Sry folks, shoulda expected the webserver to go out… so I apologize for the lateness/bleakness of this post for a little while.
Anywho, this is something that’s been bugging me a bit lately. As you all may know, I’ve been getting my little physics bug again and devouring all things science. But here’s the thing… after doing some digging, I’ve come to realize that science, for all its exactness and laws and theories, is… for no better word… a belief. And I think that is taken for granted. When you look at things at the quantum level, all matters of nonsense break loose. The subatomic world is akin to Alice’s Wonderland. NOTHING functions the way it should and we spend lifetimes to understand why. Now we got this “new” thing, the string theory… though I’m not yet totally convinced of it, I’ll still give it a fair shake.
String theory says all matter in the universe and beyond is made up of tiny vibrating strings. Like the entire universe is a symphonic membrane orchestrated by ______. And it looks great on paper. The maths all make the maths peoples happy and everything equals happiness. But still, math isn’t the endall proof and what looks good on paper isn’t always the way things work. It is interesting that what is used to both prove and disprove the “inference” of these strings is some heavy maths and a whole lot of faith. And when you hear people speak of this theory, their eyes light up as if they were singing gospel on Sunday.
Now, I’m not saying science is a religion. No, science is the attempt to understand and explain the world around us. However, I think science is a belief. A non mutually exclusive belief that can easily coexist with religion (in whatever shape or form that takes).
Ok ok… I don’t want any folk to worked up about this… I’m not arguing one way or another, pro or against anything sciency or religiony. Not pushing any agenda here. Just saying, science has HUGE leaps of faith with the way we perceive our universe. My biggest issue really is with the misuse of science to both prove and disprove religions when at its core, it’s nothing more than another belief.
Case in point, gravity. Gravity, right now, is broken. There is NO law of gravity. It’s not working as intended. It’s all messed up! We’re struggling to understand why gravity is so incredibly weak and how the heck it’s holding everything together. We got so far as to “infer” strong and weak nuclear forces in atoms and the existence of WIMPS and dark matter to patch up the theory, but again… broken. Atoms themselves are completely inferred. Not directly observable, we are basically inferring the wind by watching the leaves move. But for all we know, it’s some crazy mechanic that we couldn’t possibly conceive of.
We actually know very little about how things work. We do our best to explain it and use lots of fancy diagrams and maths to rationalize it. But at the end of the day, until the spider god descends from another dimension in outer space sets us straight, we just have to rely on belief and faith that our mechanics are “right” or at least… close enough.
So… uh… yeah. There you go! Science, not bad, not antireligion, but also not hard fact scribed in stone. It’s a process to learn how everything works. One day, we might get there. We might find out that hey, that guy was right all along about the spider god. Or prove it was wrong all along. But until then… lets all try and get along and work together to figure this place out, rather than fire shots at eachother. Science will be wrong a LOT before it gets the answer, so lets keep in mind that we’re just trying to take baby steps; sometimes we fall, sometimes our methods are wrong, sometimes we’re just upsidedown and backwards, but eventually, with enough encouragement, we’ll be walking on our own two feet! With the spider god… from outer space… of course… >)
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Jackpot ;D Well, I’ve seen some classic Religion/Science runts lately and all I can say is.. there’s usually a tie when that happens. This strip sums it up pretty well
yeah… I just don’t get the whole fisticuffs between the two anymore. they’re not mutually exclusive! hell, for all we know, we’re just some sprites inside a giant computer “mainframe”. Here to mend and defend… >)
Waaaaaait a minute, is that a ReBoot reference? :DD
Loved that show!
heh, well of course! that show was the greatest! I hope someday it comes back in some form. heard they were trying to organize a movie, but dunno if that fell through or not. >\
Due to terrible nostalgia I browsed the internetzz and managed to find full episodes online xD Yee haw! :D
So as not to spam too much, I’ll get back to the topic: There are issues both sides agree on. Especially those that mind can’t comprehend like what was before. Before what? Before before! That plus the string and multi-dimensional theory make my brain weep at times
saw they got a full box set on amazon… might just check that out! imagine that in blueray!
ha, just saw a nice bbc documentary on just that very topic! very interesting stuff, and NOBODY agrees with eachother. again, why I claim this a belief. but one guy (yeah, I don’t remember names) has a theory that time itself didn’t exist before the big gang, which is mind numbingly inconceivable.
they are both some crazy crazy concepts, but we’ll see what happens in the next 10 years or so. until then, it’s just team jacob vs team edward.
