Fundamentally Wrong
Would you Ask Your Banker to Do Your Brain Surgery?
Over at BadAstronomy, Phil Plait is having a field day with Cre@tionist Loonies (CLoonies) I don’t blame him. I am growing increasingly dismayed at the silliness that some people subscribe to in an effort to please the various deities they waste their time trying to supplicate with foolish behavior.
Belief and faith are not matters of science. And this entry isn’t about having faith — that’s a person’s personal business. It’s about those some people I noted up there — the CLoonies who have co-opted faith and spirituality to sell the rest of us a bunch of irrational, made-up ideas.
When a CLoonie gets up and tries to school everybody in a part of science that the CLoonie knows just enough about to be dangerous, all he or she is really doing is showing their ignorance. Even those CLoonies who claim they were trained to BE scientists — they are twisting what they learned (at serious taxpayer expense in the case of one CLoonie who claims to have a PhD in astrophysics, but is rejecting everything he learned as a scientist in order to further some strange ideas he came up with) to suit their own private ends. So, the next time you run into somebody claiming that their god/goddess/object of faith has all the answers for science questions, run away very fast. The odds are very high (more like 100 to 1) that this person is full of it.
Think of it this way — a CLoonie without scientific training, professing to explain science to you — is asking you to accept a bill of goods. Is actually lying to you in order to get something. What would that something be? Probably money. Maybe just a feeling of power. Of looking more important and better than you.
But, if you start to pick apart such a person’s claims and beliefs and assertions, you just about always find out they don’t know what they’re talking about. That they are fundamentally wrong. And, I bet you they know it, but they’re hooked on the feelings of power they get from their act.
For questions of science, research, and just plain how the universe works, it’s best to rely on somebody who actually DOES the science and doesn’t have a spiritual axe to grind. No good scientist is going to ask you take anything on “belief.” He or she is going to show you the facts. Not made-up facts. Not tainted facts. Just facts based on reliable observational methods.
Hey, if you need a surgeon, do you ask your banker who had the same surgery to do the procedure for you, since he knows about it? Would you ask an airline pilot to remove a tooth for you, since she once had one removed and knows how it feels? How about getting your car fixed by an actor, since he played a car mechanic on TV once? No? Then why let self-anointed CLoonies tell you how the universe works based on their faulty, faith-based delusions of self-educated grandeur? Real scientists can tell you all the exciting and provocative stories you want to hear about the universe, and those will be stories based on real science.
You’re better and smarter than the CLoonies think you are, you know. They’re looking for dupes. For people gullible enough to buy the crap they’re selling. And, mark my words, they ARE trying to sell something.
But, you have common sense on your side. And intelligence. If you believe in a deity — use what you think your deity gave you to honestly ask questions about the cosmos — and don’t fall for foolish claims of “teach the controversy” or “God made all this” or whatever 7 impossible things a CLoonie tries to tell you you SHOULD believe in. Science is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of facts and knowledge based on observable phenomena. Period. All other attempts to explain it through hocus-pocus and oogedy-boogedy magic is, as Sherman T. Potter says, “Mule muffins.”
“Belief and faith are not matters of science.”
I believe prayer studies, or population studies on faith for that matter, contradict that.
Philosophical irrelevant claims aside, since we should be analyzing empiricism, on the face of it science do seem to make all gods unlikely as Dawkins points out. I once looked at the observational evidence against proposed creation or teleological gods, and found them easily refuted by observations beyond reasonable doubt. (IIRC I used a 5 sigma binomial test, yes/no working scientific (non-creationist, non-teleological) model for phenomena. Wish I saved the calculations, statistics is cumbersome. :-/ )
I don’t think that should be controversial, since as you point out these are all made-up ideas, like the philosophical claim that science can’t tell us about faith ideas. What would be the likelihood they would be correct? [Takes out same binomial model again. "Let me see, we have umpteen possible ideas, ..."]
Comment by Torbjörn Larsson, OM — May 31, 2009 #
I’ve seen some of those “studies” that you claim contradict the idea that faith is not science. They seemed to be kind of squishy and in at least one case, very much a case of wishful thinking.It’s tough to quantify faith or spirituality, since those are matters of emotion and nonrational feelings. Any attempts to measure them (subject them to quantifiable scientific criteria) would be limited, at best. So, anybody who claims that prayer helps people think better or be happier or whatever is deluding themselves. You can’t base such conclusions on a series of statistical samples of one, no matter how many people you study. They all respond differently and report differently and the variables are endless and unquantifiable.
