Despite a swamp of scandals, the focus of discussion seems to be getting the public to trust again, not reform of the system.
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If science, as interpreted by some, can’t address immaterial realities like our ability to reason and thus do science, so much the worse for that interpretation
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A properly balanced relationship with expertise won’t be restored by imposing autocratic consensus rules. “Science” really needs less hubris and more humility.
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It’s useful to know that this sort of fact-free performance is acceptable, given the state of a materialist interpretation of consciousness today.
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Science answers many questions but some questions test us because they are difficult by nature. They take us to the margins. Let’s look at some — why they test us: At Big Think, theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel discusses five puzzles of fundamental physics, solving any one of which “could unlock our understanding of the universe.” They are, how did the universe begin, what explains neutrino mass, why is our universe matter-dominated, what is dark matter, and what is dark energy?: About our universe as matter-dominated: More matter than antimatter permeates the Universe. However, known physics cannot explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. The Big Bang produces matter, antimatter, and radiation, with slightly more matter being created at some point, leading to Read More ›
In a continuing conversation with Swedish mathematician Ola Hössjer and Colombian biostatistician Daniel Díaz on the fine-tuning of the universe — and Earth — for life, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks asks them about why a Theory of Everything eludes us and about the life-permitting interval — the narrow window for life that the constants of the universe permit. This is the second part of Episode 3, “The universe is so fine-tuned!” (September 16, 2021). Earlier portions, with transcripts and notes, are listed below. https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-Episode-152-Hossjer-Diaz.mp3 This portion begins at 12:36 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Robert J. Marks: In truth, there’s a lot of fundamental constants — the electric charge of an electron, Read More ›
At Forbes, theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel comments: The true problem with the Universe is that there’s only one to observe, or at least, only one that we’re capable of observing. We don’t have a large sample of Universes to compare between, and we don’t have a large set of data points available to us within our Universe. It’s like rolling five dice, together, once. Your odds of getting all sixes is small: about 1-in-7800. Yet if you rolled five dice at once and saw that it came up all sixes, you wouldn’t necessarily conclude that it was anything more than random chance. Sometimes, nature just doesn’t give you the most likely outcome. It’s possible that the leftover photons from the Read More ›
According to NASA, super-Earth planets are “a class of planets unlike any in our solar system – are more massive than Earth yet lighter than ice giants like Neptune and Uranus, and can be made of gas, rock or a combination of both. They are between twice the size of Earth and up to 10 times its mass.” Such plants are common in our galaxy and so far we have discovered 1,342 of them. Some are hot enough to vaporize metal; some are dim and frozen. An infographic from NASA of the TOI 270 system provides examples of super-Earths in relation to Earth: From NASA: “This infographic illustrates key features of the TOI 270 system, located about 73 light-years away Read More ›
We really don’t know anything about life elsewhere in the universe so even university-trained scientists often try to WISH it into existence.
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