New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory? 933
An anonymous reader writes to tell us the Guardian is running a story that has quite a few physicists up in arms. From the article: "Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation." The only problem is Mills' theory is supposed to be impossible when using current rules of quantum mechanics.
As Einstein once said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hot fusion is always 50 years away; tabletop fusion is always 4 years away. Nothing to see here, move along.
Theories are meant to be disproven. (Score:1, Insightful)
If the current theories are shown to be inadequate or flat out wrong, then that's just how it is. It'll be up to scientists to create new, better theories that take into account this development.
Re:Like They Say... (Score:3, Insightful)
All that he needs now... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me guess, that and a few million dollars away. You can get in on the ground floor.
My first thought when reading this (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, sounds a lot like religion.
Re:Theories are meant to be disproven. (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't. All it takes is a verified observation to disprove a theory. There are disproven theories in science that can remain for years without something better taking its place.
THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, WTF? It's embarrassing. This place reads like the fucking National Enquirer when it comes to science. There are legitimate breakthroughs happening all the time in science; why do we have to cover these retard con men? Is it that pseudoscience is more FLASHY AND EXCITING than real science, or is it that our editors are too fucking brain dead to tell the difference?
The New New Science (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy if full of shit. Just because he graduated from MIT, deosn't mean he is that good. Remember the Unabomber graduated from Harvard, for all that's worth.
To all those "But, wait what if it is true! He is the other other Einstein" comments I would just have to say that this guy doesn't know quantum mechanics. He is a medic and an electrical engineer, what the fuck is he doing publishing papers on "The Fallacy of Feynman's Argument on the Stability of the Hydrogen Atom According to Quantum Mechanics". He has two or three equations and the rest is bullshit in "essay format". Check out his website [blacklightpower.com]. He might as well be selling tin foil hats to prevent damage from space death rays.
Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd want to have at least some idea what we're doing before we go messing with atoms - we all know how nuclear fission was touted to be the energy source of the future and what became of that.
Re:Like They Say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what you're saying is...... (Score:2, Insightful)
No waste? (Score:2, Insightful)
The hydrino's being created from the process(es) ARE the waste product. What the hell are you going to do with collapsed hydrogen atoms? They won't behave like normal hyrdogen; compounds created from them won't behave in expected ways. What's he going to do, cycle hydrino's through the "reactor" until they've collapsed into a neutron? Then what's to come of these free floating neutrons? (neutrons don't stay neutrons when they're all alone.)
For my money, I think this guy slept through every physics class he's ever taken.
Re:Theories are meant to be disproven. (Score:3, Insightful)
Snake oil is not a theory, it's a marketing device.
sci.energy dreck. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's been my experience that working with the false, obsolete, oppressive and illusory rules of "establisment science has been more useful than trying to apply raving website drivel.
But what do i know, [barney fife] i'm just the only person on earth making antiprotons, 16E10/hr of them, for about 130E10 so far today. ayep... [/barney fife]
ob.geek: and i ate pizza while i was doing it.
Wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)
a) An MIT EE dropout who advertises his irrelevant association with Harvard turns physics on his head and has a working prototype that generates incredibly cheap energy.
b) Yet another cheap energy fraud/error/delusion.
I'd be thrilled if Occam's razor was wrong this time around, but this whole thing reads exactly like every other cheap energy scam/hoax/error in history.
Re:The New New Science (Score:3, Insightful)
> pushing paper around a desk?
Einstein had a doctorate in physics.
> The man who invented the tool to determine longitude was
> watch maker!
Quite appropriate, as what was needed was a watch.
Look for publications by other authors (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As Einstein once said... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos (Score:5, Insightful)
All that the environmental nuts caused was for us to burn MORE fossil fuels at diesel plants. So much for saving the planet.
But he neve said. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference.
And, it's one that will bite the ass of anyone dumb enough to invest in hydrinos. (As it has everyone who has done so since Mills first floated ths idea way back in 1991, at which time he announced that commercial applications of his theory were, oddly enough, just a couple years off.)
Re:Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding. (Score:3, Insightful)
And they're always electrical engineers.
Wizdom for nay sayers...and believers (Score:3, Insightful)
Let us remember...... (Score:2, Insightful)
But it WAS college dropout patent office flunkie that published one of the greatest works of physics EVER. Einstein's work was dumped on by other scientists.
