Calling BS on Science

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  • #132195
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    This goes with nothing and the MODS can kill it off but most of us on here have BSs and technical degrees of some sort (basically from a science school).

    OK I’m watching something on the Science channel and this whole ‘dark matter’ thing is just BS.
    I’ve seen this show before and have read some on the subject telling me that 84.5% of the universe is made up of something we’ve never seen or discovered because it makes all our calculations about physics work out.

    Seriously. There is more evidence for alien abduction and Big Foot!

    But I will say that science geek lady with her hair combed back with two PHDs is strangely attractive! (she blinded me with science kind of thing!)

    #132196
    YogiNC
    Participant

    Love that Thomas Dolby thing GC. Great song, however the dark matter thing goes all the way back to Albert, and without it we have no way to explain gravity (it also was the only thing that could bend light according to Albert). It seems that mass alone doesn’t have enough attraction. I personally would love to jump on the bathroom scales this AM and have about 50% less attraction, but that’s another story.

    BTW, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you, and if you do that you’ll go blind, and other useless platitudes. That almost sounds like a great album title if they have such a thing anymore, I mean when albums went away they still called CDs albums per se but now that CDs are going away what do they call them?

    I do have other useless, mindless questions but I’m afraid if I post them all here BOTB will put them in a collection, along with all the other useless mindless stuff and have a NY Times best seller and I’ll sit here green with envy. BTW, is envy really green? AH HAH! Paint dark matter green so we can see it. There’s your answer GC.

    Smarter than the average bear

    #132200
    Pack78
    Participant

    We all called ’em ‘fudge factors’ in school designed to get us to the right answer…

    #132202
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    We all called ’em ‘fudge factors’ in school designed to get us to the right answer…

    ^^^^THIS!

    #132203
    rthomas44
    Participant

    Useless, mindless = predictive variables.

    #132206
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Antimatter consisting of positrons, antiprotons, antineutrons, antiquarks, neutrinos, bosens and mesons are available for viewing in the UpSideDown World of Stranger Things, the PNC and the Supercollider…

    Then there’s archaea which fits into the gray area between matter and antimatter somehow, depending on who you ask…

    No BS… BA….

    ——————–

    Yogi, I’ll go halves with you…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #132207
    maverick_ncsu
    Participant

    I appreciate all of you guys! I have some of these same questions, but to have a place to be able to ask them and have some serious and some funny at the same time, not much better on a (what-will-be) wet Tuesday here in the Raleigh area. Appreciate you guys.

    #132208
    YogiNC
    Participant

    Yogi, I’ll go halves with you…

    Now there’s a promise I can take to the bank, ‘snort’.

    Smarter than the average bear

    #132209
    SqlWolf
    Participant

    GC, while I understand your reluctance to accept some of the more hyperbolic claims in a television show about science, there are many things in our world (our greater universe) that we still do not understand. Most scientists use the term “dark” as a reference to what we do not yet know. Scientist have observed details about the universe that are not easily explained by what we currently use as descriptors. Since they have no current descriptors, they use a term of art like “dark matter” or “dark energy.” It doesn’t mean they are making up “fudge factors.” Dark matter is simply an explanation for something that produces a gravitational effect that causes light to bend as observed by astronomers. The dark energy is used as an explanation for the more esoteric problem of expansion of the universe.

    The continent of Africa used to be described by Europeans as “The Dark Continent” simply because they had very little knowledge of that unknown and huge place with so many people, cultures, and resources.

    #132211
    rthomas44
    Participant

    Dark matter = dark web.

    #132220
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    Thank you SqlWolf for the enlightened explanation for a lowling such as myself, I ain’t never heared stuff such as that! I had no idea that there were things in the universe we couldn’t explain.
    My point is when you have to rely on something that isn’t verifiable to explain 84.5% of the universe then is physics a science at all?
    Yeah you can explain how fast a basketball falls off the Empire State building but you can’t explain how 99.9% of the universe operates without inventing something you can’t verify.

    I guess its that ‘dark matter’ that messes up my equilibrium and caused gravitational forces that draw me into the wall in the stairwell after I’ve had 5th of MD (I mean it was ‘the wine of the century’ well last century for you millennials).

    #132223
    pakfanistan
    Participant

    My point is when you have to rely on something that isn’t verifiable to explain 84.5% of the universe then is physics a science at all?

    You have it backward. The point of dark matter and dark energy is it’s 100% verifiable, we just don’t know how to explain it.

    #132226
    SqlWolf
    Participant

    Mr GC, I learned a long time ago that the more I learned, the less I knew. It fits with how science is used to understand what we can see and explain what may not yet see.

