Re: Q!Re: Shall We All Leave At Once?


"Phil Bowles" <philipbowles2003@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:bb979089-25a5-4a6c-980b-e6a4d5b46fca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 22 May, 18:59, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Phil Bowles" <philipbowles2...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message



<<<A back doesn’t have a side. Or do you mean backside? Punctuate, dear
boy, punctuate.>>>

IDIOT! Learn to comprehend. "back side" does not mean the side of the back.
It means their rear side.

<<<There's no such thing as a rear side. Something to the rear is not a
side by definition.>>>

Yes there is. The rear side of the room, the rear side of the moon, the rear side spolier on the car. IGNORANT IDIOT!

Learn some comprehension.

> > Speculative argument (NOT fact): That name must be Zeus-Pater, and the
> > individual referred to must be the deity generally regarded as
> > fictitious.

> The name on the inscription is Sa-a-si-te-pi which is identical to
> Ausstaeb
> otherwise known as Istaveon from the Bavarian Chroniclas and other
> records.

> Istaveon = Zeus Deon. From linguistics when know that in Minoan times > the
> name Zeus was pronounced Sdeus. Sa-a-si-te-pi was Zeus. Live with it. > Zeus
> is also referred to in Egyptian inscriptions from the same time as > Sheshi.
> Sheshi is identical to Saasi.



Zeus is not and has never been regarded as being fictitious. There is NOT
ONE historical source which justifies any thought or idea to the contrary.
EVERY ancient historian accepted Zeus as being a deified king of Crete and
the ancestor of the Greeks that worshiped him.

<<<This has been demolished elsewhere, several times>>>

NO IT HAS NOT!

Stop making a fool of yourself an get an education. EVERY ancient historian accepted Zeus as being a deified king of Crete and the ancestor of the Greeks that worshiped him. Even Newton accepted it. There is NOT ONE historical text which even remotely suggests anything to the contrary therefore for you to claim anything else would be completely unjustified and untenable.

> >> > What you post are opinions,
> >> >> mostly unsubstantiated.

> >> > Depends on the topic - I note when I've giving a personal opinion > >> > and
> >> > generally provide citations when discussing facts.

> >> Your so called citations are nothing more than personal opinions of
> >> other
> >> peoples personal opinions of other peoples opinions who have never
> >> actually
> >> read the source texts

> > Hmm, you mean such as translations of Aristotle or the text of the
> > Travels of Noah?

> You have never cited a single source text ever.

<<<I’ve cited both of these, hence using them as examples..>>>

No you have not.

<<<Yes I have.>>

No you have not.

You cite personal opinions out of context.

<<<Not at all like citing Eusebius out of the context of his biased
agenda, of course.>>>

You've never read Eusebius and don't know anything about his agenda let alone his bias.

> >> >> > As I've told you before, sophistry won't let you get away with
> >> >> > sloppy
> >> >> > thinking. If you manifestly (and repeatedly) get things wrong, > >> >> > and

> >> >> Except I haven't got things wrong. You just think I'm wrong > >> >> because
> >> >> you
> >> >> don't understand and have never studied the subject

> >> > You've tried mouthing off about philosophy and science before now,
> >> > both subjects I have indeed studied and demonstrably understand
> >> > better

> >> Yove not studied real science or philosophy.

> > Hmm, what was that you were saying about taking the experts at their
> > word?

> You've not studied real science or philosophy. That is perfectly clear.

<<<You’ve never understood Plato, Aristotle, religion, language, history
or science (real or otherwise). That is perfectly clear. Whether or
not you’ve “studied” them is irrelevant since you plainly haven’t
learned from any such study.>>>

WRONG! You’ve never understood Plato, Aristotle, religion, language, history
or science (real or otherwise). That is perfectly clear. Whether or not you’ve
“studied” them is irrelevant since you plainly haven’t learned from any such
study.

