So, you've got a new theory...

[lucaspa]

This is vastly different from pondering and/or exploring the boundaries of existing knowledge in an intellectual discourse.

 

Although I agree that research should be performed and any results presented' date=' there are times when the pure thought should excite some interest in pursuing the subject further.

 

Every single scientific discovery came from someone looking at a thing from a different perspective, and most were laughed at initially. That is what a theory is, a thought process taken to a logical conclusion and then proven repeatedly. A theory is not a fact.

 

I see no problem with someone throwing out a theory for others to disprove or refute; it is how we all learn. Morphology is a great example. When Sheldrake proposed the morphic field in the 70s, he offered a prize for its refutation in the classical manner.[/quote']

 

1. I agree that speculation is a valuable and fun pasttime. However, the key for a fun and valuable discusions is the "for others to disprove or refute". First, the person making the speculation should have tried to refute it. Second, the person making the speculation must be willing to accept refutation. If either condition is not met, then it ceases to be fun and valuable. If (1) is not met, then we are simply rectifying a deficiency in the speculator's knowledge base -- a glaring deficiency. If (2) is not met, then we are in a discussion that has no end and no value.

 

2. A theory is NOT "a thought process taken to a logical conclusion and then proven repeatedly". A hypothesis/theory is a statement or set of statements about some part of the physical universe. Those statements are then tested by deductive logic. If the testing supports the theory, then it is a currently valid theory. If the testing refutes the theory, then it is a falsified theory. So, a theory that has not been "proven repeatedly" -- such as geocentrism -- is still a theory. It doesn't stop being a theory when disproved.

 

3. Yes, a theory is not, technically, a fact. However, we regard many theories as factual. For instance, "the earth is round" is a theory. It has been repeatedly tested and never falsified. So today we regard that theory as "fact". Atomic theory of gasses is another theory that is regarded as factual. So is cell theory.

 

Niles Eldredge in The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism makes a very convincing argument that there is no hard and fast demarcation between hypothesis, theory, and fact. He uses the example of round earth to show how a statement can be regarded as a hypothesis, a theory, and a fact.

[lucaspa]

Perhaps a new topic could be introduced. It could be called Ponderables' date=' for those of us who like to nibble at the edges of the unknown and share those thoughts with others.

 

Then the discipline-bound scientists would not be offended and would not even have to open the threads; and the rest of us could exchange wild ideas, new theories, estoteric propositions and questions regarding the boundary fields of known science without being labeled as lesser beings.[/quote']

 

I would suggest naming the Topic "Speculations". But I would still insist that, on a science forum, that the people making the speculations 1) test their speculations first to try to show them wrong and 2) accept falsification when someone else refutes the speculation with existing data.

[Matty2sum]

If the world is round with gravity and the centrifugal force y don’t we weight more at the poles?

[insane_alien]

we do weigh more at the poles. this also causes a bulge in the earth at the equator.

 

PS. there is no centrifugal force. it is an effect caused by a centripetal force.

[Matty2sum]

I C. I think you could make a good argument that you would weigh more at the poles for exactly that reason. The reason is that at the pole our tangental velocity is equal to 0. The sum of the Forces has to still be equal to zero so since there is no tangental velocity and no centrifugal force component. It has to be true and here is why. Why do objects orbit the earth? It is because they are moving at such tangental velocity that the centrifugal force is sufficient to overcome gravity just enough that the object misses the earth on its re-entry trajectory. I would imagine that if you were going fast enough (and omitted things like friction from air and such as they would make you incinerate) you could accelerate yourself fast enough so that you could orbit the planet only inches above the earth's surface.

[insane_alien]

yes. i just said the effect happened. its basic orbital mechanics.

[Matty2sum]

So how fast do I haft to go to get lift from a sphere?

[lucaspa]

So how fast do I haft to go to get lift from a sphere?

 

Depends on the mass of the sphere. There are equations to calculate that.

I'm sure a google search would find them.

