The "What if...?" - hypothetical scenario

[Native]

None of those are dogma: "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true." Dogma is indoctrinated, not taught, and if believed, is believed by faith. Science is taught, and being empirical, is the opposite of faith and requires none.

Sorry! I earlier confused you for another debater.

Weel you Just take the about 350 year old Newtonian idea of gravity which nobody can explain by what dynamic means it should work.

For about 13-14 generations, this idea has become a pure DOGMA, taught in Universities as "an universal law of celestial motion" - which already was rejected on the galactic scales for about 90 years ago by the discovery of the galactic rotation curve.

And this dogma is STILL goin on today quite unquestioned.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Cosmological science has lots of beliefs which NEVER will be confirmed, starting with Newton´s gravitational force which nobody can explain by what dynamic means it should work

Gravity is confirmed. It is a real force with well defined qualities which effect can be predicted well enough for space probes to reliably reach their intended targets. If you don't understand the science of gravity, you can always fix that. The job of science is to study and describe phenomena like gravity, which it does with precision, not to answer metaphysical questions. The scientific and empiricist community are well satisfied with its stunning success.

"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." -Dan Barker

I didn´t expect any other answer from you

And you won't get other kinds of answers from me. Nor will I get other kinds of answers from you like that one. You didn't to attempt to rebut that answer, which was a good idea, since it is correct, and you can't rebut a correct idea. Religion is dogma imparted by indoctrination, that is, ideas are repeated without demonstration until believed, chastising those who don't believe as heretics. No correct idea can be gleaned in that manner. Science, by contrast is knowledge extracted from reality by studying it that is taught, not indoctrinated (see Barker quote above). Nobody cares if one believe it or not. It's fine that theists rail against the parts that contradict their beliefs, but irrelevant outside of their circles, just like the creationists' objection to evolution.

What if everything you believe is wrong?

That's impossible for the critical thinker and empiricist, since ideas must be demonstrated to be correct before being believed to be correct - ideas like evolution and astronomy. It's simply not possible to send men to the moon and back if everything believed about how to do that is wrong.

The most direct path to false beliefs is faith. Only faith allows one to hold false beliefs, beliefs never screened for truth value, never demonstrated to be correct, and never useful - like creationism and astrology. Neither of those ideas can be used for anything.

You only ask the question because you believe you understand science and science has an answer to everything.

That's a comment we only see coming from believers with unscientific beliefs that they dislike being rejected by empiricists. Empiricists simply never say or believe that science can answer every question. What they do believe, however, is that if science can't answer it, it can't be answered, answers being demonstrable knowledge and not faith-based beliefs with no evidentiary support.

You are far too quick to discount other peoples' knowledge and beliefs.

If you have knowledge, you can demonstrate that, and the evidence you demonstrate will lead to belief in the empiricist. What is dismissed are the claims that can't be demonstrated, such as the existence of gods, an afterlife, and the like. Why? That's how critical thinking works. It weeds out the false claims.

"Skeptic" once meant "non-believer" but it has come to mean "one who accepts propaganda and dogma without question".

A skeptic is one who questions and tests claims before believing them. However the church community cares to define that is their business, but what you describe is the opposite of skepticism and critical thought. That's faith.

 

[cladking]

A) It is not a question of belief, it is matter of understanding the evidence that science are built upon.

You continually make this exact same mistake no matter how many times it is pointed out. Science isn't based on evidence, it is based on experiment. It CAN NOT be and no science can be based on evidence because each observer picks and chooses what is evidence. "Science" would become unique to each individual or beholden to Committees of Peers who define evidence and reality. Science would be up for grabs or in the control of those who hold the purse strings. Fortunately we're not there yet and most scientists can still tell the difference between "experiment" and "evidence". I have much less confidence in those controlling funding. I suspect many think like you do.

Science can truly be said to be built more on philosophy than on evidence. This is because definitions and axioms are all more closely related to philosophy than experiment or evidence and the scientific method itself is philosophy which derived from ideas (philosophy) to exclude opinion from the study of reality.

