Quantum Suicide, or: The Hypocrisy Thereof

Well the OP says that physicists are hypocrites for having "unprovable" theories yet attack religion for being unprovable. I highly suspect that he is referring to something that happened to him in real life and he used this seemingly "bullshit" theory he just ran across to vent.

I've seen it before; hell I've done it online as well, that's how I can tell that this is likely (in my mind) the case. I'm just wanting to point out that many scientists have some form of spiritual conviction, and are not the stereo-typical religion haters he is striking out against for hypocrisy. That's what he explicitly said, that they are being hypocrites for supporting the Many Worlds Interpretation and at the same time deriding religion.

Which seems very straw to me for some reason. I do not know why religion even came into the topic in the first place if he just wanted to talk about the Uncertainty Principle and one of it's possible explanations.

There's a difference between Multiple Worlds and the other models that've been proposed to unify quantum mechanics and General relativity and religion.

EDIT: Hmmm... What a weird sentence. I'll try to re-do it: "There's a difference between (scientific hypotheses attempting to unify quantum mechanics and General Relativity, such as the Multiple Worlds hypothesis) and religion.

These models of physics are testable - they're supposed to make predictions that can then be tested in addition to accounting for all the known facts which fall in the purview of that model. If the facts don't add up, there goes the model.

Religious beliefs can be read as scientific hypotheses (which, as most of you know, is what Dawkins does in The God Delusion,) in which case it's possible to see what predictions those models would make and see if they are correct (they're usually not.) That's why most religious authorities will resort to NOMA, or Non-Overlapping Magisteria, which means that religions don't make scientific claims (that is to say, testable claims about the universe) and in exchange, scientists don't claim wisdom pertaining to things that aren't part of any field of science (except philosophy, parts of which serve as a no-man's land.)

Of course, there are plenty of religious organisations, documents and people who/that do make scientific claims, in which case they're subject to scientific scrutiny. If you're going to say that the Earth is just thousands of years old (as some fringe groups do,) you're making a statement that is testable; all we have to do is see if we can find a way to measure the age of a part of the Earth or find other traces of the Earth's history, and we'll see how old it really is (about 4.5 billion years.)

And that's the difference. The various models floating around in the frontiers of quantum physics are testable; it's just that testing them is exceptionally difficult and time-consuming. Still, they're being tested all the time, and we'll just have to wait for the results.

Actually, this post seems to answer the main complaint of the OP. Does that mean that the thread has served its purpose?

edited 1st Nov '11 12:50:42 AM by BestOf

(except philosophy, parts of which serve as a no-man's land.)

cant stop laughing, thats so true but a really hilarious figure of speech.

Of course, there are plenty of religious organisations, documents and people who/that do make scientific claims, in which case they're subject to scientific scrutiny. If you're going to say that the Earth is just thousands of years old (as some fringe groups do, )

My dad is a chemical engineer and believes that the Earth is only as old as the Bible says. If you count the generations that makes it only 6K years old. He also unashamably says that even in Science the Bible should be the ultimate truth and thinks Answers In Genius is a good source.

I also at the Pentecostal Highschool I went to saw a poster that tried to explain how Earth's magnetic fields could of only survived at it's current rate of decay for only about 10,000 to 20,000 some odd years. It was titled something like "discoveries by creationists"

So fringe or not, those scientific claims by religious people were very much a part of my life, and I even used to support such views. Are they fringe? From my experience they are common among Baptists, evangelicals, and Pentecostals.

But even then I would never go to denounce Scientists in general for being "against religion". in my eyes they were just misguided. Until, you know, I rejected the Bible utterly.

-0-0—0-0—0-0-0

So Earth Sheep, I must ask, why the takethat against scientists? That is what really threw me off. Also as well I apologize for my first post being abrasive/mad.

I'm glad you enjoyed "no man's land," I thought it amusing when I wrote it. And as you said, it is very true; for example, Einstein and Oppenheimer talked about the moral implications of the atomic bomb more than most moral philosophers of the time (which, considering their part in the creation of that device, is in fact entirely logical.)

EDIT:

I'm almost certain you meant "Answers in Genesis."