[TheTheoretician]

I'm new here, but far from new in science, theory, and forums. With this opening sentence, I wanted to thank the OP for sharing that list.

 

It is very useful for Me in my work on the ultimate theory.

 

Peace,

 

Ik@TheTheoretician

[wright496]

2 pages of arguing over the rules and nobody has even posted a theory yet lol.

[swansont]

2 pages of arguing over the rules and nobody has even posted a theory yet lol.

 

This thread isn't the place to do that. It's meant to be a list of things to consider when creating a new topic, and a discussion of those items.

[pioneer]

Pseudo-science means not science or science that is beneath the dignity of consensus science. Ponderable means thinking about something new, at the grass roots, where all science begins. Science does not begin all nipped and tucked, but begins with new questions and new ways of seeing things. Sometimes from this beginning new science grows.

 

For example, here is a ponderable, probability and statistics as we know it, is only a good first approximation, since probability has a connection to entropy, which is a function of energy. The first approximation assumes full energy. A more complete theory should consider partial energy probability, which could impact many theories.

 

Let me give an example, if we throw a six sided dice, there are odds that allows us to predict the outcome. But this example assumes we have added enough energy for complete randomization. Say I weakly threw the dice so it can only flip 90 degrees and not complete a full roll. At this lower energy, instead of 6 sides only 4 are possible plus one impossible side. Someone playing cards would not all me to just cut the deck as a shuffle. They want me to use enough energy for full randomization. If I used less energy, I can change the odds.

 

This effect occurs in the DNA. For example, some parts of the DNA mutate faster than others. There is a not a full energy randomization of the DNA or the dice would not favor some of the sides much more.

Edited September 23, 2010 by pioneer

[Mellinia]

I have a new theory on psychology...but it's proven evasive to prove....i mean, who would want to allow me to know every thought, every move, every word, and almost everything the 'someone' has gone through?

[viiovix]

i play poker, and its boring, thinking about taking cuttings off a plant next year is interesting to me, i win poker, i think there should be a game thats active, guess the colour, rubixs cube tried but it has to be a money game, stakes, come on it cant be hard, i know chess was the last one, but we need a new one------ do it

 

 

 

 

 

 

is saffron and lead the making of gold, be romantic people, dont let science halt science

 

i play poker, and its boring, thinking about taking cuttings off a plant next year is interesting to me, i win poker, i think there should be a game thats active, guess the colour, rubixs cube tried but it has to be a money game, stakes, come on it cant be hard, i know chess was the last one, but we need a new one------ do it

 

 

 

 

 

 

is saffron and lead the making of gold, be romantic people, dont let science halt science

 

but pioneer randomisation is the problem and since when is entrophy connected to energy

 

ok lol sorry

ill reply with what i mean

 

the iris govt should have realesed a ran sum, so should have the world raised the russian sub,

 

alvin is our starship

 

dont forget the mid atlantic convayor belt people, salt and water are worth money, but atlanta is life

[charles brough]

Having a different opinion does not constitute a personal attack, whether you are on the side of the mainstream or the fringe. It is true that so-called mainstream scientists will use personal attacks under the guise of having an honest difference of opinion. An old Martin Gardner article was stunningly bad that way, and he was the math guru of the 1950s. And no, "being wrong" does not justify personal attacks.

 

I haven't seen any of that going on here, but I want moderators to be aware that some people do it, and watch out for it. It's not the subject matter. It's not the side you are on. It is the way you present your opinions.

 

Yes, I agree. My experience in posting in other forums is that someone will respond by taking every one of my paragraps in order and insert nit-picking comments between each one. At or near the end, they then make over-all condesending comments about my post and my "intellectual undercapacity." My take on this is that these posters are semi-retired professors who are used to showing off their "amazing genius" to their "lowly students." The practice is expecially bad in the social sciences. Perhaps that is because social theory consists of enough rationalizing that they are sensitive about it enough to deveop this defensive mechanism.

[charles brough]

Perhaps a new topic could be introduced. It could be called Ponderables, for those of us who like to nibble at the edges of the unknown and share those thoughts with others.

