Life Should be Common in the Universe, physicists say

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Nightshift, Mar 10, 2014.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There's a space between the second comma and the second numeral one. It's meant to be read as "one thousand, ten thousand." I agree that this is utterly horrible typography. As an editor I would never allow it to go out without being fixed. This is no problem, since the phrase "one thousand, ten thousand" is only acceptable in colloquial speech and should never be rendered in written language anyway.

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  3. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Grok'd!

    It seems, FR, that some Posters fail to fully understand that one of the very basic tenets of true Science is strict attention to minute details.
     
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  5. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    That's not quite correct dmoe, possibily because of your aganda??
    Sure scientists in writing scientific papers and conducting ground breaking experiemnts need to apply strict attention to detail and precision.

    But often when conducting everyday "spreading of the Gospel" so to speak, they are notorious for making typographical errors, lazy off the cuff remarks, and less then accurate generalities.
    Then we have the journalist interpretations that sometimes are askew.
    Examples of some of these scientific less then accurate descriptions are the theory of the BB...we all know it really was not a bang in the everyday understanding of the word, don't we dmoe.....The mistaken uttering to students that the BB is a theory of the origin of the Universe is another one.......Even what they refer to as BH's is rather a misnomer.....In actual fact they are "Gravitationally completely collapsed objects".....Many many others I suggest.

    Me??? I'm rather lazy with spelling/ spelling checks and such, and that coupled with my rather busy lifestyle, and the fact that I'm in and out of the forum, in between domestic duties and my new shed, will make mistakes inevitable... :shrug: but at least understandable I'm sure and as FR has recognised.

    You?? Well your attention to my detail is always noted, although not really considered considering your baggage.
    But once again, I think it appropriate to remind you of that little saying....
    Not being able to see the forest for the trees?? This covers many aspects including misinterpretations [well mine anyway] and out and out dishonesty [as has been illustrated in other threads and posts again with regards to little old me]

    Now you have a good day dmoe and I know full well you'll continue to miss the forest for the above stated reasons, but rest assured, when I come across those trees, I'll do my best to project the reality of the situation.
     
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  7. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Planck and many scientists have believed in a God. It doesn't mean that their science lacked the rigors of scientific scrutiny. Wellwisher goes off the deep end when he uses “faith” to discount and ignore science, ignore facts, ignore reason and justify his ideological views and beliefs. Unfortunately for Wellwisher, Planck and other scientists never let faith trump facts, evidence and reason. Faith is defined as trust. And we all must have a certain amount of faith or trust in our lives in order to be functional. We believe the Sun will rise each day. We have faith we won’t be mugged or killed on our way to work or when we go to bed. We believe the laws of physics won’t go haywire tomorrow. In order to be functional, in order to be motivated, we need some level of trust or faith in our lives which is based on tangible experiences. Our faith is based on reason. It is based on tangible experience. It isn’t fantasy land. It isn’t a justification to ignore evidence and reason. Like Planck, our faith does not trump tangible evidence or reason.
     
  8. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Well said.
     
  9. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    Honestly, I find that a bit strange. I don't believe the sun will rise each day, I know it will. It always has so there is no reason to take that on trust. We don't have to have faith that we won't be mugged, we just have to stay away from the mean streets or lock the doors.

    We are rational beings and we don't need faith in anything, imho.
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Well, actually it hasn't always been so. The Sun hasn't always risen in the sky, because at one time there was no sky as there was no Earth and no Sun. And the Sun will not always rise, there will come a time when it doesn’t because there will be no Earth and the Sun that exists today will no longer exist. Things change. I find it odd, that you don’t think things change.

    Just because during your brief existence the Sun has always risen, it doesn’t mean it always will. You don’t know when or if our universe may change. One day the structure of the universe may change. There has been much talk recently of the Higgs Boson and that it might be unstable. We don’t have absolute knowledge; therefore you cannot know with absolute certitude.

    This may come as a surprise to you, but people don’t only get mugged on “mean” streets – whatever that means.  People get mugged in good neighborhoods all the time. I live in a very good neighborhood, but a guy was recently murdered in an office building about a mile from my home. When the murder victim went to work that day, he had faith he wouldn’t be murdered. But he was, and he didn’t even know is killer. And many people have fallen victim to criminals in their homes with locked doors. Are you really that ignorant, that simple, and that naive?

    We are social animals. Faith/trust is integral to our existence. I’ll give you some more examples. When people go to the grocery store, they trust, they have faith that the food they purchase isn’t tainted. Merchants trust that when we pay our bills with credit cards our banks will pay them. When employees go to work, they have faith their employer will pay them. When we go to physicians, we trust they will give us good medical advice and treatment. Faith is integral to our existence. It motivates us. It comforts us. You can deny it all you like, but faith/trust is integral to your existence. I think you are confusing faith with a belief in a God. Those are two entirely separate things. Faith is more than a belief in a God. I think you need to go back and reread my previous post, this time more slowly. There are things we have faith in based on our experience and there are some things we have faith in based on culture and our individual needs and wants. There is a difference.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2014
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Trust isn't the same thing as religious faith. Another equivocation fallacy. The reason why it's not is that when evidence contradicts a religious tenet, the religious don't rethink their belief, they double down. They depend on ignorance to survive. In science, one has tentative trust of certain things, but that can always be shown to be wrong. That's how knowledge progresses. Faith is fake knowledge.
     
