Scientism is to science what egotism is to ego

Would getting an admin to reply to a question be a bit like spooky action at a distance? Is it just a theory? phoodoo

BA77, No problemmo CentralScrutinizer

CentralScrutinizer, sorry. I'm so use to atheists trying to defend a materialistic interpretation of QM that I guess I did not nuance it out and reacted in a rather knee jerk reaction fashion. Apologies again. bornagain77

BA77: That quantum mechanics applies to the large, ‘macro’, scale of the universe was established here:

Of course QM is involved in at the macro classical level. But you're missing my point: that video is misleading for the reason I explained. CentralScrutinizer

supplemental note from the QED perspective: Bohemian Gravity - Rob Sheldon - September 19, 2013 Excerpt: Quanta magazine carried an article about a hypergeometric object that is as much better than Feynman diagrams as Feynman was better than Heisenberg's S-matrices. But the discoverers are candid about it, "The amplituhedron, or a similar geometric object, could help by removing two deeply rooted principles of physics: locality and unitarity. “Both are hard-wired in the usual way we think about things,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and the lead author of the new work, which he is presenting in talks and in a forthcoming paper. “Both are suspect.”" What are these suspect principles? None other than two of the founding principles of materialism--that there do not exist "spooky-action-at-a-distance" forces, and that material causes are the only ones in the universe.,,, http://rbsp.info/PROCRUSTES/bohemian-gravity/ as well: LIVING IN A QUANTUM WORLD - Vlatko Vedral - 2011 Excerpt: Thus, the fact that quantum mechanics applies on all scales forces us to confront the theory’s deepest mysteries. We cannot simply write them off as mere details that matter only on the very smallest scales. For instance, space and time are two of the most fundamental classical concepts, but according to quantum mechanics they are secondary. The entanglements are primary. They interconnect quantum systems without reference to space and time. If there were a dividing line between the quantum and the classical worlds, we could use the space and time of the classical world to provide a framework for describing quantum processes. But without such a dividing line—and, indeed, with­out a truly classical world—we lose this framework. We must ex­plain space and time (4D space-time) as somehow emerging from fundamental­ly spaceless and timeless physics. http://phy.ntnu.edu.tw/~chchang/Notes10b/0611038.pdf Quantum theory survives latest challenge - Dec 15, 2010 Excerpt: Even assuming that entangled photons could respond to one another instantly, the correlations between polarization states still violated Leggett’s inequality. The conclusion being that instantaneous communication is not enough to explain entanglement and realism must also be abandoned. This conclusion is now backed up by Sonja Franke-Arnold and collegues at the University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde who have performed another experiment showing that entangled photons exhibit,, stronger correlations than allowed for particles with individually defined properties – even if they would be allowed to communicate constantly. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/dec/15/quantum-theory-survives-latest-challenge What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will bornagain77

i.e. The wave function does not collapse until a conscious observer makes a measurement! To establish that point was the whole point of Leggett's Inequality! bornagain77

That quantum mechanics applies to the large, 'macro', scale of the universe was established here: Macrorealism Emerging from Quantum Physics - Brukner, Caslav; Kofler, Johannes American Physical Society, APS March Meeting, - March 5-9, 2007 Excerpt: for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems.,, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007APS..MARB33005B bornagain77

^^^^^ change = chance CentralScrutinizer

Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video

That video gives the misleading impression that the basketball has the same probability of being "here" as it does being "there", which is false. Superposition deals with individual quantum objects and events. The location of particular object or event being "here" or "there" is predicted by a probability curve. For example, if an electron is "here" at one moment, it has a 99.999999999999999% change of being "there" the next moment. The aggregation of all the probabilities of all the atoms in a basketball make it 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% certain that the basketball will be "here" rather than "there." CentralScrutinizer

OT: More blatant misdirection by Darwinists in Texas' new Textbooks: Can Life's Building Blocks Form "Naturally in Our Solar System"? - Casey Luskin January 29, 2014 Excerpt: True, a handful of meteorites have been found to contain organic material, including occasional amino acids, but is there evidence that the building blocks necessary for life could have been formed and delivered to the earth this way in sufficient quantities? As one paper in Nature has noted, "organic matter cannot survive the extremely high temperatures (>104 K) reached on impact,,, Read more here: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/01/can_lifes_build081641.html#sthash.ubEAAlzR.dpuf bornagain77

What is interesting about people who believe that ‘Science’ has all the answers to all the important questions of life is that it is those people who are the most dogmatic in denying the conclusions of science when it contradicts/falsifies their base materialistic/atheistic philosophy.

