The Science Delusion, a talk banned by TED

[Mr.Samsa]

If you challenge the assumption, for example, that physical laws apply uniformly throughout the universe, however, you'll likely just be ostracised.

That very much depends upon how you challenge them!

If you make your challenge by (i) introducing a model that better (or at very least equally well) describes all observable phenomena than the status quo and either (ii) back up that model with evidence that supports your hypothesis or (iii) make testable predictions based upon your hypothesis which would definitively distinguish between the two, then your challenge is scientifically valid.

If you can't provide any of this, you are just mind-wanking. Fun, in its own way, but removed from the remit of science. This is all that Sheldrake provides, along with Chopra, et al.

The jury is still out on whether String-Theory is mind-wanking, btw!

I think you're missing the point - there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism. The important part is that this goes both ways. Someone doesn't need to present an alternative model to point out that some scientists are blindly accepting an unsupported assumption. It's up to the people making the assumption to support it.

[FBM]

[JimC]

It depends on what you mean by "physical laws". If you mean the physical laws as we've catalogued them now, then they don't apply throughout the whole universe (not only because we have two as yet incompatible theories in concurrent use). But if you mean that there isn't an all encompassing set of physical laws (i.e. a GUT) that applies to the whole universe, then that is getting into woo territory.

Given the reasonable speculation about the possibility of an infinite number of separate bubble universes, then there may be an infinite number of sets of physical laws...

A narrow interpretation of science would say that, given it may not be possible to test that hypothesis, it's not science...

[JimC]

Mr Samsa wrote:

...there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism...

I think that is putting it too strongly. I can't see there being cast-iron proof of uniformitarianism, but I can conceive of astronomical evidence which strongly suggested that some far away region of our universe had certain differences in physical laws to our own local region, which would thus support non-uniformitarianism...

[Tero]

There were dozens of them. I tested them with simple tasks. We were in a packaging job, so some rudimentary math was occasionally needed. Also, one had to be able to track down an error that was done say half hour earlier. None of them could do it.

Or they were lazy. If they were on their own, I guess they would just wait for college folk to show up to fix the error. Taking a pen and pad to figure out a problem was alien to them. They were 10-20 years out of high school.

Maybe I should mention that country music was played, and several of them headed straight for the casino on payday?

And they accurately represent "the public," rather than a small sampling of a single regional demographic age group? Sloppy reasoning there, I think. I say that despite not being a fan of "the public" in general. However, I hope I am more careful not to disparage the entire group with such blanket condemnations. Stereotyping, hasty generalization, composition fallacy. Introduction to Logic wasn't the most fun class I took, but at least it taught me to avoid such faulty reasoning. Not claiming to be perfect, but I don't take the qualities of a small group and attribute them to society as a whole without a whole lot more data than that.

You have figured out by now, surely, that when you imply that "the [non-scientist] public" are all mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers, you're including the majority of people who are reading your posts here at Ratz, right? Has that dawned on you yet?

Can I start a spinoff thread?

[pErvinalia]

If you challenge the assumption, for example, that physical laws apply uniformly throughout the universe, however, you'll likely just be ostracised.

That very much depends upon how you challenge them!

If you make your challenge by (i) introducing a model that better (or at very least equally well) describes all observable phenomena than the status quo and either (ii) back up that model with evidence that supports your hypothesis or (iii) make testable predictions based upon your hypothesis which would definitively distinguish between the two, then your challenge is scientifically valid.

If you can't provide any of this, you are just mind-wanking. Fun, in its own way, but removed from the remit of science. This is all that Sheldrake provides, along with Chopra, et al.

The jury is still out on whether String-Theory is mind-wanking, btw!

I think you're missing the point - there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism.

Not in an absolute sense, no. But science doesn't deal in absolutes. It deals in weight of evidence and the principle of falsification. So we probably will end up at a point where we have a GUT (grand unifying theory) that works 100% of the time we test it. Of course we can't know definitively whether this is 100% absolute. But as far as science goes, it is treated as universal until something disproves it.

[pErvinalia]

It depends on what you mean by "physical laws". If you mean the physical laws as we've catalogued them now, then they don't apply throughout the whole universe (not only because we have two as yet incompatible theories in concurrent use). But if you mean that there isn't an all encompassing set of physical laws (i.e. a GUT) that applies to the whole universe, then that is getting into woo territory.

