Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

I can live with that Damien :)

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

Broadly speaking, science goes on the notion that it allows itself to be disproven at any time by stronger evidence. As you say this new revelation has been theorised for many years and could only be proven 100% if someone was able to view and test these 'waves'. Instead the evidence and research in their favour is very strong.

Going on what I've read about it, if the evidence was put before some kind of 'law court', it would be considered one of the biggest 'cut and dried' cases ever.

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

It would seem so.

Of course it could be disproven at any time and many scientists will be trying to do so as we speak. The Higgs Boson is still being verified but it would require something extraordinary for those results to be invalidated at this point. As we learn more we may adjust what we think we already know.

The thing is these theories often led to us being able to do something practical with the knowledge. Our understanding of physics has led us to invent air travel, cars, nuclear energy and more. So even if we've made a fundamental mistake somewhere we must be correct about the aspects of how these concepts relate to each other.

As I said we can only measure and observe the world we see and work within the parameters given. The idea there could be something outside of that which would invalidate it (other dimensions, other forces, God) is useless to science as we can't test it. So it's an irrelevance as far as scientific research goes....

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

And knowing that validates my wish not to accept the information as fact :)

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

As I said you might as well apply this notion to everything including your very existence. Everything you know could be wrong. It's a situation where you're not sure of anything, don't really know anything, a permanent state of equivocacy. Which is fine but for myself I don't see it as a constructive way to approach the world.

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

I do see it that way and I am comfortable in such. Many year ago whilst tripping my tits off me and a group of fellow trippers were discussing life the universe and everything and we come to the conclusion that we may have at some point found the answer to the meaning of life but we can not possibly know if we had so what is the point in worrying about it. I did used to love the LSD lol

After all it all just adds up to 42

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

One problem here is the philosophical one. People are so attached to their belief that discussions fall into name calling and other childish behaviour rather than discussing what is presented and how to interpret it.

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

Highly recommend a read of this website.

---------- Post added at 12:27 ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 ----------

Being philosophical a moment everyone has a different idea of the meaning of their life and that's the only meaning of life that matters.

This kind of research is incredibly important; stealing from a couple of quotes we are the universe made conscious and through us it seeks to understand itself. We get things wrong, but that's not a bad thing, that's science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

I agree with what you say totally and I for one choose to be skeptical because of the very fact science is often proven wrong later.

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

Well it would be disproved by further science which means you can't really believe that they've proven it wrong because that might be wrong as well.

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

exactly

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

Bit of a circular process isn't it?

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

yeah and that is why I choose to be a skeptic

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

And me ;)

Re: Scientists find 'marker' left by Big Bang
 

Is accepting what is bound to be later proven as non-truth, as truth, really constructive though? Science is about learning, not actual truth. If you want truth, ask God after this life has finished with you.
We can accept current (pre-sell by date, check the label) knowledge as being closer to the truth based on our limited understanding. We'd have to be quite arrogant to think 2014 knowledge isn't going to be overturned later, as the means to do so remains a fundamental tenet in science. That is, it may well be overturned and science will remain receptive to new competing explanations. To think otherwise, is non constructive, and such thinking just leads researchers to digging in their heels and defending their, however obsolete, theories and work. Everything we believe of the universe could be wrong, our theories are the best we have so far, with perhaps thousands of years of scientific discoveries still ahead, but that's the best we've got.
Although much if not all current understanding could have better explanations, we will need to prove it with data as that is the only way we have to learn and understand the universe.

I don't believe scientists are true scientists at all, merely anthropological apes (however turbocharged their subconscious brains may be) trying to be science-like, often failing miserably. What has been described as science by some posters in this thread is in my view, an abstract concept. A nice ideology, but you'd be surprised just how few "scientists" are truly objective and receptive to critique of their work.
For this reason, I will aptly refer to them as science manfolk.

It wasn't so long ago, that science manfolk proclaimed that all matter was made of indivisible particles that were infinitely strong and unbreakable, thus it was only fitting that they should name these particles after the Greek work atomos meaning "can't be split". We all know how that ended, a bit of a bang...
On the subject of friction, many science manfolk had a go at cracking what could hardly be described as a technical problem of stellar proportions.
A science manperson named Johann Bercher proclaimed that heat was inside materials that was released when burned. This theory didn't last long and was soon disproved.
In 1761 Joseph Black, said heat from friction was the result of heat combining with matter and becoming "latent". Hence the thermodynamic terminology that persists to this day, heat required to boil water into steam is "latent heat of vaporization" (conversely the same amount of energy is released/removed when the vapor condenses into liquid), the heat required to melt ice is the "latent heat of crystallization" (conversely the same heat is released/removed when ice is formed).
Joseph Black's theory of friction was later proved wrong also.
Then Antoine Lavoisier published his Caloric Theory that described heat as being a liquid called "caloric" that flowed from hotter bodies to cooler ones. One can see the logic there, but completely wrong of course. And yes, that's the origin of the term calorie that persists today - yet another scar of science manfolk wrongness that will probably be around forever.
It wasn't until the kinetic theory of gases that science finally had something that made some actual sense.