I totally agree. I saw a good illustration of this just yesterday when I read an article about dinosaur DNA, red blood cells, and soft tissue on creation dot com entitled "Dinosaur Soft Tissue". It is well known that a number of years ago, Dr. Mary Schweitzer found soft tissue in what she claims is a dinosaur bone that is over 70 million years old! Unbelievable, right? That's what most scientists thought back then. Most ridiculed her and insisted she made a mistake. I mean, they absolutely "knew" that she had to be wrong! (This is an instance where their worldview blinded them to the facts.) Historical science that deals with the unobservable, unrepeatable, untestable past is not the "be all and end all" of truth like many people think! Because they "knew" she had to be wrong, many refused to believe her no matter what evidence she presented. But since then many more such discoveries have been made. Her discovery has been verified time and time again to their surprise and embarrassment!

A quote from the article: "For any scientist to have said prior to the Schweitzer discoveries that they would have expected blood vessels, delicate cell structures, DNA and proteins after 70 million years from such an experiment would have been inviting derision at best, psychiatric scrutiny at worst. There are very good scientific reasons behind Schweitzer’s earlier (2010) comment on videotape:

“When you think about it, the laws of chemistry and biology and everything else that we know say that it should be gone, it should be degraded completely.”

So there you have it. Everything we know about the laws of chemistry and biology etc. - everything - says it is impossible for red blood cells, DNA, and soft tissue to last millions of years. But is that enough to make them question the age of these bones? No way! If they did that, they would also have to admit that the rocks the bones are buried in are young as well. If you thought scientists were objective, or if you thought they follow the evidence wherever it leads, this shows that is not always the case. This idea of young rocks or young dinosaurs is anathema to evolutionists no matter how strong the scientific evidence against it is. They must have millions of years to work with. Without millions of years, evolution is dead in the water! So instead of sticking to the known laws of science - laws they can see, test, and verify, - they go against the findings of science, preferring to believe in something that is untestable and seemingly scientifically impossible. Does that show a bias or what?! This shows the strength of their paradigm. It forces and enables them to believe in many impossible things to save their faith in millions of years of evolution! tjguy

What is interesting about people who believe that 'Science' has all the answers to all the important questions of life is that it is those people who are the most dogmatic in denying the conclusions of science when it contradicts/falsifies their base materialistic/atheistic philosophy.

Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM&feature=c4-overview&list=UU5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g

And although both General Relativity and QED (Quantum Electro-Dynamics) are tested to extreme levels of accuracy (14 or 15 orders of magnitude of accuracy)

The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science – May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/

,,, And although that level of accuracy is certainly very impressive, the level to which Quantum Mechanics proper, stripped of its QED special relativity interface, has falsified materialism as a coherent explanation for reality, blows even that 14 or 15 places of accuracy completely out of the water:

Quantum Entanglement – The Failure Of Local Realism - Materialism - Alain Aspect - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4744145 Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt:,,,That combination, the researchers write, was "crucial for achieving a sufficiently high collection efficiency," resulting in a high-accuracy data set – requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html

The following articles give us a small glimpse as to what it truly means for entanglement to be confirmed to an order of '70 standard deviations':

Standard deviation Excerpt: Particle physics uses a standard of "5 sigma" for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result. per wikipedia SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? - June 23, 2013 Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case… https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/ssdd-a-22-sigma-event-is-consistent-with-the-physics-of-fair-coins/

Thus having non-locality undermine a materialistic/naturalistic conception of nature by 70 standard deviations cannot even be realistically imagined by us. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics has not left us in a void as to providing a coherent explanation for the basis of reality, with its removal of a materialistic understanding of nature as a true conception of nature, but has, with just as much if not more certainty as the 70 standard deviations, given us clear evidence that consciousness, not materialism/naturalism, forms the true basis of reality:

Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU

If you have trouble accepting the implications of the preceding video, don’t feel alone, Nobel prize winner Anthony Leggett, who developed Leggett’s inequality to try to prove that an objective material reality exists when we are not looking at it, still does not believe the results of the experiment that he himself was integral in devising, even though the inequality was violated by a stunning 80 orders of magnitude. He seems to have done this simply because the results contradicted the ‘realism’ he believes in (realism is the notion that an objective material reality exists apart from our conscious observation of it).

