"Dark Matter and ... faith" Topic

For a scientist to believe in Dark Matter, he needs to keep inventing more and more stuff to justify that faith.

Now, I know WHY they need it. Not enough "real" matter to account for gravity, etc.
Maybe there is a lot of interstellar stuff, maybe there are a lot more planets which we keep discovering.
Maybe they need a different constant in the equations…
Whatever.

The latest thing I saw this week was along the order of "Perhaps it interacts with us in other dimensions…"
They can believe in hand waving like that, but find it necessary to ridicule religion.
Curious.

Yup.
Maybe I can get the usual suspects locked up again. *gtin*

There have been a lot of religious scientists in the past. Were they all nuts?

John,

I'm with you on this one. I believe fully in science, but the whole Dark Matter-Dark Energy business leads ME to believe that there's still a whole lot of things out there we don't have a clue about.

The latest thing I saw this week was along the order of "Perhaps it interacts with us in other dimensions…"
They can believe in hand waving like that, but find it necessary to ridicule religion.

But the math works… queue joke about physics simply being math constrained by the author's imagination of what's possible.

There have been a lot of religious scientists in the past. Were they all nuts?

I don't know, how about you go ask the Jesuits that run the Vatican Observatory? Warning, you might lean something since they do publish in top flight journals.

The math worked for String Theory, too, but you don't hear much about that anymore. I guess that's my main problem with these latest theories: they are all math with not one bit of hard data to back them up.

As a physicist friend (who teaches the stuff at the collegiate level) put it, cosmology (and dark matter in particular) is essentially the Wild West of physics. Everything is up for grabs since we have so incredibly little to go by.

What you have then is the whole, messy process of developing a theory on full view (warts included). Its messy and its baffling, but its also highly creative. At some point, someone will hit the 'sweet spot' and land on that one concept that is currently evading everyone. And then the process begins all over again on ANOTHER part of the theory.

As for the rather snarky OP: That only shows how much the OP does NOT understand the process….

" Its messy and its baffling, but its also highly creative. "

Yeah, with a emphasis on creative.

Yeah, with a emphasis on creative.

And thank God for that. Otherwise we still be rubbing sticks together to get fire and wearing animal skins…

I have been called both snarky and a troll. For suggesting that there is something akin to "faith" in scientists clinging to a theory that is very far from proven. Yet.
Perhaps it will be. Who knows?
Or it may not, and be replaced by something else.

But who have I insulted?

Couldn't you mathematically show "God"? Just rename the stuff you are playing around with, that is baffling your attempts to explain "it" all, and call "it" God. Then you could show a mathematically proven theory for "God". But why bother? Then you'd have to start asking your "God" what he's all about? And before that even gets started, you don't want to know. Really, you don't. If you did, you'd probably already have selected an already existing religion that "talks to God all the time". So I won't hold my breath. But really, what's to stop some physicist from setting out to mathematically prove "God" as his premise?…

Send a probe to analyze a scoop of dark matter. Until then it's anybody's guess.
One of those things that won't be known in our lifetime.

Some 100+ years ago, when atomic theroy and physsics was in its infancy, the stuff they proposed then was just as far out as dark mater, dark energy, string theory, gravity bleeing in from other dimentions.

When we are at the forfront of our knowlage, you can not except to find the answers in 5 years.

Lots of the stuff phyicists assumed was right in the late 1800 early 1900 was not to be right physicaly until recently. They had the theory, they got stuff to work when they followed the theory. So you could conclude this partical or this interaction does exist. But not untill we started shooting particals at eachother at close to light speed would we actualy see those particals or interaction.

So give string theorist another 80 years, give physicist about 100 to look for dark mater and dark energy.

If you like nice, simple and intuitive explanations, don't go into physics.

The OFM makes the assumption that scientists made up dark matter for their convenience and are now blindly kicking it around until it fits somewhere.

This isn't a case of "This is the definite model of the universe, in which 90% of all the matter and energy happen to be invisible, deal with it !" It's more of a case of "In our quest to figure out how the universe works we found a huge gap. The most likely hypothesis is that some form of Dark Matter and Energy must be present in huge numbers to generate the required gravity and effects a wide range of different mutually supporting observations have demonstrated, but we're continually looking for more evidence."