 

If you and the others really want to consider a new theory, I'll do my best because I have worked on one for decades. It involved amassing an understanding of the data of some 24 social and natural sciences.

 

It involves social evolution. As of now, the social theory consensus, such as it is, has no viable explanation of what civilizations and societies are and both how and why they rise and fall, no theory other than a really hopeless one dealing with "memes."

 

What I theorize, in a nutshell, is that "societies" and their civilizations are a type of organism in that they have a life cycle and a non-genetic way of evolving through natural selection. They compete with each other and ultimately the older (weaker) is natural-selected out. A new one develops based upon a new and advanced (for the times) ideology ("religion").

 

I can support this vital role of ideology by reminding everyone that we evolved through millions of years of evolution as small-group primates (hunter/gatherers). We are still small group primates and unable to funtion successfully without the use of language and religion (the newer the better) to bind us into larger groups (nations and their "societies").

 

Any questions?

[swansont]

If you and the others really want to consider a new theory, I'll do my best because I have worked on one for decades. It involved amassing an understanding of the data of some 24 social and natural sciences.

 

It involves social evolution. As of now, the social theory consensus, such as it is, has no viable explanation of what civilizations and societies are and both how and why they rise and fall, no theory other than a really hopeless one dealing with "memes."

 

What I theorize, in a nutshell, is that "societies" and their civilizations are a type of organism in that they have a life cycle and a non-genetic way of evolving through natural selection. They compete with each other and ultimately the older (weaker) is natural-selected out. A new one develops based upon a new and advanced (for the times) ideology ("religion").

 

I can support this vital role of ideology by reminding everyone that we evolved through millions of years of evolution as small-group primates (hunter/gatherers). We are still small group primates and unable to funtion successfully without the use of language and religion (the newer the better) to bind us into larger groups (nations and their "societies").

 

Any questions?

 

If you want to discuss it, it belongs in its own thread.

[genraven]

I love "Calling the people in who challenge you "brainwashed" or "stupid" does not further your argument. Neither does throwing a tantrum."

[Jiggerj]

USE OUR SEARCH ENGINE FIRST!!! before posting.

 

you`de be surprised what might have been thought of before you

 

Not being argumentative, YT, but I have to ask: What if people just want to come here and chat while tossing around ideas? Do we really need to do our homework (use the search engine) in order to post anything? I guess what I'm asking is, is this a chat forum first, or a science forum first? There is a section on religion, so it can't be all about big brains hammering out complex equations to one another. I enjoy the chats here, but I'm no big brain. <-- Does that disqualify me from posting anything?

[Carol Joy]

Although I am somewhat in agreement that anecdotes are not evidence, I am also aware that the term "anecdotal evidence" first came into wide spread useage after the citizens in Calif were able to get Proposition 65 on the ballot and then made law. This proposition's requirements so terrified the pesticide manufacturers that they needed to make sure that it didn't get passed in other states. (After all it was bad enough for industry that the then 25 million folks in Calif would have some protection against the over rampant use of toxins.)

Foremost among those who were alarmed was Monsanto. After all, back in the late 60's early 70's,  Monsanto's  execs  had actually lied to the EPA in order to get their product RoundUp, currently the best selling herbicide in the word, licensed for over the counter sales. The lie was regarding the type of aldehyde utilized in the product's formulation. At that point in time the aldehyde was formaldehyde, which by the 1980's had become one of Prop 65's no-no's. (RoundUp consists of 41% glyphosate, 15% polyoxyethalenamine, or POEA, which bio degrades into dioxane, and then an aldehyde, no longer formaldehyde, and then the rest is water.)

It was this knee jerk reaction against Prop 65  that then brought forth the notion that  all observations were silly and useless and only the confirmation of the totally rushed-through, short time lapse "studies" were relevant. So we end up in an era wherein after the BP oil spill, the execs at BP want to use one of their own products, Corexit, to assist in "cleansing the Gulf" of the oil. EPA scientists were directed to study fish put into tanks with Corexit for a number of weeks.