Given the reasonable speculation about the possibility of an infinite number of separate bubble universes, then there may be an infinite number of sets of physical laws...

A narrow interpretation of science would say that, given it may not be possible to test that hypothesis, it's not science...

Yeah, we could only ever talk about the physical laws in our own local cosmic instantiation. Outside of that, things are going to get tricky. I read something recently (and didn't understand any of it ) about so called evidence (or perhaps it was the hypothecation that there will be evidence available) of us existing in a simulation. That is, it will be possible to determine if there is something outside our local cosmic instantiation. Even hypothetical models of what "preceded" the big bang - like Gnuth's model, etc - claim to provide knowledge of outside our local instantiation. So I guess there are scientists who think it will be possible to gain knowledge about things external to our local universe. I don't pretend to understand how this might be possible, but I am naturally sceptical about such claims.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

If you challenge the assumption, for example, that physical laws apply uniformly throughout the universe, however, you'll likely just be ostracised.

That very much depends upon how you challenge them!

If you make your challenge by (i) introducing a model that better (or at very least equally well) describes all observable phenomena than the status quo and either (ii) back up that model with evidence that supports your hypothesis or (iii) make testable predictions based upon your hypothesis which would definitively distinguish between the two, then your challenge is scientifically valid.

If you can't provide any of this, you are just mind-wanking. Fun, in its own way, but removed from the remit of science. This is all that Sheldrake provides, along with Chopra, et al.

The jury is still out on whether String-Theory is mind-wanking, btw!

I think you're missing the point - there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism. The important part is that this goes both ways. Someone doesn't need to present an alternative model to point out that some scientists are blindly accepting an unsupported assumption. It's up to the people making the assumption to support it.

If something is untestable and unprovable within our current universe then, by definition, it has no effect on our current universe. The converse is equally true. Speculation about such things belongs firmly in the realm of mind-wankery!

Science is a well-proven, useful process that increases our understanding of the universe as it is (or appears to be to us) and, through application, enhances our ability to manipulate that universe. Speculation about untestable, possible past or future states of that universe are outside of its remit unless a methodology of investigating them can be devised.

I can claim that the speed of light was originally 4 miles per hour, or that protons are all green, or that the Higgs boson is the saddest, loneliest particle in the universe. I have every right to make these claims but NOT in the realm of science. Not unless I can back them up with evidence.

When Sheldrake edges into this realm of speculative conjecture, he leaves science behind and enters self-fellatiory philosophy. He mind-wanks. I am not saying that this is pointless, wrong, or even of lesser import to science. All I am saying is that it is outside of the scope of science. Just like carpentry is outside of the scope of 4 part harmony.

[Mr.Samsa]

Mr Samsa wrote:

...there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism...

I think that is putting it too strongly. I can't see there being cast-iron proof of uniformitarianism, but I can conceive of astronomical evidence which strongly suggested that some far away region of our universe had certain differences in physical laws to our own local region, which would thus support non-uniformitarianism...

Not really, since physical laws are already defined as having exceptions - they are "laws" only in the sense that they generally hold true under specific conditions. An acceptance of uniformitarianism means that the laws have always been the same and always will be the same, which is not something that can be demonstrated, whereas a rejection of uniformitarianism means that the laws can change and since science is predicated on the notion that uniformitarianism is true then it can't be used to reject uniformitarianism.

Not in an absolute sense, no. But science doesn't deal in absolutes. It deals in weight of evidence and the principle of falsification. So we probably will end up at a point where we have a GUT (grand unifying theory) that works 100% of the time we test it. Of course we can't know definitively whether this is 100% absolute. But as far as science goes, it is treated as universal until something disproves it.

The scientific method doesn't deal in absolutes, but the assumptions behind it are absolutes. The assumption of uniformitarianism has to be true for all times otherwise the whole scientific enterprise becomes useless as it can't be used to predict anything.

I think you're missing the point - there is no empirical or scientific evidence or scientific testing that could ever support or disprove uniformitarianism. The important part is that this goes both ways. Someone doesn't need to present an alternative model to point out that some scientists are blindly accepting an unsupported assumption. It's up to the people making the assumption to support it.

If something is untestable and unprovable within our current universe then, by definition, it has no effect on our current universe. The converse is equally true. Speculation about such things belongs firmly in the realm of mind-wankery!