<<<No, Aggy, that's you PARROTTING. Something you do an awful lot, to be
sure. I suppose I should consider it flattering that you regard me as
being as worthy of parrotting as, say, Plato.>>>

IDIOT!

> > You've really got to get a handle on what "demonstrated" means (SP, is
> > it in the list?) You provided an example of one Platonic text I
> > happened not to have read (fair enough, he wrote quite a lot and in

> It was a text you were refereeing to and pretending to be an expert on > and
> yet you had not even read it.

<<<I read it after you posted the relevant extract from it and commented
on its content accordingly.>>>

You commented on its before you even read it and your claims fell apart when
I cited the text in full content.

<<<Ah yes, I remember ... no, hold on, wait, that didn't actually happen,>>>

Yes it did. You commented on it before you even read it and your claims fell apart when I cited the text in full content proving your complete ignorance and reliance on the personal opinions of others who hadn't read the text either.


The texts that were relevant to the

> discussion were ones it was clear you had not read and I had, otherwise > I
> wouldn't have been making the claims I made based on them.

<<<I read them as soon as you brought them up and I’d found the relevant>>>

Yer, you read them in all of 8 minutes.

<<<See above. Look, it's a real shame you've devoted so much of your time
to this stuff when you could have been out in the wider world
molesting other people's cats, and that after all that time and effort>>>

IMBECILE!

<<<your comprehension of the subject remains some way below that of a
mildly interested amateur coming across the texts for the first time,>>>

You have no concept whatsoever of the subject let alone comprehension of it. You have never read the primary or secondary texts concerning it as is has been made abundantly clear by my exposing of you and you have absolutely no understanding of your own. All you do is parrot other peoples biased ignorant personal options who have never read the source material either. You are a complete, total and utter fool who has been exposed as being completely out of your depth and ignorant of what Plato actually wrote.

<<<passages online, where you didn’t post the extracts themselves. The
difference is that, having done so, I understood them and it became>>>

No you did not. You continued to parrot out other peoples opinions about
them even when the source text which I cited showed you and they were
blatantly wrong.

<<<You've still not got the hang of the concept of "critical analysis",>>>

Oh, so you call parroting out blatant lies and twisted unsubstantiated propaganda critical analysis? It's blatant lies and twisted unsubstantiated propaganda and will always be blatant lies and twisted unsubstantiated propaganda and can easily be exposed by people who have actually read the texts in question in full.

<<<plain that you didn’t. Newsflash: I didn’t go into this with any
grudge against you or even, at the start, any expectation that you’d
be wrong – I just found, again and again, on pretty much every subject
you discussed, that you manifestly misunderstood the sources you were
relying on.>>>

WRONG! You have never understood the sources and neither have the people you
were parroting who hadn't even read them either as was blatantly obvious. I
posted the source text and it demolished your entire argument as being
totally baseless.

<<<I really think you need to go back to those threads and refresh your
memory about what actually happened.>>>

I know exactly what happened. You were exposed as a fraud.

> > "ethology", a discipline which was for a long time scorned by
> > biologists themselves (in much the same way physicists - and many
> > other scientists - sneer at cosmology these days). Such developments

> They do not.

> > in biology as evolutionary theory and ecological modelling have little
> > if anything to do with behavioural studies.

> They are about as scientific as Anaxagoras theories of the cosmos.

<<<The ones you were saying where scientific cosmology?>>>

Subjective speculation.

<<<So why were you calling his theories scientific?>>>

That was the science of Anaxagoras' day and your biological so-called theories are no more scientific.

> Anaxagoras didn't have a mathematical formulation and was speculating, > and
> neither do you.

<<<Do you understand what “modelling” means in science? It does, indeed,
mean a mathematical formulation. Hell, even the most basic ecological
and evolutionary principles like Shannon’s diversity index or the
Hardy-Weinberg rule use mathematical formulae.>>>

That just a bunch of statistics. It's called guessing.

<<<Is this a vote for putting "statistics" on the list, or "guessing"?>>>

IDIOT!