  12. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL…did I say it was? No I didn’t. This is your ignorance and intellectual decrepitude nipping at your heels again. If I had any faith in your intellectual ability, I would suggest you go back and reread my previous post. But I don’t, and I think that would be an exercise in futility. I said we have faith because of our experiences our culture (e.g. religious upbringing) and our wants and needs. I suggest you look up the definition of the word “faith”.
    Faith
    :strong belief or trust in someone or something
    : belief in the existence of God : strong religious feelings or beliefs
    : a system of religious beliefs
    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

    This is another example of you not understanding the meanings of the words you use.

    As I said in my previous post, some of our faith/trust based beliefs are based on experiences (e.g. the sun will rise in the morning and the food we purchase will be fit for human consumption) and we have faith based on culture, needs and wants (e.g. religion, political ideologies). The latter is not always grounded in rational thought.

    And none of that changes the fact that faith or trust is important to use. As I said before we are social animals. We depend on others; therefore we must trust others and have faith in others and increasingly on our machines. Can we misplace our trust/faith? Certainly, it happens every day millions of times across the globe. Even our experience based faith or trust can be misplaced and lead to mistakes. If you doubt that, I suggest you try flying an airplane on instrument sometime. Instrument flight requires the pilot to disregard his/her previous experiences with orientation and trust the plane’s instruments to the exclusion of all else. It isn’t easy.

    Your comments about religion are way too general and way too simple and way too naïve.. You are allowing your antireligious biases and hatred cloud your judgment. Religion has a purpose. If fills a human need. Let’s look at the Webster’s definition of the word “religion. You cannot legitimately make the broad blanket statements you like to make and retain any degree of credibility.

    Full Definition of RELIGION

    1 a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion>
    b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

    2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

    3 :archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness

    4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

    Reality and our language are a bit more complicated and nuanced than you seem to think they are.
     
  13. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Yes, you did:

    You specifically equivocated faith in the religious sense with trust in the everyday, mundane sense. You go on to do this several more times in your most recent post.

    Anything religion offers can be and regularly is done better by other institutions. Its truth claims are bogus, its dogma retards cultural progress (or attempts to), and comforting lies are insulting to intelligent adults.
     
  14. Balerion Banned Banned

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    8,596
    Admittedly, that's not an intelligent reason for believing the sun will rise. But once one understands why the sun rises, there is no need for belief. It becomes a question of knowledge.


    But you shouldn't trust that you food isn't tainted. Simply trusting your local store to stock untainted good is how you can get sick. I just saw something the other day about phony food goods making their way into markets around the country, some even containing poisons. There are ways to spot the fakes on the shelves, and trust has nothing to do with it.

    Neither is true. In both cases, there are expectations based on law and history. And, in the event that either failed to hold up their end of the bargain, there are ways to get what is owed to you. In fact, without those assurances, you'd probably see a lot more caution. In other words, it has absolutely nothing to do with trust.

    Not blindly. At least, we shouldn't blindly trust our physicians.

    But we draw motivation and comfort from many other sources, so how is faith integral?

    Actually, that's what you're doing.
     
  15. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Show me then. I am waiting. I have been quite consistent. I have equated faith with trust…you know that old Webster’s dictionary thingy. Did I not reference Webster’s Dictionary definition of the word “faith”? I did, several times. I suggest you look it up. I have also defined religion. They are not the same. I do something radical for folks like you and Spidergoat, I use words as they are defined in the dictionary. 

    The example you cited, “Planck and other scientists never let faith trump facts, evidence and reason. Faith is defined as trust. And we all must have a certain amount of faith or trust in our lives in order to be functional”, does not equate faith to religion. It is a statement of fact.

    Well that is your opinion, it is your belief. But others don’t share that belief. Can you prove any of your beliefs? Do you know all religions? If I asked you about the Bahá'í Faith could you tell me what they believe? Can you prove with scientific certainty that they are wrong? Are you familiar with Western mysticism or Eastern mysticism? Can you explain them? Can you disprove their beliefs? I think the answer is a resounding NO. You and Spidergoat remind me of my son when he was a teenager. He thought he knew it all, and he didn’t. He thought he was a great driver and would never get into an accident. Well that belief only lasted for a few months before reality knocked on his door.

    By the way, I am not a religious person. I don’t go to church. I am more of a Gnostic rooted in the traditions of Western mysticism. I don’t know if God exists. But I do believe religions have served a useful role in the development of our society. And I think most scholars would agree. Wither religions remain important to humanity as we evolve remains to be seen. But I think man, as long as we remain men, will have some need of spiritual comfort and aid if not religion. Religion is nothing more than a tool in my world.

