# The lunatics wanna run the asylum



## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

> _For amateur theorists, mainstream science is an exclusive priesthood – like Martin Luther, they want to make their own connections_
> 
> IN OCTOBER 1991, astrophysicists observed something incredible in the skies above Dugway Proving Ground, a former weapons-testing facility in a remote corner of Utah. It was a cosmic ray with an enormous amount of energy - equivalent to the kinetic energy of a baseball travelling at 100 kilometres per hour, but compressed into a subatomic particle. It came to be known as the oh-my-god-particle, and though similar events have been recorded at least 15 times since, mainstream physicists remain baffled by them.
> 
> ...



Let's hope these cranks never get into power. 

This is an interesting article and I recommend reading the rest of it.

Outsider physicists and the oh-my-god particle  - New Scientist


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## Marineborn (Dec 24, 2011)

im the type of person to give everything the benefit of the doubt with a open mind, something is right until proven wrong. and that something right then proves the other right wrong is right until proven wrong essentially, so whos to say anyone is right of now and this guy is wrong. just ideas to think aboiut


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## Frick (Dec 24, 2011)

Sometimes I agree with the statement that scientists is a priesthood, at least in the western world.


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## pantherx12 (Dec 24, 2011)

If their theories can be proven then I'm all for it.

I hate that you need to be qualified to do anything in current society.

Back in the day if you were good at something or right that would be enough.



The amount of times science has been held back by people debunking people just because it isn't a mainstream idea ( and they are later proven to be correct).

Not saying this guy is right but it pisses me off that people disregard new ideas.


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## Marineborn (Dec 24, 2011)

i agree with panther i get in this argument with college students all the time, dont get me wrong nothing wrong with a education but when it comes down to it if im a F$*(ing genius at something but dont have schooling thell look at me and be like MEH!, then comes this igit then did 2 yrs of college doesnt need to know 5% of what i do and hell get the job,its bullshit that someone has to go to school for someone else to tell them that they know something with a peice of paper.

i wanted to also add on panthers statement, watch everything we beleive today, be wrong in 70 yrs.....


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## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> If they're theories can be proven then I'm all for it.
> 
> I hate that you need to be qualified to do anything in current society.
> 
> ...



I can see where you're coming from, but there's thousands of obviously crackpot ideas out there that can and should be dismissed out of hand - and this lot fits into that category. Think how many times you yourself dismiss ideas out of hand in real life, because they can immediately be seen to be wrong. Of course, lost in amongst all this noise, are the genuine new and groundbreaking ideas, but because of the noise, it's hard to be heard above it.

Also, it may be frustrating to need qualifications, but they're there for a reason: most of the "simple" scientific research that can be figured out with a few simple tool has been done. We're so advanced now, that the cutting edge is at the level of theoretical physics, including quantum mechanics. To be able to work in these fields, the full complexity of the subject, _especially understanding its maths_, is a prerequisit for being able to work within it at all. It looks to me like they're just whining because they don't have the brains to achieve the standard required. This snippet sums it up nicely:


> They are unanimous in the view that mainstream physics has been hijacked by a kind of priestly caste who speak a secret language - in other words, mathematics - *that is incomprehensible to most human beings.*


So, because they don't understand the subject, that invalidates it? Really? They then go on to compound it by saying:





> They claim that the natural world speaks a language which all of us can, or should be able to, understand. Rather than having their dialogue with the world mediated by "experts", NPA members insist that they can commune with it directly and describe its patterns in accessible terms.


What a load of tosh!  Where's their scientific basis for saying that complexities of these subjects should be easily understandable by the common man? They don't have one. If any of those theories had any credibility, then they would be seized upon by mainstream scientists, hungry for more knowledge.


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## digibucc (Dec 24, 2011)

i agree you don't have to go to school to learn these things, but i agree with qubit for sure that at the level we are at, you need an advanced understanding of science and especially mathematics to really contribute anything. for 90% of people that means school. very few people who think they are genius enough to learn advanced science on their own actually are.

not saying it can't happen - a relative layman could simply have a POV that others fail to see. but the chances of that are slim. for any considerable, long-term progress those technical requirements really need to be met.

and not everything deserves the benefit of the doubt.


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## Marineborn (Dec 24, 2011)

and old saying someone once told me....when reason fails to exsplain go back to what is safe


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## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

Also, consider that there could be things out there that may be inherently incomprehensible to us in the same way that your pet dog has no concept of what technology is, or gravity, or the stock exchange, for example.