The irony here is that I keep trying to show the evidence that led to my hypotheses but you can't see any of this evidence. If you could follow the evidence you could understand my hypotheses/ theory but you discounted all my evidence in the past or are blind to it now for other reasons. "Evidence" arises chiefly after the fact of theory. Once we believe something we see the proof of it everywhere we look. It makes us feel good to understand something and we get continual reinforcement. How do you thing it is that many people believe Assange should be tormented and killed and many others believe he is a hero? Your position on such things shows how you think as surely as every word you choose to communicate shows how you think. Even how you parse my sentences can provide evidence how you think if I can properly understand your response.

Now you'll go back to making the exact same errors. Your models of how science works are laughably simplistic and wrong but they are hard to change because beliefs are all interwoven. Pull a sting here and something comes undone. Tie a knot there and the model becomes inert. You'll extrapolate and interpolate everything you know to fill in the holes of what can be seen. We each see and live our models so we each know and understand everything we see. Homo omnisciencis. War and conflict are the necessary result. But it's only necessary so long as we can't tell the difference between what we know and what we believe.

B) I have never claimed that science has "answers" for everything.

Sure. We understand all the formatting for reality and now it's just a little mopping up left. You see or can extrapolate/ interpolate answers so it's all good. Never mind we know nothing more about the cause of gravity than the pyramid builders but we don't see what we don't believe anyway. The important thing is that we know where all the little gaps in our knowledge lie and we can peek in and see there is no God in any of them, right? The important thing is that we can live our lives in terms of a few definitions and axioms with the experiments that arise from them and earlier experiment. There's no longer a need to live in ignorance and superstition. It is far better kowtowing to Peers and Priests than an individual Pope. All the Pope could do was murder you but the Peers now have "Science" on their side and can eliminate all the non-believers and all those less fit to survive with weapons of mass destruction.

Following leaders has always been dangerous and this has never been more true than today when leaders believe there are too many people and too many non-believers. Everybody should be thinking for himself.

 

[cladking]

Gravity is confirmed. It is a real force with well defined qualities which effect can be predicted well enough for space probes to reliably reach their intended targets.

Great. What causes it?

 

[Native]

Gravity is confirmed. It is a real force with well defined qualities which effect can be predicted well enough for space probes to reliably reach their intended targets.

Logically you can´t confirm a force if you´re unable to explain by what dynamic means it should work.
You don´t need to use "gravity" to launch and navigate spacecrafts. Just take its weight and the needed force to pass through the Earth´s atmosphere and further out in space.

The scientific and empiricist community are well satisfied with its stunning success.

It failed in the galactic scales.

Native said: ↑
I didn´t expect any other answer from you.

I later corrected myself in this matter for confusing you for another person..

And you won't get other kinds of answers from me. Nor will I get other kinds of answers from you like that one. You didn't to attempt to rebut that answer, which was a good idea, since it is correct, and you can't rebut a correct idea.

Well as long as an idea isn´t fully scientifically explained like what gravity consist of I certainly can do that and I do too.

Nobody cares if one believe it or not.

Weel in cosmological science, non believers and critical thinkers are called all kinds of downgrading names by the dogmatic believers, so they really care.

 

[cladking]

What they do believe, however, is that if science can't answer it, it can't be answered, answers being demonstrable knowledge and not faith-based beliefs with no evidentiary support.

Then you believe science will never progress?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's astounding! Of course science will even study consciousness some day and when we start getting results we'll have a better understanding of why scientists believe what they do.

 

[cladking]

Only faith allows one to hold false beliefs, beliefs never screened for truth value, never demonstrated to be correct, and never useful -

My God, that's scary.

That's a comment we only see coming from believers with unscientific beliefs that they dislike being rejected by empiricists.

"Empiricists" is a fancy word to refer to believers in evidence. It is a philosophy. Those who believe in evidence have a very dangerous faith. Reality shows up only in "experiment".

If you have knowledge, you can demonstrate that, and the evidence you demonstrate will lead to belief in the empiricist

No, it will not. Empiricists can see only what they believe and will either discount or be blind to evidence to the contrary.