Like I said, not to validate this guys claims. But to dismiss it outright without even really looking at it (or ignoring actual results) puts one in the same class of people who dismissed Einstein.
Re:Like They Say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As Einstein once said... (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein provided mathematical proofs in his groundbreaking articles IIRC.
I believe this new discovery when I see the conceptual proofs, namely this mystery device in action with 3rd parties able to test it. Till then, I'll nod my head and smile.
When were you born? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Capslock: the Tool of Quantum Master Mechanics (Score:2, Insightful)
I do have the background to judge the believability of this claim (Ph. D. in theortetical elementary particle physics) and I'll tell you: this is fucking embarassing.
Here's a simple way to judge these sorts of claims that doesn't require any scientific training: major breakthroughs in fundamental physics are not made by people developing a secret product that will solve the world's energy problems.
Re:Keeping Score (Score:2, Insightful)
But it's so much fun!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what you're saying is...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Every one of them. That's hundreds of millions of examples right in front of you.
Look around at the world. Quantum physics is *everywhere* and we make a lot of use of it. It's demonstrated in just about everything technological, it's verifiable using equipment (not cheap equipment, but you *can* do it) and it's well-documented and understood.
You say you want "TANGIBLE evidence" ? It's right there, literally in front of you. You just need to understand your world better.
Intelligent Design offers nothing to help us understand the Universe better. It draws a line in the sand and says "This side is ineffable. You cannot know anything more about it." That's the exact antithesis of Science, which is about saying "Why does this occur and how can we predict it?"
What does ID give you? How can we make use of that 'knowledge'? How can we use it to predict future events? Why should we stop questioning the Universe, and isn't that a fundamental abrogation of the intelligence that (ID believers say) we were given?
It's not science, any more than saying "Quantum Physics is wrong! My tests (which I won't give you the details of) prove it beyond all doubt!"
Re:The Weakness of Men (Score:2, Insightful)
Possible corrections for some of the confusion... (Score:4, Insightful)
After reading through the company page, the Wikipedia article, and the HSG last nigh (I found it linked to by a forum I frequent) I'll try to cover some of the most basic issues that are in dispute:
The Wiki article, his company site, and the HSG all agree that he received a full Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard and that he spent time at MIT doing graduate Electrical Engineering work.
At some point while reading through either his site or the HSG I saw mention of the number being a 100x increase. This may be a case of the Guardian reporter doing some of that crappy science reporting we always hear about and accidentally adding an extra '0'. In general, Mills' claim seems to be that the process produces energy output higher that a chemical reaction but lower than a nuclear one.
His company site, as well as the HSG, are specific in claiming that the process creates new, unexplored, materials that have potential uses in material science. This also ties in with his claims that his theory explains the existence of "dark matter" since he claims that "dark matter" are hydrinos with the electrons at extremely low levels.
Documentation hosted on Mill's site as well as comments on the HSG claim that he already has a great deal of funding from a number of major corporate backers. He has never, according to anything I've seen on any of these pages, looked for private donations like many of the other "free energy" scam artists. This doesn't mean he isn't running a hoax, but it lends doubt to that idea.
All sources agree that he has had a number of major, third party, labs (including a NASA lab, an MIT lab, and a Westinghouse lab) run experiments on his prototype hydrogen cell. The reports from these labs are reportedly linked to on the HSG. Mills has been doing this research for many years. If these reports were fabricated then it would be expected that someone from one of those labs would have stepped forward long ago to discredit them but no one has. Even his harshest critics in the physics world don't seem to be claiming his experimental results are fabricated.
The simple fact is that it has been well documented that something special is actually going on in these hydrogen cells that he's been sending out to be tested. Some critics have come up with a short list of possible, conventional, explanations for why the reaction appears to be producing more heat than a chemical reaction would seem to allow but most of them have been refuted by the labs doing the experiments.
While I'm as skeptical of his Grand Unified Theory as the next person (as convenient as it would be when compared to the mess that is Quantum Physics. Heck, even I understand most of it and I'm not even a physicist). The experimental results of his technology suggest strongly that there is something pretty special going on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there seems to be a little more involved here than most other "free energy" claims or even "cold fusion". Maybe we should all put away the anti-crackpot rhetoric and give this guy a chance to prove his claims with actual high-minded discourse.
