Neil deGrasse Tyson vs. SteakUmm on the philosophy of science

_{Denyse O'Leary

November 10, 2021

Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science}

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We missed this one last April: Readers will remember astronomer and TV personality Neil deGrasse Tyson and perhaps also know of SteakUmm frozen meats…

Someone who writes at HuffPost was rather put out that SteakUmm’s social media team talked back to Tyson on social media:

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently found himself in a bizarre Twitter beef with, of all things, Steak-umm.
Even stranger: Many experts took the side of the processed meat product.
It all started on Sunday after Tyson tweeted out, “The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.”
Although the tweet attracted more than 128,000 likes, it didn’t get much love from Steak-umm on Monday night.
Steak-umm then added a little more meat to its contention, saying that, ironically, Tyson’s tweet “may influence people to be more skeptical” of science “in a time of unprecedented misinformation.”
“Science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma,” Steak-umm said, adding, “no matter his intent, this message isn’t helpful.”
David Moye, “Steak-umm Starts Bizarre Twitter Beef With Neil DeGrasse Tyson” at HuffPost (April 13, 2021)

Some of us suspect that, after more than a year of COVID crazy, some people were starting to think that — just maybe — the boundary between science and lunacy is becoming a bit porous…

The background to science vs. steak:

In 2018, their brief beef started and ended when the Twitter account for Steak-Umm goaded, “who cares,” following a random factoid tweeted by deGrasse Tyson. The fun fact revealed that the “thirteen letters of ‘eleven plus two,’ when rearranged, also spells ‘twelve plus one,’ ” all of which amounts to the number 13.
Despite more than 76,000 likes on the anagram, Steak-umm was unimpressed with the 62-year-old astrophysicist — and still is, particularly with his professorial rhetoric.
Their retort was praised with likes from more than 19,000 on Twitter — as one follower responded in a gustatory double entendre, “I rarely say this about steak, but well done!”
Hannah Sparks, “Steak-umm’s Twitter beef with Neil deGrasse Tyson: ‘Log off bro’” at New York Post (April 14, 2021)

The thing is, the saucy social media team at Steak-Umm have a point: What does it mean to say that science is “true”? Was all the contradictory nonsense barked at us during the COVID pandemic “true”? That isn’t even possible. Yet all the barkers will insist that whatever stuff they said was “science” and we will, it seems have to believe them on that one. But with what outcome… we shall see.

Comments

Sev @ 9... I think the real threat is China. The media won't attack them, celebrities apologize for saying Taiwan is sovereign. I think they own Washington in a lot of ways. Russia benefits too, no doubt, but China is the ring leader. zweston

Here's a thought, who benefits from destabilizing Western society by undermining confidence in government, democracy, science, education the media, etc? Who would love to see Western democracies weakened and crumble from the inside. Putin's Russia, that's who. It fits right in with the hacker groups they run. QAnon should be renamed QAnonski. Seversky

After over a year of lock downs and masks you think most people would realize it is not about science, but about money
You might want to see #653 https://uncommondescent.com/ud-newswatch-highlights/breaking-president-trump-mrs-trump-ms-hicks-are-positive-for-cv-19/#comment-740423 jerry

After over a year of lock downs and masks you think most people would realize it is not about science, but about money. An analysis of Fauci's statements clearly shows that he is not following science, but maximizing the profits of the pharmaceutical companies. Think of the money they are making vaccinating every person on the planet. And not with one vaccination, which has always been the case, but with two. The drive to vaccinate children tells it all. They have no reason to be vaccinated, but think of the money to be made. How is this possible? Control the media - check, control the internet - check, use money and pressure to control the CDC and FDA - check, and create the right type of virus - check. And the rest is history. Peter

True? Science is about taking data, making models, making predictions, and trying to falsify the predictions toward the end of improving models that have better predictive success. Yes, this system is "true." But other things are true as well and science can't touch them. Human consciousness is true. Color is true. But outside of the purview of science. ram

