Yes. Evolution.

[ant]

"string theory is in a grey area between science and pseudoscience. Publisher's Weekly says: Superstring theory is one of the latest inhabitants of what Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things, etc.), editor of Skeptic magazine, calls the "borderlands" of science: that is, ideas that fall somewhere between established, likely explanations for reality (or some small part thereof) and pseudoscientific claims (e.g., remote viewing or alien abduction)"

I didn't know that.
Interesting. Saying it's in a grey area is being polite to all the highly respected cosmologists and theoretical physicists who are bestowing explanatory value to it.
It's clearly not a testable hypothesis.
It's clearly not based on observation of any sort.
It's clearly not based on empirical evidence.

It almost seems like a desperate stab at a Grand Unified Theory.

And to think there are dullards out there that are willing to call this stuff science strictly to make god vanish.

[youkrst]

How can a Christopher Hitchens, a Richard Dawkins, a Carl Sagan, a Stephen Hawking, or even a Robert Tulip tell me with atheistic certainty there is no God?
Surely school is not out as of yet.

no god? or no personal god? or no literalist god? no literal yahweh, allah, jesus etc etc

or no transcendence? no mystery beyond common 5 sense perception?

there is a lot of devil in the detail.

the only thing i find objectionable is the positing of one literalised metaphor against another as if they were real.

like when we have people posting as if jesus isn't a mythical figure but a literal saviour of the historical world. and all the BS literalist dogma that goes with it, typically present in christianity, islam and judaism even though all three have their esoteric sides, the heretics!

Dawkins Hitch and ant etc etc can pretty much believe what they like and i am sure they will no matter my opinion, as it should be, i only object to the damage done to humans through literalism.

i know Dawkins and Hitch etc would agree and i wonder if ant also would agree.

indeed it seems ant is no literalist, so more power to him, but sometimes i get a little confused if he defends a historical jesus or something along those lines.

to me it's that straightforward, if you are a religious literalist you are an idiot and an enemy of yourself and humanity and if you are not then good luck to you.

what is the point in preserving life only to have it perverted by literalism.

now let me just go and check under the rocks at the bottom of the garden in case there are any literalists lurking about unknown. but then again, i suppose it's literalism that must be destroyed not literalists.



It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
G.K.Chesterton

strictly to make god vanish.

do you mean yahweh, or the concept of a mystery behind what exists, or something different again?

[DWill]

Picking up on what youkrst said, Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, do not proscribe vaguely theistic or non-theistic notions of God very similar to those that ant was describing. That's my contention, from reading these writers, so I think we need to see quotations from them that would prove otherwise (and we need to go deeper than the title of Hitchens' famous book).

What they do proscribe is the notion that there exists an all-powerful God that has revealed the truth to me and mine, so that I might act on those revelations against anyone who hasn't received them or has rejected them. If you (ant) also dismiss thatGod-belief as false, you are in substantial agreement with D and H.

[johnson1010]

What is the corroborative evidence that supports the "expectation" there are 11 dimensions as claimed by a growing consensus of scientists who support string theory and a multitude of universes?
(note:I'm not talking about the scientists you meet at booths set up at your local grade school science fair.
I'm talking about some BIG names in Physics and Cosmology here).

I've said before that i have read enough to get at the underpinnings of string theory. You would be better off chasing this down yourself by doing some reading of your own.

What's this jab at the end about grade school science fair scientists? This is just you being salty, trying to make a farce out of something you don't understand, and haven't read about. You obviously don't think there are dudes sitting at grade school science fairs with card board diaramas trying to convert 3rd graders to get on board with string theory, so why throw that in there except to be an ass-hat?

What observations should science point to as related "accumulated evidence"?
Do you think the scientists that support the multiverse theory confidently expect to discover the reality of endless universes?

Does the Mutliverse explanation fit nicely with Occam's Razor?


You probably are willing to ignore this area of science.
Do you think that it's pseudo science they are engaging in?

Here's Richard Feynman talking a bit about exploring what isn't known.

You should watch this.

http://www.wimp.com/explainedscience/

So string theorists are taking a guess at how the universe works, but they are falling a bit short. They have to posit things like 11 dimensions to make the math work. Right now i know people are trying to test whether there are any signs of these extra dimensions. I don't know much about it, but i believe some of the things that they expect to find IF string theory is right would be discovered at the LHC over the course of it's run. They are still formulating the guess and are a long way from calculating all the possibilities. Michio Kaku thinks that one of the reprecussions SHOULD be our universe, but that hasn't come out of the math yet as far as i know.

String theory isn't really a theory at this point, i should remind you. That's what it's called, but it're really a guess. It isn't dogma, it isn't the only explanation, and it isn't universally accepted. Lawrence Krause seems to have little regard for string theory as it stands now.

I heard him do a talk once where he made this little play about talking to a string theorist.

"I have an idea! What if everything were really made of tiny vibrating strings?

O.K., Cool. What would that mean then?

I don't know."

As Feynman pointed out in the video, we aren't certain of anything. I have argued against our "certainty" every time you try to apply it to us. This is why i try to frame our understanding of the world in terms of confidence. You are correct to say putting a number value on our confidence is arbitrary. Science is all about testing things. And though we can't ever say "this is for sure the way it is" we can say "this is for sure NOT the way it is" because we've looked at it and it doesn't agree with reality.

So, is there psychic power?

Probably not. But maybe.

Does THIS guy have psychic power? He claims he can lift a car with his mind.

No he definitely doesn't have that power because we tested him against the things he claimed he could do, and he failed.

But every time somebody sees words like "probably not" they start to imagine that means "as likely as not". But that isn't the case.

So you tell us, Ant. Why do you just keep asserting that science is on equal footing with the wishful thinking of believers who just want to believe in something greater?