Comment by ccp — May 31, 2009 #
I just submitted this article to Digg! ‘Cause I digg it!
Speaking of faith matters, I have the daunting task of speaking to a meeting of astrologers on July 24th at McCormick Observatory! Yeah, astrologers! I’ve given lots of general astronomy talks (the same talk: “What is Astronomy?”) and the section wherein I take on astrologers always is a hit. The occasional fundamentalist christians in the crowd always like that part too.
But this group will be different, to say the least. They’re true believers in all the woo. They will surely take offense. I just have to be as professional as possible and not come off as a jerk. It should be interesting.
Rich
Comment by Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — June 2, 2009 #
I am offended, as a fan of George Clooney…
I kid, I kid. Great commentary!
Oh, Richard, that’s amazing. I wish I could come, I’ll be out of town! I wonder if a little precession will shake em up a bit.
Comment by Nicole — June 2, 2009 #
When you say that:
For questions of science, research, and just plain how the universe works, it’s best to rely on somebody who actually DOES the science and doesn’t have a spiritual axe to grind. No good scientist is going to ask you take anything on “belief.” He or she is going to show you the facts. Not made-up facts. Not tainted facts. Just facts based on reliable observational methods.
Isn’t that what the good scientist are doing when they ask you to believe in the big bang? Have faith there was a singularity. And have faith there is dark matter and dark energy.
Comment by Jeff Mitchell — June 4, 2009 #
Nobody is asking you to “believe” in the Big Bang. We ask you to look at the evidence for it. And there IS evidence of that first moment in the universe. It’s not a matter of faith. Faith has nothing to do with it. It’s a matter of looking at the evidence for the BB, dark matter and dark energy. The evidence for the latter two lies in their influence on the matter we CAN more easily detect. Dark matter has a definite gravitational influence on the baryonic matter we can detect.
We can’t “see” radio waves coming from things. Does that mean we have to take what radio astronomers detect at the center of our galaxy, for example, on “faith”? No, we don’t. We simply have to look at the evidence of radio emissions, which we can detect. Just because you can’t see something with your eyes (which are only one of the ways we detect occurrences and objects in the universe) doesn’t mean that it’s a question of faith to accept that something exists. Elstwise, optically blind people could say that they have to take it on faith that a chair exists or a flower exists. They don’t — instead, they use other senses to detect what’s there.
On the other hand, CLoonies will have you accept what THEY tell you on faith, without any evidence to back up what they claim. So, a CLoonie tells you that some deity created the planet. And he/she wants you to take it on faith because they say so. Or the voices in their head tell them so. Or whatever. But, a scientist will tell you, “here’s the evidence for how our planet was created. We have these data and these models and we know this is how it happened.
So, confronted with a CLoonie who wants to dazzle you with hearsay, metaphysical tapdancing, and ego-boosting claims that his god told him something and by god we’d better believe it or else, versus a scientist with verifiable data and facts to back up something, who are you going to accept more easily? It comes down to that — accepting 7 impossible things before breakfast that make no common sense, or hard data. The choice is yours. But, don’t conflate “belief” with looking at the facts and accepting reality.
Comment by ccp — June 4, 2009 #
I “believe” the biggest thing going for the big bang is that it tells us where we came from. For some reason humans think they have to know where they came from: be it religion, big bang or some other Cloonie alternate universe silliness. We will never know where we came from just as we will never know how many grains of sand there are.
The big bang has painted itself into a corner with the dark matter and dark energy. Instead of looking at the evidence logically they have come up with a giant magnet (dark energy) drawing us to infinity and beyond.
Comment by Jeff Mitchell — June 4, 2009 #
Please explain why (factually) you think that the Big Bang has “painted itself into a corner”. Facts, please. As for the rest of your “belief” statement — believe what you wish. Facts are tough on “belief.”
Comment by ccp — June 4, 2009 #
The cornerstone of the big bang is Hubble’s finding that the galaxies are red shifted. He assumed,(as has astronomy) to this day that the galaxies are flying away from each other because of this red shift. Thus we are forced to “believe” in “singularities? dark matter? and energy?” If you substitute that the light is being bent by gravity(proved by Einstein); then you don’t have to “believe” any of the nonsense.