I've heard that literalist interpretations and "Bible before science" thinking are phenomena that are growing in the US; it boggles my mind. However, including the phrase "fringe groups" was a conscious choise, as such opinions are very rare in religious institutions outside the US and parts of the Islamic world.

Neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox churches include such claims in their doctrine, instead accepting evolution and the established facts (of course, "established facts" in the sense that there's overwhelming evidence that it's so, but an equally persuasive amount of contradicting evidence would dispute them) of geology and most other fields.

There are very few congregations in Europe that claim that the Earth is only thousands of years old, and claims that evolution is untrue are, while more popular than miscalculations of the Earth's age, still not the majority opinion of religious groups here.

As for my region (in case anyone's interested), the Nordic countries are overwhelmingly Lutheran (the original branch of Protestant Christianity,) and Lutheran dogma is very firmly in the NOMA camp and doesn't consider the Bible true; for example, many (if not most) Lutheran priests would, if questioned, admit that the stories regarding the birth of Jesus are conflicting and historically inaccurate, and not to be taken literally. (I don't want a debate about the veracity of stories in the Bible; I'm only using this as an example of what Nordic mainstream Christianity is like.)

Anyway, it does seem that a large majority of Christians reject literalist readings of the Bible.

And that's enough of that digression, if you ask me.

edited 1st Nov '11 1:33:09 AM by BestOf

Now, there is some speculation that gravitational effects might allow different worlds to interact — if that was experimentally verified, it would support the many worlds interpretation. But for the moment, this is just an hypothesis.

I'm almost certain you meant "Answers in Genesis."

I must not payed attention to the word I clicked on when fixing the typo. I use firefox to fix my spelling mistakes

Well... as to hypocrisy of this nature, it seems that a scientific degree gives people license to make unprovable theories legitimately.

~shrug~

I doubt there's any real reasoning behind it, otherwise.

thing is the op is talking out of ignorance, you cant prove anything, but the hypothesis can be verified and and people are working on it

Well, people tend to internalize information based on who tells them it.

When a priest says "there is an afterlife because we believe in God and the Bible" (assuming Christianity because I'm familiar with it), we either believe him because we're Christian or don't because we're not. It doesn't get much deeper than that, usually.

When a scientist says "there is a multiverse with particles that can travel through matter and blah blah blah, etc." we will tend to believe it—barring a religious fundamentalist-based (optional) anti-science mentality—because hey, he's a scientist, he obviously knows what he's talking about.

I'm not saying it doesn't have any proof behind it. It may very well have proof behind it. But a side effect of modern societal progression is that we're often inclined to believe scientists on a modern brand of faith all its own, because hey, science runs the modern world, right?

edited 1st Nov '11 5:20:45 PM by USAF713

When a scientist starts to propose a metaphysical hypothesis, he/she stops doing a scientific role and instead does a philosophical role. We're talking about which axioms we're using.

Well, true, but most people don't think that deep into it. As noted, scientists have entered a trusted and privileged position in the modern First World, and many people just take what they say on face value because they are now authority figures.

So a scientist can't say atoms exist?

I don't see why not. Explain?

@post 34: Again, there's a difference. Whatever you'll hear a scientist claim, you have access to the evidence - at least, in principle, you do. If you have the facilities for it, you can repeat the experiment or re-discover whatever data was fed in to check the theory. Scientists detail the material with which they're working in their paper, and if it's at all possible, they'll try (if asked) to tell you how to get access to that information.

Now, the theories in science that are more distant to our daily lives are generally verified by data that may be hard to get - such as that produced by satellites or advanced facilities such as particle accelerators. Still, if you visit the place (the institute housing the accelerator or the one that controls the satellites or whatever is appropriate,) you'll be shown the data.

If you ask a priest to show you the evidence for God, you won't be seeing anything that strongly supports their claims*. More likely, the majority of the evidence you will be provided will be anecdotal or rhetorical. For logical proofs of the existence of God, the books that promote them are available for you, so I'm not going to claim that that particular category of "evidence" is unavailable; but remember to apply to it at least the same amount of critical thinking that you would to any other proposed philosophical hypothesis.