-GameMaster
Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING. (Score:2, Insightful)
Mills in a Nutshell for Physics fans (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Mills tosses the following concepts from QED
Second, he states with some proof and handwaving that quantum mechanics can be derived 100% with classical physics equations and Einsteins relativstic equations (gamma).
Third, he states the electron is really a 2D current loop which when captured by a proton becomes a 3D sphere called an orbitsphere.
Fourth, he states that the ground state of the Hydrogen atom can be lowered. He claims this can be accomplished with a chemical reaction and a catalyst. When this happens, the Hyrdrogen atom releases energy which can be used for useful purposes, like creating heat or electricity.
Fifth, Mills believes that the mysterious "dark-matter" in the universe is composed of Hydrinos and believes the Big-Bang theory is wrong and has proposed and alternate theory.
In my opinion, Mills needs to put-up or shut-up. He has been screaming breakthrough for 5-years, but hasn't produced a practical device. I believe he is an incredibly smart and talented man. I believe he gets no respect because he is a chemist, and not a physicist. I hope his hydrino theory is true and that we can harness new forms of energy by decreasing the ground state of Hydrogen atoms. A single hydrogen atom possess an amazing amount of energy, it's simply a matter of figuring out how to release it in a controlled and safe way.
Until I see a working reproducable experiment, I won't believe Mills has done it. I need a demonstration. However, I think Mills is keeping his research secret due to patent concerns, since the trick to creating hydrinos (if possible) is probably fairly straghtforward chemical reaction and simple to copy.
Re:Open Mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe me, anyone who can find a better theory than QM to describe the physical interactions we see is going to have a Nobel prize at the end of it, and the eternal admiration of his or her fellow scientists. But there are scammers out there of the "this shampoo was designed in a Scandinavian university!!!" who will try to use pseudo-science as part of the con game, so I'm sure you'll probably understand why physicists might be perfectly right to go "wait a minute..." It's not as if some guys haven't tried to scam the scientific community in the past.
I'd say thermodynamics is more an issue than QM (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I would more easily believe QM is rubbish than believe that. He's asking us to believe nearly every atom in the universe is not in its lowest energy state. Well, why not? What pushed all of them up there? Why have they stayed up there for umpty billion years, and, for that matter, continue to stay up there everywhere in the Cosmos except for the environs of 493 Old Trenton Road, Cranbury, NJ, 08512?
It's not that it would be hard to know if atoms occasionally fell down into states lower than the "lowest" predicted by QM. When they did, if they did, then as Doc Mills says they would emit visible photons. That is, they'd broadcast their activity far and wide: "Yoo hoo! Here I am! Falling to a lower orbit than you thought existed! Whee.....!" The light from this process could hardly be missed by all those folks with giant telescopes peering into the heavens.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that Doc Mills has stolen a march on Wolfgang Pauli and assorted quantum mechanics. They're only human. But...believe he's discovered a natural process that just happens to not occur anywhere else in the Universe, and just happens to have not happened here on Earth any time from 4,500,000 BC right up until Mills filed his patent? Erg, that's a bit much to swallow.
My recommendation on Blacklight stock would be Hold, at best.
Re:Keeping Score (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm as big a fan of our current theories as anybody, but we still have no scientific explanation of high-temperature superconductors even though there's plenty of commercial products that use them.
Don't worry, they'll figure it out in a few years.
But I'm saying that just because we think its impossible right now, doesn't mean it is.
Re:As Einstein once said... (Score:1, Insightful)
Proof is for mathematicians, leave it there. Physicists deal in evidence, not proof.
Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact, that's probably what they'll do with these hydrinos in the first place - save them in special containment cells for use in cold fusion. So we get heat from making the hydrinos, then later get even more from their fusion into helium. The net result is this: water -> hydrinos + oxygen -> helium. So the Earth loses water, gains helium, and we get cheaper energy. If we don't wish to deprive the Earth of all its water, eventually they'll have to start using water from someplace else - like comets or other kuiper belt objects.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HAHA, IT NEVER FAILS (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Weakness of Men (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Capslock: the Tool of Quantum Master Mechanics (Score:3, Insightful)
In dealing with lots of these "major breakthroughs" in science, it is impossible or very, very to point at specific errors: it is not the case, usually, that one is dealing with a reasoning which goes all well until a point where a mistake occurs, and from there everything is logically fine. Most of this "breakthroughs" are completely misguided.
