The Big Bang: Why is it still being taught?

[Manfred Belheim]

Some of those come from atheists feeling like they are on the outside of community by our society's general intolerance of atheists, which will make non atheists look well in comparison. Social exclusion is physically harmful.

I'm glad I don't live in that society. It sounds ghastly.

 

[Birdjaguar]

A) We have instruments that can "sense" lots of things way beyond the scope of our own bilogical senses.

B) Anything that exists completely outside the scope of our biological and techonoligal senses, is by definition completely unknown to us, and untestable, and therefore if we talk about "it" we are making "it" up.

I think this is worth repeating.

If you can't study it and try to understand it by some means, when you say things about it, you are just making stuff up.

Making stuff is not bad per se, but I'd rather not listen to people who just make stuff up, unless they're artists I guess. Or toddlers.

Our fabulous instruments are just extensions of our senses and useful in that they enable us to "see and feel further".

Things that cannot be tested by the scientific method are not necessarily "unknown" to us. They may only be unknown to our intellect. We don't know and may never know what dark matter and dark energy are, but it is likely that they both affect us in some fashion. Perhaps even in important ways. When you say we are only making stuff up, you actually mean that we are making stuff up relative some maybe not so clear scientific standard. Perhaps that standard has more influence in our lives than it should.

"Intuition" may be just a lucky guess, or not. Proving the truth or falsehood of human intuition is a difficult task and disproving a mother's uncanny link to a distressed child would be a challenge. Is the mother "just making it up"? Or is there some more basic truth at work.

The irrational, the anecdotal, the experiential, the passionate are all part of human experience and far more important to being human than any rational actions. Science may be the best at explaining how thing work, but for the rest of life, it is pretty crappy.

 

[Leoreth]

I think this is worth repeating.

If you can't study it and try to understand it by some means, when you say things about it, you are just making stuff up.

Making stuff is not bad per se, but I'd rather not listen to people who just make stuff up, unless they're artists I guess. Or toddlers.

Really? Making up stuff is one of the greatest abilities of the human mind in my opinion! You just mention artists as sort of an afterthought but many worthwhile human activities are only about "making stuff up".

Even making stuff up and turning it into your reality isn't inherently harmful.

Problems arise when you start to enforce your own reality on others and begin to derive normative power from it.

Do you think your god "actively communicates with humankind"? That when you pray that you receive an answer from him?

To me, this is far from current mainstream Christian religious belief. I would characterize it as being extremely fundamentalist or orthodox by today's standards, and possibly even so in 1916.

Then what about examples of say, politicians stating they've been told by God to run for office? I'm aware that said politicians aren't the norm and probably seen as crazy by the majority, the fact that there's still a sizeable group of people who continue to support them despite or even because of such claims suggests that the idea hasn't reached a state of universal ridiculousness yet.

 

[warpus]

Things that cannot be tested by the scientific method are not necessarily "unknown" to us. They may only be unknown to our intellect.

Give me an example of something that cannot be inherently tested by the scientific method that is known to us in some capacity and that we for the most part agree about in terms of what it is and what qualities it may have.

"Cannot be tested by the scientific method" just means "you can't figure out how it works". If you can't figure out how it works, how can you draw conclusions about it?

Aren't you a supporter of the whole "use the right tool for the right job" thing? The tool to figure out how things work is science. Why would you want to use a tool for this job, if it was not designed for it?

Really? Making up stuff is one of the greatest abilities of the human mind in my opinion! You just mention artists as sort of an afterthought but many worthwhile human activities are only about "making stuff up".

Even making stuff up and turning it into your reality isn't inherently harmful.

That's why I put in that exception - making stuff up is not a good idea, unless you're an artist or something. In that case making stuff up is right up your alley!

My point was that people who try to tell you how the world works without actually basing it on something that was studied rationally are just making stuff up. They shouldn't be listened too, because .. well, because they're just making stuff up. It's possible that they're right, as always when you're making stuff up, but statistically speaking they will usually be wrong.

 

[Leoreth]

(I know, but especially the juxtaposition with toddlers made art seem like a trivial pursuit which I wanted to speak out against.)

 

[warpus]

Nah, I fully appreciate the arts, except for artists who paint 1 line and make millions. I just tried to think of random scenarios where making stuff up is alright.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Give me an example of something that cannot be inherently tested by the scientific method that is known to us in some capacity and that we for the most part agree about in terms of what it is and what qualities it may have.

"Cannot be tested by the scientific method" just means "you can't figure out how it works". If you can't figure out how it works, how can you draw conclusions about it?

Aren't you a supporter of the whole "use the right tool for the right job" thing? The tool to figure out how things work is science. Why would you want to use a tool for this job, if it was not designed for it?

the problem isn't that science can't figure out how things work. It is good at that. I see a problem when science says because I cannot figure out how "it" works, it cannot be true. Frequently coincidence and probability are thrown around as an explanation for anecdotal experiences that are odd and not otherwise explained. Interpersonal events commonly fall into this group. Before cell phones folks often talked about picking up a phone to call Bob and Bob was already on the line without an rings or dialing. Mothers "knowing" a child is in danger before it is possible for them to know. Such anecdotal events are difficult to investigate scientifically. They tend to be dismissed because because many folks say that unless it can be shown scientifically, we cannot accept it as true.

And rather than give credence to such a thing as "mother intuition", which is dismissed, scientists spend untold man-years making sure that silly old string theory is internally mathematically sound in spite of that fact that it has no basis in experiment.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So muc to unpack here.

the problem isn't that science can't figure out how things work. It is good at that. I see a problem when science says because I cannot figure out how "it" works, it cannot be true.

