Well, I hate to shut down the debate so soon but you know....the whole master race concept is based on science.

On a lesser evil note we have the ongoing Libertarian debate. That's another would be utopian society based on the science of human nature. It's a flawed understanding of human nature but it's based on science.

I mean, it's not good science but it's good enough to start political movements.


In my view the two realms are entirely separate and using science where you should be using religion is like using a hammer when you need a screwdriver.

But since I accept that religions fill a basic human need I'm not exactly for destroying them. I mean, some of them sure. But I'd rather figure out how to make them work in the modern world.

We're basically wired to live in small tribal groups and we just don't. That causes issues.
Also, we're not supposed to be able to kill our enemies as easily as we do.

Those problems actually aren't the fault of religion. They're the fault of science. Go figure.

Adult writer,
You ever going to address what you find so racist about me?
Is it the quantum Buddhism?

Interpretations of quantum mechanics aren't really science at our current level of understanding, they're philosophy.

I mean, if your whole point is that some scientists do shoddy or agenda-driven work and that as a result some published findings are unsound then sure, I agree. It's much easier to get away with that sort of thing in the soft sciences though - e.g. all the race/IQ guys etc. When I talk about "science" I am really talking about hard sciences.

When I say right-wingers are science deniers for example, I have anthropogenic climate change in mind specifically.

Gravity isn't understood at all which is why it can't be merged with the other fundamental laws of reality. In that video it's proposed that it might be an epiphenomenon. Not "both sidesing" it-- that's just the way it is.

Pretty dam well. We have a really good understanding of things like star, planet and galaxy formation and even of the super-galatic larger scale structure of the universe that would not have been possible 100 years ago.

We don't have any direct experimental data on quantum gravity and ideas first thought up in the 70s/80s like anomaly cancellation and simply writing down a mathematically consistent version of quantum gravity via string theory or anything else don't seem to be able to fully solve the problem by itself without some significant insight. That's at least the state of things in 2020.


Very little for the highly successful and quantitatively confirmed non-quantum theories of gravity we use every day. What were the potential impacts for you of confirming the existence of the Higgs boson? A successful quantum theory of gravity would be about the same.

What is your stance on dark matter/energy because I understand they're rather controversial but at one point in time were said to be needed to fully understand the larger scale stuff you speak of.

David Gross is 79 years old. He is in the background and new physicists with new ideas are giving it a shot.

(x-2) (x-7) (x-9) = 0 is a cubic equation that has solutions of 2, 7, and 9. If every experiment spits out these three numbers we pretty much know that stuff is following that equation. But 2, 7, and 9 are also solutions to an infinite number of other equations such as the fourth degree equation (x-2) (x-7) (x-9) (x-y) = 0 where y could be anything. So if some experimental results don't fit neatly into the cubic equation, much work may still need to be done.

Thanks Well Named. Although I think my suggested thread title was better.

Check Sklansky out, jumped straight from the Fundamental Theorem of Poker to the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra.

That's some deep ****, man. I too have a theorem, about unique factorisation of the naturals, but I'm not quite sure what to call it.

I don't have anything deep to say about them. They are needed to explain the universe at very large scales, but neither are understood all that well. Plenty of people spend a lot of time thinking about both. Hopefully we'll know more in the future.

I see your grasp of how the field of physics works is just as solid as your understanding of other academic realms.

I get that hard science is just that. And it's too narrow to actually build your life around.

I was trying to give you an example of why I think some people worship science. You can delude yourself because you know...it's science.
Just like you can delude yourself because God.

I think I get your point, but my response to that is that the type of people you are describing are using "science" as a buzzword in bad faith, not worshipping science as a guiding principle. It has nothing to do with delusion and everything to do with fraud.

Generally, I would argue against any sort of view that puts science and religion as "beliefs" on an equal footing, since they are antithetical to one another by definition.

If I were to talk about people "worshipping science"-- I would use it to mean using science as a way to avoid questioning anything deeper about the nature of reality, thinking that "science" has it all figured out. Obviously everyone here is way way too smart for that, but those people are out there.

Well, I mean, there are all sorts of people out there Luckbox, some who misunderstand science, some who believe in Libertopia, and others who think mass shootings are staged. What do you propose we do to combat this sort of disconnect from reality?

Not all mass shootings

The idea that religion and science can both be correct is just wrong as far as almost all religions are concerned. They may not contradict each other on many issues. But on some, such as the age of the Earth, it is inconceivable that religion has it right unless you buy into the idea that a god purposely set things up to deceive people.

The whole concept of selective breeding and weeding out the weak is totally scientific. It just also happens to be evil. But if you think too highly of science you're apt to fall into those types of traps.

Not that religion doesn't have it's own traps but I think we all agree that religious faith isn't a rational act. It's based on a willingness not to question a few basic beliefs.

Just because something is scientific doesn't mean it's desirable. Thermonuclear weapons are also "scientific". Maybe I'm missing your point?

Edit: if your point is basically "science brought us eugenics", then I don't really know enough about how much of that is science and how much is ideology to argue it, so I'll leave it to others to comment.

Or, to put it another way - genetics is a well established science and selecting for traits is something we do when breeding animals and plants all the time. Is there a branch of science that said it's desirable to do the same thing with humans? Because that sounds like politics and ideology, not science - very much the same as scientists can build nuclear bombs, but they don't take an expert view on if and when and where to drop them.

Just an example of how people can worship science with similar results to worshiping religion.

No, the science just supplies the know how. It doesn't supply any moral opinion. That's not the realm of science afaik.

I think a better characterization is--can be used for evil purposes. The whole concept of selective breeding includes some stuff that isn't really evil imo. It can be as simple as picking desirable plants in a field to gather seed for next year's crop. We were doing stuff like that way before we fully understood it.

Sure enough people defending eugenics in the nazi forum.