I am a mathematician, so I will not give examples in physics, but in math. You may remember that last year (or was it two years ago?) that a swedish student claimed to have proved Hilbert [wikipedia.org]'s sixteenth problem [wikipedia.org]; this call quite widely covered by the media. The paper had been accepted by a respected journal, and it was supposed to have withstood peer review. While the subject of that particular problem is not my area of expertise, as soon as the journal published an electronic version of the paper (mostly due to "public" pressure) I downloaded it, printed it out, and sat down and read. Only by looking at it it was clear that there was absolutely no way that paper could have solved the 16th problem. It's not that there was a particular mistake (say, something you can point at: "the equation on page 4, line 5, has the wrong signum"). But it was plain to anyone who'd reached what's known as "mathematical maturity" that that did not any way imaginable solve (not even partially) the problem.
The same thing happens quite frequently when grading work done by students...
Re:Looks like it uses hydrinos (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a fairly incorrect statement. Can you make a conservation-powered battery or a conservation-powered electricity plant?
Conservation is simply a proposal that everyone should just use less stuff, but it does not offer any substantial solutions for the remaining use that will continue after using "less". Populations continue to grow. Even after using "less", there are still more and more people who are each using "less", and in a short time consumption will rise to its previous level even with each person using "less". This is not a solution, simply a short postponement.
Re:Keeping Score (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a great point when you say, "If Mills' theory actually predicts that these devices would act differently, then yes, his theory is clearly flawed." Quantum mechanics already explains these things. If Mills wants to replace quantum mechanics, then the burden of proof is on Mills.
If we were to observe something that cannot be explained by quantum mechanics, then I would eagerly study this new thing. I would be thankful to live in such an exciting time. However, I am not convinced that Mills has something new. When he opens his lab to the world, when he allows everybody access to his methods, when he stops making claims that it will be ready in just a few months, when he ships a working product, then I will be convinced.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a theory, to be discarded when it's proven to be false. A working idea. nothing more, nothing less.
Re:Like They Say... (Score:3, Insightful)
So after the flat earth theory, we have the new theories: the earth is a sphere (appx). The important thing is that the new theory fits the existing evidence:
In the same way, any theory that replaces QM will need to explain the myriad and complicated evidences that QM explains.
QED
Re:The Weakness of Men (Score:1, Insightful)
Right then, I'm off to wipe out everyone I don't like, because a "voice from THE LORD" told me to. You might want to sit down and READ the "Old Testament", and no skipping the boring bits, before spouting nonsense like this
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Like They Say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Geez. How young are you? ;-)
Just off the top of my head: the fact that the expansion rate of the universe appears to be *increasing*? That was a pretty discipline shaking discovery.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
So while people taking theories as gospel is a problem sometimes, a bigger problem is people not understanding what *theory* means, and assuming it's just a guess to be tested. No, thats a hypothesis. Most of these theories are pretty well tested. And as for taking it as gospel...the whole point is that not only are they tested, but we continue to test them and modify them if we need to. People don't come up with discoveries that blow away well-tested theories very often.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing something, though. A theory isn't a guess, it's a body of knowledge that explains/describes observed facts. In evolution's case, this theory is built on a massive pile of evidence from biology, genetics, geology, astronomy, and on and on. It, like all scientific knowledge, could be superceded by something else, but that something would have to be very, very, VERY well supported and undergo a huge amount of scrutiny. Same thing with Quantum Meachanics. It's very well supported, and has been verified over and over again empirically. For someone to claim to overturn that, it would take a lot more than one anomalous claim. That's how it's supposed to work.
When someone tellss me they can "disprove evolution," or "disprove quantum theory," I am immediately very skeptical and would require a lot of convincing to take them seriously. That's how it's supposed to be. If they really can overturn well supported theories, they have to bring with them enough evidence to do the job. That's not religious dogmatism--it's just sensible. If they're right, that QM is no good, then they should be able to demonstrate that. Their mountain of evidence has to be big and strong enough to topple my mound of evidence.
