Strange

We have observed their effects. That is true for all types of matter and energy. What has that to do with dark matter? The presence of extra mass that we cannot see explains that. The rotation curve is a reference to speed. So you are suggesting an alternative source of space-time curvature that isn't mass? What is it then? No it doesn't. (All fundamental articles are treated as if they are point particles; i.e. "no volume"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_shell_and_off_shell

1. I am not saying that. (Perhaps you need to read more carefully.) 2. Even if I were saying that, it would not be a logical argument. What do you mean by "constituents of the universe"? So you refute a number of cosmological theories with a wave of the hand. Impressive. So there must be a cause because you don't think there are acausal events? Who is employing circular arguments now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question Which is obviously nonsense. There are a great many things we can explain despite now knowing how, or even if, the universe came into existence. The theory of evolution works very well despite there not yet being a good theory of abiogenesis. And so on. Even if that were true, it has no relevance at all to the ability to explain anything.

If you think we were created by something other than God, again that needs a new thread. Not sure where such an idea would fit... So why would an "intelligent" designer do something that has, as you say, no benefit? However, the fact that sperm require a lower temperature than that inside the body, fits perfectly with the evolution of mammals. Note that some organisms have evolved different mechanisms such as keeping the testes internal and providing a cooling mechanism. Does this "intelligent creator" use trial and error? Or roll dice to decide what to do (just to annoy Einstein)? And then makes it look identical to evolution just to confuse us. Bad creator! That makes no sense. That is like saying that if dogs have four legs, then there is life on Pluto. It is a complete non-sequitur. I don't see why. All religions pick and choose which bits of their holy texts they take as literally true, which are just metaphors or enlightning stories, and so on. That is one reason there are so many varieties of Christianity, for example. Some of those don't even accept that Jesus was divine. So take your pick. Everyone else does. Fine. But try and keep that separate from science. I'm sure other cultures have come up with the idea of geocentrism; it seems a fairly obvious conclusion from a naive view of the universe. But why GEOcentrism? Why not choose the seventeenth planet around a K class star in the Andromeda galaxy? It is just as arbitrary. Thinking that the universe revolves around you is a little .... arrogant?

Surely a more important point is whether (and why) people think it is true or false. Any factual statements in such a text are just based on people's understanding at the time (or they are just made up). As we learn more, we may find that what was commonly assumed to be true isn't. That is where the potential for conflict comes from; when people put more trust in the statements in an old text than they do in reality.

Sometimes, for no reason.

That seems to presuppose that water (and the water cycle) exists because it is necessary for life. But it is the other way round: life took advantage of the existence of these things in the environment.

Nice insight!

That is not the reason at all. As others have said in this thread: there is nothing to debunk. You can consider the Earth to be the centre of the universe (just as you can consider the Moon or Alpha Centauri to be the centre of the universe). And, occasionally, that is done: planning the orbits of satellites, for example. But in general it is not a particular convenient model. And there is absolutely no reason to consider it as being special or true. You are, of course, free to believe whatever you want. However, there is not evidence for that (if you want to discuss that, you should start a new thread in the appropriate part of the forum). And there are some incredibly stupid design decisions in the human body (and all other organisms) which seem to argue against "intelligent" design. On the other hand, there is a mountain of evidence for evolution; and this also explains the many bizarre "design decisions". Science doesn't really care about what "seems logical". The whole point of the scientific method is to bypass these personal beliefs and preferences, and focus on the evidence. That is one problem with your belief system. It destroys all enquiry: "god" becomes the answer to all questions. Life becomes pretty futile. "Why does the universe exist?" God did it. "How do we explain quantum effects?" God does it. "Do black holes exist?" If God wants them to. "Why do people die of cancer?" Because God wants them to. "Should I make my children wear a seatbelt?" Don't bother; if God wants to take them he will. If you give up believing that everything in the Bible is literally true and that the answer to all questions is "God" then you will realise how little we know, how much there is to discover, what a truly awesome universe this is. (Whether it was created by God or not) and how exciting science is as a way of learning more.

It is not circular logic; it is not a logical argument at all. I am just suggesting (not very originally) that another possibility is that the universe came into being spontaneously. Some have suggested as a result of a quantum fluctuation disturbing a false vacuum,others have other ideas (e.g. eternal inflation). It seems a little naive to dismiss all these cosmologists so simply. You also ignore the interesting(?) question: what do you mean by "creator"? Would you call the quantum fluctuation (or the false vacuum state) to be a "creator"? Or are you only defining "creator" as some sort of supernatural entity? There are many other ideas about the possible origin of the universe: Poplawski suggests universes are created when a block hole forms in another universe; Penrose proposes the universe was created by the collapse of previous universe; other suggest a collision between branes. Do you consider a black hole / previous universe / branes to be a potential "creator"? You certainly know how to pack a lot of logical fallacies into a short post. There are already many known examples of acausal events. The fact we cannot explain one thing does not mean that we can't explain anything. I'm not sure what this fallacy is called, but it seems remarkably common, given that it is self evidently false. There are many things we cannot explain and yet, remarkably, there are also many things we can explain.

It could have been spontaneously created with no creator. And, of course, it depends what you mean by "creator". Hawking thinks the universe was brought into existence by the laws of physics. Are the laws of physics a "creator"? If B spontaneously creates itself then there is no A and no causality.

That seems likely, in most cases at least. On the other hand most wars were also probably between nearby tribes of similar enthicity and religion.