<<<So, how does some simple arithmetic like, say, e=mc2 represent less
guesswork than H=(sumS)PilnPi (not entirely sure how you represent
that formula without being able to use a 'sum of' symbol)? And plainly
you have no idea what the Shannon index even is to describe it as
"guesswork", since it's a descriptive statistic (just like, say,
e=mc2). You could always do with looking up the thing you're talking
about before spouting.>>>

Your so-called Shannon index is nothing more than a load of subjective speculation about how to quantify an ecosystem you don't really understand. Climate change or the introduction of a foreign predator will easily upset the balance and render all of your calculations null and void. Thus you've got to keep altering your model all the time. It's making one guess and then guessing again. E=mc2 is not a population statistic. It's a law of physics determining mass-energy equivalence which derives from a mathematical framework which describes nature based on just two simple postulates and does not need to be fiddled around with and changed every something in the system changes.

You can't model and
animals brains and thought processes. Computers aren't advanced enough to
even model the brain of a mouse or a fly.

<<<What does this have to do with anything, except neurology? You don't
need to to be able to model stellar or planetary interiors to model
the motion of stars and planets or the sunspot cycle either. You don't
need to be able to model the atoms a physical object is comprised of
to study it (unless doing so is relevant to your specific question).>>>

IDIOT! Stellar interiors determine the sunspot cycle. We now have computer models that accurately mimic the entire behaviour and life cycle of a star. Whereas what happens in the interior of a star has very little to do with its motion though space, what happens in the brain of an animal has everything to do with its behaviour. You don't need to be able to model the atoms that a large inanimate object is comprised of to study its behaviour on a macroscopic level under everyday conditions because the statistical model reduces to classical physics. Quantum effects and interactions would have a minimal and virtually undetectable effect. Brains on the other hand are not inanimate objects and it is the brain which determines what an animal thinks therefore you would need to model all the neurons in an animal's brain in order to really understand how it thinks.

> > Having said all that, it is of course absurd to equate "observation of
> > behaviour" with "personal opinion". Observations are just that -
> > records of what's actually happening. "Cuttlefish change colour" isn't
> > a personal opinion, it's an observation. *Why* they change colour may

> It's a personal opinion when you start making claims as to why they > change
> colour and why they were thinking when they did so, for examples all the
> bull*** biologists come up with about why certain animals spray on > trees
> or
> adopt certain behaviours towards others.

<<<You mean, such as “My cat wants me to have sex with it because it’s
presenting its rear end to me”?>>>

It wasn't my cat. It belonged to one of my neighbours.

<<<Pointless obfuscation. Was your interpretation personal opinion, a
theory, a hypothesis, a FACT, what?>>>

The general behaviour of a female cat when it is in season it to point its arse at the dominant male and raise it's tale to indicate to it that it is receptive. That is what is observed just before cats mate.

<<<I notice you manifestly ignore everything I point out about the way
behavioural hypotheses (you really have to learn this word) are
tested. And, once again, ethology is but one fairly minor branch of
biology.>>>

Speculation.

<<<Okay, this goes on The List.>>

Of words you don't understand.

> > be a matter to hypothesise about, and in the true scientific
> > tradition, to test - indeed behavioural studies are heavily based on
> > experiment to develop explanations for behaviours. Now, what's the
> > word for making observations and conducting experiments in order to
> > find explanations for those observations?

> Speculation is the word you are looking for.

<<<No, the word is “science”, or if you prefer “the scientific method”.>>>

It's not science. It's speculation.

<<<No, it's science. As in, the discipline that applies the scientific
method to make discoveries about the world.>>>

It's speculation.

> > Real sciences are based on
> >> mathematics

> > Mathematics doesn't predict anything. Nor do statistics. Scientists
> > use them to make predictions, but in order to do so they need
> > observations or hypotheses to feed in. Mathematics is just the

> Nope. You've never heard of Theoretical Physics then. Einstein predicted
> gravitational lensing decades before it was observed.