On top of that, we have a constant barrage of crackpots claiming to have built perpetual motion machines or have a new form of energy. Yes, their "evidence" is often ignored, but that's partly the fault of crackpots. They've cried wolf too many times, and most scientists (and science teachers) don't have time to closely examine every claim. Life's too short to waste on chasing wild geese. Yes, there are some doozy examples of scientists ignoring someone who was right. That's because science isn't perfect, but it does have self-correcting mechanisms. People talk about Wegener being laughed at when he proposed continental drift. That looks foolish now, but the evidence won out in the end. The scientific process works, even if it sputters a bit now and then.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
So if you have a new theory that explains otherwise unexplainable results, great, but it better also explain why my toaster over, and my CRT, and my LCD, and my computer, and my car and so forth all work too, or else it's worthless.
BTW, a huge amount of very useful physics is still done using Newtonian mechanics. To think that physicists "discarded" a useful theory because there were more accurate ones for other domains is foolish. I think most physicists would tell you that quantum mechanics is useful and accurate, but I am sure most will tell you that they don't think it's "right" in the sense of being complete and correct. That's old news. If this guy has something that's more complete and correct in that it explains all the old stuff and some new stuff too, I am certain physicists will embrace it, though it will probably take somewhere between a few years and a decade to convince themselves that it all works out (similar things happened with GR and QM).
Also, not every new discovery is "revolutionary". Plenty are simply minor modifications to the existing theories to account for new results. That seems plausible here to me. That or this guy is defrauding investors big time. Which seems to still be the most likely explanation.
It's not just embarassing, it's a waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'd certainly like to see a good debunking of various crackpot theories, but the bottom line is that Slashdot is not really the right forum. Articles are only on the front page for a day and usually only receive significant attention for a few hours. That's not a good format for a detailed intelligent exchange, not to mention the lack of good resources for formatting equations and diagrams. We may lack people with enough time and the appropriate expertise in our audience, and even if we have them we'll also have a lot of "armchair physicists" in the mix creating a lot of noise in the discussion. Finally, if you want to read actual exchanges on the technical details of scientific theories and really understand them you need the appropriate background (like, say, a B.S. in Physics), which undoubtedly the /. audience overwhelmingly lacks. The point is that there's a place for debates about the scientific validity of a new theory: scientific journals. There the reviewers and the readership have the background to address the details properly and completely.
Could there be someone out there on the net with a revolutionary theory just waiting to be discovered? Perhaps, but for each one of those there are hundreds or thousands of crackpots. Slashdot is not equipped to properly decide which is which. If Slashdot continues posting stories about supposed breakthroughs without the requisite evidence of plausibility (which I discuss a bit here [slashdot.org]), then at best it is wasting the time of the readers, and at worst it is helping to perpetuate scientific hoaxes that are used to swindle the gullible out of their money.
As to scientific reasons why this fellow's theory may be incorrect, I have not looked into it in detail. I gave some reasons that it seems implausible at first glance here [slashdot.org]. It strikes me, however, that there is almost certainly another problem with this theory, which is that it violates Bell's Theorem [wikipedia.org]. I glanced at Mills' book, in which he claims that his theory is based upon the classical, macroscopic laws of physics, which would make it what is called a "local realistic hidden variables theory". John Bell (and others) proved a theorem that states any local realistic hidden variables theory must obey certain relationships, known as "Bell's inequalities", (e.g. the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality), while quantum mechanics violates them in some cases. This means that if any Bell's inequality is violated, no local hidden variables theory can explain that phenomenon. Over the years, many tests of Bell's inequalities have been done (e.g. A. Aspect et al., "Experimental Tests of Realistic Local Theories via Bell's Theorem", Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 460 (1981)) and shown them to be violated, meaning no local realistic hidden variables theory could be true. Thus, it seems, Mills' theory should be already experimentally ruled out. Appreciating why Bell's inequalities must be true requires some knowledge of quantum mechanics, but I hope you can get the gist from what I've said here and the Wikipedia article.