What use is any mathematical theorem? It is an interesting and counterintuitive result. Yes, that is the way it is modelled in GR. Which is true. It is not unreasonable to think of the gravity pulling on you to stop you drifting off into the air. So what if that isn't how GR describes it? Whether you use the words "force" or "pull" or not, makes no difference at all to the results you get. That is not basic at all. It is a very complex idea. I certainly wouldn't claim to understand it at anything other than a vague conceptual level. You can, of course, derive the shell theorem using GR. It is just a lot more complex to do. So now you are saying that GR is wrong? But it doesn't matter. You are worrying about terminology, instead of understanding the physics.

That is very worrying as it suggests he is not interested in science. No theory can be tested except by comparison against real world observations.

The trouble is, the galaxy isn't a hollow ball. So, obviously, treating it as such will obviously give you the wrong results. The only bit of the shell theorem relevant to the galaxy as a whole is that from outside the shell (or any spherically symmetrical distribution of mass) you can treat it as iff all the mass were at a central point. However, the shell theorem can be used at any point in the galaxy to show that only the mass inside a sphere of that radius matters; mass outside the sphere doesn't affect the orbits of stars at that distance, for example. (This is only an approximation, because only the central bulge is spherically symmetrical.) A more detailed analysis can be used to show the need for more mass in the galaxy than we can see. Eppure, si muove. I think everyone would have some difficulties with that idea. As it is wrong. Which bit of "you are always outside the shell as all its mass is at the singularity" did you not understand?

That wasn't listed as one of your initial requirements and isn't related to any of them. (Arguably, it is related to "race" except there is no such thing.) Also, I find that rather implausible. There have been many waves of migration into India from different places - which is one reason for the linguistic diversity (including languages from the Indo-European, Drvidian, Austro-Asiatic and other families). I would be very surprised in this wasn't reflected in modern Indian genotypes.

There are many nations which lack some or all of those attributes of homogeneity. India is a prime example: multiple languages (multiple language families), multiple "races" (whatever that means), multiple religions and multiple political philosophies. I imagine that the only nations that might fit your description are small, isolated islands.

I would be a little wary. That journal is listed here so it is basically a "vanity press"; they will publish anything for a fee. I doubt their review process is particularly onerous. The paper seems heavy on pretty pictures and light on maths and supporting evidence. There are a large number of theories which use geometrical models as a "deeper" model of physics (e.g. causal dynamical triangulation). These all seem to have multiple articles published in mainstream journals. "whet"

Please explain what you think "popularity" means. I am fascinated to know!

But that has nothing to do with POPULARITY. popularity (n): state of being liked, enjoyed, accepted, or done by a large number of people : the quality or state of being popular http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/popularity What did you think the words means?

Apart from those of the people posting personal theories in the Speculations forum - they are, of course, totally out of the box. Not so much a jack-in-the-box as a dick-in-the-box, then. According to Schroedinger, the thought is both in the box and not in the box. Until we open the box. At which point the thought escapes. ("Now what did I open this box for...") But that was just a thought experiment. I think.

Interesting. I was unaware of that (so, yes, I was being facetious ). Thanks.

I am still struggling to get to grips with this. (As an aside, it doesn't answer my question, which was about the significance of "2defindedvalues" being written as one word.) If I understand correctly, neither "2dv" nor "2ds" represent numbers. Your "spaces" (x,x) seem to be like boxes into which you put values. Only when values are placed into boxes do they represent numbers. So when you say "(1,1) is the 2 defined values placed into the 2 defined spaces. When a value is placed into a space it becomes a number so that (1+1) = 2" you are putting the value "1" into two boxes. This represents the number 2; the sum of the values in the the boxes. Is that correct? If so, can we also represent the number 2 by putting the value 2 into one space/box, which I assume you would represent as "(2)" ? Can we also represent the number 2 by putting 0.5 into four spaces/boxes: "(0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5)" ? (Again, you haven't really answered the question which was, again, specifically about your notation. But never mind. Let's move on.) So (somehow) you are combining the "value" 2 with two spaces. How do you do that? But above you said: "(1,1) is the 2 defined values placed into the 2 defined spaces. When a value is placed into a space it becomes a number so that (1+1) = 2" Which seems to be saying that 2 is represented by the combination of two things: the "defined" value 1 combined with two spaces. So which of these is correct: a) 2 is represented by the combination of two things: the "defined" value 2 combined with "x,x" (two spaces/boxes) b) 2 is represented by the combination of two things: the "defined" value 1 placed in two spaces/boxes. I think I will stop there, before I get more confused!

I doubt it is going to happen slowly ...

But how can we ever discover facts (or even explanations)? How do we ever find out "what is"? How do we find out if a fact or an explanation is right or wrong? The best we can do is look at the evidence and build tentative models to explain the evidence. (This is popularly known as "doing science".) Unless you have some sort of hotline to divine truth?

If this was in the philosophy forum, we discuss the differences between facts, observations, measurements, evidence, axioms and postulates. But, for the moment, lets assume there are facts: things we measure or are self-evidently true. Not quite. The invariant speed of light is a fact (postulate). Special relativity is simply a straightforward (and inevitable) consequence of that. It doesn't explain why the speed of light is invariant. Nothing does. It is just the way the universe is. The fact that gravity is caused by the geometry of space-time is a result from general relativity; not a fact that we would have known otherwise. Maybe you need to clarify what you mean by "fact" and "explanation". In science, I would assume that "fact" refers to observations and measurements (evidence) and "explanation" means a model based on those observations (i.e. a theory). Do you mean something else by those words?