So they now say Pluto is not a planet!

know1

Mookie Baylock wrote:

You are using flawed logic here my friend. Science says that we cannot prove anything, only make predictions based on observations. This is a strength of science, a decision made by some very realistic people who said that "we can never understand everything so we will call nothing an absolute truth so that we can always continue to learn more and add to our knowledge". The fact that scientist never calls something true does not mean that things they see aren't true, it means that there is always more to learn so we will never say that we know everything about anything...because there is always more to discover.

You are arguing that because scientists don't claim things to be absolutely true, than we should throw science out the window because it is faulty. This is an incorrect interpretation of science.

You first paragraph is exactly what I'm saying - that science doesn't prove anything, but offers explanations based upon observation.

In the second paragraph, you're missing the point completely. I'm not dismissing, dissing, or throwing out science. I'm trying to point out that to believe in it requires a faith because there is no "proof". Much like people say that they do not believe in God because there is no proof, but then they are willing to believe in science.

Mookie Baylock

know1 wrote:

You first paragraph is exactly what I'm saying - that science doesn't prove anything, but offers explanations based upon observation.

In the second paragraph, you're missing the point completely. I'm not dismissing, dissing, or throwing out science. I'm trying to point out that to believe in it requires a faith because there is no "proof". Much like people say that they do not believe in God because there is no proof, but then they are willing to believe in science.

No, you are missing the point. What we have, for all intents and purposes, is proof. We don't specifically call it proof because we want to avoid mistakes brought on by arrogance.

To compare a lack of proof of God, and a lack of proof in science are too different very things. There is nary a shred of evidence for God, there is lots of evidence for all scientifically accepted knowledge.

You are arguing the connotations and meanings of the word "Proof". Not the actual knowledge it represents.

sourdough

know1 wrote:

A thousand years ago I could have been surrounded by the fruits of science as well....but they were vastly different fruits then they are today. That is why it is fallible.

I'm not denying that science does wonderful things and many have benefitted from it tremendously. I'm just pointing out that a faith in science is very much akin to a faith in God.

The difference is that science is that although science is based on observation, it is based on repeated and manipulated experimentation and using objective numbers and data whereas religion cannot be tested nor is it repeated, or manipulated by preachers (in the same way as scientists manipulate experiments). There is a clear distinction in the practice of science vs religion. I don't know of many religious labs and I think you would agree that theological schooling has a much different outlay than a scientific university.

baraka

OutOfBreath wrote:

A general scientific debate, ok. But the issue setting it off isn't that controversial in pure scientific terms. Planet is an old and imprecise term for large objects orbiting the sun. Pluto have just been downgraded from planet to "dwarf planet", or in other words, it is downgraded from "large" to "big". Nothing else has changed other than our description of it that has been further refined.

The difference bewteen a planet and dwarf planet, is that the dwarfs have noe cleared their trajectory of other objects, but are in the midst of the asteroids or Kuiper belts among other non-planetary rocks.

It is actually a good example of good science. Further evidence has led to a more precise definition of what a planet is. It is not like all our knowledge of Pluto now must be scrapped. It is still where it used to be, it is of same mass, shape, speed and trajectory. That's the thing about scientific theories. Even if they are "scrapped" so to speak, they are rarely scrapped altogether. IF you consider Newton's laws, which was considered the complete formulas of the heavens before Einstein and quantum mechanics. Quantum physics showed that it was incorrect to treat those laws as complete, and opened up an entire new field of research and science. However, Newton's laws are still very much applicable and true in any practical sense, they dont become incorrect until you move down on an atomic level. So Newton's laws arent wrong, they are just imprecise.

As for absolute knowledge etc, ffg. One must be able to make a declarative statement about absolutes, without it being an absolute in itself. I agree with abook on the lack of absolutes in my experience and knowledge. However, I can satisfy you with "Nothing is absolute except the fact that nothing is absolute", and I will have covered it. Or perhaps "There are no absolutes that we can perceive".

In any case, the point is that also in science, few things are absolutely certain this-will-never-change facts. But science is a methodical enquiry into it based on past experiences, and systematically presented. That's a bit above "faith" in my book. But certainly, some people treat science as a religion in itself. That does not invalidate the science as science.

Peace
Dan

Excellent post, Dan! Your Neutonian analogy was right on point. The thing about science is that we are always learning & discovering. New theories replace or expound on old theories as we learn more about our world.

As for you last paragraph, you are correct. Scientists employ inductive reasoning when they frame hypothesis based on a limited number of observations and experiments, ie, the law of physics.

miller8966

When i was in grade school and highschool i was always told that their were 9 planets in our solar system, now suddenly that has changed. Many use the logic of science to argue that their is no god or that evolution is the correct way of thinking, but again it could be completely wrong.

know1

sourdough wrote:

The difference is that science is that although science is based on observation, it is based on repeated and manipulated experimentation and using objective numbers and data whereas religion cannot be tested nor is it repeated, or manipulated by preachers (in the same way as scientists manipulate experiments). There is a clear distinction in the practice of science vs religion. I don't know of many religious labs and I think you would agree that theological schooling has a much different outlay than a scientific university.

I agree the practice of both is different, but I think the faith behind them are not so dissimilar.

Mookie Baylock

miller8966 wrote:

When i was in grade school and highschool i was always told that their were 9 planets in our solar system, now suddenly that has changed. Many use the logic of science to argue that their is no god or that evolution is the correct way of thinking, but again it could be completely wrong.

