(March 7, 2014 at 4:54 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: Yes, but a theory in the scientific community is considered fact. Gravity is just a theory, but you are still going to fall to your death if you jump off a skyscraper.

Not really. The things I listed have not been observed, so they really are just theories in that they may indeed be wrong. They may be right. They are educated guesses. However gravity is a well proven law.

Please don't buy the BS of the creationists in redefining proven and reliable science vs. just a theory, evolution and radioactive dating are not speculative they are proven and rock solid. The history of stars, the earth and the solar system are rock solid, but may be slightly vague in detail at times. Other things not so much.

Consider a car crash vs. viewing a distant explosion. When you see the crash, you might not know all the details but you can reconstruct a lot including enough to know basically what happened. That is the history of the solar system, stars, and perhaps the last few hundred million years of evolution. The big bang is just a very distant flash and light. Without further inquiry, we really don't know. Yes we can make very educated guesses, but they are just educated guesses not facts. There are in fact very important experiments in progress to measure some of these things, and I look forward to when our knowledge becomes more firm. Indeed I have faith we will keep looking. However overselling what you actually know is a problem.

If I'm not mistaken, a scientific theory is an explanation of the facts at hand and the things we know. Those facts don't change, but our understanding can change and thus theories can be modified or even replaced with new ones.

(March 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm)rsb Wrote: The big bang is just a theory, with only really 1 observable, background radiation and expansion.

That's 2 observables...
And you forgot the usage of spectroscopy to determine the distance of far away stars, and also their element content.
The farther away, the oldest, the simpler the elements present in the star.

(March 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm)rsb Wrote: We have not observed gravity waves, they are just a theory as is general relativity or any unified theory of physics.

General relativity was proven when gravitational lensing was discovered with exactly the same "strength" as predicted by the theory.

unified theory?... hmmm... CERN is working on it.. and it seems the Higgs is an actual particle thus connecting electro-weak force to gravity.

(March 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm)rsb Wrote: We have not observed magnetic monopoles, or proton decay, they are just theories and if the standard model is correct, they don't exist.
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Someone's a bit behind the times.... http://www.iflscience.com/physics/synthe...reated-lab

[quote='rsb' pid='618104' dateline='1394225511']
String theory is just as likely to be wrong as Quantum Chromodynamics before it. Everything Hawking has worked on could be totally wrong.

QCD is a part of the standard model, you know?....

(March 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm)rsb Wrote: But we have seen the evolution of 3 generations of stars create all the non-hydrogen in the universe quite clearly, over a 10 billion year visible history. Look up stellar metalicity and geochronology. That is all 50 year old solid science. And watch religiosity. And visit the grand canyon visitor's center and reread the story of Noah. Anyone can see the truth if they open their eyes.

Really?
Are you hinting that the grand canyon was carved by the flood? oh boy... -.-'

(March 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm)rsb Wrote: Why do people get so fixated on the bleeding edge of science for people who can't do math? Just to undermine the credibility of Atheism as a philosophy, or to sound smart? Because from where I am sitting, it does not sound smart at all.

Because theists ask questions regarding the gaps of knowledge...
In the olden times, they would ask about lightning, but nowadays... they force us to get the newest results available... and even those aren't enough.
It happens that, sometimes, an "I don't know" is the only honest answer we've got.

(March 7, 2014 at 5:13 pm)rsb Wrote:

(March 7, 2014 at 4:54 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: Yes, but a theory in the scientific community is considered fact. Gravity is just a theory, but you are still going to fall to your death if you jump off a skyscraper.

Not really. The things I listed have not been observed, so they really are just theories in that they may indeed be wrong. They may be right. They are educated guesses. However gravity is a well proven law.

Please don't buy the BS of the creationists in redefining proven and reliable science vs. just a theory, evolution and radioactive dating are not speculative they are proven and rock solid. The history of stars, the earth and the solar system are rock solid, but may be slightly vague in detail at times. Other things not so much.