When i was youhfer i drew a piture of god……..wearing a labcoat
heh, nice! >)
when i think of it, i believe that we shouldnt take theories for granted on the scientific field, though they help scientists of all specialization to aim their research on an specific way, they should ALWAYS be pointed out to be simply theories and not unquestionable facts.
also how do you post your comments on dracos site?
some stuff seems to hold up to the test of time… macro concepts like planets and orbits and stuff seem to work out ok… sorta… but when you get down to the atomic level, NONE of it works the same… like, at all. it’s a strange world that makes us. and as it stands right now, there is absolutely NO facts about the subatomic world. it’s all fair game to the theorists. but that also makes this an exciting time to be in! who knows what we’ll learn about the structure of matter and the universe in just a few short years.
Oh yeah… I couldn’t do it for the longest time. Make sure you’re not blocking “htmlcommentbox” like my script blocker was. then you should be able to put in your name and comment like normal. oh, and hit the button marked “comment” to send it. I’m sure that’s obvious to most… most who aren’t me that is… I’m slow ok! XD
This explains partially why I like biology so much, everything is observable. You can see the cells, and based on the substances that go in and then come out we know what reaction too place. All living things strive to better their life, so once you observe the ideal conditions you can predict what behaviour will happen by another individual of the same species. Anything that cannot be seen is not known about, and if we see something we don’t know about, we still know it’s there and learning requires watching long enough.
As for faith based speculations, I fail to see the point of the stuff bigger than the stuff you learn in high school and preliminary college courses. Velocity, pressure, and the like is important because we use it.
How the world got here and why it’s still going? If it turns out there is a god or creator, or if it turns out there’s not, whatever the force it seems to be doing a good job of managing itself.
yeah, it’s very weird how the macro world is a lot more logical than the subatomic. it’s chaos down there! Granted there’s soooooooooooo much we have yet to understand about stuff like biology, we can directly test and get results. very logical. very nice. makes brain happy! quantum stuff… all kinds of craziness!
for the most part, this is true. it works for what we need and does a fairly good job for our current purposes. but it would still be nice to know what’s going on under the hood. maybe we won’t ever understand it, however, we should at least give it the good college try. though I think at the moment we’ve got a lot more pressing matters… like curing a few not so savory things and making light sabers. I’m sure eventually the giant inter dimensional spider from outer space will set things right, until then, it’s just a guessing game.
Shouldnt science be the attempt to find out how things work? Its not a belief and its not the truth. Its the means to find the truth. Faith is believing in something, science is finding out and truth is that which you already HAVE found out.
Aint that right…?
Again, I’d like to make the distinction between “religion” and “belief”. Religion is a type belief. A belief is having faith in something that you don’t actually know how or why it works or if it even exists, but you feel that it does. Belief isn’t a nasty word, it doesn’t have some evil connotation. It just is what you feel. Like, ok… some people believe in aliens. Doesn’t mean they exist, doesn’t interfere (much) with religion, but it’s a faith in something you have no measurable way to prove short of a full scale invasion.
Science DOES try to find out how things work. (and in a sense, religion as well) But science relies a LOT of faith to function. Look at a lot of the theoretical problems we have now (string, bosons, big bang, parallel universes) all rely on a belief that the math is correct. There’s no way (now) we can prove any of it exists, however we have those that believe they do. We also have scientists believe it doesn’t. Look at how many string theories we have now! None of it is provable outside of fancy math and it seems like none of the scientists can agree.
I use the term belief because science is that. We get hard facts about the world… but then… realize what we thought was the doctrine of all creation turns out to be total rubbish. We don’t have LAWS of nature anymore. Only THEORIES… and that term is, in reality, just an educated guess with a lot of math and equations to attempt to explain it. So you can see, the two terms are interchangeable.
So here’s the rub, most of that truth is not what it seems. We have no idea how things get their mass. Gravity doesn’t work like it is supposed to. Time… is all kinds of things messed up. And even the basic building blocks of all the universe, atoms, are completely INFERRED! They use the old saying “you know there’s wind cause you see the movement of the leaves” but how do you know it’s wind? that right there is a leap of faith.
So that’s the thing. What we know of science isn’t fact. It isn’t cosmic doctrine. Science changes soooo fast and what we thought we knew turns out to be wrong. But in that moment, when we thought we knew something, it was faith. We believed it to be true. But it wasn’t. Remember that whole “the world is flat” fiasco some time back? That WAS doctrine and the very notion of anything contrary was nothing less than mad speculation.
Now, I’m not trying to bash science. I’m a science person. I LOVE it! I watch programming and read up on all the theories every day! But I also know that they are just that… Theories. And at the end of the day, a theory is just a good guess that we think is true. And that is faith. It’s not meant to make either term sound dirty, just to bring things back on the level. So we understand that we DON’T know everything. Which, of course, when we hold onto nothing as true, it gives us a great advantage to explore alternatives previously thought of as impossible.
