Fact or theory

[0000]

I picked up on something PP said in another thread and it got me thinking(oh dear)civilisation's have had scientists who have proclaimed many things to be fact,the earth is flat,the sun orbits earth,theory of relativity,evolution,dinosaur extinctions and so on.The question i'd like to pose is what do we know to be true and are we like our ancestors going to be proved incorrect about most of the theories and facts we deem to be set in stone.?I'd prefered not to mention Global warming as nobody knows the outcome of that one yet

Edited June 17, 2008 by hannegan

[PersianPaladin]

Gravity.

Have we actually grasped hold of what causes this?

Edited June 17, 2008 by PersianPaladin

[0000]

Gravity.

Have we actually grasped hold of what causes this?

:lol: wibs...........pp,Isn't there a theory that gravity is distorted near blackholes though?

Edited June 17, 2008 by hannegan

[0000]

Mustn't...

I dicky dare you! :lol:

[PersianPaladin]

I dicky dare you! :lol:

Umkay.

[0000]

I also have a theory that every thread I post turns into banter 2(maybe i'm partialy to blame though :lol:

Edited June 17, 2008 by hannegan

[BARRY]

science is always right until it's proved wrong

[0000]

science is always right until it's proved wrong

I thought science was more the quest for facts to apply to theories,that may or may not be true.

[Gray-Wolf]

'Facts' seem transient though. You start with a theory, prove it and it becomes a fact until it is superseded by better knowledge and it turns back into a theory again.

Of course you invest a lot of your life in proving your theory a fact and so become very impassioned about it and that 'passion' is enough to sway many into your understanding.

Maybe there are just a lot of folk who want 'telling' what it's all about rather than stick their own neck out (and risk social ridicule) and form their own opinions.

Ho Hum.

[shuggee]

Gravity.

Have we actually grasped hold of what causes this?

That's an interesting one you've stumbled on PP. Gravity is the one force in nature that is 'wrong' in the models of theoretical physicists and screws up the much sought-after 'Theory of Everything'.

[J07]

Gravity.

Have we actually grasped hold of what causes this?

Gravitons.

Hopefully.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm quite happy to have gravity as a 'spill over' from another dimension.....puny little force that it is, I mean one tiny magnet and it's done for!!!

[J07]

I'm quite happy to have gravity as a 'spill over' from another dimension.....puny little force that it is, I mean one tiny magnet and it's done for!!!

That would answer "why is gravity so weak?" but "what causes gravity?" doesn't necessarily require that. It's a force, so it must have a force carrying boson (the graviton). Problem is no-one's ever detected them* nor have they detected the waveform of a graviton.

* I don't think anyone's ever detected a gluon either, but that is a different situation as you're not supposed to be able to see them in isolation.

Hopefully gravitons really do exist, because if they don't it would have big issues for our quantum field theories, a force without a boson? Oh dear. It would be a fairly fundamental shift, more so than anything to do with extra dimensions. It may also change the ideas of dark matter, since gravitinos (fermionic partner of gravitons) are thought to be a possibility to solve that issue.

[SP1986]

I think things like Gravity are too much for scientists to understand. What if it exists within a multitude of dimensions, there's little chance of us ever finding out what it is. What if everything 'coming together' is just a human explanation? what if we have it all wrong and everything is distorted and made of pure chaos. Our minds do not have the capability to deal with that. Our saving grace though is that everything that happens on Earth is probably a reinactment of laws that happen in space so organisation is probably apparently space we just don't yet understand it.

Gravity being associated with the space-time fabric seems pretty plausible to me, but our scientific understanding of everything is probably rather weak.

[J07]

I think things like Gravity are too much for scientists to understand. What if it exists within a multitude of dimensions, there's little chance of us ever finding out what it is. What if everything 'coming together' is just a human explanation? what if we have it all wrong and everything is distorted and made of pure chaos. Our minds do not have the capability to deal with that. Our saving grace though is that everything that happens on Earth is probably a reinactment of laws that happen in space so organisation is probably apparently space we just don't yet understand it.

Gravity being associated with the space-time fabric seems pretty plausible to me, but our scientific understanding of everything is probably rather weak.