As to:
Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” SteakUmm: “Science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma,”
That is an obviously true response to Tyson's dogmatic claim about science being truth. Moreover, Tyson basically agreed with SteakUmm's overall point when Tyson, in response to SteakUmm, linked to an old article that he had written where he sums up the “objective” scientific method as such:
“Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is.” - Tyson https://evolutionnews.org/2021/04/steak-umm-vs-neil-degrasse-tyson/
What Tyson is basically, and honestly, admitting in that summary sentence that he himself wrote is that it is, in fact, not “Science” that makes truth judgments, but scientists. Yet, even though Tyson himself honestly admitted that scientists should “Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself,," ironically, Tyson's very own worldview of Atheistic Materialism denies the existence of the scientist, i.e. of Tyson, himself.
Jay Richards: "Oddly, the scientific materialist has to deny the existence of scientists." Sam Harris (a scientific materialist): "The self is an illusion." - Michael Egnor Demolishes the Myth of Materialism (Science Uprising EP1) https://youtu.be/Fv3c7DWuqpM?t=267 - Naturalism requires us to believe that our minds are an illusion. But, as neurosurgeon Michael Egnor says, "if your hypothesis is that the mind is an illusion, then you don’t have a hypothesis." https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/hush-the-universe-is-learning/
Let's just say that Tyson, as a scientific materialist, and in holding a worldview that claims that Tyson himself is an illusion, is not doing a very good job of not fooling himself. :) Moreover, the reason why 'truth' itself cannot be ever based in Tyson's worldview of scientific materialism is simply because 'truth', (like the entire concept of 'personhood' itself), is an abstract concept and/or property of the immaterial mind that cannot be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation. Which is to say, if something is not composed of particles, or does not have physical properties (e.g., length, mass, energy, momentum, orientation, position, etc), it is, of necessity, a immaterial categorization and/or definition of the immaterial mind. i.e. How much does the concept of truth weigh? Does the concept of truth weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of truth in millimeters? How fast does the concept of truth go? Is the concept of truth closer to Texas or to Nebraska? Is the concept of truth faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of truth positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. ?.. As John_a_designer explained,
"Truth claims are propositional. That is, truth claims are stated in the form of a proposition. But what is a proposition? Where do propositions exist? What do they look like? Where are they located? How much space do they take up? How much do they weigh? How long have they existed? How and where did they originate? Obviously, these questions are absurd because propositions are not physical. But if the physical or material is all that exists as the materialist claims, which is by the way a propositional truth claim, how can such a proposition be true? How can something that doesn’t really exist, as the materialist claims, be true? Obviously that is self-refuting." - John_a_designer
Moreover, since "Our limited (immaterial) minds can discover eternal truths about being" and since "Truth properly resides in a (immaterial) mind", and yet since "the human (immaterial) mind is not eternal", then it necessarily follows that "there must exist an eternal (immaterial) mind in which these truths reside."
11. The Argument from Truth Excerpt: 1. Our limited (immaterial) minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a (immaterial) mind. 3. But the human (immaterial) mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal (immaterial) mind in which these truths reside. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#11
In short, the search for 'truth' by science must necessarily find its ultimate resolution in God since 'truth', of necessity, must be based in God in the first place. And that is exactly what we find, and indeed, that is exactly where our science is driving us. The number one unsolved mystery in science today, or one might say the search for the ultimate truth in science today, is the quest to solve the mystery of the “Theory of Everything”. The search for the “Theory of Everything” today takes the form of theoretical physicists trying to mathematically unify gravity, as it is described by General Relativity, with quantum mechanics into a single overarching mathematical framework that, "in principle" (via wikipedia), would be capable of describing all phenomena in the universe. This quest to find a purely mathematical 'theory of everything' has, for several decades now, met with nothing but resounding failure. For prime example, String Theory, (the leading candidate for that hypothetical mathematical theory of everything), for all practical purposes, and via falsification of supersymmetric particles, is now considered, for all intents and purposes, to be dead as far as being a serious candidate for that hypothetical mathematical ‘Theory of Everything’ that theoretical physicists were hoping to find. As the following 2021 article points out, ‘After years of searching and loads of accumulated data from countless collisions, there is no sign of any supersymmetric particle. In fact, many supersymmetry models are now completely ruled out, and very few theoretical ideas remain valid.’ And the article even goes on to state that “Where will physics go from here, in a universe without supersymmetry? Only time (and a lot of math) will tell.”
Where are all the squarks and gluinos? The future of supersymmetry is in serious doubt. - Jan 2021 Excerpt: The ATLAS collaboration, made up of hundreds of scientists from around the world, have released their latest findings in their search for supersymmetry in a paper appearing in the preprint journal arXiv. And their results? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. After years of searching and loads of accumulated data from countless collisions, there is no sign of any supersymmetric particle. In fact, many supersymmetry models are now completely ruled out, and very few theoretical ideas remain valid. While supersymmetry has enjoyed widespread support from theorists for decades (who often portrayed it as the obvious next step in advancing our understanding of the universe), the theory has been on thin ice ever since the LHC turned on. But despite those initial doubtful results, theorists had hoped that some model of tuning of the theory would produce a positive result inside the collider experiment. While not every possible model of supersymmetry has been ruled out, the future of the theory is in serious doubt. And since physicists have invested so much time and energy into supersymmetry for years, there aren't a lot of compelling alternatives. Where will physics go from here, in a universe without supersymmetry? Only time (and a lot of math) will tell. https://www.livescience.com/no-signs-supersymmetry-large-hadron-collider.html
Yet,, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the foundation for any mathematics that might describe this universe, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics then that provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Jesus Christ as the correct "Theory of Everything" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8--eE
To give us a small glimpse of the power that was involved in Christ's resurrection from the dead, the following article found that, ”it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology.”
Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-study-claims-shroud-of-turin-is.html
Verses:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Of note: "Jesus claimed to not only give the truth, but to be the very personal embodiment of it.”
“If you were to take Mohammed out of Islam, and Buddha out of Buddhism, and Confucius out of Confucianism you would still have a faith system that was relatively in tact. However, taking Christ out of Christianity sinks the whole faith completely. This is because Jesus centred the faith on himself. He said, “This is what it means to have eternal life: to know God the Father and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent” (John 17:3). “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Buddha, before dying, said in effect, “I am still seeking for the truth.” Mohammed said in effect, “I point you to the truth.” Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Jesus claimed to not only give the truth, but to be the very personal embodiment of it.” http://commonground.co.za/?resources=is-jesus-the-only-way-to-god
bornagain77

My wife and I were in the car coming back from New Jersey and listening to an audiobook when the term “beef” was used to describe an argument. We wondered if young people would understand the connotation. But as for where’s the beef, it definitely with Steak-umm. It’s 100% beef. jerry

Interesting point from Aaron. Both professions have gone sour because of tenure. Politicians don't call it tenure, but incumbency creates a nearly unbreakable loop of blackmail and gang-style Connections. All politicians serve for life unless a competitor pulls a dossier and creates a "scandal". polistra

Starting to feel scientists and politicians should have term limits more and more AaronS1978

Science, when properly done, seeks the best explanation for our observations. Nothing more. Joe Schooner

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