<<<Correct – Einstein did. Maths didn’t. That was just the tool he used.>>>

The maths did. Gravitational lensing is implicit from the curvature of
space-time.

<<<Maths doesn't know there's such a thing as space-time - all the maths>>>
does is give you new numbers based on the original ones you put in.
Making predictions is a matter of interpretation of those numbers.

It is a matter of solving complicated equations which define precisely what space-time is.

<<<Goodness, no wonder you flunked science (as in, not going into it
after your degree - for some reason I'm assuming you successfully
completed it, though this seems increasingly unlikely). You must be a
lazy bugger as well as stupid to think you can just stick numbers into
a formula and it does all the work for you.>>>

You must be a total and utter ignorant to think that formulas appear all by themselves out of nothing so that you can just plug numbers into them. You clearly have not studied any real science at all and all you are doing in your area of study is guessing. You've got no concept whatsoever of what physics is let alone mathematics. I am not going to discuss subject with you any further since you don't even know how Newtonian physics works let alone Einstein. It just suffices to say that all of your preconceptions are WRONG! You have no idea what science is. Have you studied physics at O or A-Level? Have you studied calculus?

Without the maths to make perditions you wouldn't know what elementary
particles to look for or what energy levels you needed to get to in-order to
create them so how could you build the huge machines costing billions to do
assist you?

<<<So what? Who ever said you didn't need maths to study particular
questions? In fact I've made the point specifically that you do - for,
among other things, Bayesian analysis. But it's nonsense to suggest
that physics didn't exist before the advent of quantum theory, the
standard model or particle accelerators. Maths is not science, testing
hypotheses is science. You can do that with maths. You can do it with
particle accelerators. You can do it with microscopes. Among other
things. That doesn't mean that science HAS to use any of those things.
The fundamental feature of science is the scientific process. This has
already been explained to you.>>>

You don't know what the scientific process is and have no concept whatsoever of real science.

<<<Even if maths is fundamental to physics, so what? That doesn’t say
anything about its relevance in science as a whole. Maths is
fundamental to accountancy, but accountancy isn’t a science. Science
is the practice of applying the scientific method, not an outgrowth of
mathematics – a tool which may or may not be involved in applying the
scientific method in different cases.>>>

Science is applied mathematics

<<<So in your world, scientists are basically glorified accountants?>>>

IDIOT!

and has always considered to be since ancient
times.

<<<"Science" as a word means no more than "knowledge". The concept of
science as a discipline never existed in ancient times.

Biology isn't a real science.

<<<You're not exactly in a position to comment on what is or is not a
real science, given that (a) you don't understand the concept of
science, (b) you plainly know nothing about biology and the
mathematics involved, and (c) in any case, by your own definition of
"applied mathematics", biology would qualify.>>>

So where is the mathematics being applied in observing a monkey wanking off another monkey?

> > just a way of organising data and summarising results and trends;
> > anything the maths can tell you you can work out by staring at the raw
> > data set long enough if you have the time or inclination.

> Staring at the raw data set long enough if you have the time or
> inclination?
> You are fucking crazy. Sarting at the raw data isn't going to tell you
> when
> the next solar eclipse is going to occur

<<<Put the dates of eclipses into a graph, and that will tell you if
there’s a trend (say, one every 20 years) – the only maths involved is
the ability to count. In geology, for instance, it’s recognised that>>>

It's still mathematics. Unless you do the arithmetic and work out the
pattern of the series you are not going to be able to predict anything.

<<<You don't need arithmetic, you just need a long sequence and a bar
chart. Or more crudely still, just put your numbers in sequence and
look at them visually.>>>

Of course you need arithmetic. You have a series of dates and the relevant information that you need to extract from these dates is the amount of time between one eclipse and another.

