As with anything, Science is not perfect, but I find it is the best tool we have. Same with our collective body of knowledge, what we know and what we thik we know; It is imcomplete and occasionally inconsistant... imperfect. The everlasting taint on humanity is imperfection, the everlasting blessing is that we always strive for it and it will ensure that Man (doomed to die... the way Tolkien put it) will never know everything, we will never know the shape of space or the face of god. It's amazing... this thing so hopeless has always seemed to me the most encourageing.Quote:
Originally posted by Hero
Tracer, that was some good stuff.
About science - I do think it's fickle, but I dunno if it questions itself nearly as much as people hold it to be. There are certain stigmas in science that you are not supposed to question, or so it seems. I have a book that talks about such, but it's at home, and I'm at work. Maybe I'll plug it later.
For one, Science is not an organization - but there are those who study it. You could call it a community, and yes Thou Shalt Not Travel At or Faster Than The Speed of Light and Thou Shalt Not Create or Destroy Matter/Energy (only change or convert it), Thou Shall Obey The Laws of Thermodynamics and so on and so fourh.... these things aren't questioned. But indirectly, through experiments seemingly unrelated, the foundation is shattered - Science doesn't act out of control or malice. It's about dicovery and application.
Reletivity seemed to sum-up a lot of classical physics pretty well - but from out of it emerged paradoxes from the behavior of light and spiraling down to a precise clock-work universe that seems to flip coins as it's primary mechanic. A universe in which observation alone changes the very state of objects. A universe where more and more things seemed to lack any univeraslity - nothing could be really measured, not fully. Nothing could be assumed... not even the trees' noise when it falls in a forest. Light, while still seen as an absolute speed, could be circumvented. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is contradicted in QED (Zero Point experiments yeilded the possiblity for a perpetual motion machine which seemed to create energy.. though nothing of the sort has or perhaps can be constructed - it is unusual for its implications). So no... science isn't perfect and while practical, classical science say NO to perpetual motion, Pure Science - Theoretical Science still asks the questions. It may not amount to a hill of beans, but it would be a failure on our part - as a species - to not ask questions... even taboo ones.
As to the debate between the 'Belivers' and the 'Skeptics' - good show. Personally, the part about commanding angles is like Carl Sagan's "Dragon in my Garage" (The Demon-Haunted World; 1997). It begs the question; What is the diffrence between an invisible, incorpreal, miniscule, heatless fire breathing dragon and no dragon at all? I'm not attacking any claims - it's just this: The claim is that we have not walked a mile in 7's shoes so we cannot know. But if we cannot walk a mile in his shoes, who CAN we ever know. Very much like the Dragon in My Garage (BTW: I'm selling a Dragon for $20,000 - he's small, his fire is heatless, blends in with any surrounding an interior decoration, is incorpreal so that it will never drag mud in your house or accidently run into it. Bargain Priced). Once again, this is not an attack on your position or your claim, simply questions (as anyone is free to question why we cannot travel faster than light, evidence to boot) to the claim of a christian god.
If science can conseed, that anything can be proven wrong... even if it is in the most remote of possiblities that it can be wrong and there is something else at work other than inflexible laws described by equation: then can you, you yourself, conseed that perhaps there is a possiblity that what you felt as god is somehow sunconsiously fabricated by your brain in away to make you feel better about yourself or your situation or any reason suiting you as it might me. Could you conceed that? That since you offer nothing other than an invisible dragon whose existance we must only except on faith and some semantic qualitative remarks can you then conseed that there might be something else at work other than an almighty intervening god and creator? Would you, could you... you don't have to - but it does lend us some reason to discuss the matter further. If not, I have no way to walk in your shoes and I cannot really accept your claim or care enough to deny it.
ºtracer
EDIT: rezo already explained what I was saying to Hero with apt and admitedly unsuprsiing (from him) brevity.
