[NGTM-1R]

Don't be stupid, Science is 100% theory

Bullcrap. Science is about observable evidence. MOND, as Battuta said, failed that test.

As I said right from the start, I'm willing to accept that MOND is wrong, but the whole concept that it must be wrong because it doesn't fit a model that we created can lead to problems, as per my example with the pre-Gallilean model of the Solar System.

You didn't read either post properly.

MOND has a massive hurdle to overcome in that it needs to replicate all the experimental findings of General Relativity and then move on to produce a cosmological model which matches our real universe as perfectly as the Lambda-CDM model does. So far it hasn't.

Read it again. Try to pay attention this time; Battuta is not saying that it has to match the existing model. Battuta is saying that it must predict observable reality as well as the existing model does. It did not ever do this.

[Flipside]

Bullcrap. Science is about observable evidence. MOND, as Battuta said, failed that test.

Wrong. Science is about theories devised from observable evidence, those theories are subject to change as new evidence becomes avaiable.

You didn't read either post properly.

I'm reading those posts quite throughly, which is more than I can say for you most of the time with your trolling over creationsist arguments. Care to clarify this ambiguity?

Read it again. Try to pay attention this time; Battuta is not saying that it has to match the existing model. Battuta is saying that it must predict observable reality as well as the existing model does. It did not ever do this.

And if you'd actually bothered to read my posts, you'd have noted that Dark Matter didn't do that for 20 years. For about the fourth ****ing time, I'm not a proponent of MOND, I'm saying that Science requires challenges to established norms and that politics can play a role in that.

[General Battuta]

The geocentric model analogy is okay, but remember geocentrism was eventually falsified because its predictions didn't match experimental observation.

MOND has to make predictions which match experimental observations. It hasn't managed to match General Relativity in this respect, let alone Lambda-CDM. If it were just an alternative account of dark matter that'd be one thing, but MOND also overturns GR, which is...hilariously ambitious.

We see something out there causing unusual gravitational lensing. For the moment Lambda-CDM explains it. We will continue to test Lambda-CDM until it fails or until it is further verified. Where MOND is testable, it has not always stood up well (Bullet cluster), and where MOND has made predictions that differ from Lambda-CDM, no experimental evidence has yet materialized to support it.

[Flipside]

To be honest, I am inclined to agree that Dark Matter is the more likely explanation, and we can agree to disagree over the amount of resistance MOND recieved for political reasons.

I suppose, the point I'm making is this, like MOND, those who disagree with Global Warming are, as you say, going to have to produce testable evidence to match the observable norms. They may succeed, they may not, but it's a two-way street, if they want their claims tested, they have to produce that evidence. The act of 'pinning a letter to a door' with lots of complaints, but no testable evidence is a political statement, not a scientific one.

[Ravenholme]

Bullcrap. Science is about observable evidence. MOND, as Battuta said, failed that test.

Wrong. Science is about theories devised from observable evidence, those theories are subject to change as new evidence becomes avaiable.

Thank you, saved from raging about that one myself.

Do a science based degree, and you'll have this drummed you into from day one.

Nothing is "fact" in Science, it's all theories with a large degree of confidence that the theory fits the observable evidence. Never a certainty.

*Goes back to preparing a presentation on a scientific paper on Gradualism*

[Galemp]

That's because theories can never be truly 'right' or 'wrong', only more or less accurate. They're simply models of the universe that we can understand, not actual definitions of how things really work. (For example, quarks come in three 'colors,' despite being smaller than the wavelength of light!)

So if we can come down from astrophysics and back into the world of climatology again... suggesting there's some kind of vast conspiracy within the scientific community to suppress information that challenges the status quo shows a fundamental misunderstanding about how science WORKS. Science is not religion, EVERYTHING is and always has been up for grabs, and any theory can be debated on its merits and applicability. Most of this has been building upon the work of others, if their predictions agree with our observations.

But in any kind of challenge to the scientific consensus, there's either going to be a revolution (Galileo, Einstein, Darwin et al.) or they're going to be crackpots. And it's not about whether it's politically convenient (again, see Galileo, Darwin) but whether the data fits. Given that every outspoken opponent of the climate change model of the earth has had some kind of media-fueled political agenda, I'm going to stick with the scientific community on this one.

In the end there's going to be a model that has its predictions validated. And then maybe, once we've got a few more coastal cities underwater like New Orleans, the political debate can shift away from 'is this happening' and towards 'what do we do about it.'

[Flipside]

Agreed, as I've said before Science is never unanimous. For the moment I am prepared to go with the majority consensus. Science maintains its impartiality by always remembering that Scientists are not impartial, they are human beings with human failings. As long as quantifiable, testable concerns are not being bulldozed off into the sideline then it maintains equilibrium.

[NGTM-1R]

Wrong. Science is about theories devised from observable evidence, those theories are subject to change as new evidence becomes avaiable.

Inconvenient bit highlighted for the edification of science majors. Either science is evidence-based as I said or it's pure bullcrap. Even you admit it's evidence-based. I'm not sure what Ravenholme thinks he's doing.

You can't do science without reality. It doesn't work. But you can do evidence without science all you want. (And will do so to read this sentence; it's called observation.) If you want to pretend the theoretical cart pulls the evidentary horse, you may have a problem.

Science's quality is measured by its ability to accurately describe observable reality. Evidence trumps theory.

I'm reading those posts quite throughly, which is more than I can say for you most of the time with your trolling over creationsist arguments. Care to clarify this ambiguity?

Sure.

and has not been experimentally substantiated.

And if you'd actually bothered to read my posts, you'd have noted that Dark Matter didn't do that for 20 years.

Dark matter was not experimentally substantiated for twenty years because nobody could come up with a way to do so. It was not tested, not it was not able to produce evidence.

For about the fourth ****ing time, I'm not a proponent of MOND,

Not relevant.

I'm saying that Science requires challenges to established norms and that politics can play a role in that.

Well that's great, but it's a completely bad description. Science is much more of a iterative process, refining existing work, then a revolutionary one. It's not politics; it's how the system works.

[General Battuta]

let's all fight about it

[Flipside]

I can't be bothered, he's just trying to justify his own stupid original comment now.

[SpardaSon21]

Can the astrophysics stuff be split please?

[Flipside]

Not very easily, the point that was being made about MOND before the trolling started was that, like Climate Change, there's nothing essentially wrong with challenging those established beliefs with a different interpretation of the observable evidence, but that evidence has to be subjected to the same rigorous testing as the data was originally interpreted under. In fact, the question as to whether MOND was viable or not was actually totally irrelevant, what was important was accepting that alternate theories existed and being prepared, if data is supplied, to test it with an open mind. The results should speak for themselves, in the case of Global Warming, and MOND that evidence has yet to disprove the mainstream theory, and may never do so, but that doesn't remove the fact that the mainstream interpretation of the data is still theory and subject to the same rules. If science closes it's mind to that, or even the possibility that there may even be a third option that hasn't been considered yet, it starts the move from Science to Religion.

Edit: In fact, at this moment in time, I'm watching a fascinating episode of Horizon titled 'What Happened before the Big Bang?', and whilst the contents would be more relevant to another thread, it's an absolutely wonderful example of ideas that challenge the established 'norms' regarding something that is regarded as fact by many scientists. Three theories, at least two of them are wrong, but it's going to be interesting to discover whether we will even ever be able to answer the question.

[Ravenholme]

Edit: Actually, I'm gonna take a cue from Flipside, here. Ravenholme, out.

[Bobboau]

If science closes it's mind to that, or even the possibility that there may even be a third option that hasn't been considered yet, it starts the move from Science to Religion.

this was my earlier point.