<<<mathematics is needed to predict the next high point in the solar
cycle, for instance. True, you can’t make quantitative predictions
without maths for the most part (that, after all, is what quantitative
means), but you can make perfectly sound if less precise scientific
predictions with no maths at all. When I carried out a study of>>>

Like how? Unless you have a mathematical model saying sunspots reach a
maximum ever 11 years and you are in the nth year you are not going to be
able to predict when the next maximum will occur.

<<<Aggy, being able to count to eleven is not a "mathematical model",>>>

The mathematical model is not counting to 11. It's is saying that a maximum will occur with a period 11 years from such and such a fixed reference point.

<<<factors associated with species distributions in frogs, I carried
out
regression analyses to allow me to predict quantitatively how strong
any associations were, but it would have been entirely possible for me
to look at my data set and say “Hmm, this frog is more common where
canopy cover’s lower – I predict that I’ll find it more often in
disturbed areas with open canopies”. The maths let me pin down the
degree to which that appears to be the case, and was quicker and more
precise than a visual estimation from the data, but I didn’t need
maths to make the basic prediction.>>>

And all I have to do is introduce some French chefs into the area and all
your frogs will be gone. Your model is completely subjective.

<<<You'd make much less of a fool of yourself if you actually understood
even the most basic features of ecology.>>>

You mean your own personal subjective interpretation of ecology? The only one making a fool of themselves is you.

> >> Cosmology was the first ever science and Cosmologists were the
first
> >> ever
> >> scientists since before the time of Anaxagoras.

> > You're thinking of astronomers (and way back then they didn't use

> No. Anaxagoras was not an astronomer, not even an astrologer. He was a
> cosmologist and purely theoretical.

<<<Your claim wasn’t that cosmology existed in ancient times, but that it
was “the first ever science”. Random speculation about the nature of>>>

It did and it was.

<<<Random speculation about the nature of
the cosmos doesn’t count (it’s arguable whether it counts these days).>>>

It wasn't random speculation.

<<<You described it yourself as "subjective speculation". Then again, of>>>

Do you understand the difference between subjective and random?

<<<course, you don't describe almost anything as speculation. In this
case, however, you are correct.>>>

IDIOT!

> >Cosmoslogy is a very recent
> > science, hence the fact that it's still stuck without the tools to do
> > anything other than theoretical work.

> Nope. Cosmology has existed since Anaxagoras and earlier. It's never had > a
> proper mathematical footing until modern times

<<<Science is not about “having a proper mathematical footing”. Science
is about observing and making testable predictions. Cosmology has
lacked any ability to test its predictions until maybe a decade ago –
and so far it’s still not actually managed to test them. That’s what
makes its status as a science dubious, not whether it’s based on
maths.>>>

TWADDLE! The expansion of the universe was discovered in the 1950's.

<<<And was predicted not by a cosmological theory but by special
relativity.>>>

It was predicted by general relativity which is a cosmological model. (Though the prediction was never actually formally presented by Einstein who originally dismissed it.)

Atomic
theory was confirmed in the early 1900's.

<<<Atomic theory isn't cosmology.>>>

Stop being an idiot. Atomic theory led to quantum mechanics and the standard model.

Anaxagoras cosmological model was
based on and substantiated by examples in nature 2500 years go.

<<<No it wasn't.>>>

Yes it was. Hot air rises, and stones make their way to the bottom of a bucket of soil so the light elements separated from the heavy ones and the heavy solid elements formed the ground and the light ones formed the air when the earth was formed from its component elements. This is also the kind of speculation that your biology amounts to.

but Pythagoras had a go at

> suggesting one in about 536 BC based on the geometry of triangles.

<<<Pythagoras suggested a religion based on the geometry of triangles
too. Doesn’t make it science.>>>

No he did not. Pythagoras suggested the universe was governed by
mathematical laws based on triangles. The Pythagorean way of life (call it a
religion if you like) was about abstinence from eating meat and excess.

<<<SLOOVGORP!

Pythagoreanism was based around a mystical belief in numbers and
geometry - his cosmology was all part of his religious framework, as
was his "way of life". You can't separate the two.>>>

BULL***! You know nothing about Pythagoras and have never read any of the source texts on him and what he said or believed.