We can ask "what is the electromagnetic force?". Is that less mysterious? Certainly so, because we have it pretty much nailed. Quantum electrodynamics (the field theory for the EM force) is now a classic, robust theory, mathematically quite beautiful also. It was pushed forward a lot by Feynman, and he created Feynman Diagrams which enable us to see things pictorially which, when explained mathematically will lose 99% of the audience. The predictions it makes are brilliant, just amazing. It is literally THE most accurate theory ever, and is able to predict coupling constants down to a degree of accuracy in the region of 0.00001%.

I'd say we have a good handle on that.

Maybe one day, on gravity also!

But, do we know "what is the electromagnetic force?". We know what particles carry the force, we can describe what it does perfectly and make insanely accurate predictions. But do we know "what it is"? That's philosophy.

[Bobby]

Nothing is really a fact in science, apart from mathematics. It wouldn't be science otherwise. Science constantly changes as new data and new theories emerge and explains everything better.

[Shiny_Bottom_1]

Interesting you mention maths MP. There is only one thing in life that has a probability of 1, which really leaves everything else open to debate.

[PersianPaladin]

But even maths itself is our own layer of interpretation that we put on the universe.

When we have to start thinking in a non-linear fashion; our maths has to change with it.

[J07]

But even maths itself is our own layer of interpretation that we put on the universe.

When we have to start thinking in a non-linear fashion; our maths has to change with it.

Almost everything is non-linear and maths has already realised that.

[Coopsy]

I believe it has been proven that men have a higher pain threshold than women

[PersianPaladin]

I believe it has been proven that men have a higher pain threshold than women

Its because women (allegedly anyway) have more pain receptors on the external dermis layer thus a lower external pain threshold; but interestingly a higher internal pain threshold than men (what with the uterus expanding and child-birth, etc).

Nothing is black and white; even with the sexes.

Edited June 18, 2008 by PersianPaladin

[jethro]

I believe it has been proven that men have a higher pain threshold than women

Ahem, come back and say that again when you've had a baby or three.

[Chris Knight]

Sheesh! Facts depend on viewpoint, and observation alters "reality", since the observer is part of the system under observation.

Cf. Schroedinger's cat.

So it is all philosophy, or maths in the end, once the observational and experimental work has been done.

There is pure maths, logic and statistics.

The first two, I can live with.

Don't get me going on statistics, and bedfellows like computer models, and data mining. Sad to say, they are not scientific, unless sufficient care has been taken to ensure that the power and application of the statistical test (model, etc.) is adequate and robustly applicable to the task in hand. Mostly, they are applied to "verify" a foregone conclusion (pet theory, school of thought, hypothesis, etc.) and peer reviewed by veteran (theorists, school of thought pioneers, gods, etc.) authorities. Amateur statisticians, in other words, who get things wrong, seriously, like Thalidomide, Seroxat, Ritalin, Foot-and-Mouth, AIDS, education, criminal justice, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan,... and even climate predictions?

And then there are egos.

Having started my scientific career as a geneticist, then worked in biophysics, inorganic synthetic chemistry, plant virus molecular biology, phytopathology molecular biology, veterinary pathology, information science, computer systems engineering and ended up as a medical data analyst, I have run the gamut of professionals of whom some were honest, not so honest, and some were total ***ts in the scientific, medical, computing, and veterinary world. One of the best was a Nobel Laureate, one of the ***ts was the President of a Royal College in the UK Medical world. One of the dishonest ones came to me with the proposition "We have applied for this patent, could you do this (series of) experiment(s) to prove that it works as we have said it does?"!

The egotism is the driver, and for the most part, the science (peer-reviewed publication of fact or theory) comes after the financial security of a successful grant application, based on belief in a hypothesis mapped out in advance.

*** can be replaced by triads of the letters acfhiprstuw in various combinations. All valid combinations are equally acceptable in context. PM me if I have missed any letters out!

forgive edits, I keep on finding letters I have missed out!

Edited June 19, 2008 by Chris Knight

[crimsone]

Science is merely the attempt to disprove a hypothesis that infinitly increases in complexity.

[Louby]

I believe it has been proven that men have a higher pain threshold than women

Try having C-section and then only have paracetamol for pain relief ! Infact no, when you are next in the uk come visit Louby and we shall see how high your pain threshold is mwhahahahaha