I doubt Galileo would agree.

Even if he did it seems that the countinual advance and refinement of scientific, naturalistic explanations is evidence that this mistrust of supernatural accounts of the same is bearing fruit.

While I think that our seemingly innate desire for knowledge would be motive enough for scientific progress I can see where you are coming from.

Even so your argument seems to be of the form that the "god did it" explanation is a necessary hurdle to be overcome before a full understanding of the facts appears.

I suspect this is not what you mean.

I don't like the "God did it" explaination very much. I want to know how God did it...but I realize there will come a point where God just did do it.

I think he kind of has a point, though it's not a particularly important one.

For some peculiar reason that has nothing to do with rationality, I want to believe that too.

It's just that the empirical evidence of scientific progress does not imply that such an event is any more likely currently than it was in 1654.

First of all how did you go from "probably never find matter existing in this state anywhere in nature" to "it doesn't exist in nature"?

If we find it in nature then it exists in nature - where's the dilemma?

If it's created/designed (gonna go with the assumption that you're referring to the supernatural), then it can't be a Bose-Einstein state, because the Bose-Einstein state, like everything else in science can- supposedly be observed, studied, measured, it's compatible with physics etc, therefore its natural, because science only deals with what's natural.

Even if a supernatural deity creates such a state, we won't be able to identify it as such, because, being of supernatural origin - and as I explained- we can't measure and study it and, as a consequence, we couldn't tell if it's compatible with physics. This pretty much means it's not observable either.

The surface tension is not the only possibility for what? What do other physical phenomena have to do with it? If a human is supported by the water tension then he is in violation of the very principle that does not allow this to happen. Why is this so complicated? I swear if somebody here said the sky is blue we'd get half a dozen people people saying there is no sky, half a dozen asking which sky, and a final half dozen saying that the definition of sky is so ill defined that the statement does not make sense.

Every time I or anybody else has tried to walk on something those were the only relevant factors.

Yeah, it almost seems like he is a bot that tries to ask you questions by regurgitating words that you use but isn't very good at saying things that are relevant or actually make sense.

Of course people would look for a natural explanation, starting with illusion. When they finally concluded that he was actually doing these things without the assistance of something else they would cede that he was capable of violating those principles.

No. I have never observed anything that makes me think it is likely that a natural explanation won't be found if we look for it. Surely even you think that dark energy is likely a natural phenomenon we don't quite understand and not angels tugging at space time or something supernatural?

What you observe, namely gravity not pulling someone through the surface of water.

Another phenomenon, specifically another force, could account for what you observe, namely gravity not pulling someone through the surface of water. Yet for some reason you have discounted even the possibility of such. Why would you do that?

Probably because you are choosing to making it complicated rather than answer the question directly.

Now that we've swept up the remains of a few strawmen, the question again:

What is it about the observation of someone walking on water that would lead you to discount all physical phenomena as possible causes?

Which is not generalizable to every attempt to do so. Bad science.

How would you classify scientifically the phenomenon of 'gravity not pulling someone through the surface of water'?

What? Gravity is the reason that surface tension is even an issue in the first place. Why would you think I have discounted it? And discounted it from what?

Yeah, I'm the one complicating this...

What strawman? What are you talking about? Concerto, stop, you are looking unnecessarily foolish.

First you would try to ascertain if the person really walked on water(i.e. the water supported his weight) or if the person simply levitated above all but the top most layer of it.

Well we now know more about dark energy then we did when we slapped the name on it.

I hope this is not what Concerto is getting at (ie. what if some other force is causing him to look as if he be walking on water but he really isn't being supported by the surface tension) as I already covered this previously ITT.

Scientifically speaking, the presumption would be there is an unknown physical force acting to cancel gravity.

Now you're being dishonest. Clearly gravity and surface tension are the two forces we have been discussing, where the latter is insufficient to account for someone walking on water.

Again, why are you assuming that if gravity and surface tension don't add up to enable someone to walk on water, then it must be a supernatural event? On what basis are you discounting even the possibility of another physical force and resorting to the supernatural as your preferred explanation?

Both somewhat explain the miraculous observation so I don't think it matters much. I only bring it up because thats how a scientist would immeadiately think about the observation. Once you narrow down what is actually being seen then you can begin to look for an explaination of the phenomina.

What does 'acting to cancel gravity' mean, though? What 'cancels' gravity? What happens to the gravity that is 'cancelled'?

If I'm on the second floor of a building, does not falling through the floor mean that something is 'acting to cancel gravity'?

Dishonest about what? We know the normal force exerted by the surface tension is not strong enough to counterbalance the force exerted by gravity. We can calculate this. If there is some other force holding him up (ie. this is an illusion), then he isn't being supported by the surface tension and therefore isn't walking on water. But again, I covered this already. There is no 'preferred' explanation. Once we have established that he is walking on water, he is in violation of this principle.

Nothing happens to the gravity that gets cancelled. We know it got cancelled because the person walking on water is not accelerating downward.

Not falling through the floor means the reaction force by the floor is cancelling gravity.

No such principle is violated if a force other than surface tension is holding him up. Yet you prefer a supernatural explanation even though you can't exclude the possibility of another force.

You're entitled to your beliefs, of course.

But I don't understand - I don't float away from the floor. Isn't gravity the reason why? Why don't I float away if gravity's been 'cancelled'? You're not really describing the phenomenon.



We know why this guy can walk on water. We know by studying the relationship between surface tension, mass, gravity and various mass:limbspan ratios. He basically gets around by distributing his weight. The fact that we know this means that we are qualified to say what a 'miracle' would be if it were to happen in this context - which would be if something whose numbers didn't 'add up' to 'walks on water', walked on water anyway.

The information that we have - 'X walked on water' seems to imply that the surface tension must be in play. 'X walked across the floor' will not generally be taken to mean 'X presented a convincing and inexplicable illusion of walking across the floor' - we take it to mean that X walked on the floor. Why are we speculating about other forces that haven't been necessary to explain the pictured insect?

This is covered in the paragraph you just quoted. In fact, you know it is. Just stop. It is abundantly clear you are arguing for the sake of arguing at this point.

One force "canceling" another is the standard terminology. It does not imply either force no longer exists, only that they sum to zero.

Another, as yet unknown, physical force would explain a human being doing against gravity what the insect does with surface tension alone.

Yet some people's idea of science is to preemptively rule out that possibility and prefer a supernatural explanation.

That's what I mean when I say you're not really describing the phenomenon. What's the difference between this water-walker and everything else in the universe that isn't currently in free-fall?

What's the difference, excluding mundane fakery?