Then the researchers  were to determine if the fish were still healthy. Apparently they were, and the fish were released. However one scientist knew that was too short a time period and he kept his research subjects in their tanks for a month or six weeks longer. Those fish all died prematurely in relationship to their species normal age ranges. But did BP care? No, of course not. Now they could sell the various government agencies their Corexit, make a huge profit, have a nice PR pitch to the citizens who lived near the Gulf. As after all,  who cares if they were  further hurting  the marine life of the Gulf! (As long as the EPA approved study showed otherwise.)

Observation was always Step One in deciding on formulating a hypothesis and then working out a study. Back in the 1700's, Ed Jenner observed fewer than fifty cow maids becoming infected with cow pox, but then all going on to live through small pox epidemics. This was due to the hypothesis Jenner promoted, which in our day and age would be considered based on  mere anecdotal evidence, that the cowpox had provided these ladies immunity. There were no world class labs where he could validate his theory.

Today there are plenty of world class laboratories. Unfortunately, many if not all of them inside the USA are under the control of Corporate-controlled scientists. Does anyone here think that after UC Berkeley received a 50 million dollar grant that any students or researchers there would be able to propose a look at Novartis' products to see if they were a source for the burgeoning breast cancer rates among San Francisco women? So many times, we activists see decent studies done at great expense to the independent scientists whoa re hell bent on The Truth. If someone here can show me one time wherein one of these decent but small-ish studies is  taken seriously by Big Corporate-America and then Industry expands upon the study after small time researchers bring forth disturbing results, I would be greatly relieved. (Usually there is instead an immediate press release that So and So's recent study regarding Product X is totally worthless as the number of test subjects was too small, and that fact alone means So and So should be made into a pariah and black listed from serious consideration forever more!)

So if some researcher puts together a study showing that disturbing the gut flora and embedding the stomach and/or intestinal lining of young children with measles virus can trigger a massive and complex  neurological series that causes the children so studied to then regress from talking and  speaking, socially communicating children into autistic patients, there is little likelihood of this study being done on a large scale basis. Rather than industry being intrigued and also concerned that their practice of insisting children receive multi-injections of vaccines at one time, they made a pariah out of the man whose peer-reviewed study showed a serious concern for alarm at the idea of continuing multi vaccinations in one day for children under three years of age. Again if someone here can show me ONE SINGLE INSTANCE wherein a scientist who has a small study that needs to be expanded on can then watch as concerned industry executives guarantee the study is undertaken with a larger number of test subjects, I would be quite grateful. Until that instance is demonstrated to me, I will be suspicious of the Industry Giants telling us activists that our concerns are based on mere "anecdotal evidence."

Edited December 2, 2017 by Carol Joy

[swansont]

18 hours ago, Carol Joy said:

Although I am somewhat in agreement that anecdotes are not evidence, I am also aware that the term "anecdotal evidence" first came into wide spread useage after the citizens in Calif were able to get Proposition 65 on the ballot and then made law.

Not really. Was already in use at that time (1986)

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content="anecdotal+evidence"&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C" anecdotal evidence "%3B%2Cc0

 

[Velocity_Boy]

Pretty comprehensive list, Swanny.

I especially am digging #14.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Velocity_Boy

[coffeesippin]

Direct experience of Black Holes if they exist for instance is said to be impossible.  I don't think Kitty knew about scientists who put so much faith in computer models.

On 2/6/2012 at 7:36 PM, Jiggerj said:

 

Not being argumentative, YT, but I have to ask: What if people just want to come here and chat while tossing around ideas? Do we really need to do our homework (use the search engine) in order to post anything? I guess what I'm asking is, is this a chat forum first, or a science forum first? There is a section on religion, so it can't be all about big brains hammering out complex equations to one another. I enjoy the chats here, but I'm no big brain. <-- Does that disqualify me from posting anything?

Aristarchus was a big brain, and he got banished for showing the earth revolved around the sun, instead of the sun around the earth.