So let me wind this up with another tidbit. There’s nothing wrong with thinking of science as belief. In fact, it would help greatly in the whole “thinking outside the box” stuff. BUT, what we do have, the equations and maths and science we hold as “truths (right now anyways) act as springboards. Some things don’t need to be true to work. Lots of our macro science works just fine (all that stuff you learn in high school). We use those equations and principles every day and help us build the world around us. HOWEVER, just because something works, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try to find out why. It’s that “why” question we don’t know. And it’s that question science is tasked with discovering. So until we have the full understanding of how all things work, all we can do is speculate, dream, equate, and have faith that what we think works, does.
>)
I personally believe that when we come to fully understand the Quantum Sciences, we’ll realize that our view of the Classical Sciences were correct; for the wrong reasons. I also don’t believe in string theory; it seems like an overcomplicated solution designed to fit the math rather than vice versa. This is because I base all of my conclusions on logic, something which String Theory tends to avoid at times. Some people say the quantum world isn’t logical, but I think that idea stems from the fact we don’t fully understand all of the factors at play.
My view of the Quantum Sciences is analogous to a chess player who can only see half of a chessboard. They know they’ve been checkmated, but they can’t see where the opponent’s pieces are, so they have no idea how it happened. Of course, this doesn’t automatically mean String Theory is wrong either. It could be the basis for a more advanced theory in the future, which does fully explain all of the pieces on the chessboard in a manner that’s coherent and logical.
I am always open to being proven wrong, and I constantly challenge myself to find holes in my own arguments even if I win a debate, because I like to know the truth rather than supposition. That’s the key difference between science and religion, despite the common faith shared between them. One accepts established faith as truth while the other is constantly challenging that faith to find the truth. This small alteration in mindset is the difference between civilization still being in the dark ages, and today’s civilization.
Based on that, while I find your comic thought evoking, I also condemn the blond character’s outlook. He’s willing to accept what he finds interesting, and look no further. His view mirrors that of a conservative religion member. Since science is based on faith, he’s just disagreeing with one belief and agreeing with another.
wow! I really like that chess analogy!!!
my thoughts exactly! I guess this mostly started with my annoyance of people who readily put all their faith in science and denounce anything existential. I wouldn’t say I have any agenda here, I’d probably classify myself as one of those “I like the idea of religion, but because I haven’t died yet, I’m not going to sign up to any club just yet”… I guess if I had an agenda at all, it would be to say to everyone, to just keep an open mind about things, since at the end of the day, we don’t know jack about anything.
Okay, I’m not going to get started on this… It’s one of my babies actually. I’m not bothered by whether it’s a belief or not so much as I am by the fact that calling it a belief seems to freak people out for no apparent reason. But that aside, let me say this…
Perhaps the string theory isn’t as… Ah… Literal? As maybe most see it as?
You’re into physics, yes? So you know about energy and how it connects and radiates from all things, correct?
Well when you look at how particles “connect” it’s not so much Physical as it is through a chord or a “string” of energy. Like a light beam… It Seems connected from one end of the laser to where you shine it at but it’s not a connection that locked down.
I think when they speak of the “string” theory, that’s more of what they mean rather than a Tangible connection between Point A to Point B, Point C & up through Point Zed.
But that’s just my take on it. ^^;;
ha, yeah… I seem to get a little hate mail my way for that one… but I stand by my opinion on the subject.
my goal with the label isn’t so much to make science a “religion” but to expose how it’s being treated as such, when it would be most beneficial for everyone if it was treated as a system of ideas and not hard facts. the problem is when we start claiming “C” is fact and universal doctrine, rather than “C” seems to work consistently if used like this, but given more data, this could easily change.
right, what you’re talking about is more akin to the more dominant theory of “field theory” where basically it’s all probability fields that connect things together… was never a fan of string theory… it’s beautiful mathematically, and the idea of little resonating strings of 11 dimensional packets is neat, but I just can’t sign up for it.
The reason I prefer science is because it has a clear rule that defines it. The result comes from a REPEATABLE test. (Sorry for the caps) My problem with religion is they tend to come up with an idea and leave it at that. Science at least limits how it gets its results. That being said, yes those who follow the science ‘doctrine’ tend to stick their heads up their behind much like the fundamentalist religious followers. Basically like everything else, it is the loudest and most vocal idiots ruining it for everyone else.
and that’s where my issue is with both… there’s nothing wrong with either, I mean, religion is the attempt to understand the other side of existence and where we came from. science is the exploration and understanding of the universe we live in.
these two aren’t at odds unless it hits something fundamental. the problem is that people tend to interpret things one way or another and generate complex and hardened beliefs without any room for variation. meaning, when people decide one thing is fact and something challenges it, they just lose their little minds. and that’s the issue I have with both sides.
sigh… and the loudest idiots tend to be the only ones that get air time…