The Proprietor Tries To Gaslight Science

[Everybody Wang Chung]

We all have our own strange beliefs. The proprietor is no different. We all know that the proprietor believes in dowsing, ESP, NDEs, ancient civilizations that spanned thousands of years (that left no objective archaeological trace), Book of Mormon era elephants, horses, etc.

But recently I was left speechless by a couple of the proprietor's comments arguing that cosmology, geology and string theory don't generate testable hypotheses. What the proprietor is arguing is so completely against well established scientific consensus, I have to wonder if there is some old-age cognitive decline going on? Judge for yourself:

axelbeingcivil
4 days ago
"Instead, intelligent design is an evidence-based scientific theory"

This is a lie, though. A scientific theory has to make testable predictions. There's a reason why, when Stephen Meyer testified in Kitzmiller v. Dover, he put forward no scientific papers in support of his claim. You can make claims about the meaning of evidence all you like but, when it comes to science, you have to actually make testable claims. Evolutionary theorists have put forward multitudes of claims over the past century and a half and tested them. Where are the rigorous, repeatable studies for intelligent design?

If you're going to test something, you need to figure out what being wrong would look like. You need to know what the alternative would be. But once you do that, you open the door to being shown to be wrong, and that spoils the grift.



DanielPeterson
4 days ago
abc: "This is a lie, though."

Can't you disagree without impugning the motives of those who see things differently? Are you really unable to do so?

abc: "A scientific theory has to make testable predictions."

As string theory, cosmology, and geology so famously do.



axelbeingcivil
4 days ago
Of course I can. I do it all the time. I have done it here regularly. But Meyer has had this pointed out to him over and over. He has quite literally been in court before a judge, asked to provide testable evidence, to show experimental research, and admitted he had none. If you admit you've never done any kind of experimental work, never seen any kind of experimental work, to test your claims, in what way are you doing anything scientific?

As for string theory, cosmology, and geology, they actually do all make testable predictions. String theory's tests are just not really possible at present, due to the energies required being beyond what can be generated, but that's why it's also not taken terribly seriously.

Cosmology, meanwhile... I mean, the obvious example that spring to mind are people like Schwarzschild and Einstein predicting black holes decades before one was ever discovered, or the recent test for detecting gravitational waves using a neutron star as an enormous detector.

And geology... Goodness me, not sure where to begin on that one. Geology is tested pretty regularly, when it comes to mining and other raw material extraction, or using methods to survey archaeological sites and the like.

Why would you assume otherwise?



DanielPeterson
3 days ago edited
abc: "Why would you assume otherwise?"

Seriously?



axelbeingcivil
3 days ago
Yes, seriously. You seemed very sure that the three things you listed don't generate testable hypotheses. Why would you assume that to be the case when it demonstrably isn't?

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

[Philo Sofee]

Peterson could easily find out how geology is scientific and testable by asking a fellow BYU colleague, Barry Bickmore, the resident BYU geologist about it all. He knows Bickmore so it would be soooooooo easy for him to do that. Geology is eminently testable. I too, for the life of me, cannot grasp how Peterson thinks it is not.

Edited to add:

O.K., this may be one reason why Peterson is so glib on imagining Geology to be a science and testable.
http://dancingphysicist.com/blog/the-bi ... al-science

[Gadianton]

lol. DCP has been sucked into yet another creationism scam. "It's not science unless it can be tested directly in a laboratory".

Religionists do this in order to give them a free pass on their unhinged beliefs. If not even Cosmology can count as science, then DCP can believe whatever he wants about the afterlife. That's literally his logic. Or, some extremely low bar for accepting the Book of Mormon as ancient is good enough.

[Physics Guy]

I don’t know about geology, but string theory really hasn’t ever made any predictions, and cosmology is weak at best on predicting things, too. Cosmology is a narrow subject, ironically, because it is specifically the study of the cosmos as a whole. Even galaxy clusters are below its radar. Black holes and gravitational waves score no points for it. Cosmology can and does try to compare its models with observational data, but its main open questions are about the earliest stages of the universe, when conditions were so different from anything we know that we can’t trust any theories we have. So it’s an inherently iffy and speculative discipline.

String theory and cosmology are on the outer fringes of science, and I think everyone admits this. They are at least trying to make testable predictions, though. Their hypotheses aren’t restricted enough to imply definite predictions, but they aren’t just compatible with anything whatever, like the ID hypothesis that an omnipotent God just did whatever it took.

Moreover, the speculative fringes of science aren’t why science gets taken seriously. If you can only clear the low bar of string theory, you don’t deserve much respect, whether you can get away with wearing the Science lapel pin or not.

[Res Ipsa]

I don’t know about geology, but string theory really hasn’t ever made any predictions, and cosmology is weak at best on predicting things, too. Cosmology is a narrow subject, ironically, because it is specifically the study of the cosmos as a whole. Even galaxy clusters are below its radar. Black holes and gravitational waves score no points for it. Cosmology can and does try to compare its models with observational data, but its main open questions are about the earliest stages of the universe, when conditions were so different from anything we know that we can’t trust any theories we have. So it’s an inherently iffy and speculative discipline.

String theory and cosmology are on the outer fringes of science, and I think everyone admits this. They are at least trying to make testable predictions, though. Their hypotheses aren’t restricted enough to imply definite predictions, but they aren’t just compatible with anything whatever, like the ID hypothesis that an omnipotent God just did whatever it took.

Moreover, the speculative fringes of science aren’t why science gets taken seriously. If you can only clear the low bar of string theory, you don’t deserve much respect, whether you can get away with wearing the Science lapel pin or not.

Comparing models with observational data is, in my opinion, the kind of hypothesis testing that we associate with science. Models make predictions, which can be tested with data. Climate science does a similar thing with models. It models the physical processes that influence climate, makes predictions, and uses data to evaluate the model.

I think of string theory as math. It's interesting, but not currently testable.

Lumping geology in with those two simply shows a misunderstanding of both science and geology.