That's how critical thinking works. It weeds out the false claims.

Individuals have always proven themselves to be very poor at weeding out false ideas. Do you think there was only a single nazi at each concentration camp and most Germans didn't know exactly what was going on?

Of course now days science has God on their side. Better yet they don't have to answer to anyone except those who pay for the science.

However the church community cares to define that is their business, but what you describe is the opposite of skepticism and critical thought.

You are very sadly mistaken. You can poll Egyptologists and find 100% believe the pyramids were tombs but if you poll any other group you'll get lower rates. ...Just like every doctor in the 1850's believed washing their hands before an operation was a waste of time.

You can also get 100% agreement in the Big Bang and many other beliefs. I'm highly skeptical when everyone agrees. Modern "skeptics" all jump on the bandwagon. The word has changed its meaning in the last half century as surely as "inflammable" once meant explosive and now means it doesn't even burn. It's a crazy world and skeptics all have the comfort of not only being an exclusive club but also being right. Of course skeptics will fly just as high as non-believers when someone strikes a match to see how much is left in the barrel of inflammable liquid.

 

[Native]

Of course science will even study consciousness some day and when we start getting results we'll have a better understanding of why scientists believe what they do.

The modern cosmological science has skipped the baby together with the bathing waters when ignoring ancient empirical and spiritual knowledge as revealed in the numerous ancient Stories of Creation and summed up in the scientific studies of Comparative Religion and Comparative Mythology.
Just the fact that our ancestors had everything to be eternally changing and cyclical of nature, could have solved lots of modern wild intellectual speculations of everything cosmologically.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Logically you can´t confirm a force if you´re unable to explain by what dynamic means it should work.

I don't know what confirming a force means, but we can and do use knowledge of gravity successfully without being able to explain why it exists.

You don´t need to use "gravity" to launch and navigate spacecrafts. Just take its weight

Weight is a measurement of the force of gravity. Absent gravity, we are weightless.

Science isn't based on evidence, it is based on experiment.

Science is based in the application of reason to evidence to generate useful inductions about the physical world. It's not much of an experiment if nobody looks at the results, those results being evidence, the data used to generate those inductions (correct general rules that accurately predict outcomes).

Science can truly be said to be built more on philosophy than on evidence.

The philosophy is confirmed to be correct by the results of employing it. I think a lot of critics of science miss this, and consider confidence in science unjustified. The philosophical underpinnings of science - skepticism, empiricism, reason, falsifiability - are what turned creationism into evolution, blood letting into modern medicine, astrology into astronomy, and alchemy into chemistry. None of the former are useful for anything, whereas all of the latter have been successfully employed improving the human condition.

What causes it [gravity]?

Nobody knows. Nor need they know. They just need to know what it does. They need to predict how matter will behave when subject to gravity. My dog watches the floor for food when I'm preparing it at the counter. I think he has an implicit understanding of how gravity works without knowing its metaphysical foundations.

Then you believe science will never progress?

No. I expect it to progress.

Those who believe in evidence have a very dangerous faith. Reality shows up only in "experiment".

Works for me. Of course, by experiment, I mean all experience. Trying a new restaurant is an experiment. The data is the evidence accumulated during the experience. Was it far? Was parking adequate? Was the ambiance good? Service? Food? Prices? And from this experiment and the evidence generated, we can come to a first approximation of what to expect with a future visit there and make decisions that hopefully will lead to desired outcomes - a good dining experience in this case. Is that what you mean by a dangerous faith or reality only showing up in experiment? If so, no to the former and yes to the latter. No faith is involved with empiricism, and reality is only discovered empirically.

Empiricists can see only what they believe and will either discount or be blind to evidence to the contrary.

You're describing a faith-based confirmation bias, where somebody chooses a belief before they review the evidence, and then evaluate the evidence with the assumption that the faith-based belief is fact. This is the opposite of the empiricist's approach. He begins with evidence and arrives at sound conclusions by applying valid reason to them. You can see why one admits false beliefs and the other only correct ones.