Therefore to claim that everything should be comprehensible to everyone is ignorant in the extreme and is more or less on the same level as religion. Yeah, dismiss it out of hand.


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## NinkobEi (Dec 24, 2011)

This is acceptable to the concept of science. Doesnt matter who he is or what he believes, if his theory turns out to be correct he will be a genius.

What is the article trying to prove saying "he is a trailer park house owner" ? poor doesn't equal stupid.


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## digibucc (Dec 24, 2011)

Ninkobwi said:


> This is acceptable to the concept of science. Doesnt matter who he is or what he believes, if his theory turns out to be correct he will be a genius.


of course, that's why i love science. but as i said, the chances of a layman making an actual discovery or even any contribution at all is pretty small. and that's not the point anyway, just because the chances are small doesn't mean it's not worth striving for.

the point was:


Ninkobwi said:


> if his theory turns out to be correct he will be a genius.



he admittedly doesn't have an understanding of the mathematics involved. it is not that scientists use math to fool laymen, or confuse us - it's that math is the only way to accurately model and understand these concepts.
even if he has a GREAT theory, if he doesn't understand, know or can't explain the math behind it, he hasn't really done all that much. at the very least, you need someone WITH math skills to translate their theory, and so he can't actually be correct because he can't explain what his theory means the way every other physics theory is explained:with math. that doesn't sound like a genius to me.


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## Marineborn (Dec 24, 2011)

digibucc said:


> of course, that's why i love science. but as i said, the chances of a layman making an actual discovery or even any contribution at all is pretty small. and that's not the point anyway, just because the chances are small doesn't mean it's not worth striving for.
> 
> the point was:
> 
> ...



you do have a solid point here, but math is a language made up just to beable to speak and transfer ideas from one person to another with understanding, lets say this man has his own language that he puts his ideas on, he isnt wrong just cause it isnt universal.


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## pantherx12 (Dec 24, 2011)

qubit said:


> I can see where you're coming from, but there's thousands of obviously crackpot ideas out there that can and should be dismissed out of hand - and this lot fits into that category. Think how many times you yourself dismiss ideas out of hand in real life, because they can immediately be seen to be wrong. Of course, lost in amongst all this noise, are the genuine new and groundbreaking ideas, but because of the noise, it's hard to be heard above it.
> 
> Also, it may be frustrating to need qualifications, but they're there for a reason: most of the "simple" scientific research that can be figured out with a few simple tool has been done. We're so advanced now, that the cutting edge is at the level of theoretical physics, including quantum mechanics. To be able to work in these fields, the full complexity of the subject, _especially understanding its maths_, is a prerequisit for being able to work within it at all. It looks to me like they're just whining because they don't have the brains to achieve the standard required. This snippet sums it up nicely:
> So, because they don't understand the subject, that invalidates it? Really? They then go on to compound it by saying:What a load of tosh!  Where's their scientific basis for saying that complexities of these subjects should be easily understandable by the common man? They don't have one. If any of those theories had any credibility, then they would be seized upon by mainstream scientists, hungry for more knowledge.




Like I said, I didn't say this man was anything close to right, I was simply saying disregarding someone because they are not classically trained is the ultimate fail.

I was merely saying if the theory is sound then people should consider it.

Hell even people who ARE trained get debunked all the time ( Nikola Tesla being an obvious example) people thought his idea of wireless electricity was bat shit bananas, and yet it is something that people are developing now (using  inductive coupling)

I know it's not quite the same as a unified theory of physics but it's just one example of the top of my head.


Note : I am aware that some of Tesla's ideas were legitimately crazy.


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## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> Like I said, I didn't say this man was anything close to right, I was simply saying disregarding someone because they are not classically trained is the ultimate fail.
> 
> I was merely saying if the theory is sound then people should consider it.
> 
> ...



Yes, you make a sound argument, my friend.  I think we're basically in agreement here. Indeed a worthy idea doesn't have to come from someone with a PHD in quantum physics and I'm sure that if the idea _is_ sound, it will be considered (again, all the noise from the bat shit crazy ones notwithstanding). An idea worth its salt will have the ring of truth to it and will therefore get picked up.

Of course, just to muddy the water here, all this advanced research requires big money to do, so an upstart who upsets the applecart can get thrown out just because they don't bring in the dollars, regardless of how sound their new idea is. :shadedshu

Of course, this isn't science at work, but politics, which corrupts the scientific method and makes a travesty of science as a whole. I f* hate politics because if the way it tends to corrupt everything in the interests of someones fat profits.


