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Many of the founding fathers of science had to fight against ignorance, and there was a lack of educated minds who could validate their theories and conclusions. They even had to purposely hold back real facts until they were on their deathbed because of the fear of retribution. That is not the case in modern times.
Isn't it? That's a very absolutist pronouncement!
All those other generations were so dumb, whilst we of course are so enlightened. D'you realise that's what EVERY generation has said about itself since the Renaissance? Suddenly we're better.
Dr. Zaius is often caricatured as religious dogmatism against progress, but he's actually ANY establishment smugness versus new thought. We still have all sorts of conservative reactionary people in scientific bodies, we still have jealousies and peer competition, we have drug companies and multinationals striving for monopolies ..... people are what they always were.
Rationalists use REASON, which involves speculation based on what's proven and what isn't yet. They don't just lock the door on settled theories.
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Posted: |
Feb 17, 2017 - 9:43 AM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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You're basing this on Hawking's 'effect before cause' argument, but that's just something not yet seen. We just don't know.
More recent arguments involve the molecular nuclei polar alignment observation that the universe is traveling in one direction timewise that can't be outrun. That theory supposed it might be possible to move forward in time, but not back.
But it's not universally shared.
We can speculate all we like, we don't yet know.
This is so tiring. Yes, we don't know. That's a rather obvious conclusion. But, "yet"? You're an optimistic kid. I'm just a hopeless cynic. As a species, we're going to be long gone before we ever get anywhere close to knowing the totality of what you're referring to, I'm afraid. I just simply think that's the natural way of things with the tiny creatures we are, and I'm fine with it.
It doesn't frustrate me at all. I actually find a comfort in the not knowing and even in the no hope of ever knowing.
By the way, geneticists have pretty much concluded -- that is as best as they can "know" -- that as a species, Man is NEVER going to evolve, even if we manage to survive another million years, into the kind of being that someone here uses as their avatar, the being "The Outer Limits" Gwyllm Griffiths, much less into Mr. Spock's "Pure Energy" intellectual beings (ala the supposed creators of 2001's monolith).
He's just another John Chambers makeup flight of fancy. The child I was once wanted to believe that, but not anymore.
Rationalists use REASON, which involves speculation based on what's proven and what isn't yet. They don't just lock the door on settled theories.
And just how reasonable are you being? Are you confusing rationalism with being opened minded with "rationalizing" the likelihood of dreamt up fantasies only based on science -- or theories that can't be proven -- becoming fact which truly can only be rationally regarded as most unlikely?
I think maybe so -- and you're starting to piss me off!!!! 
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SOME geneticists, not all.
The public has misconceptions re evolution, that it's some sort of process towards a 'better', a Nietzchian 'superman', what some ancients called the 'Anthropos' or 'Son of Man'.
What evolution really says is that the most adaptable to changing conditions survive, but not that this leads to 'better' in some absolute sense. It's better in that it survives. But investments can go down as well as up.
Of course we MIGHT improve. No-one can say we won't. They can't even predict the economy.
As far as evolving beyond corporeal bodies.... isn't that called death? In many traditions?
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No, you neither read what I wrote, nor understood it.
Neither you, nor anyone, knows the long term evolutionary prospects for mankind. You're out of arguments.
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You can go ad hominem as much as you like.
I do call this bluff, because you're writing a fantasy where you're the sane, down to earth tough guy who cuts 'em all down to size, and defends scientific rigour. You do it a lot.
Whilst I of course in this one am the wild speculator, out of touch with reality.
These are affectations. Real scientists are humble as a rule.
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Posted: |
Feb 17, 2017 - 11:24 AM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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Many of the founding fathers of science had to fight against ignorance, and there was a lack of educated minds who could validate their theories and conclusions. They even had to purposely hold back real facts until they were on their deathbed because of the fear of retribution. That is not the case in modern times.
Isn't it? That's a very absolutist pronouncement!
All those other generations were so dumb, whilst we of course are so enlightened. D'you realise that's what EVERY generation has said about itself since the Renaissance? Suddenly we're better.
Dr. Zaius is often caricatured as religious dogmatism against progress, but he's actually ANY establishment smugness versus new thought. We still have all sorts of conservative reactionary people in scientific bodies, we still have jealousies and peer competition, we have drug companies and multinationals striving for monopolies ..... people are what they always were.
Rationalists use REASON, which involves speculation based on what's proven and what isn't yet. They don't just lock the door on settled theories.
What I object to is discrediting established facts and evidence. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Not three thousand. The Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around. Global warming has accelerated because of humans industrial revolution from the 1900's.
I'm all for imagination and new theories, but that's all they are, until proven. So I hold "out of the box" or alternative thinking as suspect until you have some grain of evidence to present.
And I'm careful not to confuse popular theories with scientific fact just because it bridges into modern culture. Dinosaurs are often rendered with colorful skin patterns. That's a running theory which has dominated the science community for years, but it's pure speculation.
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Yeah, I suspected you wouldn't answer that question.
Note for future reference: WILLIAMDMCCRUM is a kid.
I'll answer yours when you answer mine. Tell us all why your selected group of geneticists can predict the course of evolution. Tell using detail, with reference to future environmental projections and genome theory.
Now don't just say you read it in one book.
By the way, this fits the affectation again. The good 'ol boy spittin' baccy at the youngsters. You've seen it all of course.
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Oh, that's a pity.
I was going to ask you what your scientific education was. We could have compared slide-rules. 'Guess we won't do that now.
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What I object to is discrediting established facts and evidence. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Not three thousand. The Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around. Global warming has accelerated because of humans industrial revolution from the 1900's.
What you"re really doing is letting people like RoryR polarise you.
These facts you're mentioning, hopefully only as illustrations, are so well attested and held that one would need to be an idiot to believe otherwise. Again, this polarising trend means everyone falls into either the 'flat-earth, creationist, fundamentalist, manmade climate change denying, loony fringe' versus the Asperger's, enlightened, rational/empirical, tight man of science.
As metryq truthfully said, theories are never proven: they're rationally held until disproven.
But when it comes to scientists having to affect that they know whether or not we've been visited, there's humility needed. If something isn't known, it isn't known, but can still be speculated on. Before we try to be objective about the world, we have to try to be objective about ourselves. What are our prejudices? Who are we trying to impress? What image are we trying to project?
Looking at stupid stuff like abduction stories and cow molestations (not that ANYTHING shouldn't at least have a day in court), is to create a straw man that only distracts.
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)