When scientists are proposing models for explaining known phenomena that are not yet verified, they won't claim that they're true, but instead, they'll offer their models in a tentative manner and probably include references to ongoing or planned research. The models won't be accepted before there's sufficient evidence to support them.

*If you do, please write about it (though perhaps in another thread,) as no evidence strong enough to back up such an extraordinary claim (or set of claims) as religions tend to make has ever surfaced that hasn't been generally refuted by scientists or philosophers (while being accepted by a minority of each group.)

edited 1st Nov '11 5:36:29 PM by BestOf

I'll back USAF on this one. As I've said elsewhere, I've seen the statements of geologists and botanists placed on an equal level to the statements of climatologists in arguments on global warming.

This should clarify things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism#Anti-realism_in_science

Well, to even say atoms exist requires a metaphysical/epistemological viewpoint. They are unobservable to human senses, and so according to the aforementioned philosophy we should remain strict instrumentalists about atoms. So basically IMO, you have to either be totally agnostic about everything, or have some sort of metaphysics.

Anyway, I think many-worlds is a straightforward consequence of accepting the formalism as reality. Which seems reasonable enough to me, considering how astoundingly accurate it is.

The real problem is twofold: people really are too lazy to check, and scientists have a monopoly on the proverbial means of production.

Basically, if there's unanimous agreement on some piece of scientific theory, it's going to be accepted as fact—even if there may be evidence to the contrary. We saw it with the old theories of the "missing link," where scientists accepted a fake found in Britain not because it was the best example in terms of evidence, but because it was politically good for the British.

In the meantime, being a scientist is difficult and many people lack the time and drive to do it, so it's simpler to just accept what we're told on face value and leave it at that, because authority.

I'm not saying all scientists—or even a large percentage—do anything like actively misleading the public, but scientists are humans with biases and failings and all that. Such as it is, the average person is inclined to believe a scientist based on their position of authority alone, without actually checking the data themselves.

After all, why bother? Scientist, right? That's how it goes, in the real world. Not everybody has the luxury of checking every other theory presented to them in excruciating detail.

@Best Of

Scientists can claim evidence as long as it remains in the realm of science (experimental verification). However, after a certain point, you hit upon the basic assumptions. That's when it gets philosophical. There's a point where you can't give concrete reason anymore, but only axioms.

@Wonderqueer

I still don't see why scientists can't say atoms don't exist...

Scientists are humans, and humans believe in certain axioms. The process of scientific experiments works under certain asusmptions, but when they come to the assumptions themselves, they're the same as everyone else.

The research of global warming isn't limited to any single branch of science. Chemistry, botany and geology are some of the fields that are crucially important for climatology.

It makes sense that specialists in these fields would be heard in addition to those whose work depends on these other fields.

To draw a connection between these fields: our knowledge of chemistry and physics, as well as geology, enables us to age rock. It also enables us to analyse that rock in very many ways. Chemical analysis of rock samples that date back to 2.4 billion years ago indicates that the amount of oxygen in the air in relation to other chemicals grew rapidly starting roughly at that period. We know of only one process that could explain this without conflicting with other things we know about that time: photosynthesis. Life on Earth must've been widespread by then to explain that growth in the amount of oxygen.

Now, one could argue that analysing the atmosphere of the Earth billions of years ago is the job of climatologists; and it is so. But the thing is, the background information and the methodology required for it, especially when it comes to gathering raw data, come from other, related fields: those of chemistry, botany (though mostly limited to the mechanics of photosynthesis in this case,) physics (radioactive isotopes of dozens of different elements are used to date the rock and make sure that the age comes out the same (within the margin of error) for each isotope) and geology, which is required to explain various features of the rock and point out the ways in which the atmosphere leaves its mark on rock that is forming at that time.

I hope that didn't come out too wall-of-text-y.

Does science have to accept axioms? Sure. I'm primarily a linguist and secondarily a philosopher, and I certainly do subscribe to the view that all sciences are sub-branches of philosophy.