Our current understanding does lead to the dark matter conclusion and scientists are doing their best to prove or disprove this hypothesis. We still have little concrete evidence and we may still be missing some major pieces of evidence.

You can liken it to Lord Kelvin diligently trying to work out the age of the earth based on the time the planet needed to cool down and a whole range of parameters known in the Victorian age but having absolutely no knowledge of radioactive decay and its role in heating the planet's core.

As for the alternate universe point the OFM makes, it sounds far-fetched and highly implausible, but there is very little in physics that says it's impossible.

Maybe if the OFM wants an existence with metaphysical certainty, he should join the Order of Friars Minor /badpun

The problem isnt that the universe is flawed.
The problem is that our current math is insufficient to explain it.
a = b
a squared = ab
a squared – b squared = ab-b squared
(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)
a+b = b
b+b = b
2b = b
2 = 1
we can have no hope to understand the universe mathematically until we can define division by zero.
ymmv

Some 100+ years ago, when atomic theroy and physsics was in its infancy, the stuff they proposed then was just as far out as dark mater, dark energy, string theory, gravity bleeing in from other dimentions

Gun freak makes an interesting point. Don't forget about phlogiston ( link ).

--
Tim

So Christians have Heaven, Hell, Purgatory (for some) and other religions have multiple hells in addition to good and evil denizens thereof.

Some scientists have alternate dimensions as well as dark matter and energy.

One set is 'science' because the math works (although that math is based on current knowledge and assumptions).

The other is 'Bronze Age' fairy tales.

Would be rather amusing for a scientist to open a pathway into an alternate dimension and find himself in Hell…

That's the premise of Event Horizon, goragrad.

Ravenscraft, you know very well that your proof is flawed because a=b and you divided by (a-b) or zero. Naughty, naughty. Trying to confuse the non-math types. tsk.tsk.

The problem with the premise here is the idea that any unproven theory like String Theory or Dark Matter is "clung to" by scientists. Quite the opposite really. They are merely the current theories that most usefully explain the phenomena we see. When such time comes that they don't explain what we see, they will be properly modified or abandoned outright. There isn't some "faith" in the current model. There is instead tentative acceptance which is very tentative indeed at this point. Evidence will either prove it to be true, close but not quite right, or false. This is not a weakness of science, but rather a strength. Willingness to evaluate and change is what we should always be doing.

Thank you, gladue.

It would appear the term faith has somehow acquired a negative connotation all of a sudden… the definition of which is pretty simple.

There Is no inference in any comments where the pejorative "cling to" applies. Scientist do in fact, according to its definition, have faith in all manner of theories and physical truths in their domain as do the rest of us. I have faith my lights will go on when I throw the light switch…I don't have "tentative acceptance."

You can't win as a scientist. Either you're a close-minded ivory tower elitist who "wouldn't accept my amazing new hypercube theory of space and time", or you're a wishy-washy never make up your mind crank. "I learned x in school and now it's y, shouldn't scientist make up their minds and settle the matter once and for all ???"

And media coverage doesn't help either. Imagine if sports reporting was limited to focussing on the scandals and incidents and only show the goofiest and weirdest moments of any game or event.

"There Is no inference in any comments where the pejorative "cling to" applies. Scientist do in fact, according to its definition, have faith in all manner of theories and physical truths in their domain as do the rest of us. I have faith my lights will go on when I throw the light switch…I don't have "tentative acceptance.""

You have faith in the lights turning on. Science has tentative acceptance of *why* electricity flows. If some evidence appeared contradicting that "why" then it would be changed to correspond to the new facts. This is fairly unlikely as the circumstances are reasonably well tested and hopefully understood, but it isn't impossible. Scientists have faith in their day to day workings just like anyone else, but their understanding of the universe is based on tentative acceptance, not on faith.

"Faith" is the function of accepting something without the need of evidence. Even something as simple as flicking on the light-switch is for most of us an evidence-based phenomenon. You do not need to have faith that the lights will come on, because we have acquired (one hopes…) years of evidence that when we do a certain thing, a specific phenomenon happens. And when it does not happen, one hopes the individual will go through an investigative procedure to find out why (check the fuse box, check with the neighbors, call an electrician) to discover why. None of which relies of faith in the same way one needs faith to believe in a divine creator.

Damon.

