory predicts, but other theories also predict Hawking radiation.... plus there's a whole host of things that it predicts that occur at very high energies. But that's essentially the problem with string theory. The kind of things string theory predicts that would confirm it require energies that we are simply incapable of achieving, and the more mundane predictions made by string theory also happen to match predictions by competing non-string theories, making it pretty much impossible for string theory to distinguish itself using modern technologies.
That being said, I think string theory is beautiful, however, it could very well turn out to be the most beautiful theory of physics ever constructed as well as the biggest dead end.
You are confused, and here it is laid bare right here:
Yes I do. Reason is based on faith
Reason is not based on faith. It is the other way around. Reason is based on logic. Nothing, not even God has the ability to change the fact that 1+1=2 without changing the definition of what 1+1 means. That is basis of reason. These things are true because they are constructs from which we extrapolate. If you can not define your universe in a logical fashion you can not reason, and you can not have faith, because faith is the conjecture that reason can not make. But without reason, faith does not exist, because without reason it is impossible to have any level of certainty at all. You can not believe in God without a reason, even if the reason would not be considered a good one, the reason is there. Faith comes from knowing that the reason is insufficient. You would not believe in God if you had never heard of Him. The very fact of hearing of Him, is a reason to believe, not necessarily the best of reasons, but a reason none the less. Faith is the leap beyond that.
They never made it to today. Yesterday was their last day. One day it will be your turn. You do not believe that at that time you will face your Creator, but what if your belief about God and judgment were wrong? What if Jesus was right about the things He said and did?
You're going to have to do better than that. Pascal's Wager? Please. By the way, I never said I believed or disbelieved in anything, only in your narrow minded conception of God's works. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that God is not the petty tinkerer that ID proponents and Biblical literalists have made Him into. I know and understand far better than you do what it means to be uncertain about the world around us, about how it is impossible to know anything for certain, your patronizing tone is quite amusing though, you talk about not being able to know anything for certain, but you miss the point entirely because you miss that there are many things for which we can have a high degree of certainty about. No scientific theory will ever be proven, but a good theory can be shown to have a good reason for believing it, simply conjecturing that your theory can make just as much logical sense as evolution isn't good enough, and it never will be.
Let me put it this way, let's just suppose for the sake of argument that ID is correct. Then what? What are the consequences for medicine? How do we use that theory to predict how to treat disease? How is it in anyway useful at all when if we encounter something we don't understand, we simply state that the designer made it that way? How is that useful and conducive to progress?