[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by renormalised

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but do you know in what context that was written?? A little knowledge, with the emphasis on little. Ignorance maybe bliss, but only to those that are, Alex.

It's like this....when the work of thousands of scientist over many decades is called in question by someone or a group of people who have no respect for those scientists and their work, who denigrate them and denigrate the science and mathematics they study, who have little or no respect for science itself and take views from within the scientific community that maybe at odds with the general consensus and then twist those views to suit their own agendas, who actually have little or no understanding of science and have exhibited that in nearly everything they have espoused, who, when challenged run away from the challenge because they have no intention of exposing themselves to proper scrutiny which will show how lacking they are....it's then that it can be clearly seen that what these people have to say has no real worth about it at all, except as stories, as you say. Mythology and religion.

No one has claimed that their science is infallible in any case here, and I would be the last one to do so. However, what I have said, and what countless others before me have said in the face of what is at the very best just speculation, with little or no observational evidence whatsoever, is that if you're going to espouse a certain point of view, it has to undergo scrutiny and survive the test of validation. If it doesn't and in fact has predictions which are not borne out by the evidence that is readily available, then it has been falsified. It has no basis for being accepted. That is how science works, but it's something that the average person in the street seems to find a little difficult to grasp. Seeing is not believing, nor is coming up with the first idea that springs to mind going to always be the correct one.

You were talking about reasonable notions as suggested by a model of reality that is generally accepted by most scientists. Yes, it's model, but one that has strong predictive powers and has stood the test of time and scrutiny, more or less. It's not perfect, but no scientist would say that it was and it maybe replaced in the future by something else even better. But until then, it's what we have and it works very well. Much better than many of the competing ideas that have been proposed. But what we find is that some of those competing ideas end up incorporated into the standard model anyway. That's how the standard model develops over time. However, they only get incorporated when over time they are found to have some veracity in themselves which adds to the model that already exists.

In any case, who's to say that reality is reasonable. Nothing you see, touch, taste or smell has anything to do with the nature of reality. In fact, you have no idea of what reality actually is because your senses are so easily fooled. Just because your senses tell you one thing doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be the case. The same goes for your "common sense" which is ultimately based on your sensory perceptions in any case. Your logic is dictated by your senses, your experiences and you extrapolate from that. If you knew anything about science and you had experience with the experimentation that goes on, you would know that the nature of reality is far otherwise. That's why people such as yourself and the public in general have such a hard time understanding science. You come at it from a limited perspective and you get lost when something unexpected comes up. You then grasp at straws for answers and invariably the answers you come up with are wrong....full stop. No ifs or buts, because you're coming to your conclusions from a knowledge base which is severely limited and faulty to begin with. That's why scientist sometimes appear to be condescending to the general public, because they "dumb" down the science in order for the general public to be able to understand what they're doing. It's just lucky that we have some excellent communicators in both science and journalism who can breakdown the complexities into reasonably easy to understand concepts. You seems to think that scientist have an easy time of things....they don't. It takes years of study and practice to become a competent scientist and even then they can still find themselves perplexed and bothered by what they find. How then, do you expect most people, who have little or no training or experience, to then come out and understand what's going on or have "the answers". The fact that some think they do is nothing more than sheer and utter arrogance and hubris, all predicated on their own ignorance and misguided beliefs.

Yes, one could go to uni for years and know zip, but they would know far more than those who have done nothing and know less than zip.

You talk about speculation and science....you mentioned time travel and GR and say that "speculation about that time travel crap"....that's precisely what I was talking about in the last few paragraphs. How do you know any better than someone who has spent years studying this to come out and say that it's crap??!!!!. You've never studied the science behind it, you've never spent time gaining the experience through research to try and understand it, so how can you make such a pronouncement??!!. You can't!!!!. All you're stating is an opinion but one based on very little knowledge at all and no understanding of the subject. It only really holds weight as an opinion amongst those who are also in the same position as yourself. Still, it's your opinion and that is to be respected, but that still doesn't make it any more worthy of consideration in the context of the actual science. That goes for everyone....even amongst scientist, when they come up with an idea, it has to pass scrutiny. If it doesn't then it doesn't hold, no matter what that scientist may think of his/her idea. They can stubbornly hold onto it forever and a day, but that still doesn't make it right. Or wrong, but that is to be determined by that scrutiny I have been talking about.