Now, I have no idea if the effect Mills' claims to see is real. It's possible the effect is real, but he just has a completely incorrect explanation. It could also be some sort of systematic error. Personally, I wouldn't give it much credence until an independent group with a good background in spectroscopy can repeat the experiment and consistently get the same result.
Re:If he's built a prototype, it's more than a the (Score:3, Insightful)
No! If the prototype actually does what is claimed, it is a working model, living proof that it works by producing the huge amounts of energy. Explaining HOW or WHY it works as claimed would be the theory. Until such a working model actually exists and can be demonstrated publicly, it appears to be in the same catgory as the "cold fusion" business of some years ago, namely a hoax.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Crackpots (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Occam's Razor (Score:2, Insightful)
"Okay, we have two choices:
a) A lowly patent clerk who can hardly support his family, let alone get a faculty position at a respected university, has revolutionized physics.
b) Yet another cheap fraud/error/delusion.
I'd be thrilled if Occam's razor was wrong this time around..."
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
So, when do you throw out a disproved theory? When you come up with a better one. (better means it explains everything the old one did, plus whatever evidence disproved the old one. Usually you get some more stuff too - that is bonus)
Assumption - this guy is right and Quantum mechanics has been proved wrong. Where is the better theory?
To those replying 'we still use newtons law of gravity - and we know it is wrong' That is different. we have a better theory, newton's laws have been thrown out. It is just that the new theory is hard to use, and the flaws in the old theory are well known. We use it because it gives good enough answers. Nothing more. As an explaination of 'how the universe works', Newton's laws are long gone.
It's not a matter of measuring evidence piles (Score:4, Insightful)
No, their evidence just has to be verifiable. One fact is enough to disprove a theory. You only need a mountain of evidence to demonstrate that a theory appears to be true.
Now, it's quite possible to have a theory or model that is USEFUL because it fits MOST circumstances -- we use those all the time in science. But eventually you have to realize that it is only that -- useful, not law.
Re:It's not a matter of measuring evidence piles (Score:4, Insightful)
But look what you've done. You've gone from "evidence" to "fact" in one fell swoop. One fact can be enough to disprove a theory. But determining that the fact is indeed a fact will take a lot of evidence. It is only right that extreme scrutiny be applied to claims of facts that disprove well-established theories. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." So yes, you will need a lot of evidence to overturn the second law of thermodynamics or QM. Evolution is such a far-reaching and complex theory that I find it hard to imagine a single fact that could disprove it. Maybe you can give an example of one?
Usually, facts like these don't result in well-established theories being discarded. They result in theories being modified. It always bothers me when, for example, people will claim that Newton's theories were proven "wrong," when in fact they were merely incomplete. The Mars rovers got there on Newtonian physics. Quantum theory isn't useful for orbital mechanics. So, I agree with you about models being important in proportion to their usefulness.
I don't know about the usefulness of discussions of the semantics of the word "law". If someone wants to call the laws of thermodynamics "suggestions," I don't know what's gained or lost.
P.S. Sorry for any typos. I checked, but I seem to always miss some. I cut my finger and am trying to type with a big ol' bandage on my left index finger.
Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this mean we should take every crackpot seriously? No, of course not. What it does mean, though, is that serious scientists should be encouraged to not rule something as meaningless merely because it is likely incorrect as stated. If we'd done that, we'd never have learned anything about anything.
A trivial example is the "Cold Fusion" fiasco from Fleich and Pons (spelling may vary) from Utah. Well, I doubt anyone seriously expected anyone from Utah - especially chemists - to stumble onto anything interesting in physics. And, surprise surprise, they didn't. What they DID stumble onto, however, was a very interesting form of fuel cell that can store fairly large amounts of hydrogen within the cell.
ObTrivia: The problem with Apollo 13 was that hydrogen and oxygen stored for use by the fuel cells was vented into space after an explosion. Conclusion: If the fuel was stored in a chemically stable form, which could be electrically released to generate more power than was used to release the fuel, then you'd have an fairly accident-proof fuel cell. If the fuel was then contained wholly in the cells, you would need no fuel tank or fuel lines, removing a problem with existing hydrogen technology.
Can these claims have any meaningful value? I don't know, but I do know that if they do and they are 100% ignored because they're meaningless as is, we never will know. The trick is to learn what is useful without being burned by the useless, discarding that which cannot be usefully learned from without discarding information which would save time to examine closer.