Consider a car crash vs. viewing a distant explosion. When you see the crash, you might not know all the details but you can reconstruct a lot including enough to know basically what happened. That is the history of the solar system, stars, and perhaps the last few hundred million years of evolution. The big bang is just a very distant flash and light. Without further inquiry, we really don't know. Yes we can make very educated guesses, but they are just educated guesses not facts. There are in fact very important experiments in progress to measure some of these things, and I look forward to when our knowledge becomes more firm. Indeed I have faith we will keep looking. However overselling what you actually know is a problem.

Actually, gravity really is just a theory, and a disproven one, at that. Newton's math was very, very, VERY close, but not quite perfect, because he was missing details that couldn't be observed on anything smaller than trying to predict the orbit of the planets around the sun. And even then, his math was only noticeably wrong for Mercury, by a very small fraction of a percent (He was off by 43/3600 of a degree per century). Einstein's General Theory of Relativity corrected this.

I'm currently reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", which goes into a lot of this, including the Big Bang. I highly recommend it. I think you're underestimating how much evidence there is for the Big Bang Theory.

I guess I am on monopoles, thanks for the link. Most recent data I was aware of was a lower limit for proton decay out of japan. I will read up on it. Has it been reproduced?

I am not sure gravitational lensing is exactly the same as a gravity wave, if it was then observations in the early part of the last century would have resolved it. So sorry I don't believe you and think it is important to hunt for gravity waves. I admit is is strong evidence. Also close massive binary stars are consistent too. But as I understand it there are many, many closely equivalent theories which would be consistent with what we have observed. The elegance or beauty of a model is not evidence for it's reality. Until we observe it, we don't have direct evidence. There is no reason to treat science differently than other questions and every reason to hunt for proton decay and gravity waves and keep an open mind.

No the visitors center at the grand canyon DOES NOT support Noah, have you been there? There are discussions of radioactive dating of the strata and observed erosion rates. It is glaringly obvious that there are hundreds of thousands of years of history there and a flood is not consistent with any of it. Also observe the behavior of tar under even slight water pressure. It would NOT have sealed any cracks in the doomed box that the alleged god, Creator of the universe and all powerful, needed a man to make for him. So no, Noah is obviously BS to anyone with even a slightly functioning brain.

As for theory and definitions like that, there are shades of grey and uncertainty in science. It does not help to pretend there are not. Nor does a theory being supported by evidence mean that all theories are equally true. You really have to talk about specifics. We don't need the first few seconds of the big bang to prove or disprove any theology, they are not necessary for support of atheism, they are often obscuring more important things, like the simple science present at the visitors center of the grand canyon.

OR the fact that you knew about magnetic monopoles and I didn't could prove you are really the voice of athiesmo, great sky god of atheists. Or not. Given the claims on the other side, the more grounded in reality and simple thought the more convincing the argument. Magnetic monopoles don't seem to help much. Appeals to authority don't help, they just make the topic of this thread convincing to anyone who has stopped reading.

Quote:Dawkins is a complete idiot and you'll learn nothing from him from his books on religion:

But I don't want to learn anything about religion, Frods. Religion is a waste of my fucking time because it is the study of silly mythology written by primitive fools.

Dawkins can teach me about biology which is a damn sight more important and interesting than mythology and if it happens to cast further doubt (as if any more were needed) on your silly fairy tales well....sucks to be you.

(March 7, 2014 at 6:24 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Dawkins is a complete idiot and you'll learn nothing from him from his books on religion:

But I don't want to learn anything about religion, Frods. Religion is a waste of my fucking time because it is the study of silly mythology written by primitive fools.

Dawkins can teach me about biology which is a damn sight more important and interesting than mythology and if it happens to cast further doubt (as if any more were needed) on your silly fairy tales well....sucks to be you.

I have similar disinterest in history, and I can understand your beef with religion as a historian as I can understand Dawkins frustration as a scientist. At least you read the man for his expertise rather than his ignorance.