Ari
(out of sheer interest, is that short for Arivinda or (H)ar(r)i(y)?)

Neither, but racial ambiguity is one of the reasons I use it.

The Government nominates one of its own because the speaker has the casting vote in the event of a tie (and there have been many over the years) but in honour bound to do so so as to perpetuate the status quo, an interesting requirement for stability.

Just shunt the tiebreaker to the Prime Minister instead. While I certainly believe Speakers try to remain neutral, it’s pretty easy to have unconscious biases.

(An example - woman would dearly love to be equal in all ways to men, but their brains are demonstrably different, as is their physiology, so no matter how much they wish things were different, science has proven that they are not equal but different.)

Right, because as we all know, difference totally precludes equality of worth. *rolls eyes*

Scienctific theories are never prooven, hypothesis’ are extracted from theories and are then tested, their results provide support to or remove support from the theory. the results are then interprited and used to construct new better theories that better explain the obesrved phenomona.
True scientists attempt to disproove their theories rather than proove them.
The biggist problem with science is that it relies on the epistimology of positivism.
Science, Religion and Philosophy are all systems of explaining and interpriting the world around oneself, most are compatible.

turnip28 Says:
Of course your hypothesis is absurd, since the definition of a vacuum is the absence of matter, yet you claim matter exists in your vacuum which in logical terms is a contradiction making your hypothesis invalid.

Actually I didn’t use the word “matter”, I said “I suspect we will discover that the “vacuumâ€? is full of something acts as a transmissive medium for quanta, and equally capable of forming the building blocks of matter. An ‘energy grid’ if you will”.

Whatever it is sits on the boundary of energy and matter, capable of transmitting energy, and forming the building blocks of matter. Maybe we could call it “proto-matter”

In any case, in my view science is not just a set of knowledge that is constantly expanding over time, as you suggest, but some of that knowledge has to be discarded and refined. That is essentially my point.

Science does not have some perfect methodology for finding the truth. It can still be flawed and we shouldn’t get arrogant about putting blind faith in it.

The evidence we have supports our theories of gravity so any new understanding will just be a superset to our current knowledge if it proves it wrong as you claim then the experiments will need to produce different results.

Science is a set of knowledge constantly expanding over time, no one is saying that science is stuck and doesn’t change over time.

Of course your hypothesis is absurd, since the definition of a vacuum is the absence of matter, yet you claim matter exists in your vacuum which in logical terms is a contradiction making your hypothesis invalid.

Gravity is interesting in that every test for it as of now produces a predictable result. That doesn’t mean that advances in science cannot create a test that will not produce the same effect; that, however, is not the same as establishing that gravity can, somehow, be disrupted and so the test produce a different result.

As for your prediction, I hope so too, infact that was first postulated in about 1965 by Issac Asimov, who suggested that hydrogen was distributed in the ‘vacuum’ of space in sufficient density to act as an energy source.

Happy daze

Strings Says:
Please. Don’t give the impression of being a dimwit, when it is clear that you don’t need to be. Just accept the difference between proven theories/hypotheses/concepts/dreams, and unproven ones.

I think science is full of both proven and unproven ones.

Thalidomide was proven to be ok, then proven to be not so ok under some circumstances, and now proven to be ok once more (but only for those with leprosy). Sometimes science struggles to measure and describe the complexity of our universe.

And what about gravity?? Is our understanding about gravity scientific or not??

If you could just give me a quick rundown on where we are at with the Unified Field Theory I would be grateful.

I await the next Einstein with eagerness. No doubt such a person will push the boundaries of our scientific knowledge somewhat.

I think they may find evidence that our current scientifically accepted ideas about gravity etc are wrong.

In fact I will be so bold as to make a prediction: at some time in the future I suspect we will discover that space is not a vacuum after all. I suspect we will discover that the “vacuum” is full of something acts as a transmissive medium for quanta, and equally capable of forming the building blocks of matter. An ‘energy grid’ if you will.

But then I could be wrong.

What is so difficult about accepting that science changes over time?

So you require people that believe in God to submit to the established world view of scientists, and the rusultant system of reasoning before debate can begin, but scientists don’t even have to even begin to understand, say a christian world view.
The christian world view is a total package, start to finish, if the total world view and the resultant logic cannot be presented, how can my faith be ruled illogical?