"disprove" is suspect when "include" wouldn't (Score:3, Insightful)
I fully second this.
When Einstein's relativity took on the classical mechanics, it didn't "disprove it", it showed it to be a peculiar case (working 99% of time) in a more general picture.
Tell me about a new theory that would *include* quantum mech. as a specific case, I'll start being interested.
Re:Theory != Hypothesis (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're an ancient Greek ship captain in 1000 BC, the current theory is a flat Earth surrounded by a rotating-sphere of fixed-stars. The observations support it and it's an entirely usable theory. You can use that knowledge to navigate around the Mediterranean. Like Newtonian mechanics, it's accurate enough for 99% of real-world cases. For our captain, a round-Earth concept is an unnecessary complication.
Consider this: how often do you navigate with a map in preference to a globe? That's an implicit acceptance that the ground beneath your feet is flat like the map, and not curved. The flat map is accurate enough, right? Your own observations are supporting a flat Earth model. You aren't observing to a high enough accuracy to detect the error.
The old flat Earth idea is a useful way to demonstrate how incorrect theories can still be supported by the evidence, and even used in real world applications.
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you think that? It is widely accepted that matter is likely to disintegrate in a couple of billion years thanks to proton decay. To generalize more than that, however, the concept of eternity of matter is based on induction, like many other scientific principles: Since noone has ever seen fermionic matter decay or otherwise disappear, and such future decay cannot be deduced from the laws of nature that we have so far discovered, there is no reason to assume otherwise. It's called "Occam's razor": Don't assume more complexity than is necessary to explain a given phenomenon.
What makes you think that it is accepted "on faith"? These days, evolution has even been actually observed in labs, and on not only microbes, but even insects and possibly even larger animals. Even before that, however, what evolution allowed was to deduce the creation of life from a very simple set of rules. In that manner, evolution is not accepted on faith: It was deduced as a reduction of the complexity that we see in nature, and conversely, the complexity that we see in nature can be deduced from evolution. That does not hold true for ID: It offers no way of deducing why life looks as it does, nor does it offer a way to deduce how life will continue to change in the future. In that manner, evolution is a "better" theory than ID, since it allows more observations to be deduced, and more future observations to be predicted (and hence also confirmed), and also in that way, it is not accepted "on faith".
Again, what makes you think that that is accepted "on faith"? It has been observed in mathematical simulations over and over again, that simple building blocks without intelligence and governed only by extremely simple rules, can organize autonomously into very complex organisms. Consider things such as neural networks, cellular automata, simulated evolution, or only the Game of Life. The building blocks of nature (elementary particles or superstrings or whatever it turns out to be) are governed by even more complex rules, they have had much more time than our simulations and they are far more numerous than we will be able to simulate in the coming millenium or so (indeed, we can never simulate our entire universe, since that would require a computer larger than the universe, but even if we restrict the simulation to "only" our own galaxy or solar system, we won't be able to do it in quite a while), so it is no more than natural to assume that they will be able to organize into more complex organisms than we have seen in simulations.
Conversely, why do you accept on faith that matter requires intelligence in order to organize into complex organisms? That simpler things organize into more complex things is something that happens all around us, all the time. Just think of how the individual living things on earth organize into eco systems, and similar happenings. It can be simply deduced how non-intelligent things organize into complex things (for example, this is what the theory of evolution helps doing) -- how would you go about deducing that intelligence is required in order to organize complex systems?
Now, to take care of your more explicit flames:
Please do that. I would be very interested in seeing what kind of natural systems that "require" intelligent des
creationism != ID (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they are not the same thing. They are both philosophical and theological theories, and not scientific theories at all, of course, but that doesn't make them the same thing any more than it makes gravity and conservation of energy the same thing. Creationism is a fundamentalist point of view that god actively created the world (in the extreme case, literally in 7 days). Intelligent design is compatible with creationism, but it's also compatible with the Theist notion of the divine clockmaker - the notion of a God who created the universe by giving it a push at the dawn of time, and since has been hands off. (Intelligent design would hold that such a god would have had to be very selective in the direction of his push, of course.) Not that I'm endorsing these views, but, claiming that they are the same is oversimplification, and including such errors weakens your whole argument. (Not as badly as claiming ID is a scientific theory weakens your opponent's arguments, of course.)
