Why I Don't Want To Be An Atheist

[Asmodee]

That would kind of make sense, maybe, IF you weren't leaving out the final step, peer review.  That's the step where you release your theory to the world and a bunch of people who can make a name for themselves by tearing yours to shreds go over it for validity.  There's no glory for the scientist who says, "Yep.  He was right.  Wish I'd thought of it."  There IS, however, incentive to say, "That guy is stupid.  I checked his results and they aren't right, making me smarter than him."

Oh, my glob...

Ok I get peer review. Let's for the sake of argument, that just for this one post, you elevate me to someone as smart as you.. Now assume i understand the scientific method as well as you do/explain it here.

Now if you have such an open mind ask yourself now, what am I still 'on' about, if I understand and accept what you had to say here...

In a nut shell what I am saying is there is common everyday scientific 'stuff' that high schoolers can muddle around with in class. Then there is highly technical stuff that makes modern life possible, that makes your cell phone work that connects the interwebs and puts rockets on mars, ect.. Finally there is the fringe science stuff/top shelf theoretical science stuff that one a hand full of people on the planet understand. What worse this process of peer review is further reduced because the equipment needed to generate the raw data needed to support these theories are literally one of a kinda. Meaning there is only one Hadrian supercolider on the planet. There is only one telescope designed to locate black holes on the edge of our universe there is only one mars probe currently able to scan for evidence of life.

All of that means we only have one data point to explain the origins of the universe. All that it is, and all that it is made of. That is the big picture of what you are doing when you say the big bang is the origins of Bla bla bla..

So here is a Review on what we have so far: you have a single point of data collection/one super colider, one black hole telescope ect.. (which is insane as No other industry can make claims to their theories from one singular perspective yet make a universal claim that the whole world will believe without question)

You have a hand full of people on the planet who can interpret the data

You have examples of corruption in the claims made from CERN that were a year latter refuted

yet you think you are getting the same level or type of 'peer review' as you do with a high school level experiment?

Seriously?!!?

The whole scientific process bottle necks when the equipment used to formulate and verify theory becomes a billion dollar venture.

Meaning little to no peer review.

Which leads us to the second half of the discussion with the CERN scientists claiming to have found the Higgs Boson particle and it took a year for a 'peer' to object to their findings.. Long enough for the people who came up with the H/B theory to win a nobel prize...

Do you see it yet? can you see what I am 'on' about?

Science on the fringe level is so easily corruptible.
no or very little over sight, and is money/billions upon billions of dollars driven. Never a good combination.

Which brings up back to my statement that it takes as much faith to believe in 'fringe science' as it does to believe in God, if not more, when corruption is found on the higher levels/at the source of the data that supports theories like the big bang.

What a load of garbage you just typed.  There are no 3 different types of science.  There is just science.  High school kids do science experiments to learn basic science.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with the science community.  ALL science is "highly technical stuff".  They water the hell out of it to present it to kids in high school as a teaching method, not to further scientific research.  While the high school class has much to do with science, science has nothing whatsoever to do with the high school class.  That's why high school students generally release less than 3 (and less than 2, and less than 1) scientific papers before taking some college courses on science.  This is an idiotic comparison with no basis in reality.

Second, yes, there is only one LHC, but there are plenty of colliders.  Even if there were not, there are PLENTY of people capable of interpreting the data.  Just because some physicists specialize in a narrow field does not mean that literally any other physicist on the planet isn't fully qualified and capable of interpreting the data.  An astrophysicist is an astrophysicist.  You don't get special, secret training to be an astrophysicist who only studies one weird star.  This idea that one LHC means one point of data and only one group with access to the data is ridiculous.  They routinely release all data after they've had their go at it.  Their field is one of the "unprofitable" ones, meaning there is no reason to keep the data proprietary to keep others from sniping potential profit from it, such as inventions.

And they don't just release "their findings", they release the raw data.  Every bit of it, unedited.  This allows anyone who understands it (which, again, is thousands of people, not "a handful") to double check it.  They don't sanitize the data and make it match what they want to believe first, as you seem to think.  Yes, there is the occasional fraud.  It happens.  How do we know it happens?  You, yourself, gave the answer to that when you said "...and it took a year for a 'peer' to object to their findings..."  A year.  What damage did the Higgs Boson do in that time?  When its discovery was announced, did all scientists everywhere simply say, "Yep.  It must be real until I can prove otherwise!  I guess we better clone Hitler."?  Was there mass suicide because a new particle was discovered?  Did people sell all their belongings and join a cult?  Did ANYTHING bad come of it?  No.  So what, exactly, is the problem with it taking a year?  The peer review process takes time.  Big deal.  Frankly it would be alarming if it didn't because it would mean nobody was really checking anything.