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## digibucc (Dec 24, 2011)

Marineborn said:


> he isnt wrong just cause it isnt universal.



right but how can we know if he is correct if he can't explain it in a language everyone else could at least possibly understand? so instead of math we would have another language created by this guy that accomplishes the same thing. that just doesn't make sense.

i do get what you're saying, believe me. i am the last person to put a premium on standardized education. it's a failure tbh - but there is something to be said for standards. for ways of doing things that everyone can use.

a scientist in Bangladesh and one in Singapore can cooperate with a third in america, and get accurate results - because they speak the same language. that part is important, and math is established, varied, and wonderful. just because he doesn't want to make the effort to understand it, and instead would rather just make his own (hypothetically) doesn't lend any credence to them being a genius of any kind.

if math were simply not enough, and he were a genius, he would create new maths like newton with calculus. not make an  entirely different language. imo of course


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## W1zzard (Dec 24, 2011)

digibucc said:


> because they speak the same language



actually they all speak english too 



qubit said:


> left over from the earliest stage of cosmic evolution



the universe was a plasma until about 300k years into its existance. think: plasma = hot gas like the sun

a plasma is opaque to radiation (not transparent), so photons (= radiation) can not freely travel through it.

at 300k years the temperature was 3000 kelvin (above which it would be a plasma)

now the light of this 3000 kelvin surface can travel the universe freely, but the universe is expanding, so the light waves of the photons get expanded with it (red shift)

today we see these photons as the cosmic microwave background radiation that is coming from all sides. wavelength is 1 mm (microwave)

all this is pretty well understood and verified by countless experiments

so no, this radiation he speaks of can not be that old becuase it would have been red shifted too much. there are plenty of other sources for high energy particles though


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Dec 24, 2011)

Interestingly you don't need math for the formation of many of the more out there theories we have today trying to describe fundamental features of existence. You just need math to find out if it really works. I'd imagine a great number of people sitting at home watching the science channel have stumbled onto an abstract idea that may revolutionize our understanding of the universe, but then was lost to time to due to their rudimentary math skills.


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## W1zzard (Dec 24, 2011)

maybe he means particles that are not photons, so they have a mass.

these can not travel at the speed of light

actually, at some velocity (before light speed) they would turn into a micro black hole (schwarzschild radius formula is rather simple, just plug in the numbers).

this tiny black hole would evaporate via hawking radiation -> gone


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 24, 2011)

> The mainstream science world has a way of dealing with people like this - dismiss them as cranks and dump their letters in the bin. While I do not believe any outsider I have encountered has done any work that challenges mainstream physics, I have come to believe that *they should not be so summarily ignored*.


I completely agree.  "Scientists" can't be called scientists unless they're open to new ideas.  Science doesn't advance when all "scientists" subscribe to one idea and ignores the rest.  Why?  *It's easier to dismiss than prove incorrect.*


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## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> the universe was a plasma until about 300k years into its existance. think: plasma = hot gas like the sun
> 
> a plasma is opaque to radiation (not transparent), so photons (= radiation) can not freely travel through it.
> 
> ...



tsk, you're talking rubbish again man! Check out The Nine Point Five Theses which will set you free! Mahahahaha!!!


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## the54thvoid (Dec 24, 2011)

Thank fuck someone is speaking sense.  I refer to W1zz.

In scientific terms a 'theory' is a concept that can be tested and experimental results from it are repeatable.  Quantum Theory is one such thing that has been developed and discovered/designed into equations and mathematics that can be used to describe a plethora of other observations.  This is why the Higgs Boson is a very important epoch for the standard model.  It has been predicted by the mathematics to exist.
The good thing about proper science is that if the Higgs isn't there, the standard model falls apart and a new approach is taken.  Current data suggest a hint of it at a certain particle weight but at the moment of the 300 trillion data points it is statistically still not enough.  More work needs to be done.
Onto the quackery of this topic.  Giving people credence based on the, "I'm open to anything standpoint" is neither helpful or productive.  It accelerates random thoughts into the mainstream and makes it easier for people to laugh and poke scorn at the 'priesthood of science'.
If people want to be taken seriously in the scientific community they need to develop ideas that can be tested and have results from experimentation that are repeatable - then and only then does it comes close to scientific theory.

These talks are always flameful as it creates the whole 'belief versus science' approach which should be always 100% apart.

Giving credence to non scientific thinking in a science realm is utter idiocy.

Just ask a conservative christian to talk religion with Tom Cruise.  Scientology is growing in popularity and is now a recognised 'religion'.  Scientology and christianity are utterly incompatible but still they exist.  At least Judaism/Islam and Christianity are all Abrahamic.