That's why scientist get pissed at people sometimes. They ask questions about something or want to learn about particular things and in most cases a scientist will be happy to help out and teach others about their field(s) of study. However, when people repeatedly show that they have no intention of listening to what is being said and they keep challenging scientists with throw away notions and other such nonsense, keep asking the same questions over and over again or make statements repeatedly just to hear themselves repeat their same old diatribe, denigrate the scientist and the science and then expect to be taken seriously, then you know why they lose patience and just ignore them. Acting like that is just a sign of being an ignoramus and an idiot.

At least that is something you aren't....you may have some wild ideas, but you have respect for others and you know when to say "you have the knowledge and training, so I'm willing to listen". You may not agree, but at least you acknowledge the science and have some respect for it.

The EU crowd have little respect for anyone or anything, even for those they misguidedly believe uphold their notions.

Carl thank you for taking the time to post such a well considered reply I really enjoyed reading your comments. Your understanding of the concept of reality, common sense, beliefs etc I think is excellent.

I would like to clear a few points.
I do read extensively on physics and although I approach things different to a professional scientist feel that I am not unaware of what is out there.
I think I have a fair understanding of the standard model but lack the talk to discuss it easily with someone like yourself.
I am not unaware of how some of my views are at odds but that does not mean I prefer one over the other...to me nothing is valid and I question everything.

I have taken the time to learn all I can about the standard model and consider myself fortunate to be able to call upon folk such as yourself and others here to explain many areas I dont understand.

If I had to identify what pisses me off it is those who claim science as their authority when clearly they have less understanding than I believe I can offer and that a scientific method must be used to get close to truth..... and my understanding is that the scientific method is critical to establishing a fact... many facts in my view are simply not fact... that is not because I dont respect science but because I cringe when folk offer stuff that does not follow the scientific method.


I agree with most everything you have said and my respect for science is probably much higher than my writing style shows. I am the first to recognize my limitations and try to present as knowing much less than I probably do... I can not accept that given all the lectures I have followed on GR and the standard model that I am totally ignorant of the general drift of the concepts.

I do appreciate how the current bank of knowledge was accumulated ... I enjoy studying the history of ideas... No doubt you are aware that I was not the first to have the push gravity idea...It goes back a long way..certainly to LeSage 1745 ...and I suspect that even his ideas were sparked by the early Greeks concept of an aether.
Newton was not unaware of the push gravity concept but had the sense not to buy into the force behind gravity... his answer to a question..what is the force of gravity gained a reply...it is the force of God... I doubt if a scientist such as Newton believed such but no doubt for his era that was a most intelligent reply... intelligent because Newton did not upset the church with such an answer... As to the work of many men to built our science I totally recognize such... Even Dr A built upon the extensive work of others to come up with what appeared to most as a brand new concept...Lets face it Dr A was not the first to wrestle with the concept of space and a method for measurement and quantification... He also was very clever in so far he did not irritate the church because GR mentions no force really... as DrA said you have to play within the rules of the game... rule one dont upset the church...... I feel the determination to eliminate an aether when clearly something of that nature is obvious perhaps would make the church happy because admitting the aether may infringe on the power of God.

Moreover reality is a strange combination of stuff we dont even realize we take into account... reality is very personal and failure to take into account anothers personal reality (belief and belief systems) is to deny opportunity of wider thought.

Still I affirm my point..I respect science and the scientific method no doubt a great deal more than my dibbling on gravity etc. may indicate to others.

Again thanks for such a well thought out post I doubt if there is any point I do not agree with you upon although I do appreciate my style may seem I have no respect for science but it is for those who are always right that I have difficulty mustering respect, and lets face it those types can be found everywhere EU and the Big bang universe...maybe even in the push universe.

You must appreciate although I live in a push universe I learn all I can about the standard model and respect generally the conclusions...

alex