Have you ever seen skeptics and believers discussing biblical contradictions? It's a nice example of this. The skeptic looks at the Bible, sees contradictory passages (evidence), and correctly concludes that the Bible contains contradictions. The zealous believer has been told that his Bible contains no contradictions, and believes that by faith. So what happens when he looks at those contradictions? He sees none.

Faith based thinkers aren't shy about telling us that their minds are closed to contradictory evidence. Here are two prominent theologians telling us exactly that, that they will see only what they believe they will see:

[1] "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right." - William Lane Craig

[2] The moderator in the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on whether creationism is a viable scientific pursuit asked, “What would change your minds?” Scientist Bill Nye answered, “Evidence.” Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, “Nothing. I'm a Christian.” Elsewhere, Ham stated, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

These are the kinds of people you described, not empiricists.

Individuals have always proven themselves to be very poor at weeding out false ideas.

Not if one is a skilled critical thinker. The method reliably generates sound (demonstrably correct) conclusions about how a particular aspect of reality behaves. I think the worst idea I ever had was when I made a faith-based decision as a young Christian, but I corrected that. Abandoning faith was a good start to avoiding adding more wrong ideas. And once I realized that I wanted to hold no beliefs by faith, it was necessary to review what I believed and ask myself why I believed it. If there was not experience of some sort to justify the belief, it was discarded.

like every doctor in the 1850's believed washing their hands before an operation was a waste of time.

That's how science works. With new evidence comes new understanding. You seem to think that this is a flaw. It's not. It's a feature.

Modern "skeptics" all jump on the bandwagon.

I don't think you understand the difference between the academic mindset and the religious one. There is no bandwagon for the former. Nobody cares whether I am in agreement with consensus or not. I am, but nobody cares. Why am I in agreement, say with the theory of evolution? Because of the evidence for it, not because anybody wants me to believe it. Nobody has ever asked me if I believe any scientific fact.

 

[Bathos Logos]

What do you think?

I think "what if" questions can be extremely useful for thought exercises, which I usually use in order to expose the foolishness of a particular line of thinking or belief.

For example: "What if, in order to punish my son for getting an F in his pre-calculus class, I secretly slashed his car tires? What would you think of me as a father?", and this would be a "what if" question posed to someone who has just stated that something like hurricanes or earthquakes are "God's wrath" for some form of sin or another that some people of the affected area might have been known to engage in. It frames the situation up using very analogous circumstances. A punishment enacted for a perceived "sin" that in no way fits the crime, and a "father" who doesn't inform his son what he was disappointed with, but instead goes ahead with the punishment... and again, doesn't even let his son know it is a punishment, but leaves the son to figure out that, and all the reasons for it, on his own. My example will always follow reality, and contain elements of what could be real circumstances and reactions.

The "what ifs" you mentioned in your OP seem like blatant departures from reality. This is, of course, intended, but it makes the content of the "what if" no better than make-believe on top of a make-believe world. Rather than make-believe on top of a completely coherent, and known-to-be plausible world and situation.

 

[cladking]

The modern cosmological science has skipped the baby together with the bathing waters when ignoring ancient empirical and spiritual knowledge as revealed in the numerous ancient Stories of Creation and summed up in the scientific studies of Comparative Religion and Comparative Mythology.
Just the fact that our ancestors had everything to be eternally changing and cyclical of nature, could have solved lots of modern wild intellectual speculations of everything cosmologically.

Indeed!

And this is exactly what's wrong with basing ones beliefs on "evidence". Not only is one inclined to toss out any data that doesn't conform to expectations one searches high and wide for data that can be cherry picked to conform to the beliefs that EVERYBODY (every single homo omnisciencis) that arise from our premises. This is just the way it is. You will arrive at a conclusion that follows from your assumptions. If you assume ancient people were superstitious sun addled bumpkins who somehow gave birth to man in all his perfection then the words of ancient people are mere doggerel whether they are carved in stone or not. As doggerel the meaning is irrelevant.