So, seperate the science from the hokum children and stop being generous to crack brained ideas with no scientific merit.  And yes, continue to question science because it is only by questioning current science with new 'provable and vaild' theories that we move our universal understanding on.

I am not coming back to this thread.  If you can't use factual evidence on a science sub forum you should be using a separate forum called "The Vague ideas based on my own thoughts Forum".


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## W1zzard (Dec 24, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Scientology and christianity are utterly incompatible



not according to the church of scientology


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## qubit (Dec 24, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Thank fuck someone is speaking sense. I refer to W1zz.



...and qubit.  I started this thread debunking these muppets.

Thanks for a very good post.


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## bostonbuddy (Dec 25, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> not according to the church of scientology



whats the galactic lord zenu got to do with christianity.
u mean the church of christian science?


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## qubit (Dec 25, 2011)

bostonbuddy said:


> u mean the church of christian science?



"church" and "science" in the same phrase.


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## Frick (Dec 25, 2011)

qubit said:


> "church" and "science" in the same phrase.



In a way you could say there are different churces in science as well. It's basicly people with a common interest gathering to talk about/learn about those interests.


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## qubit (Dec 25, 2011)

Frick said:


> In a way you could say there are different churces in science as well. It's basicly people with a common interest gathering to talk about/learn about those interests.



We might be arguing semantics here, but I don't think you can ever equate churches to science. Churches are all about religion and useless dogma and crucially, scientific ignorance. Science is just the opposite. It seeks to learn about every aspect of our universe using reason and logic.

An absolutely perfect example of science over any religion is just to look at the advanced technology all around us. No religion ever did that, only science and the effort of countless scientists, inventors, engineers and ordinary people throughout the ages. All religion does is hold us back and should be discarded. Yes, I'm an atheist.

Oops, I think we're straying into GN territory here.  I'll happily discuss this with you if you want to create a GN thread and link back to it here.


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## qamulek2 (Dec 25, 2011)

*Lunatics EVERYWHERE!!!!*

TBH the lunatics are already running the asylum; those lunatics are called physicists.  Physicists embrace quantum mechanics even though it has lost touch with reality.

To see why quantum mechanics does not represent reality, consider what happens in the double slit diffraction experiment.  Send many photons of one wavelength into the apparatus, and on the other side you will observe a nice diffraction pattern.  Turn down the intensity of the light while increasing the exposure time, and you will still see a nice diffraction pattern(once the photo is developed).  Keep decreasing the intensity of the light till only one photon enters the apparatus per day, and you will still see a nice diffraction pattern so long as you expose the film for an adequate amount of time.  Most people that think about how the diffraction pattern comes about will initially use common sense and think the photons interfere with each other, but this experiment shows that each photon actually interferes with itself.  How is it that each photon interferes with itself and somehow decides it should have a certain probability of appearing some place?  Quantum mechanics doesn't try to explain how it happens, it just states particles behave like waves until you observe them.  Just as odd, Quantum mechanics says how likely it is to find a particle within a certain region, but once the particle is found, it will never tell you why it decided to appear there rather than somewhere else;  for any one experiment quantum mechanics is "wrong" since it can't tell you what will happen, but on average quantum mechanics has always been right.  

Something happened for any one experiment, and whatever happened should be considered reality.  The problem is quantum mechanics can't say what will happen for any one experiment, so it shouldn't be considered reality.  However;  quantum mechanics represents the only reality we know since no one can explain what will happen for any one experiment. By embracing quantum mechanics as a theory that represents reality, I am tossing out a deeper reality that I know should exist;  By rejecting the "truth", I am a lunatic.


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## qubit (Dec 25, 2011)

qamulek2 said:


> *TBH the lunatics are already running the asylum; those lunatics are called physicists.  Physicists embrace quantum mechanics even though it has lost touch with reality.*
> 
> To see why quantum mechanics does not represent reality, consider what happens in the double slit diffraction experiment.  Send many photons of one wavelength into the apparatus, and on the other side you will observe a nice diffraction pattern.  Turn down the intensity of the light while increasing the exposure time, and you will still see a nice diffraction pattern(once the photo is developed).  Keep decreasing the intensity of the light till only one photon enters the apparatus per day, and you will still see a nice diffraction pattern so long as you expose the film for an adequate amount of time.  Most people that think about how the diffraction pattern comes about will initially use common sense and think the photons interfere with each other, but this experiment shows that each photon actually interferes with itself.  How is it that each photon interferes with itself and somehow decides it should have a certain probability of appearing some place?  Quantum mechanics doesn't try to explain how it happens, it just states particles behave like waves until you observe them.  Just as odd, Quantum mechanics says how likely it is to find a particle within a certain region, but once the particle is found, it will never tell you why it decided to appear there rather than somewhere else;  for any one experiment quantum mechanics is "wrong" since it can't tell you what will happen, but on average quantum mechanics has always been right.
> 
> Something happened for any one experiment, and whatever happened should be considered reality.  The problem is quantum mechanics can't say what will happen for any one experiment, so it shouldn't be considered reality.  However;  quantum mechanics represents the only reality we know since no one can explain what will happen for any one experiment. By embracing quantum mechanics as a theory that represents reality, I am tossing out a deeper reality that I know should exist;  By rejecting the "truth", I am a lunatic.



wtf?  Read up on this experiment and scientists explain that it's a puzzle and not fully understood. So what? Science has never claimed to know everything and it would be idiotic to claim to. The fact that this is an open question in no way makes scientists "lunatics".  The theories get revised over time, with more experiments and data and eventually this question will be solved.


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## W1zzard (Dec 25, 2011)

qamulek2 said:


> To see why quantum mechanics does not represent reality



quantum theory and general relativity make the best, most testable predictions out of all theories to date. of course they are not the absolute truth, but they are the best we have to work with

feel free to come up with an experiment that contradicts them


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## qubit (Dec 25, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> quantum theory makes the best, most testable predictions out of all theories to date
> 
> feel free to come up with an experiment that contradicts quantum theory



It's qamulek2 that said that, not me! You've clearly had too much Christmas wine W1zz! 

I fully agree with what you said about quantum theory; we're on the same side.


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## W1zzard (Dec 25, 2011)

fixed. the quote button doesnt take into account quotes


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## qubit (Dec 25, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> fixed. the quote button doesnt take into account quotes



lol, no problem.


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## qamulek2 (Dec 26, 2011)

qubit said:


> I fully agree with what you said about quantum theory; we're on the same side.



At the end of the day, I believe we're all on the same side.  Note my conclusion:


> However; quantum mechanics represents the only reality we know since no one can explain what will happen for any one experiment.




My goal was to show how crazy it is to accept the norm.  Quantum mechanics does not represent reality since it cannot tell me what happens for any one experiment, but at the same time I must accept it as representing *my reality* since no one can explain what happens for any one experiment.

I may not like quantum mechanics, but I do not deny its utility.  No theory has been able to explain quantum weirdness yet, so I must accept quantum mechanics as a foundation of physics until someone can explain why the world obeys quantum mechanics in the first place.



			
				w1zzard said:
			
		

> quantum theory and general relativity make the best, most testable predictions out of all theories to date. of course they are not the absolute truth, but they are the best we have to work with
> *
> feel free to come up with an experiment that contradicts them*



Easily done.  What happens to a star that's about to turn into a black hole?  To answer such a question physicists need both quantum mechanics and general relativity;  the problem is most attempts to do so have failed.  I find this interesting since the two theories are trying to define our reality, but when they are combined together they fail horrendously.  If quantum mechanics and general relativity are incompatible, then which one will be tossed out as a flawed description of our reality?

Regarding the incompatibility, the books I have read point to the problem being that general relativity needs everything to be smooth, while quantum mechanics relies on discrete bundles of stuff(it's hard to be smooth when everything comes in packets).  Despite the difficulty, there have been progress towards quantum gravity;  two paths I have read about are string theory and loop quantum gravity.  Of the two paths, I prefer loop quantum gravity due to its description of a black hole, but I won't talk further on it since I have only second hand knowledge on the subject.  The point is progress is being made on quantum gravity, and that progress is being made by changing our reality:  string theory wants particles to become strings, while quantum gravity wants to quantize space-time(I think...).  It should be interesting to note that one path is changing quantum mechanics(everything is a string rather than a particle), while the other is changing general relativity(quantized space-time).  Something must give to combine quantum mechanics with general relativity, and when that happens our definition for reality will change.


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## The_Ish (Dec 26, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> *I hate that you need to be qualified to do anything in current society.*
> 
> Back in the day if you were good at something or right that would be enough.



Amen to that!


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## TheMailMan78 (Dec 26, 2011)

Not that I agree with what this guy is saying but this is a very hypocritical approach by the scientific community dismissing anything. Electricity couldn't be proven to truly exist until the we could actually see electrons and protons. Only then was it "proven". Yet no one would argue it wasn't really there. Honestly a lot of science today is corrupted by special interest funding and they have a tendency to dismiss anything their funders disagree with. 