    A long time ago, people used myth and fantasy to explain things they didn’t understand. One example was the Greeks didn’t understand much about how certain volcanic gasses could mess with your mind. They didn’t realize the Oracular powers that were “gifts” bestowed upon some people were actually the effect of low oxygen and high levels of hallucinogenic gas fumes that arose from volcanic fissures in the rock of certain temples. That resulted in lots of people rolling the dice on their futures depending on the ramblings of a doped up virginal priest. Who knew the Greeks were so easily fooled!?

    Well, now we know better. At least a little.

    We have better technologies and better processes for figuring things out. We’ve come a long way from smoking weird stuff, eating mushrooms, or sniffing fumes. We also, now know quite a bit more about how the real world works and in opening up our horizons, we see farther and deeper into the mysteries of our universe. It’s in those places where we encounter what we do not know and strive to learn ever more.

    Go WolfPack! Smarter wolves and smarter community!

    And… KKIAW!!!

    #132232
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    DE-de-DE-de-DE-de-DE-de.

    And hey this is one of my sayings!

    the more I learned, the less I knew

    Other things I’m wondering:
    > how many dinosaurs or cubit hectors of peat moss under heat and pressure does it take to make 1 barrel of sweet light crude?
    > how did those guys 6,000 years ago wearing animal skins get those 20 ton rocks carved, dressed, and into place all over the world?
    > why is it that anyone that goes to a UNC system college besides NCSU automatically defaults to being a unx fan? Why is that?
    > I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-great grandparents, 16 great-great-great grandparents so how is the population of the world getting bigger? I mean if I go back 1000 generations how dame many people is that?!

    So those are just some of the things I’m working on today……

    #132233
    StateRed44
    Participant

    Ok, Agree with the dark matter thing. I’ll add 2 more sacred cows.

    #1. “Global Warming”. Not sure I believe the hype at least. Have not studied it but there seems to be some serious group think going on as well as bias in regards to funding, etc.

    #2. Evolution. They don’t know if it takes a “long time” or what. This to me seems like the perfect case of a “natural law” that cannot be documented other than by drawn cartoons. To solve the “long time” dilemma you would think that in fast replicating organisms we could get some confirmation to lend weight to the claim. If you can’t induce a singled cell organism to change into it’s cousin, I’m not sure how we get this now seeming unquestionable axiom.

    In unrelated news I read the other day normal saline now causes renal failure….so anyway, I think these need further study and IMO the general public is wise to be skeptical of these 2 specific “scientific facts”.

    I’ll add this on the while on the soapbox.

    #3. Vaccines? I think generally beneficial. Hepatitis B? Not so much. Anything that is behavior oriented should not be required IMO.

    Unscientific conspiracies? I’m cool with WTC7 and the moon landing. JFK is another story. Everyone knows the official Las Vegas massacre story is BS.

    #132235
    rthomas44
    Participant

    Reality denier.

    #132236
    MrPlywood
    Participant

    We’ve come a long way from smoking weird stuff, eating mushrooms, or sniffing fumes.

    Speak for yourself.

    #132243
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    There are other hypotheses that have been proposed besides dark matter/energy to explain the phenomena that led to the theory of dark matter. There have also been observations that tend to call into question the reliability of the theory of dark matter.

    #132244
    john of sparta
    Participant

    oldie goldie:
    if it sounds stupid, but it works, it ain’t so stupid.

    #132247
    pakfanistan
    Participant

    There are other hypotheses that have been proposed besides dark matter/energy to explain the phenomena that led to the theory of dark matter. There have also been observations that tend to call into question the reliability of the theory of dark matter.

    What is the theory of dark matter?

    #132254
    YogiNC
    Participant

    Stephen Hawking just came up with the answer to every thing. Before the big bang (and the start of our universe) time wasn’t horizontal, it was vertical. Yep, that’s it, time wasn’t horizontal.

    Smarter than the average bear

    #132256
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    … I’m thinking before Man…, not the Big Bang, there was no ‘Time’…

    In other words, ‘Time’ is an invention of Man, not nature…

    regardless… here’s something really cool…
    Amplituhedrons !!!

    No BS….

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #132270
    NCSU88
    Participant

    ” Before the big bang (and the start of our universe) time wasn’t horizontal, it was vertical. ”

    + 5 points if you read this with Stephen Hawking’s voice.

    #132274
    Pack78
    Participant

    ^Howie Wolowitz could do it…

    #132276
    YogiNC
    Participant

    are best couched in terms of strange variables called “twistors,” and particle interactions can be captured in a handful of associated twistor diagrams

    They misnamed it… it should be twisters! Anyway, that article made my head hurt. Add vertical time to that and I say “hand me that foil hat”

    Smarter than the average bear

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