> The aim of Newton's theory of gravitation was to give a true description
>
Poppy***.

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Natural Philosophy of Mathematical Principles.

<<<Quite - as I said, he didn't call it a theory.>>>

IDIOT!

It's a theory of nature.

<<<That's how we describe it using the modern concept of a theory, a
concept I just pointed out Newton didn't possess. So Newton's aims in
devising it are rather beside the point.>>>

You don't understand the basis of Newton's theory. Have you studied O or A-Level Physics?

> today as a sub-set of Einstein's theory of general relativity and will
> always remain valid as such.

<<<Until the problems with reconciling quantum mechanics and relativity
force people to recognise that Einstein got the rules right, but had>>>

Nope. It wall always remain valid as a sub-set of whatever supersedes it.

<<<The most we can say is probably.>>>

Always.

<<<force rather than an intrinsic property of space-time, did), perhaps.>>>

Irrelevant. Newton's equations are a sub-set of Einstein's and that is all
that matters.

<<<A theory isn't just a sequence of equations.>>>

It's a mathematical framework. You seem to think equations come out of thin air.

<<<There is indeed a small number of theories which have survived the
tests of time so well that they probably are a pretty accurate (if, as
in Newton’s case, very incomplete) description of the world – it’s

HOGWASH. Newton's theory was an almost perfectly complete description of the
world.

<<<A theory that breaks down at scales greater than a solar system (or>>>

To what are you referring to?

indeed within that scale - hence Mercury) is "am almost perfectly
complete description of the world"?

Yes it is.

<<<What a load of absolute fishslap.>>>

FOOL!

It was even used to get men to the moon.

<<<Via Jules Verne (the calculations NASA used for the Apollo missions
were taken largely from "From The Earth to the Moon").>>>

> A theory is accepted as a theory from the very moment it is proposed as > an
> explanation for the observed facts.

<<<This is so absurdly at odds with reality I’d be surprised if, well, if
you weren’t you.>>>

A theory is accepted as a theory from the very moment it is proposed as an
explanation for the observed facts. FACT!

<<<More SLOOVGORP!>>>

If it did not explain they observed

> facts it would never have been proposed and would not be a theory of any
> sort. It is accepted as being valid unless proven otherwise.

<<<No it isn’t. One explanation for Mercury’s orbit is that there is a
planet orbiting between Mercury and the Sun that we haven’t detected;
in fact before Einstein it was the only explanation proposed for this
phenomenon. And even then, without any competition, it wasn’t accepted
as being valid – plenty of people believed in it (poor Leverrier got>>>

If it wasn't accepted then it couldn't stand up mathematically and did not
accurately predict what was observed within the observational margin of
error. In that case it would not have been recognised a theory.

<<<What are you babbling about? It COULD predict the observation it was
created to explain (i.e. the discrepancy between Newtonian predictions
and Mercury's orbit). It wasn't accepted *because the evidence to
support it wasn't there*. THAT'S science - searching for evidence to>>>

Later on in this discussion you claimed it was accepted as a theory and wasn't categorically disproven until recently.

<<<support hypotheses, not to invent mathematical constructs and
accepting them.>>>

You don't know what science is. The mathematical constructs are invented to explain what is observed. If they do this they are called a theory. If the theory predicts something that has not yet been observed then what it predicts is looked for in order to test the theory.

<<<rather screwed over generally – he didn’t even get a planet named
after him, since someone else pinched his discovery), but that’s not
at all the same thing. The ones who believed in it tested it by
looking for said planet; by the time Leverrier died almost everyone
else recognised that it was not valid, even though it’s only in the
last few years that we’ve been able to make sufficiently precise
measurements to rule it out altogether.>>>

So you are saying that it was accepted as a perfectly valid theory along
with that of Einstein up until recently.