Wrong! Pluto is still there, it still exists. Its existence, behavior, and all other scientific information about it is the same. What has changed is merely how it is classified. A group of scientists reached a concensus that it makes more sense to reclassify Pluto as a Minor Planet or whatever the term they chose was because the traits that it exhibited differ from the other 8 planets and it more resembles smaller asteroid like bodies.

What you are suggesting is that Pluto's properties have changed, or that all the old observations were wrong or faulty. This is not true. Scientists have always known that Pluto did not behave like the other planets. Its orbit is quite different, it is much smaller, its moon is almost the same size as it is. As a result of new observations of similar bodies in the solar system, in terms of classification, they would have had to add a bunch of new planets to our solar system, or create a new class of planet, which they did. It turns out Pluto better fits in this class, so there it was put.

It makes me laugh that 90% of the people who critique science are really critiquing the language and terminology of how the information is presented, not the information itself (things like the words "theory", "proof", etc.)

So in response to your post, Pluto has not "changed", it is the same celestial body it always was, the only thing that has changed is what we call it.

Mookie Baylock

Furthermore, what I'm getting at is that there is no right or wrong definition of planet. The word planet is something that we as humans created to classify a type of object; a framework to help us to understand the properties of those objects. We recently changed the definition of planet to be more precise. As a result, Pluto no longer fits the definition and had to be reclassified because it exhibits different properties than the others. This happens all the time in science, just not with such mainstream topics like planets so you usually don't hear about it.

To conclude, the word 'planet' is a creation; a tool we use to describe a certain type of celestial body. Removing Pluto from this class of object and placing it in a new class with similar bodies to it refines our understanding and allows us to better understand how objects like Pluto behave, their origins, and their composition, etc. by being able to effectively compare it to other similar objects, and not to traditional "planets". How can this be construed as a weakness of science???

WMA

Mookie Baylock wrote:

[...]

How can this be conveyed as a weakness of science???

I agree.

It is like renaming a large pebble a 'mega-pebble'. "It used to be a pebble, but science had it wrong!"

Maybe they shouldn't have changed such a commonly used word.

Mookie Baylock

WMA wrote:

I agree.

It is like renaming a large pebble a 'mega-pebble'. "It used to be a pebble, but science had it wrong!"

Maybe they shouldn't have changed such a commonly used word.

Effectively, yes. But in this case science didn't have it wrong. It just didn't have enough information in the past to realize that there was a whole collection of specimens that were different from pebbles and should be subclassified as mega-pebbles.

Remember "pebble" is just an unbrella term (like planet) used to classify a whole list of different types of rocks of a certain size, shape or composition, etc. If it turns out that some of those rocks have different properties than maybe it makes sense to classify them with a new umbrella term, in this case "mega-pebble".

Some people seem to think that reclassification of an object somehow points out flaws in the scientific method. The two are actually completly unrelated.

WMA

Mookie Baylock wrote:

Effectively, yes. But in this case science didn't have it wrong. It just didn't have enough information in the past to realize that there was a whole collection of specimens that were different from pebbles and should be subclassified as mega-pebbles.

Remember "pebble" is just an unbrella term (like planet) used to classify a whole list of different types of rocks of a certain size, shape or composition, etc. If it turns out that some of those rocks have different properties than maybe it makes sense to classify them with a new umbrella term, in this case "mega-pebble".

Some people seem to think that reclassification of an object somehow points out flaws in the scientific method. The two are actually completly unrelated.

No doubt. With all the anti-science rhetoric lately, I just wish they left the word planet alone and made a new subcategory rather than changing such a common word though. Call it a minor non-atmospheric iceball or something similar to how gas giant is a subclassification of planet.

bigbadbill

Who here will still consisder Pluto a planet?

sunless

Cause this has a lot to do with Pearl Jam, and cause it will effect my life greatly whether or not Pluto is considered a planet or not . . .

red mos

I probably will. I had not heard of this. Why is Pluto no longer a planet? (Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just heard about this like yesterday on a myspace bulletin.

MrMerkinball

Pluto sucks. Hate that dumb ass planet

sweet adeline

just think of the poor people on pluto. now they will have to find another solar system that will accept them as a planet.

Mookie Baylock

WMA wrote:

No doubt. With all the anti-science rhetoric lately, I just wish they left the word planet alone and made a new subcategory rather than changing such a common word though. Call it a minor non-atmospheric iceball or something similar to how gas giant is a subclassification of planet.

That would make sense, but the problem is that it turns out there are probably hundreds or even thousands of Pluto-like objects in the solar system. If we classify them as a new kind of planet (to go along with Terrestrial and Jovian) we could end up with a solar system with hundreds or thousands of planets in it, most of which are entirely differnent from the 8 major ones.

inmyrvm

pluto, i hardly knew ye

sourdough

know1 wrote:

I agree the practice of both is different, but I think the faith behind them are not so dissimilar.

But don't you think that because of the stringent practices and experimentation associated with science give it more legitamacy than religion which is not and cannot be tested? To me it is the ability to practice science which makes it real to me whereas we are unable to test religion (nor are we supposed to). If I want to discuss or teach a scientific principle, I can likely refer to hundreds of scientists who have studied it, research papers that are peer reviewed, I may be able to replicate the study or modify it and retest it to see for myself, but for religion, you cannot do any of this. This makes it much easier for me to put more trust into science than religion which only has one source of evidence.

Eraserhead

Its a dog to me!