That's just nonsense of the highest Dawkinian order though. There are many, many things which are untestable and unprovable by science but are nonetheless real things that have an effect on the world, the assumptions and axioms of science itself being a major example.

Science is a well-proven, useful process that increases our understanding of the universe as it is (or appears to be to us) and, through application, enhances our ability to manipulate that universe. Speculation about untestable, possible past or future states of that universe are outside of its remit unless a methodology of investigating them can be devised.

But speculation about past and future states is one of the fundamental assumptions of science. That's the point.

I can claim that the speed of light was originally 4 miles per hour, or that protons are all green, or that the Higgs boson is the saddest, loneliest particle in the universe. I have every right to make these claims but NOT in the realm of science. Not unless I can back them up with evidence.

Yes, that's Sheldrake's point. They aren't scientific claims. They still need to be evidence-based and supported in some way though, even when science itself is making these non-scientific claims.

When Sheldrake edges into this realm of speculative conjecture, he leaves science behind and enters self-fellatiory philosophy. He mind-wanks. I am not saying that this is pointless, wrong, or even of lesser import to science. All I am saying is that it is outside of the scope of science. Just like carpentry is outside of the scope of 4 part harmony.

Again, sort of agreed in that they aren't scientific questions. Nobody is claiming they are though. They are the philosophical assumptions that science needs to accept in order to work, and sometimes they are just popular philosophical assumptions that scientists adopt that Sheldrake is questioning, but the point is that they still need to be justified in some way.

[FBM]

...

When Sheldrake edges into this realm of speculative conjecture, he leaves science behind...

I agree.

...and enters self-fellatiory philosophy...

I disagree. You disparage philosophy with this statement. Philosophy =/= speculative conjecture.

[JimC]

Mr Samsa wrote:

An acceptance of uniformitarianism means that the laws have always been the same and always will be the same, which is not something that can be demonstrated, whereas a rejection of uniformitarianism means that the laws can change and since science is predicated on the notion that uniformitarianism is true then it can't be used to reject uniformitarianism.

That is full of logical inconsistencies. It is perfectly possible for some aspects of those "laws" (however you designate that set) to have changed in a consistent way since the big bang; many current cosmological theories involve a change in various parameters, such as the strength of universal gravitation, from the moment of the big bang. That is clearly a rejection of uniformitarianism, and it is also at least possible for evidence to confirm such a change to be present in careful cosmological measurements.

Science is not inseparably wedded to uniformitarianism, in the sense that a scientific model incorporating predictable changes through time, and possibly in space is fully conceivable. Science is also not irrevocably wedded to absolute causation, either, as various results from the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics show.

If there is one thing that science is predicated on, it would be that events in the universe are not capricious, in the sense of being without any chance of being quantified, and analysed.

[pErvinalia]

Not in an absolute sense, no. But science doesn't deal in absolutes. It deals in weight of evidence and the principle of falsification. So we probably will end up at a point where we have a GUT (grand unifying theory) that works 100% of the time we test it. Of course we can't know definitively whether this is 100% absolute. But as far as science goes, it is treated as universal until something disproves it.

The scientific method doesn't deal in absolutes, but the assumptions behind it are absolutes. The assumption of uniformitarianism has to be true for all times otherwise the whole scientific enterprise becomes useless as it can't be used to predict anything.

It doesn't matter, because science isn't in the business of proving absolutes. As long as science continues to work (i.e. can make accurate predictions) then all is well. It doesn't matter if Jesus on a pink unicorn is twiddling with stuff behind the scenes. It's irrelevant.

[Mr.Samsa]

Mr Samsa wrote:

An acceptance of uniformitarianism means that the laws have always been the same and always will be the same, which is not something that can be demonstrated, whereas a rejection of uniformitarianism means that the laws can change and since science is predicated on the notion that uniformitarianism is true then it can't be used to reject uniformitarianism.

That is full of logical inconsistencies. It is perfectly possible for some aspects of those "laws" (however you designate that set) to have changed in a consistent way since the big bang; many current cosmological theories involve a change in various parameters, such as the strength of universal gravitation, from the moment of the big bang. That is clearly a rejection of uniformitarianism, and it is also at least possible for evidence to confirm such a change to be present in careful cosmological measurements.