Well, science doesn't "say" that, so there's no problem.

Frequently coincidence and probability are thrown around as an explanation for anecdotal experiences that are odd and not otherwise explained. Interpersonal events commonly fall into this group. Before cell phones folks often talked about picking up a phone to call Bob and Bob was already on the line without an rings or dialing.

Perfect example of conformation bias. What folks often don't mention is the amount of times someone picked up the phone to call Bob and Bob wasn't on the phone. But those aren't memorable events. Same as thinking about someone and that someone calls. You remember that. Thinking about someone and there is no call. No one remembers that. How many times have you heard the anecdote told: Yesterday I was thinking about Bob, and what do you know ... he didn't call.

Mothers "knowing" a child is in danger before it is possible for them to know. Such anecdotal events are difficult to investigate scientifically. They tend to be dismissed because because many folks say that unless it can be shown scientifically, we cannot accept it as true.

Wrong. Folks say, if it cannot be shown scientifically, we don't know what's going on.

And rather than give credence to such a thing as "mother intuition", which is dismissed, scientists spend untold man-years making sure that silly old string theory is internally mathematically sound in spite of that fact that it has no basis in experiment.

This is true.

Science dismisses mother's intuition
String theory is much more interesting and it doesn't nag as much say scientists

Next time before you woe is science, try a Google search. Take a scientific approach to these claims instead of using intuition.

 

[Borachio]

Bits of your DNA are living in your mother's brain!

I call that scary!

Is the reverse true, too?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What? Bits of my mother's brain living in my DNA?

That's just silly.

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[El_Machinae]

And rather than give credence to such a thing as "mother intuition", which is dismissed, scientists spend untold man-years making sure that silly old string theory is internally mathematically sound in spite of that fact that it has no basis in experiment.

Different scientists, different job descriptions. Might as well complain about how the ecologists were ignoring mother's intuition in order to study seal mating patterns.

edit: to boot, there's every reason to believe that cracking the question String Theorists are trying to crack will be part of the toolkit by which we can explain Mother's Intuition.

 

[Hygro]

What? Bits of my mother's brain living in my DNA?

That's just silly.

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Womb and birthing process, makes its way around I guess. You lightweight just osmose some while growing indoors.

 

[Crezth]

That's underselling the benefits of faith quite a bit. It bothers me that from an atheist perspective the only possible benefit could be a crutch to assist a weakness and not realizing it can also be a bicycle facilitating advancement above a baseline.

That's true, unsubstantiated faith can help us make all kinds of stupid decisions, not just give us false confidence.

 

[El_Machinae]

Or good decisions, but for the wrong reasons.

 

[Borachio]

What? Bits of my mother's brain living in my DNA?

That's just silly.

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How about bits of your mother's brain living in your brain?

If those cells have smuggled in a radio transmitter and send messages to your mother, I'd say that could explain quite a lot.

 

[illram]

Or good decisions, but for the wrong reasons.

I wouldn't say wrong. If you live a life of compassion, forgiveness and charity based on some mystical idea, as opposed to whatever "scientific" reason you could have for that (is there one?) I wouldn't say you are doing anything for the wrong reason.

 

[Borachio]

I suppose the scientific basis for living a life of compassion, forgiveness and charity could be that it adds to the sum total of human happiness and prosperity.

Which should be easy enough to test. (Though I don't know how, now I come to think of it.)

It might also add to the happiness and well-being of the person who practices those things. Which, in turn, should be easy enough to determine subjectively.

If it did none of that, what would be the point?

 

[Leoreth]

That's an interesting question actually. Is a compassionate and charitable behavior less commendable when people do it to please a magical sky wizard, to paraphrase Traitorfish?

 

[Borachio]

No, I don't think so. As far as I'm concerned it's the end result that matters rather than the intention.

Similarly, just having good motives doesn't excuse execrable behaviour.

However, it seems to me that people who simply seek to please sky wizards are less likely to hit on desirable behaviour than those who think carefully about their actions and the possible consequences.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's why I put in that exception - making stuff up is not a good idea, unless you're an artist or something. In that case making stuff up is right up your alley!

My point was that people who try to tell you how the world works without actually basing it on something that was studied rationally are just making stuff up. They shouldn't be listened too, because .. well, because they're just making stuff up. It's possible that they're right, as always when you're making stuff up, but statistically speaking they will usually be wrong.

Depends on the scope and the point of view. I mean if one claims there is no gravity (graviational pull and related powers like increase of speed in a free fall), you could say he is dumb/crazy/whatever, but one possibility is that he means other things, or that he examines another phenomenon and just expressed it in a manner which inevitably would cause severe confusion.

A branch of writing is the co-called "automatic writing". Basically it is (in varying degrees) the writer just writing stuff without "thinking" or with little thought. On the surface the text produced thus can easily seem idiotic, but if the degree of non-conscious control is significant then it has to be assumed that the automatic writing carries more significance from the unconscious realms of the writer's mind.

Anyway, art is never about "making things up", in the sense of "lies"/"false things". If i write that a being with three heads was attacking someone in a dark alley, well, chances are that metaphorically it was very true. You cannot really ever write or think something which (in your own mind) does not have a specific significance, despite that being largely non-conscious. It is another issue that a "good" writer also has the ability to present you with a narrative that holds your own interest, and thus is not merely self-serving and a reflection or personal struggle

tl: dr: Art is not any less serious than science; the only non-serious thing is people.