19th century scientists were great, possibly the best the world has ever produced; they even started washing their hands before operations. But their work is not good as a basis for 20th century science because it didn't work. By the third millennia we are supposed to know better but most people assume philosophy is mere nonsense so even the philosophy upon which science exists is nonsense. That science changes one funeral at a time is mere nonsense without empirical evidence and experiment. That Peer review isn't even a part of metaphysics can't be true until every Peer signs off on it.

So we ignore most actual evidence because it doesn't fit with modern beliefs. We destroy the planet making garbage and enriching the few who own science and decide who gets funding and who isn't even a Peer. It's no matter that the pyramid builders said the pyramid isn't a tomb over and over while specifically stating that it is the king himself. This isn't evidence because the writers were confused and superstitious but the lack of any burials in any great pyramid is proof they were robbed of the burials!!!! Homo omnisciencis has a complete and total ability to believe anything and to hold contradictory beliefs. Despite the work of great thinkers like Kuhn most scientists are blind to how they build their own models. All homo omnisciencis are blind to most anomalies and the most faithful among them are afraid of anomalies. Anomalies by definition are faith shakers so it's better not to see them at all. Real scientists, good scientists, seek anomalies but many people including some scientists today are more technicians than scientists.

If you can't explain something to a sharp six year old you probably don't understand it.

 

[cladking]

Absent gravity, we are weightless.

Acceleration causes weight as well.

 

[Native]

I don't know what confirming a force means, but we can and do use knowledge of gravity successfully without being able to explain why it exists.

No apparently you don´t so. And as you don´t, all you have left of such gravitational thinking is assumptions and further add hoc assumptions which biasedly are taking as evidences.
Just like with Newtons belief of "universal laws of celestial motions" which failed in the galactic realms and yet another assumed unknown occult agency, "dark matter" was invented to patch Newtons failed initial occult gravity agency.

Initially the assumed gravity couldn´t be explained and it still can´t be universally trusted or explained, hence it cannot be scientifically confirmed.

cladking said: ↑
What causes it [gravity]?

Nobody knows. Nor need they know. They just need to know what it does.

Well they don´t knew what it did in galaxies.

My dog watches the floor for food when I'm preparing it at the counter. I think he has an implicit understanding of how gravity works without knowing its metaphysical foundations.

WHAT? "Your dog understanding gravity"!?
This is utterly ridiculous and far fetched. Normal dogs are heavily focusing on what's going on on the table and following the food right down to the floor.

 

[cladking]

Science is based in the application of reason to evidence to generate useful inductions about the physical world.

"Reason" doesn't exist.
"Evidence" is only good for making hypothesis.
"Induction" is based on taxonomies which have existential existence.
"The Physical World" can only be discovered through experiment because reason doesn't exist. No statement in any modern language can have a single meaning and so long as it can be parsed wrong it can not be logical.

Your understanding of metaphysics isn't so. It is mystical. Science is not mystical.

Nobody knows.

It would sure be handy to turn gravity higher or lower. It would sure be nice to know how all the forces are related.

It would be nice to know something.

You're describing a faith-based confirmation bias, where somebody chooses a belief before they review the evidence, and then evaluate the evidence with the assumption that the faith-based belief is fact.

I listed some of these assumptions and could list far more. Just because everyone believes there are "four dimensions" doesn't make it so or affect reality. We could redefine the world to make the point the first dimension and then we can imagine the universe emerging through it. We can define things as we choose and then apply experiment to that. Why is time so unlike the other four dimensions? As you travel along the X, Y or Z axes everything is unique or part of a function but along the time axis everything is the same ol' same ol' pretty much. 19th century science failed long ago and we shouldn't have to wear it like an albatross.

Scientist Bill Nye

There's an oxymoron.

Not if one is a skilled critical thinker. The method reliably generates sound (demonstrably correct) conclusions about how a particular aspect of reality behaves.

We are all a product of our time and place. Agreeing with Peers does not make one a "critical thinker". It doesn't preclude it either but that's not the subject here.