    Religions can be abusive and some are abusive. But they also give comfort and are valued by some. So who are you to tell them they are wrong or degrade them in anyway? If their religion gives them comfort and if their religion does no harm to others, who are you to devalue them? Religion is not all good or all bad. It is some combination of good and bad just as we all are. The real question is religion relevant, and as of now it is. Because there are billions of adherents world wide. So religion is very relevant today.

    One of the problems with you and Spidergoat is that you let your hatred, your emptions, your beliefs and ignorance blind you.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    So you are going to test the food you consume for contamination before you consume them? Do you have the tools, the education and ability to do so? Do you have a medical degree as well? If you don’t, you need to have some trust physicians. And no, sometimes people don’t pay, I don’t suppose you have heard of overdrafts or bankruptcy or bank fraud? People lose money on commercial transactions every day.

    The future is not certain. You seem to think that just because things worked in the past, they will always work. You don’t have to look far to see that isn’t the case (e.g. The Great Recession 0f 2007-2009).

    If you don’t think faith/trust is integral, trying living a day without placing trust in another individual. The only way you can do that is to be a subsistence dweller in some isolated outback.

    You cannot seriously be that dumb.
     
  17. Balerion Banned Banned

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    It equates trust to religious faith. As I just pointed out. You use the word "faith" in reference to the religious belief of Planck and other scientists, and then literally define that kind of faith as "trust," which you mean in the sense of trusting your bank to hold your money. So you equate Religious faith to run-of-the-mill, everyday, trust. If that's not what you intended to say, then fine, but it is, in fact, what you said.

    Red herring. I don't have to disprove every religion to know what religion as a concept really is.

    Where have we implied that we know it all? We're correcting, at least at this point, your incorrect equivocating of religious faith and trust.

    I don't care. Why would you assume that I do?

    Obviously religion has had a role in the development of our society. But I would disagree--as would many scholars--with your assertion that its role has been positive.

    You certainly have no problem telling me that I'm wrong. Why so sensitive when the shoe is on the other foot?

    At any rate, I'm not telling them that they're wrong to feel comforted by religion. The entire purpose of religion was to provide answers to then-impossible questions, and it's no surprise that those answers tend to be comforting. Just as it's no surprise that modern Christianity--which looks nothing like the stuff Jesus actually preached, by the way--has contorted Jesus' message to fit the secular views of its practitioners. What I'm saying is that it isn't good for them to seek comfort in fairy tales. It's bad for the brain. Sure, some brilliant scientists managed to keep two sets of books; for the rest of us, religion tends to dull critical thinking. Its effect on the masses is negative. We're better off without it.

    But it does do harm to others. And it does harm to them, too. Why would I care what people believe if it was truly innocuous?

    I never said it was. Do you think you're talking to someone else?

    It seems that the problem is with the guy who makes baseless assumptions and insults people for no good reason. You talk about hate? Take a look at that quote. You're teeming with it. It's like a virus with you.
     
  18. Balerion Banned Banned

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    I don't need to do or know any of that to be a smart consumer who doesn't simply trust that the institutions they rely on are doing the right thing. It could be as simple as making sure a box looks legitimate, or checking the due date on your milk. Never heard of a grocery story re-dating its products? Ever sought a second opinion? Ever heard of a malpractice lawsuit?

    Now you're talking about the bank itself losing money. They have insurance for things like that, and also plan to lose a certain amount of money each year. It's called running a bank!

    Now, this is problematic. You aren't paying attention to my posts. I just told you that it has nothing to do with relying on trends. It's about having assurances thanks to law and infrastructure. You can be reasonably assured that you're going to be okay in the end because of the systems in place. If a bank loses your money, you're going to get it back because the bank has insurance and the law says they have to reimburse you. That's different than the kind of "faith" you're talking about, which is religious faith, which is belief without knowledge.

    I'm curious, in what situation did your day require that you put trust in someone else?

    Talk about hatred. You need to chill out, homie. Remember, if it isn't something you'd say to my face, it isn't something you'd say on the internet.
     
  19. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I had faith today that the bus would be on time......I had faith that I would still be around at this moment posting here....I had faith today that when I jumped up in the air, all Newtons gravity laws would hold true and I would come back down....
    I had faith in many other mundane things today the same as you did, but which due to their common everyday nature, you never gave a second thought to.
     
  20. Balerion Banned Banned

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    That's not faith. At least, not in the sense you mean it.
     
  21. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Grok'd! That should be a prerequisite for all written discourse!
     
  22. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed, Balerion! The listed behaviors seem to be examples of simply : "taking something for granted"!
    -the ^^above quoted^^ from : http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/take for granted
     
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Oh yes it is. It's that old dictionary thingy again. The unpleasant fact for you is we live in an uncertain world. There is a branches of mathematics and physics which study that uncertainty. And humans need a bit of certainty in their lives to motivate and comfort us. That certainty is expressed in the form of faith which is routed in experience, culture and our individual needs and desires.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty

    I will give you a clue, when you have to ignore evidence and reason as you do to justify your belief, there might be something wrong with your belief.
     

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