Reality Check, Please. (Score:2, Insightful)
Most marketing firms would have stuffed a sock in this person's mouth at this point; Because without a working model, it's just noise that wakes up any competitors. But consider the Venture Capitalists here. V.C.'s make their money by selling the idea to investors, not advertising by talking to the likes of
On a positive note. This V.C. Founder just might be the first to do it; Then I'll say, "I'm sorry."
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Correct. But don't forgect to inculde the Theory of Gravity in that. That is not a fact either.
It is purely an argument of ingorance to attempt to attack evolution as "just a theory". The computer you are typing on right now and the silicon microprocessor inside were created through the theories of chemistry and electricity and quantum mechanics and more. Your computer is built on nothing but scientific theories. And it works.
The theory of evolution is just as scientifically valid and well supported as the theories of chemistry and geology or any other field of science. Evolution is, and sghould be treated as, just another field of science.
Go ahead and attempt to attack chemistry as "just a theory". People will dismiss you as a crackpot and an idiot. Chemists will insult you and treat you like an idiot. You should expect exactly the same treatment from biologists when you make the exact same rediculous argument.
I guess I realy shouldn't blame you, it's most likely your local highschool's fault for failing to properly teach what science is and what it means and how it works.
Does anyone really believe that a giraff's neck grew longer because generations stretched their necks to get food higher up a tree?
Ignorance, and again your highschool's fault. That idea is called Lamarckian inheritance. Any decent highschool biology class should explain Lamarckian inheritance... including that exact giraff example... and explain that it was the old idea before evolution and that it has been proven wrong. Any proper highschool biology class should have taught you that evolution does not say that.
Your comment is like attacking the science of geology by saying "Does anyone really believe that the earth is flat?" OF COURSE the world is not flat. The science of geology SAYS the world is not flat.
You would be ridiculed for attacking geology with that argument, ridiculed for suggesting geologists thought the world was flat.
Evolution says that some giraffs had longer necks than others (normal variation), and that the giraffs with the shortest necks died (the main reason probably being that they couldn't get as much food as taller giraffs), and evolution says that baby giraffs generally inherit the exact same trait their parents had... and in this case there weren't baby giraffs with shorter than average necks because the there we no parents with shorter than average necks because they all died. That even without mutation, the average neck length will constantly increase because the below average ones drop dead. If you keep eliminated the bottom half the average will always increase, even if the top half is unchanged. And on top of that unchanging inheretance, sometimes there will be a mutation which will randomly increase or decrease their neck length at random. And again, any giraff born with a mutated shorter neck would likely drop dead and have no children. We would never see anything of that shorter-neck mutant from 30 million years ago because it would have died and left no children. So the only mutation from 30 million years ago that you ever see, the only one that sticks around, is the one for the longer neck. And now that there is this new variation in the population, again the girraffs with the longer than average necks multiply while the ones with the shorter than average necks all dropped dead and had no children. All pretty simple and obvious. And over 30 million years you can accumulate a lot of mutations. And while all of the mutations appear to magically go in the same direction, that is merely because the ones that didn't all DIED. That selection is the "magic" that creates informaton and keeps mutations moving in a positive direction. The mutations that don't move in a postive direction existed, but they died, were erased from visible history. And we have plenty of fossils showing the line of evolution of giraffs. Millions of years ago they were much like deer, and if you put the fossils in date
Re:But he neve said. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Once you accept the fact that Jesus existed and that the NT is generally reliable, insomuch that it hasn't been significantly altered since it was written, you have then only to believe or disbelieve what the books actually contain. To disregard the claims of the gospel you have nothing more solid than simply denying that such things are possible. This is also known as an argument from incredulity, a logical falacy.
If the claims of the NT had been false, they would have been convincingly squashed very early on, simply by the Jewish authorities producing the body of Jesus, or people who were cited as eyewitnesses to these events would have been produced to deny that they did witness them, and that would basically have been that. Instead, people chose to die rather than say they did not see these things, some of them in extremely gruesome ways.
To be honest, I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it would have been to fake the claims of the gospels, and to find people willing to die for a lie.