Wether or not it always happens one way or the other is not the point. Scientists don't get to propose models that aren't backed up with evidence without saying that they're only proposing a model that is to be investigated, not accepted as fact before the research is in. And even then, there's always the chance (however remote) that the theory will be refuted by new evidence, in which case science will abandon it as soon as they have another model that accounts for known phenomena and makes predictions that are as accurate as the old model, and that has stronger evidence behind it than the old theory.

The OP said that there's no difference between the unverified hypotheses of religion and science, and I'm pretty sure I've made a rather good case that there is a difference. Scientific theories aren't accepted until the evidence is in, while religious hypotheses arent' as a matter of protocol and of course subject to equally scrutinous demands of evidence (or other form of proof.)

edited 1st Nov '11 6:00:20 PM by BestOf

Don't want to be rude,son, but bullshit! We all know what a monopoly is and what it behaves like. About a hundred people with competing interests for each speciality is not a monopoly. We can see selfish behaviour with individual scientists and institutions but there are competing forces that expose them in the end which is a pretty damn good way of showing that we aren't in a monopoly. The motions and actions of those competing forces are hardly secret either. Journalists and government agencies are capable of checking the level of conflict amongst scientists.

So you have one problem: people are too lazy to check.

Except not everyone is.

Yay! Problems solved.

However, average people don't really think like scientists think. Look at all the misconceptions about evolution. What is commonly known to be false in the scientific community can be the stereotypical truth in the normal world.

Well, the difference is who's making it, since we can't actually test whether or not religious people would change their mind if presented with indisputable proof that they are, in fact, wrong, and thus don't know whether or not they really would.

...

Too bad we can't test it on Scientology.

Scientists are monopolizers of knowledge. In the sense that, anyone could theoretically break into the "market" given the resources, but not everyone has the expertise required or the capacity to gain that expertise.

Anyone, for example, can be a good factory worker, but not everyone can be a good software designer. Hence is the difference.

Except people are often more inclined to believe scientists on scientific matters over the news, government, or their friends. Authority is a powerful thing to have, and scientists are accorded authority in spades by virtue of our society and how it functions.

Scientists lament how often they are ignored, and yet they ignore how often they are heeded...

Right, not everyone has the expertise to be a plumber but that doesn't mean that plumbers are a monopolistic force. I still have the freedom to hire any plummber I want and they still all compete with each other for funding and new plumbers are trained all the time. As far as I'm aware that's the definition for not a monopoly.

We have institutions and processes devoted to checks and balances and sometimes just the natural evolution thereof. That is where our ability to speak with authority comes from. (Hmm, somebody should found a country on those ideals).

The term "monopoly" is serving as an analogy here, and is not meant to be taken literally as, they have taken over the entire market on purpose. There is still competition, etc. What the point is is that there is a select market of people who can be scientists and who output all scientific development—which is neutral on its own—but who are also taken as social authorities.

That is the problem. They have authority, and thus lack the "what if this is bullshit" check in relation to most people.

We did.

I was going to say Don't Explain the Joke until I saw the pothole.

No, go with the analogy. You probably trust your plumber. You probably trust your boiler repair man, especially if he has a Corgi certificate (or whatever the usa system is). There's always a starting trust in the authority of the qualified individual (or even the unqualified corporation). There are customer protection laws based on that fact. If someone goes "how do you know they didn't poison that tapoica pudding?", people say "Well, the government would shut down their factories and they would go out of business. Nobody would buy from pudding poisoners!". There's a trust based on the assumption that some regulating body will take care of it.

The greater transparency and greater regulatory system receives more trust. Those regulatory systems are not closed, I can explain them to you (not tonight dear, I've got a headache), I can explain the scientific principles to you, I can show the benefits to you.

There was a time when people thought we were necromancers and would have us killed. Stopping that wasn't easy, y'know.

Yeah...

~sigh~

Except as of recently people have started to distrust any business in the service industry, as we are increasingly told to shop around and compare prices, as well as double check information.

Er... you're talking to someone who, as a general rule, does not trust scientists at face value. Though my level of distrust varies based on the sector of science we're talking about.

Either way, point is, we, as a society, have been conditioned to trust science as infallible, even though the scientific method is directly counter to this. Could that be changed? Certainly. It would be profoundly difficult, however, and would take a very long time.

Meanwhile, people just don't question science they probably should question...