<<<No, I'm not. Looking up the words "accepted" and "valid". No one
*accepted* the Vulcan HYPOTHESIS by the time Einstein came along -
Mercury's orbit remained an unexplained puzzle. General relativity>>>

You don't understand what you are talking about. Did the Vulcan hypothesis explain precisely the discrepancies in Mercury's orbit or didn't it? If it did it was a valid theory, irrespective of who accepted it or didn't. But by accepted you probably mean liked or disliked, since all you seem to be able to comprehend is subjective thinking.

<<<successfully explained it without needing to invoke Vulcan; that
didn't mean it was impossible for Vulcan to exist, only that it wasn't
necessary to invoke a new planet to explain Mercury's orbit. And
general relativity wasn't formulated to provide an alternative to the
Vulcan hypothesis (though it was, in part, inspired by the need to
explain Mercury's orbit - precisely because Vulcan had failed to do so
years earlier). So no one accepted Vulcan or even regarded it as a
valid hypothesis. But it was only as a trivial consequence of modern,>>>

Well that's not true because people were still making measurements in order to rule it out until recently.

<<<more precise measurements that researchers concluded nothing larger
than an asteroid can exist closer to the sun than Mercury; it wasn't a
valid hypothesis people were still trying to knock down.>>>

If they were trying to knock it down then it had validity. Why else would the waste their time and how else could the justify their funding.

<<<Each of these HYPOTHESES is just a possible
scenario predicted by one standard model (and the failure of any of
these scenarios to accurately describe the universe as we see it has>>>
led to a backlash against the standard model itself – I do wonder if
you’ve kept up to date with this stuff since your degree, and I take>>>

At the time I took my degree the debate was about which theory to follow. It
was beginning to transpire that all the theories worked but they predicted
slightly different things all of which had been observed as predicted.

<<<You might want to consider a refresher course. More recent
measurements of fundamental particles, the accelerating expansion of
the universe, the discovery that neutrinos have mass, the failure of>>>

This was all known long before I started my course.

<<<particles like the Higgs boson to show up at the wavelengths where
most of these scenarios predict them - these have all called them into
question, and the standard model itself is on the brink of collapse,>>>

The standard model is not in the brink of collapse. It predicts the universe we see today (once you feed in the correct variables by hand, and that has always been its biggest problem).

<<<held together mostly by speculation about dark energy to try and
reconcile it with the observed universe. Meanwhile no theory of
everything is forthcoming, probably because either general relativity
is fundamentally wrong or our understanding of quantium mechanics is -
which is a problem because these are the two most successful theories
in modern physics.>>>

> > For example if you observed a ball falling and saw that it's
> >> speed increased as a function of time you would devise a theory which
> >> accounted for that and that theory would be considered perfectly > >> valid
> >> unless proven otherwise,

> > Not until it had been pretty firmly established that not only is this
> > a common feature of balls, but that the same principle can be applied
> > to other objects. And you have to go back a few centuries, before the

> Nope. Your theory is concerning just that ball under the conditions you
> made
> the observations.

<<<*sigh* THAT IS NOT A THEORY. It’s a hypothesised explanation for one
result.>>> It's a theory.

You wouldn't apply it to balls in general unless you'd

> tested other balls and other conditions. Testing it on other objects > would
> be one of your tests to try to disprove it.

<<<And if you do it enough and it passes enough, one day your hypothesis
might form the basis of a theory. But it is not a theory as soon as it
is proposed, let alone one accepted as valid (if it was accepted as
valid, no one would be going out of their way to try and disprove it,
would they?)>>>

It's a theory if it accounts for the observed data.

<<<No, it's a hypothesis. Any hypothesis worth testing "accounts for the
observed data", at least partially - that's why it's proposed.>>>

It's a theory.

