I need this as a signature.
The fact both I and any other honest competent scientist are willing to say "We can be wrong and many current paradigms will be replaced as time progresses" doesn't mean that your position, Motor Daddy, is any more valid. As I highlighted, what matters is reason and evidence. Your view of the universe is based on neither. Relativity is based on both, it is presently the best more accurate explanation of the relevant observed phenomena known. You'll find many theoretical physicists are happy to say that they think Lorentz invariance is violated on ultra short scales, since quantum gravity requires a departure from the 'space-time is nice and smooth' perspective of relativity. However, this doesn't negate the
fact the notion of Lorentz invariance is consistent with all current experimental data throughout all of science, much like us now knowing electromagnetic fields are actually swarms of particles doesn't negate the fact Maxwell's electromagnetism is very accurate in describing the electromagnetics of things like microwave ovens, cell phone communications and electricity generators in power station turbines. New models needed to explain some new piece of data do not invalidate the accuracy of previous models to explain previous data. General relativity's superior ability, compared to Newtonian Gravity, to model the data of Gravity Probe B doesn't negate the sufficient accuracy of Newtonian Gravity if you want to put a man on the Moon.
It may be a surprise to you that someone in the research community is willing to say what you quote me saying but if you ever bothered to actually find out what the community has to say about various things, rather than just making up your own assumptions about what you think we say, you'd not be surprised or think what I said novel. Yes, relativity will be replaced one day but it'll be replaced by something which predicts the same results in the experiments we've already tested relativity with, since relativity gives the correct answer. And the only thing which will justify that replacement of relativity is more
reason and evidence. Let us know when you have any.
I should have said that this argument is being used by ancient alien theorists (at least where I found out about the argument from). The book of Enoch isn't in most Bibles, I don't think.
No, the Book of Enoch isn't in the Bible but it is a text heavily intertwined with Christianity. My comments stand, whether we're talking about an Abrahamic religion (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, whatever sects and splinter groups you wish to name) and other religions. My comments are also independent of whether someone is trying to claim the knowledge came from a deity or from some super intelligent race of aliens. The fact is each and every religion's holy book which has comments to make about reality gets something wrong in regards to how the universe really is. If the book is due to some all knowing deity or some group of aliens far in advance of our own civilisation then the errors wouldn't be there. Why would such an author hide cryptic metaphorical descriptions of niche physical phenomena and yet make clear cut
incorrect assertions elsewhere? For example, in the Qu'ran some Muslims claim there's an extremely convoluted metaphorical description of time dilation, which scientists only found out about 100 years ago. To view this as being in the book you need to
really warp the meaning of certain passages. Yet elsewhere the book describes the sequential development of the human foetus in pretty clear terms, saying that the bones form first and then the flesh grows around the skeleton, which is completely not true. Why hide a truth while putting a mistake in plain sight? What kind of deity who supposedly wants to pass on information via said book do such a thing? Either the deity is a jack ass or the book is the work of men living in a time long before science understood such things and so they just put in their best guess.
Religious people then have a number of choices in how to view this. Their god is a dick, their god is fallible, the men wrote wrote it were fallible and so introduced errors despite the 'dictation/inspiration' coming from a perfect being or the book is just the work of men and no deity comes into it. Options 2, 3 and 4 require admitting the book can have mistakes in it and so undermines the "We must accept this unquestioningly!" attitude of many overly zealous religious proponents. Option 1 also contradicts the book and zealous view of an all loving god who cares about us, since few religions include the notion of "The deity we're worshipping is an ass who will lie to us and not tell us". This again calls into question the "This book is the perfect and accurate word of [insert deity here]". In all instances the 'perfect authority' of the book is destroyed, it just depends whether it is done by the deity deliberately or accidentally.
Could you give some credit to some early concepts . Science did not start in the 20th century , Most of what we have are product of the past, what we have done, we have refined them . Even the travel to the moon , my father told me existed in 1918, man flying , you can go back to Leonardo, or even the invention of angels with wing who were able to fly.
I didn't say otherwise. Science has always existed in some rudimentary form, as it is at its core our understanding of how reality works. Basic engineering, physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics were all known about and used to good effect by the Egyptians and Greeks. Much of their knowledge was lost in Europe during the Dark Ages and it was the Arabic scholars who maintained and further developed it. However, it was only once the Enlightenment occurred that science
really took off. Understanding of the human body was severely hindered by religious views that a corpse shouldn't be examined, Leonardo had to illegally obtain corpses in order to make his famous anatomical drawings. Some zealots didn't like scientific research, viewing it as trying to learn the mind or secrets of God.
Organised religion rarely goes hand in hand with scientific advancement. In both Europe in the Dark Ages and the Arabic world a little later science ground to a halt (and even reversed due to the loss of previous generations' knowledge) because of the crushing grip of religion at those times. America is quite religious now but religion doesn't have the vice-like grip it had in the Dark Ages or still holds in other areas of the world today, America's scientific advancement has not been because of religion but in spite of it. You only have to hear about certain
Christian activist groups to see what damage an all powerful religion might do to America or anywhere else. Despite so many claims of "My religious book contains the secrets of science!" no one has ever discovered something new or created a viable physical model by pouring over their book and ignoring reality. Newton was a Bible code nut, he was obsessed by the idea, and yet none of his many pieces of ground breaking science came from the Bible, they were all based on reason and evidence.
It's not to do with religion though....
I might have gone off on a bit of a tangent in regards to the religion aspect rather than the space aliens aspect but aside from the reply to arauca all of what I said applies to aliens, as well as deities.