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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (9739)	3/26/2001 12:02:22 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

...observer influence on experiments... If you're referring to quantum effects; there, the concept of observer influence is understood, and can be - as it were - quantified... (My maths was never good enough to follow the proofs, but I think I understood the commentary). Otherwise, the 'scientific' observer should not have any influence on the results. Nevertheless, there is evidential proof of many things outside science which does not depend on 'beliefs'. And although your assertion re historic equine playwrights may not be provenly false <g>, I think it could be proven that there are none active now. I like your 'love' example, however. Science can certainly find certain hormonal/bio-chemical effects in the human mind and body as a result of 'being in love', and most of us (hopefully) would attest to the feeling. Whether this is usable proof of an abstract feeling of 'love' which exists outside the mind of said affected human, well, I'd say that's still unprovable. And irrational, in the strictest sense of the word. What you are doing is using an inapplicable tool to analyse the question of the existence of God. Exactly. I cannot have a 'rational' discussion on it, in fact I think there is little chance of a 'rational' discussion per se because the reasoning sets do not coincide. On your PS: I'm not too well-informed of ancient Chinese scientific standpoint - I know they had good astronomers, obviously. Some Greeks hypothesised that the world was round, certainly, and even came up with fair estimates (and means of estimating) its size - I thought that by the time of (say) Ptolemy this was not the general supposition, especially among the non-scientific populace. Surely Columbus only believed it... he didn't at the time 'know' it. I'd say no one truly it until Magellan (I think) made it rather difficult to doubt, by going all the way around <g>

To: The Philosopher who wrote (9739)	3/26/2001 1:16:54 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

BTW, the "big bang" theory isn't, under your definition, scientific since it can't be replictated. The process of the formation of our sun can't be proved scientifically. The conditions of the BB can be duplicated in the proton/antiproton collider at CERN. We most certainly can do experiments on what matter does under these conditions (and produce the conditions themselves). Any experiment measured at CERN could be duplicated at an identical facility constructed somewhere else.