A question about the lifespan of scientific theories.

[Hammod1612]

A quick question to all of the people holding the facts out there:
I'm personally an Atheist, and was recently in a discussion with my Christian friend about God, evolution and so forth.
A thing that bugged me a bit was one of her "facts," which i could not really comment upon since i didn't have the knowledge about it.
Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years. Now i know for a fact that it's because science constantly discovers new things to replace the old theories, which i told her, but is this actually a fact, that theories have an average lifespan of 30 years?

[Jackalope]

Never heard of it. It's your friend's claim - if they can't back it up, you're perfectly justified in rejecting in.

Furthermore, religion hasn't "lasted for thousands of years" unchanged.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

A quick question to all of the people holding the facts out there:
I'm personally an Atheist, and was recently in a discussion with my Christian friend about God, evolution and so forth.
A thing that bugged me a bit was one of her "facts," which i could not really comment upon since i didn't have the knowledge about it.
Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years. Now i know for a fact that it's because science constantly discovers new things to replace the old theories, which i told her, but is this actually a fact, that theories have an average lifespan of 30 years?

No idea. But if they do, it is a very good thing. The shorter the time a scientific theory last, the faster we are accumulating new knowledge and understanding more about the world around us.

Tell your friend that a belief lasting thousands of years doesn't make that belief correct, it is simply the calcification of wrongness.

Boru

[Minimalist]

Your friend sounds like an idiot.

[vorlon13]

A quick question to all of the people holding the facts out there:
I'm personally an Atheist, and was recently in a discussion with my Christian friend about God, evolution and so forth.
A thing that bugged me a bit was one of her "facts," which i could not really comment upon since i didn't have the knowledge about it.
Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years. Now i know for a fact that it's because science constantly discovers new things to replace the old theories, which i told her, but is this actually a fact, that theories have an average lifespan of 30 years?

\

If your friend is LDS, boy oh boy, could I pop her balloon.

BTW, Newton's theory of gravity (hundreds of years old) is still accurate enough to guide spacecraft to planets billions of miles away to an accuracy of just some tens of miles.

[abaris]

Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years.

That's because science is about learning and religion is about ignorance. Whenever some new facts come up, scientists are ready to revise their theories or build on existing ones.

So what your friend says is an argument from ignorance.

[Alex K]

It's not clear when one would declare one theory to end and a new one to begin. Usually, there are continuous amendments because new knowledge is gained. That doesn't mean that all previous theory is discarded. The 30 years sound completely made up. Newtonian physics was uncontested for hundreds of years and even today is valid as a limiting case of relativity and quantum mechanics, say. Darwinian evolution has been put in a context of the neodarwinian synthesis, what, 80 years later or so, and also here one can speak of a refinement, and some removal of baggage, not replacement. I'm willing to bet my gravestone that the core tenets of darwinian evolution will still hold in 1000 years time. The ptolomaian model of the solar system was used for 1400 years. Even copernicus after that was more like a reinterpretation (a change of viewpoint, and some technicalities like using some epicycles instead of equants) than a complete replacement.

Now, religion simply has no quality standards at all, it allegedly lasting thousands of years means nothing. Changing it was often forbidden by the ruling class and through most of history you'd be killed for trying - and it has still changed. So even there, if you apply similar standards of comparison to e.g. Christianity , which you use to to get your fantasy 30 years lifespan of theories, you'd find that Christianity did *not* last even close to a thousand years. The religion which, according to christians, was conceived by jesus, was for jews only and is not the same one that was spread among the gentiles a few centuries later. It couldn't have been because it before was -according to christian literature- an apocalyptic cult which assumed that the end times were immanent. Protestantism is a child of the 16th century, and so on. Even here, people continue making up a new religion and just keep the name for marketing purposes. So even that is an obvious lie. I would even go so far and say thay fundamentalist christianity is a newly invented religion and not the same one the pilgrims took with them to America, for example.

[ManMachine]

A quick question to all of the people holding the facts out there:
I'm personally an Atheist, and was recently in a discussion with my Christian friend about God, evolution and so forth.
A thing that bugged me a bit was one of her "facts," which i could not really comment upon since i didn't have the knowledge about it.
Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years. Now i know for a fact that it's because science constantly discovers new things to replace the old theories, which i told her, but is this actually a fact, that theories have an average lifespan of 30 years?

Let's just take Christianity.

There are something like 34,000 (yes, that's correct thirty-four thousand) different denominations of Christianity.

Christianity today is nothing like Christianity of 500 CE or earlier

The simple fact that your female friend is able to express an opinion at all is evidence that Christianity has changed, a lot.

If we are going to be so broad in our definitions then all you need to say is the science of combustion (making fire) has been around longer than her religion (2000 years or so), so she needs to stop listening to that old bullshine she is being fed by her religious sources and try using her own brain for a bit.

MM

[Jenny A]

[quote='Hammod1612' pid='842752' dateline='1421021520']
A quick question to all of the people holding the facts out there:
I'm personally an Atheist, and was recently in a discussion with my Christian friend about God, evolution and so forth.
A thing that bugged me a bit was one of her "facts," which i could not really comment upon since i didn't have the knowledge about it.
Her argument was, that religion had lasted for thousands of years, and apparently (according to her "facts"), scientific theories have an average "lifespan" of about 30 years. Now i know for a fact that it's because science constantly discovers new things to replace the old theories, which i told her, but is this actually a fact, that theories have an average lifespan of 30 years?

Scientific theories have rarely been over turned. Perhaps they confused hypothesizes with theories.

[Alex K]

@ManMachine

exactly