On 8/5/2011 at 3:30 PM, charles brough said:

 

Yes, I agree. My experience in posting in other forums is that someone will respond by taking every one of my paragraps in order and insert nit-picking comments between each one. At or near the end, they then make over-all condesending comments about my post and my "intellectual undercapacity." My take on this is that these posters are semi-retired professors who are used to showing off their "amazing genius" to their "lowly students." The practice is expecially bad in the social sciences. Perhaps that is because social theory consists of enough rationalizing that they are sensitive about it enough to deveop this defensive mechanism.

The worst of those who practice that formula seem to be moderators.  Unfortunately the old adage 'power corrupts' seems to be especially true on internet discussion forums where people have little chance of ever meeting face to face, so it doesn't really matter if you insult someone, except that you may be banned.   The threat of banishment is almost totally removed from moderators, so they can get carried away in their own self importance, earning the support of other moderators so inclined.   A moderator in this forum has already belittled me publicly for 'your treatment of evidence against you'  but I was quickly able to prove the evidence against me was totally fabricated and in fact the link that was provided did not even go to the quoted source.  No apology to me arrived either in public or my mailbox.  That type of moderator action happens frequently on internet discussion forums, but if a non moderator makes a complaint he can be labelled as a troll.   Nasty stuff.

On 10/20/2011 at 1:30 AM, genraven said:

I love "Calling the people in who challenge you "brainwashed" or "stupid" does not further your argument. Neither does throwing a tantrum."

That's why it has to be done in soft, subtle, polite ways like it's done by the people who don't want to appear to be doing so because it makes them look stupid and uneducated.  

[Strange]

!

Moderator Note

Discussion of black holes split off to here: https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/117061-black-holes-split-from-so-youve-got-a-new-theory/

 

 

[empleat]

On 5/21/2005 at 11:49 PM, swansont said:

(A collection of some thoughts brought on by recent posts and posters. Some of these are touched upon in the FAQ and Pseudoscience section, and these sentiments can be found on other science fora)

Yeah i agree - didn't read all. But these all seem like pretty logical things! I love how these forums are relaxed and anyone here can post anywhere without having to worry about censoring. Which is less comfortable for pros, so i can appreciate that. You will just move topic, if it is not correct... Because sometimes, these people could be right, i saw here interesting ideas from layman people once, or twice  I like these forums 👍

Generally:

- Probably most prevalent is, when people have incorrect understanding of something like: a basis and post incorrect things from there, which happens. Or they are just asking if not sure.

- Or if they are called wrong, they go full copium mode (we learn from our mistakes)

- Sometimes people can't even agree on a basic idea. And than they use different arguments - they know and don't know how stay on the subject. And than discussions diverges more like to argument exchange, than constructive discussion or becomes irrelevant to the subject. Because it is difficult sometimes, when tackling complex issues. Or it is issue with some people...

For me:

- My main issue is expression (have ADHD), i understand something well in my brain, but having trouble organize huge texts and present my arguments well...

-Sometimes you use something in some context, or as example, even it is not meant literally. But no one probably bothers, like after every world, specify that as a fact/theory/hypothesis/opinion and what not. When it should be apparent from context, but when tackling complex issues, it is easy to misinterpret something.

- I hate when i say something, in a wrong way. Because after you say that, than it is too late to change that, even if you explain that in next post. I improve my ideas gradually, i just will say everything i think, even it gets confusing many times If something is not correct, i will accept it and move on, unless i have good reasons to think - it is correct. So i want to keep idea a least bit yet, unless proven otherwise. Problem is some things are vague - hard to prove!

- I don't know, but i have feeling sometimes: people don't take you seriously, if you don't have PHD from that area. Who ever learnt anything in school anyways ? And discard your opinions too quickly, even when they are based on the facts etc. Or just because you were wrong about 1 thing, they discard other things. Or they don't listen well, dunno... But i think, most of people here are great!

Even i don't post here often, so it is whatever. Just saying my opinion...

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by empleat