> > If
> >> a claim always gives the same results within the confines of the > >> theory
> >> and
> >> the experiment then it is called a law. But you wouldn't understand
> >> that
> >> because there are no laws of Biology

> > See the above example. The truth is, biology is a lot more complex
> > than chemistry, maths - probably even than advanced physics, since
> > although it contains systems that are difficult to conceptualise, they
> > tend to be governed by a fairly small set of simple laws. "Laws of
> > biology" are often difficult to isolate, the mechanisms aren't
> > intuitive, and they are often hard to test - why does species richness
> > increase towards the tropics, for instance? It's been about three
> > hundred years since this question was first asked, and we still don't
> > know. But it does qualify as a law, or very nearly so.

> It's a load of subjective speculations and which can be rendered totally
> invalid by climate change.

<<<On the contrary, climate change is a golden opportunity for ecologists
precisely because they can test how well their theoretical predictions
hold up under novel environmental conditions.>>>

Oh, so the speculations of ecologists are now theories are they?

<<<No, ecological theories are now theories. The ones based on rigorous
testing of hypotheses like those in any other scientific discipline,
you know.>>>

They are speculations. Just chop down a few rein forests and they won't work.

> >> Has anyone ever managed to categorically prove classical physics? It
> >> can't
> >> be done.

> > This is why science isn't about categorical proof. Who ever said it
> > was? As I've said before, proof is the preserve of mathematicians and
> > philosophers, not scientists.

> Philosophy can't prove anything. That's why its Philosophy.

<<<Ever heard of logic? Probably not since you’re unable to apply it.
Rationalism? Same applies. Major branches of philosophy are devoted
entirely to working out what can and can’t be proved, what is
necessarily true from given first principles and so on and so forth.>>>

Logic is incompatible with the mathematics of quantum mechanics, yet the
mathematics is always right.

<<<Logic IS mathematics. There's nothing logically incompatible in>>>

No it isn't.

<<<quantum mechanics; there are things that on the face of it defy common>>>

You don't know what you are talking about. I am not going to discuss this with you.

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html

> > nothing to do with it, as I explained. You can't describe the concept
> > of a car by reference to the concepts "wheel", "axle", "engine" etc.

> Twaddle.

<<<You think a car can be described by these concepts? Ever heard the
expression "The whole is more than the sum of its parts"?>>>

Ever read Plato's, Parmenides?

<<<Wasn't that the one you cited a large extract from that I commented on
at length? If so, yes.>>>

No.

> >> > words, and in a world which has had dictionaries for about three
> >> > centuries, ultimately people learn how to use the words from the
> >> > dictionary in the first place. Now, *every* dictionary in the > >> > English

> >> The *** they do. They didn't need dictionaries 2,000 years ago or > >> even
> >> when
> >> Shakespeare was alive.

> > You really never have got the hang of the idea that society changes,
> > have you? Journalists didn't need computers three hundred years ago
> > either, but you try finding any today who don't rely on computers to
> > do their job.

> Oh, so the computers write their articles for them now do they, all by
> themselves?

<<<You’d be surprised. But I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make
– a dictionary doesn’t teach you what words mean all by itself,
either, you have to be using it. Same with a journalist’s computer.>>>

Nonsense. A dictionary doesn't teach you anything.

<<<Plainly it never taught you anything. But I think I lost the plot of
that section - wasn't the comparison with mathematics rather than
dictionaries? Nevertheless the point remains valid - like any tool,
maths does nothing unless it's used. It's just rearranging numbers;>>>

Oh is it. You've obviously not studied calculus then let alone solved equations.

<<<you can't get anything out of it you don't put in. Maths is basically
just a way of fiddling the figures to allow you to look at them from a
different perspective. Like a computer, its only function is to make
its subject, in this case numbers, easier to work with.>>>

IDIOT!

> They are completely ignorant because they don't know what it really > means.

<<<They do know what it really means; maybe you’re the completely
ignorant one. Ever thought of that?>>>

No they don't and the don't know they don't know because they are ignorant.

<<<Or maybe they do know because they're not ignorant, and YOU don't know
they do know because you are ignorant.>>>

No. I have already explained to you what "homosexual" really means.

.