Antoine Lavoisier, widely revered today as the "Father of Modern Chemistry" when questioned about the existence of meteorites, famously proclaimed that "Rocks don't fall from the sky, because there are no rocks in the sky." This was after several rocks reportedly fell from the sky and landed in a French farmers field.
For centuries, science manfolk widely proclaimed that any manned flight was impossible.
Then the Montgolfier Brothers pioneered the new technology of hot air ballooning, not to be out done, the science manfolk said, okay fine yes that's possible (with a James Randi grin perhaps) but powered manned flight isn't possible. A leading scientist of the day, equipped with the best education that manfolk science had to offer in the day, proclaimed he would succeed in his quest to achieve powered flight. His name was Samuel Pierpont Langley, physicist and astronomer, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, a true science manperson of his day.
After having been given a $50,000 grant and building many prototypes, he built one that worked, a small model (presumably balsa wood). It glided nicely, Samuel was pleased.
Having found his working design, he then scaled it up to be large enough to carry a human and an engine. Upon launching his "flyer", it quite rightly crashed into the sea, a complete abortion. Every engineer knows that dimensions don't scale linearly, I suppose someone forgot to tell him.
Several days later a couple of bicycle builders flew their flyer and gained notoriety when they became acknowledged as the world's first to pilot a powered glider at Kitty Hawk, NC. Of course we know them today as the Wright brothers.

Now I could go on and on. Just pick any specific area of science, and look up the development. We today, are still very much in development as we've only just scratched the surface of science. However, science manfolk don't like to think their life's work is merely scratching the surface of anything so right through the centuries they've always believed they have truth. It's what drives them. Science manfolk have always believed they have the same understanding of the universe, as they do right now. Odd that, I think that says far more about human psychology than it does actual science or how much we really know about the universe.

Furthermore, whenever the wrong scientific theories remained, early pioneers who tried to get support for their better hypothesis, were widely ridiculed by scientists.
Even the great Nikola Tesla had a really hard time trying to get sense through to science manfolk of the day, even when the technological deck was highly stacked in his favor. AC vs DC, was a no-brainer, really - or at least so you'd think. Science manfolk widely ridiculed and dismissed arguably one of the most brilliant engineers in history, as a crackpot and crank. But Nikola did get results, and results don't lie. Luckily he had the means and finance to build his inventions.
History is littered with similar examples.
Science pioneers have always had to fight to get their ideas or inventions taken seriously. Any "science" that is presented that doesn't tie in with the "scientific expectations of the era" is outright attacked. Having such a bias is not true science in my view, reeks of what science manfolk badge themselves as standing to oppose, but in practise they often don't. Even new theories such as "morphic resonance" that are interesting explanations of scientific observation, are outright ridiculed because it sounds a little like the paranormal boogieman that one dares not touch, he he/she is to be respected by fellow science folk.

Every single major invention/discovery wasn't accepted by the peer science manfolk at the time. They didn't just say they weren't convinced, they outright attacked those claiming to have discovered something, and only accepting their ideas not when they'd been proven, but when they could be denied no longer.
In effect, modern science has arguably been dragged by an intellectual elite, kicking and screaming, into the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

It should be clear by now, that sheer ignorance and academia can often go hand in hand. Most science manfolk are academics, not "out of the box" thinkers with inventive minds. Hence why inventors and engineers, not academics, have invented nearly everything we have today.

The question isn't why doubt science because it could be wrong, rather history has shown that it almost always is, just not obvious to everyone at the time. I challenge anyone to show me a single example where science manfolk have been confronted with a new observation, and then went on to develop a true explanation on the first, second, third or even the fourth try?
Good luck.

---------- Post added at 14:36 ---------- Previous post was at 13:25 ----------

For a more recent example of research dismissed by scientists as not fitting in with the "scientific expectations of the era", consider the example of cold fusion.

Remember cold fusion? Gained notoriety in 1989 when brought to the worlds attention by two of the world's leading electrochemists Martin Fleishchmann and Stanely Pons. Later found to be unproven.
Ridiculed and jeered at by science folk ever since. Snake oil, touch it and your career in science might just be over.
Remember?

Well, have a read here
The E-Cat is Andrea Rossi's cold fusion reactor. Andrea has a rather dubious past, but his work has attracted a lot of interest, though not from mainstream science.
Research has continued into cold fusion, and some physicists are saying its a genuine phenomenon, just one that's still not understood. If true its the scientific breakthrough of the century. What is being claimed, is that nickel catalyst is being transmuted into copper, through an unknown nuclear process (involving H+ protons) resulting in the release of megawatts of heat, and causing the formation of copper inside the reactor (allegedly).

If this turns out to be true, then this will be quite an embarrassment for the established scientific "method", but an exciting breakthrough nonetheless.

---------- Post added at 14:45 ---------- Previous post was at 14:36 ----------

Just having a read, it now seems that Andrea Rossi has recently sold the intellectual property rights to a US energy firm.
http://www.anthropower.com/nuclear-news-5

I wonder if they'll actually develop it or just sit on it?