[johnson1010]

So where's this non-diluted definition of faith you assert, Ant?

[Interbane]

Interesting. Saying it's in a grey area is being polite to all the highly respected cosmologists and theoretical physicists who are bestowing explanatory value to it.
It's clearly not a testable hypothesis.
It's clearly not based on observation of any sort.
It's clearly not based on empirical evidence.

It's based on mathematical extrapolation, the same as the Higgs Boson was. Before we acquire evidence, in many cases, we need better tools. That is not a knock against these hypotheses. They'll be sorted or ruled out in time. For now, unless you have an alternative explanation for how elementary particles acquire their characteristics, supersymmetric string theory should be considered as one of the possibilities.

And to think there are dullards out there that are willing to call this stuff science strictly to make god vanish.

The current gap in our knowledge will be filled. But that will merely lead to further gaps in our knowledge as the horizon expands. Do you seek to find god in each of those gaps? I highly doubt the motive of theoretical physicists is to fill those gaps to leave god with fewer hiding spots. To go even further and claim that it's "strictly" their motive is simply untrue.

[ant]

It's based on mathematical extrapolation, the same as the Higgs Boson was.

I know this. As a matter of fact, I have commented here on BT, however brief, about mathematical models and attempts to make them fit natural phenomena.

Also, the realm of science is littered with discarded mathematical extrapolations, and or "recalibrations" of extrapolations for the purpose of matching our conceptions of phenomena with nature.
Consider at your leisure the history of the speed of light and the constant "G."

With the discovery of Dark Matter, we quite frankly don't know where the hell G will take us.
You can use the word "possibility" if you'd like. It's easier to digest. However, some prominent scientists (are you a scientist or a mathematician, btw?) refer to String Theory as a wild guess.

The current gap in our knowledge will be filled.

The above is not a scientific statement. It is a statement of FAITH.
I'm certain Johnson will step in on your behalf and say that it's not faith you have, it's CONFIDENCE.

[Interbane]

The above is not a scientific statement. It is a statement of FAITH.
I'm certain Johnson will step in on your behalf and say that it's not faith you have, it's CONFIDENCE.

Which one of us thinks I was making a scientific statement?

We know that the gaps of god's former residences have been filled systematically and ruthlessly over the centuries. That is a pattern that justifies my comment. It is based on inductive reasoning, not faith. It is not a scientific statement either, it's a propositional claim. Based on the available evidence, I'm confident enough to stand behind my claim. Do you hope the conceptual definition of faith would expand to include inductive reasoning?

It's easier to digest. However, some prominent scientists (are you a scientist or a mathematician, btw?) refer to String Theory as a wild guess.

I usually prefer to refer to things objectively. Calling it a wild guess is okay, but it betrays personal motive. I'm not claiming the possibility is high, but I won't rule it out. Calling it a "wild guess" carries a dismissive air... as if we can fully discount it. It's emotional language. As long as we agree they mean the same thing, I'll use either. But the baggage of emotional language always causes snags in a conversation.

[Dexter]

So some scientists are criticizing string theory for not being testable. +1 for science. Proponents are working to make their case more effectively, or something else will provide a better explanation. The choice is not accepting everything at the frontier of scientific speculation vs. turning to baseless religious claims.

And what corrective process is there for making stuff up about God? Anything goes because it's all about the faith...

Belief in a Vague, Generic Deity is obviously unfalsifiable, and because it has no content it doesn't even answer the "Big Questions" that science can't. So what's the point of it again?

[ant]

Which one of us thinks I was making a scientific statement?

We know that the gaps of god's former residences have been filled systematically and ruthlessly over the centuries. That is a pattern that justifies my comment. It is based on inductive reasoning, not faith. It is not a scientific statement either, it's a propositional claim. Based on the available evidence, I'm confident enough to stand behind my claim. Do you hope the conceptual definition of faith would expand to include inductive reasoning?

The concept of God as the primary cause, outside of space and time is not replaced by hypothesis.
To "ruthlessly" explain why rain falls from the sky, why the sky is blue, the grass green, what keeps our bodies from floating into space, what is the center of our solar system, our galaxy, or our universe (well, skip that last one) is not to explain God away. Your claim is yet another arrogant presumption about human understanding. Remember you claimed we humans have pretty much "stopped evolving"?

You are projecting explanatory power much too far in to the future. You are venturing well beyond "local inference." Your claim is not reasonable. It's really more like a giant leap of faith. I'm sorry if the word offends your "reasoning."

I'm not certain whether our understanding of gravity is clear or vague.
What do you think?

"NewScientist" has a good article about gravity titled "7 Things that Don't make Sense about Gravity"

The first question is "What IS gravity?"
Is our understanding of gravity clear or vague on this matter?
Don't get silly on me by quacking "saying god did it is not an explanation." I'd like you to demonstrate your non-vague explanatory skills about gravity.

Do you think all observations of gravity to date point to a complete understanding of gravity?
To date we can only explain a small portion of its behavior.

I think your understanding of nature is vague.
I think it's vague because of your sensory and intellectual limitations. That includes us all, of course.

You are being brazenly confident by claiming all gaps of understanding will be filled based on inference.
Your faith in science is based strictly on elementary explanations of behaviors of natural phenomena and nothing more.

You might be stuck with the question "What is the nature of reality" before you can confidently assert that the gaps filled with scientific understanding have done away, or will do away with the question of god.
You're leaping all over the place here like a frog.

Ps

Remember our reasoning here:
You can't possibly hope to know everything about everything.
You can only strive to know something about something.

Are you going to make a claim we will one day know everything about everything?
That's a claim of omniscience, no doubt based on omnipresent observational powers and omnipotent understanding.