Comment by Jeff Mitchell — June 5, 2009 #
No one is “forcing” you to “believe” in anything. If you want to keep slinging around that word “believe” then go ahead, but it’s not correct and I suspect you know it. You either examine the facts and accept what they tell you, or you don’t. Belief has nothing to do with it.
Not only that, but your argument is making little sense. What’s your background in this?
Comment by ccp — June 5, 2009 #
O.K., no more “believe”. If you accept the fact of a big bang you have to accept a singularity, dark matter, and dark energy. But as a side isn’t that what religion is, the accepting of dark matter (God) and dark energy(miracles). I have a simple 4 page paper complete with illustrations, double space logically explaining the red shift. The illustrations don’t come through on your comment box.
BIG BANG A BUST
The Galaxy Spin Theory
Copyright 2009 by Jeffrey P. Mitchell
Throughout history the scientific community; though having done much good, has made erroneous assumptions that appear ridiculous today. The two biggest would be the flat earth theory, and the belief that the earth is at the center of the universe. Along with these is the belief in the Big Bang.
There was no Big Bang. The universe as we know it is not expanding or contracting, but relative constant. What is happening is that: like satellites around planets, and planets around stars and stars circling in their galaxy; the galaxies themselves are orbiting around a central core. This is the “Galaxy Spin Theory”.
The Big Bang theory is based on four premises. (1)There is cosmic background radiation (2) most of the galaxies are going away from each other (their light being red shifted) (3) there is an abundance of lighter materials (4) and the universe is homogenous and isotropic.
After trillions of years of stars being born, stars dying, quasars, and all the other energy production it would be surprising if there weren’t cosmic background radiation. The temperature of this radiation does not prove in any way that there was a Big Bang.
Most galaxies are red shifted, but not because they are receding from each other. Their light coming to us has been bent after millions and billions of years by the gravity of the central core. Galaxies are actually physically closer than they appear.
That there is an abundance of lighter materials is only logical, and proves nothing.
The belief that the universe is homogenous and isotropic is discredited by numerous observations including: millions of galaxies flying off toward the Great Attractor.
The Big Bang theory relies heavily on dark matter and dark energy. If no dark matter how are the anomalies we see explained? If no dark energy, how can all the galaxies be accelerating? The Galaxy Spin Theory unlike the Big Bang Theory does not rely on dark matter and dark energy. In fact it disposes of them.
The anomalies currently attributed to dark matter are only illusions caused by the bending of light. It is this same gravitational red-shifting that accounts for there being so few observable blue shift galaxies.
This diagram shows the positions of the galaxies as they are, and as we see them. The light we receive from galaxy “A” has been distorted by galaxy “B” but we do not see them as being in the same line of sight.
It’s like we are looking through a fish-eye lens. You can take all your measurements through this distorted lens but none of those measurements mean a thing in real life. Even the stars in the Milky Way will be bending the light coming from other galaxies. If someone looks through a telescope and remarks “that is where the galaxy was a billion years ago”; that is a fallacy. That galaxy was never where it appears in the sky.
The Galaxies are not actually accelerating but only appear to be in relation to our own galaxy. This can be illustrated by two cars on the freeway going the same speed. Because they are going the same speed there appears to be no acceleration in relation to each other. However if one car takes the off ramp; even though he is moving at the same speed as before, it appears to the other car now to be accelerating. All galaxies in their respective orbits are on their own off ramp, seeming to each other to be accelerating even though they are going there normal orbital speed.
To believe in the Big Bang one is obligated to embrace the wondrous singularity that magically appeared and then magically expanded. (No explanations given). You must accept as a given the baffling dark matter and bewildering dark energy. (Again, no explanations given).
To believe in the Galaxy Spin theory you must believe that light is bent by gravity. The bending of light was proven by Albert Einstein and Sir Arthur Eddington in 1919.
I call the galaxies central core Tipperary because it is a long, long way to go. I call the galaxy spin entity a Whirly (you have to call it something.) I call ours the S.R.T.E. Whirly. Are there other Whirlies out there? Logically.
Any response to this would be welcome at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=PxZpROFfeh0
Comment by Jeff Mitchell — June 5, 2009 #