That's the premise of Event Horizon, goragrad.

And here I thought the Event Horizon was the final for my second year calculus course (still get the shakes over that one…).

For a scientist to believe in Dark Matter, he needs to keep inventing more and more stuff to justify that faith.

BS!

In the 1930's Oort (from Oort cloud fame)noticed that the velocity curves of galaxies that he measured were different than one would expect from the observed mass. The galaxies were way heavier than what is seen. Therefore, matter that didn't radiate light was postulated, in other words dark matter. Later observers bolstered Orts finding.

Dark matter was predicted to have certain properties, such as mass. That is how it affected the movements of whole galaxies. Therefore one would predict that dark matter would bend lightwaves as they moved close to the source of the mass. It needed something on the scale of the Hubble to finally see this phenomenon. It's called gravitational lensing. Look it up.

No faith, no handwavium needed. How about a bona fide scientific theory, that successfully predicted future observations? That's how science works.

So John, as a former "scientist" I'm sure you have followed the recent Nobel Prize winners.

Dr. MacDonald, a Physics Professor at Queens University and the Director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, is a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for determining that neutrinos actually have mass.

As a "scientist" you must appreciate that neutrinos are just one of a myriad of candidates that would qualify as dark matter. They are small, have mass, are very weakly interactive with other particles and are dark (meaning they do not emit any type of radiation).

How's that religion/faith metaphor holding up?

I guess that's my main problem with these latest theories: they are all math with not one bit of hard data to back them up.

Perhaps that is why it is called Theoretical Physics.

Explanations for Existence are all theoretical. And those theories come and go. But they are all we will ever have when we try and explain what Existence Is and how "it" came up with us, The World of Humans….

Explanations for Existence are all theoretical.

Only until they become observational. That's how science works, buddy.

And those theories come and go.

Only the insufficient and unsupported ones go. The rest become as close to truth as science can get. That's how science works too.

Explanations for Existence are all theoretical.

Only until they become observational. That's how science works, buddy.

Have to disagree with both viewpoints. Science doesn't do explanations of existence. That's a "why" question. Not within the domain of science, so science doesn't include such things or operate on them.

Science does "whats" – creating a cognitive construct that defined a phenomenon – and "hows" – creating a cognitive construct that describes the sequencing of phenomena.

I'll respectfully disagree. I'll concede that the "why" of existence is more philosophical/ metaphysical and outside the realm of science.

But the "how" of existence is within the scientific magisteria. It was in that context that I was responding to Scott's comment.

"……..creating a cognitive construct that describes the sequencing of phenomena."

Hmmmm………I like that!

It boggles my mind how people can continually attempt to separate the two: "how and why". If you observed a thing, the first question should by "why?" Why is this thing here? You look for a reason for its existence. The "how" of it all is meaningless without pursuing answers to "why?".

Another way of asking this is, "What is it for?"

The pursuit of that will run smack into the metaphysical. Because a simple, "mechanical" answer will fail to really be any answer. The World of Humans is made up of endless things that have a purpose in the over all schema. Even though mine is different than yours….

Why is this thing here? You look for a reason for its existence. The "how" of it all is meaningless without pursuing answers to "why?".

You certainly have the right to that viewpoint, but it is not universal. For some people "What is going to happen next?" is as or more intriguing than "Why is it here now?"

From many metaphysical viewpoints (including religious ones), the "why" is de facto incomprehensible to the human being. This leads to a number of different viewpoints on pursuit of the "why" including many that assert the "why" doesn't matter.

It boggles my mind how people can continually attempt to separate the two: "how and why". If you observed a thing, the first question should by "why?" Why is this thing here? You look for a reason for its existence. The "how" of it all is meaningless without pursuing answers to "why?".

But you are now making a semantic argument based on the variability and the inexact nature of our use of the words "why" and "what".

"Why does that observation always follow the preceding observation?" is a question that science can answer.

"Why are we here?" is not.

"What is the gravitational pull of that planet?" is another good scientific question.

"What is the purpose of the Universe?" is not.

It's not the why and what, it is the context in which they are asked.

Doesn't mean they are bad questions or unimportant questions, it's just that science isn't always the best tool for delving into them. And some questions just don't have answers.

We are a little bit away from Dark Matter and faith, but I like how these threads sometimes meander. Ymmv.