swansont

Another reminder that obvious spam will be taken care of in due course, the next time a moderator or administrator logs in and looks at recent posts. Reporting it just makes more work. Only report it if it's been around for a day or more, as noted above, or if it's posted in an existing thread.

Eldad Eshel has been banned for repeated spamming and soapboxing, and showing no improvement in his adherence to the rules since his earlier suspension

Handy andy has been suspended 3 days for repeated thread hijacking and ignoring mods. ProgrammingGod Jordan has been suspended for repeatedly re-opening threads on closed topics and serial soapboxing.

Promoting of personal web sites is also forbidden. We do have posts that have links such as you describe. A quick glance shows one in math and one in chemistry, and one for science youtube channels.

! Moderator Note This is not the place for conjecture; responses should be mainstream science. This could be discussed in speculations, but you will need a lot more support than just a bald assertion.

adsar2 has been banned as a sockpuppet of xyzt

curiouscat has been banned as a sockpuppet of JohnLesser

! Moderator Note This is posted in a science section. Let's leave deities out of it.

Periodic reminder that getting downvoted/negative reputation is not a call for the report post function to complain. The staff is not going to get involved in such spats in any official capacity. We will assign reputation as regular members as each individual sees fit. Also, complaining about this in any thread is off-topic.

GeniusIsDisruptive has been banned. Was too little genius and way too much disruptive.

Yesterday's SMBC was (in a broad sense) on that topic http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dear-god-2

GeniusIsDisruptive has been suspended a week for abusive behavior and repeated soapboxing (refusal to engage in discussion)

Nope. Plenty of physics works, i.e. is true, without my participation, and many of these things are decidedly not real.

Not really helpful, IMO, considering that we've had several posts asking how you know what you've observed is actual reality. Either situation "concerns" reality, but the definition avoids addressing the problem.

So the spin of an electron measured along a particular axis (the z-axis) is real. What is the spin measured along the x or y axis, since it is not real?

Science is based on being repeatable. We do measurements and if we've been careful, we get the same answer to within experimental uncertainty. What does that tell us about reality vs simulation? Or the other question, about whether we are testing for reality?

I'm probably not the only one who gets annoyed at this gambit. You make a claim as if you are quite certain of it, and when pressed, you say "I'm a layman, don't expect me to know details." Jumping into a discussion about science requires some understanding of science. If you don't have the knowledge, then you need to make an effort to gain some. In this case, it's pretty basic: understanding what an hypothesis is, and having a very basic idea of how dark energy and dark matter fit into cosmology. If you don't have that, then read up on it, and ask questions. You've been a member long enough to know the patience and helpfulness of the members here when they are asked sincere questions. Well, one relies on a mythical being, so I'd say science is "more real" than that, but this again misses the point, which was whether the goal of science is to confirm reality. Science is limited to observations. I suspect that this is not a true statement, and as such, any conclusion drawn from it as a premise is invalid.

You have to ignore the word "hypothesis" (twice) and then "assuming" to arrive at the conclusion that there was "no suggestion". The assumption that there is a reality is not the same as saying that science is the search for what that reality is.

Just because you can't see it does not mean anything about the veracity of the statement. Our understanding of the cosmos is incomplete. There is no guarantee that it will ever be otherwise. Math is not science

So what? A lot of people do the work they do because they enjoy it. I fail to see how that has any bearing on the validity of the work, or how this impacts the issue of whether science is attempting to find reality.

And we understand why the math works. Nevertheless, it was replaced after a mechanism was found. What if you don't ignore the first paragraph of the article? As to the rest, this is not the place to discuss details. presumably these are the best examples you have, seeing as they do not support your claim, are you willing to modify or retract?

I was not a participant in that discussion. Epicycles were abandoned after a mechanism was identified. You said not the best fit. What is the better fit for dark energy and dark matter? They are placeholders. There can't be alternatives as they do not represent anything resembling a theory.

Do you have some examples of science not being the best fit, and still conforming to the protocols of science? Making ideas fit to our notions, to please us, is regularly rejected by science.

What relevance does that have to the discussion?

Interesting that you can be rather sure of this despite having scientists say otherwise, supported by examples.