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? - 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/ Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality, verified to 80 orders of magnitude) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html

When I have pointed this out to people in the past, I've received some fairly stubborn push-back from atheists/materialists. This is completely ironic since it is they who are supposedly the people who believe most strongly that 'Science', i.e. "Scientism', has all the answers for all the really important questions in life. Verse and Music;

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Sarah McLachlan - Answer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8B1ai25lUo

bornagain77

What is interesting about people who believe that 'Science' has all the answers to all the important questions of life is that it is those people who are the most dogmatic in denying the conclusions of science when it contradicts/falsifies their base materialistic/atheistic philosophy.

Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM&feature=c4-overview&list=UU5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g

And although both General Relativity and QED (Quantum Electro-Dynamics) are tested to extreme levels of accuracy (14 or 15 orders of magnitude of accuracy)

The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science – May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/

,,, And although that level of accuracy is certainly very impressive, the level to which Quantum Mechanics proper, stripped of its QED special relativity interface, has falsified materialism as a coherent explanation for reality, blows even that 14 or 15 places of accuracy completely out of the water:

Quantum Entanglement – The Failure Of Local Realism - Materialism - Alain Aspect - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4744145 Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt:,,,That combination, the researchers write, was "crucial for achieving a sufficiently high collection efficiency," resulting in a high-accuracy data set – requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html

The following articles give us a small glimpse as to what it truly means for entanglement to be confirmed to an order of '70 standard deviations':

Standard deviation Excerpt: Particle physics uses a standard of "5 sigma" for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Particle_physics SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? - June 23, 2013 Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case… https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/ssdd-a-22-sigma-event-is-consistent-with-the-physics-of-fair-coins/

Thus having non-locality undermine a materialistic/naturalistic conception of nature by 70 standard deviations cannot even be realistically imagined by us. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics has not left us in a void as to providing a coherent explanation for the basis of reality, with its removal of a materialistic understanding of nature as a true conception of nature, but has, with just as much if not more certainty as the 70 standard deviations, given us clear evidence that consciousness, not materialism/naturalism, forms the true basis of reality:

Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU

If you have trouble accepting the implications of the preceding video, don’t feel alone, Nobel prize winner Anthony Leggett, who developed Leggett’s inequality to try to prove that an objective material reality exists when we are not looking at it, still does not believe the results of the experiment that he himself was integral in devising, even though the inequality was violated by a stunning 80 orders of magnitude. He seems to have done this simply because the results contradicted the ‘realism’ he believes in (realism is the notion that an objective material reality exists apart from our conscious observation of it).

A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? - 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/ Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality, verified to 80 orders of magnitude) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html

When I have pointed this out to people in the past, I've received some fairly stubborn push-back from atheists/materialists. This is completely ironic since it is they who are supposedly the people who believe most strongly that 'Science', i.e. "Scientism', has all the answers for all the really important questions in life. Verse and Music;

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Sarah McLachlan - Answer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8B1ai25lUo

bornagain77

My conception of scientism is almost the same as that of those who use it as a term of abuse. They use the term to name the exaggerated and unwarranted confidence that science and its methods can answer all meaningful questions. I agree with that definition except for the "exaggerated" and "unwarranted" part.

Ah, I really love people like Rosenberg, Pinker and Dawkins. They say the wrong things with such conviction and clarity! :) gpuccio

phoodoo: As far as I know, the general members of this blog have not the privileges to start a new topic. The privileges are given to individual persons, by the administrator (or administrators), according to his/their judgment, as it should be. gpuccio

Sometimes its hard getting a response here, so I want to repost this, is there a way to start a thread here? " In fact Joe, I would like to start a campaign to make the University of Chicago explain why they allow a con-man to represent their university publicly. I mean if he is allowed to go around giving talks, as a member of their faculty, and not only insult other academics, and call into question their integrity, on top of that he operates a blog which is essentially one big lie. In the youtube video I watched recently, he says he gives the finger to all creationists, and then presents about ten completely fabricated facts about evolution. At what point does the University of Chicago have an obligation to see that their professors are displaying a level of truth and integrity in public. I am quite sure the University of Chicago receives plenty of government funds. I would like to start a topic on this site to discuss this, but I don’t know how to start new topics." phoodoo

I would just add one thing. I have watched this Pinker (from Montreal) talks of brains. He teaches Jews are intellectually superior to other men based on genes. So anything he says about humans evolving really is about certain humans evolving. Its not a endorsement of all men or Barack Obama.! He stresses brains evolving to justify his own peoples claims to being a supiour identity. One should always press this home as not only is it crazy but in the liberal culture it leads to being discredited. Monkey see monkey do. Pinkerisms on these other subjects should be secondary to his conclusions on identity/race and probably sex in regards to smarts. Although with his hair style he does seem to be aiming to look like Einstein. Robert Byers