It's not a rejection of uniformitarianism as the claim is that the laws hold true for the conditions and parameters described, not that they can't ever change. A disproof of uniformitarianism would require, for example, some way of demonstrating that on a Wednesday 6 billion years ago the strength of universal gravitation increase 20-fold and then dropped back down to its usual level after that.

Uniformitarianism is the idea that, with all conditions staying the same, the results should be the same.

Science is not inseparably wedded to uniformitarianism, in the sense that a scientific model incorporating predictable changes through time, and possibly in space is fully conceivable. Science is also not irrevocably wedded to absolute causation, either, as various results from the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics show.

If there is one thing that science is predicated on, it would be that events in the universe are not capricious, in the sense of being without any chance of being quantified, and analysed.

Science is impossible without uniformitarianism. If we find that the rate of gravity is X, then in order to make predictions about the future we need to assume that (with all conditions being stable) the rate of gravity will be X. If you're building a bridge and you need to calculate some constant but it could have changed since yesterday when it was measured, then what good is it?

[pErvinalia]

Mr Samsa wrote:

An acceptance of uniformitarianism means that the laws have always been the same and always will be the same, which is not something that can be demonstrated, whereas a rejection of uniformitarianism means that the laws can change and since science is predicated on the notion that uniformitarianism is true then it can't be used to reject uniformitarianism.

That is full of logical inconsistencies. It is perfectly possible for some aspects of those "laws" (however you designate that set) to have changed in a consistent way since the big bang; many current cosmological theories involve a change in various parameters, such as the strength of universal gravitation, from the moment of the big bang. That is clearly a rejection of uniformitarianism, and it is also at least possible for evidence to confirm such a change to be present in careful cosmological measurements.

Science is not inseparably wedded to uniformitarianism,...

Yeah. I've never heard about scientific methods being predicated on uniformitarianism. I don't see what that has to do with the scientific method. The scientific method is concerned with empiricism and the logical deductions and inductions that can be made from observation. If the laws of the universe changed either temporally or spatially, that wouldn't alter the method one bit. And how do I know this? Well we clearly have two general laws that are not fully consistent with one another (i.e. quantum mechanics and relativity). The reason why they are inconsistent is that neither applies universally (well, QM hasn't yet been expanded to apply universally). Yet science continues to empirically measure the universe and make accurate future predictions. Yet both of these sets of laws can't be right at the same time.

[JimC]

Mr Samsa wrote:

Science is impossible without uniformitarianism. If we find that the rate of gravity is X, then in order to make predictions about the future we need to assume that (with all conditions being stable) the rate of gravity will be X. If you're building a bridge and you need to calculate some constant but it could have changed since yesterday when it was measured, then what good is it?

Firstly, there is no such thing as "the rate of gravity". If you wish to be taken seriously in a discussion of physics, use your terms correctly. Depending on requirements, "gravitational field strength" would probably be the term you are looking for...

Secondly, you are really using an example about engineering requirements, not science.

Thirdly, gravitational field strength may well be one of the parameters that has altered over time, if several of the competing hypotheses about the nature of dark energy and its relationship to Einstein's cosmological constant are correct, implying the end to at least one aspect of uniformitarianism. Sure, the time scale would be huge, but within our ability to model

...A disproof of uniformitarianism would require, for example, some way of demonstrating that on a Wednesday 6 billion years ago the strength of universal gravitation increase 20-fold and then dropped back down to its usual level after that. ...

That example is more in the line of a capricious universe, rather than non-uniformitarianism. All that science requires is the ability to gather data, build models, and make testable hypotheses. If examples of sudden changes in physical quantities occurs, it is merely one more set of data to be investigated.

Cosmology, one of the more speculative branches of physics, does not have to assume uniformitarianism to be valid. Some of its theoretical models of the universe may include uniformitarianism, others may not. It does not have the profound metaphysical significance that you are granting it. One clear-cut example is the existence of singularities. They are regions within which the laws of physics no longer apply; the universe is thus not uniform in physical laws. The nature of singularities is of huge interest to physicists trying to uncover the discontinuities between general relativity and quantum physics; in one sense, such anomalies are vital in terms of stretching, challenging and refining our conceptual base. People who think that physicists have a narrow and inflexible metaphysical position should look at the fascinating and often exotic concepts that are part of the edge of cosmological physics...