Kinda like the Catholic Church of the dark ages executing people who disagreed with their teachings the same can be said of the scientists today disagreeing with the source of funding. Only now they don't kill you. They just discredit you in to oblivion.
Now with all that being said, I don't agree with this guy. Just don't feel he should be belittled and dismissed. Science is about an open mind. Some should try having one.

6 months ago nothing was faster then the speed of light. If anyone said that 6 months ago they would have been made fun of. Now they are not 100% sure. Scienece has become a system of mockery and belittlement to anyone who doesn't fit the status quo. Thats my issue with it right now. Science used to be open minded. Now it doesn't seem so much. What happen to the adventurism?


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## qubit (Dec 26, 2011)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Honestly a lot of science today is corrupted by special interest funding and they have a tendency to dismiss anything their funders disagree with.



Yeah, that's so bloody true.  Unfortunately, that's politics screwing it up and isn't science. :shadedshu

It's still true though, that there are a lot of crackpots out there and they really should be dismissed out of hand.


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## Inceptor (Dec 26, 2011)

Umm...

*It's very easy to create an argument or theory that, on the surface, sounds good, but in reality isn't very rational.*  It's the sort of thing that clever people with little education do all the time.  Very few of them actually have the mental discipline and self-taught analytical sophistication to come up with anything actually useful.  So, all the poorly educated and clever, from teenagers to old men, of the world who think they've come up with something brilliant, more often than not, haven't.  They only manage to convince the ignorant;  and those who are like them, the clever and poorly educated tend to say things like, "well, I like to keep an open mind, maybe they're right, you never know".

_*"No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated."
~ Crabtree's Bludgeon*_


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## TheMailMan78 (Dec 26, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> Umm...
> 
> *It's very easy to create an argument or theory that, on the surface, sounds good, but in reality isn't very rational.*  It's the sort of thing that clever people with little education do all the time.  Very few of them actually have the mental discipline and self-taught analytical sophistication to come up with anything actually useful.  So, all the poorly educated and clever, from teenagers to old men, of the world who think they've come up with something brilliant, more often than not, haven't.  They only manage to convince the ignorant;  and those who are like them, the clever and poorly educated tend to say things like, "well, I like to keep an open mind, maybe they're right, you never know".
> 
> ...



Then there are people who repeat talking points of other people and have never had any real world experience. These people are called experts more then not. Question the experts and you risk discredit among the masses. Accepting the status quo is far easier then to challenge the accepted. Most "educated" people enjoy being spoon fed facts. They don't like to get their hands dirty. I like to question motives and ends. I like to know for a fact someone is full of shit before I dismiss them. This is the way Science used to work. Now its more of a priesthood except for a few. But hey, lets just follow the leader right? It must be true. An expert said so.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 26, 2011)

digibucc said:


> i agree you don't have to go to school to learn these things, but i agree with qubit for sure that at the level we are at, you need an advanced understanding of science and especially mathematics to really contribute anything. for 90% of people that means school. very few people who think they are genius enough to learn advanced science on their own actually are.
> 
> not saying it can't happen - a relative layman could simply have a POV that others fail to see. but the chances of that are slim. for any considerable, long-term progress those technical requirements really need to be met.
> 
> and not everything deserves the benefit of the doubt.



I just want to interject and say that adjustments need ot be made to this statement. Laymen scenerios are all too common though not so common in other subjects. For example on this board alone. A few years ago I was reading a thread. Someone had a bad experience with a motherboard install. He was on his laptop and trying all sorts of things. The thread got to like 2 pages iirc. We were going nuts anyone contributing to the thread was at it 110% (imo this was a better time at TPU when people cared not like now) we were double and triple checking everything are you sure you put on the riser? thermal paste amount? examine the mobo look for chipped caps here here and here. at the end of the day he SERIOUSLY just didnt plug it in. which was almost the last post. Of course nothing that big happens often but you get it all the time. Even here. Someone will have a graphics card issue and we will go on forever about drivers and bios etc etc but he just didnt plug it in all the way. 

Of course the science community probably has similar. They may not be huge but im sure even the simpilest problems happen all the time. Laymen arent allowed in such facilities but that doesnt mean they couldnt figure it out. if a scientist is having trouble with an algorythm and you watch him miss the division symbol when copying it you dont need a PhD to tell him he fucked up.


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