Oh and, for your information, the "fringe science" you're talking about sounds like theoretical physics.  That is kind of its own field, but the field is not filled with all the super-smartest people on the planet.  You know who's a theoretical physicist?  THIS guy!


Other physicists can understand what a theoretical physicist is talking about.  They are essentially the "spitballers" of the physics world and, again, it doesn't take any special training or knowledge other than the regular physics PhD to understand what they are claiming.  Other physicists have access to and understand the exact same laws of physics and mathematical models.  There is no elite group of people with big heads and tiny hands at the top of the physics food chain.  Physics superstars and people who are considered "really smart" in physics aren't better than other physicists, they're just more agreed with.  Einstein was a genius, but it is not likely he was the smartest physicist on the planet in his day.  He's just the smartest one to have caught a break that let him get his theories "out there".

I do see what you're "on about", but what your on about has more to do with your MASSIVE misconceptions on how science actually works than any actual reality.  For instance, there IS NO peer review process in a high school science experiment!  None!  Ever!  Why is that?  Because they are TOLD what outcome they SHOULD get!  They are not "doing science", they're performing an experiment to see the results they already know they are supposed to get as a teaching method!  When my science teacher poured acid on a penny and we watched the violent reaction as the smoke wafted out the window I didn't go home a write a scientific paper describing the chemical reaction that every high school science teacher already knows about and then present it to the high school community for peer review!  I said, "Wow" like every other person in the damned class!

I will admit, you do have a SLIGHTLY better grasp on science than most theists do, but that knowledge is riddled with inaccuracies and misconceptions.  Look, science works.  For instance, there IS NO MONEY in science that doesn't produce a product!  Yes, the LHC did cost a pretty penny.  But that money was spent by governments for governments and it is owned by governments who continually SPEND money on it and MAKE NOTHING!  That is the absolute shittiest "money driven" system I have ever heard of!  Hey, how would you like to give me $9 billion for the LHC and in return I'll let you pay me another $1 billion a year to run it!  You think the scientists are rolling in the dough there?  They have a job and THAT IS IT!  A frigging job.  Not millions of dollars in bank, a job.  Not a shiny solid gold Porche.  Not a house in the Hamptons.  I'm sure it's a good job, but it's still just a job.  This is the OPPOSITE of "money driven".  It's a money EATER!

And my last point, that it takes faith to believe in any science, much less your mysterious and undefined "fringe science".  I'm still calling bullshit on that.  If you want to know why all you have to do is understand what a "theory" is.  A theory is not "undeniably true".  It is not "that which scientists insist is right".  It is not "unquestionable" in any way.  It IS unquestionable by YOU because YOU are not a scientist qualified to question it.  I know you don't like to believe it, but the peer review process works very well.  It has shot down cold fusion, claims of human cloning, the Nebraska Man, just to name the things that come to mind immediately.  And science WORKS!  When I went to high school the electron was the smallest particle and the theory which stated that was being used to design computers.  Now they theorize even smaller particles and the theory has changed, but the old theory STILL WORKED to design those computers.  Why?  Because it is how we explain things based on the data we have.  New data means a modified explanation.  The old explanation worked to design computers in the '80s.  The new understanding works better to design faster computers.  We're narrowing it down, getting closer and closer to probable reality.  But nobody said, "Oh damn!  That theory was wrong.  We'll have to throw it out and start over!"  They modified the theory to match with the new data, it went through peer review, it passed muster and that theory is used to make smaller and faster processors.  But it's still not "right" according to science.  Heliocentric theory is not "right" according to science.  Are we sure the Earth revolves around the Sun?  We are absolutely certain.  So is heliocentric theory absolutely correct?  NO!  Why?  Because it's a theory and that is where science stops!  For all we know we may discover some day that space moves around us or something and the Earth really DOESN'T revolve around the Sun.  But if we do we will NOT just throw out heliocentric theory.  We will modify it to incorporate the new data because it is currently a working theory with scientific uses.  You don't throw out your car when you get a flat, you change the tire.  A theory is the same.