That's how science works. With new evidence comes new understanding. You seem to think that this is a flaw. It's not. It's a feature.

Yes! I agree.

But there is still no reason to assume a Peer is correct about anything. They are ONLY good for rendering professional opinion but they will rarely tell you if that opinion is derived from their assumptions or not so before consulting them one should at least be familiar with their premises or at least ask.

 

[cladking]

I don't think you understand the difference between the academic mindset and the religious one. There is no bandwagon for the former. Nobody cares whether I am in agreement with consensus or not. I am, but nobody cares. Why am I in agreement, say with the theory of evolution? Because of the evidence for it, not because anybody wants me to believe it. Nobody has ever asked me if I believe any scientific fact.

Darwin took stable populations as being axiomatic. Do you agree with this. He also took survival of the fittest as being axiomatic.

There is no difference in scientific and religious superstition. "Superstition" is believing things not in evidence. If science knows a tiny fraction of 1% and the average skeptic has an answer to everything then he is superstitious. The scary part is at least religion (being founded on ancient science) has morals and codes of behavior so the damage done by religious people is more likely to be contained on many parameters. There is nothing to contain those who know everything except the total destruction of everything.

 

[Native]

Anomalies by definition are faith shakers so it's better not to see them at all.

Indeed so. This was also why cosmological scientists invented "dark matter " when the Newtonian gravity failed in galaxies. Scientists were so indoctrinated to believe in their unknown gravity force that they chosed to invent yet another unknown force instead of revising the failed one as the true scientific method demands.

All assumptions and biased add hoc assumptions en masse.

 

[Native]

Weight is a measurement of the force of gravity. Absent gravity, we are weightless.

Nonsense. Weight is an assemble of atoms and molecules held together by the Strong Electromagnetic Force.

Absent gravity your factual weight is still the same.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

all you have left of such gravitational thinking is assumptions and further add hoc assumptions which biasedly are taking as evidences.

And yet I'm still being held to the earth. I'm quite content with my intuitive understanding of gravity, and impressed with science's mathematical understanding of it. I use gravity successfully every day, and I suspect that you do as well.

Initially the assumed gravity couldn´t be explained and it still can´t be universally trusted or explained, hence it cannot be scientifically confirmed.

As I said, I'm still stuck to the earth. If I jump, I come down. I trust that to continue as before. And as already stated, explanation beyond a mathematical description of gravity is neither available nor necessary to navigate this world.

"Your dog understanding gravity"!?

Yes, intuitively. He seems to know that things fall down when they can. Throw a ball up and he seems to know that it's coming back down. In fact, he goes to where he expects it to fall expecting it to come down to his mouth. He seems to know as much about gravity as much of the human race, and all of it before Newton, who showed that the same force that brings the ball to my dog's mouth also keeps heavenly bodies in stable orbits. Do most people know that? I don't know. I suspect not.

Weight is an assemble of atoms and molecules held together by the Strong Electromagnetic Force. Absent gravity your factual weight is still the same.

I think you're confusing mass and weight. Absent gravity, your mass remainsunchanged, but your weight disappears:

"In common usage, the mass of an object is often referred to as its weight, though these are in fact different concepts and quantities. In scientific contexts, mass is the amount of "matter" in an object (though "matter" may be difficult to define), whereas weight is the force exerted on an object by gravity."

And there is no strong electromagnetic force. See the next post to cladking. You might have meant the strong nuclear force

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It would sure be nice to know how all the forces are related. It would be nice to know something.

I learned it reading 'The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe' in the 80's. You'll learn about symmetry breaking and the release of four forces from a super force. You learn it by going backward through and reunifying them, first the electromagnet force to the weak nuclear force, creating the combined electroweak force:

"In particle physics, the electroweak interaction or electroweak force is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 246 GeV,[a] they would merge into a single force. Thus, if the universe is hot enough (approximately 1015 K, a temperature not believed to have been exceeded since shortly after the Big Bang), then the electromagnetic force and weak force merge into a combined electroweak force. During the quark epoch, the electroweak force split into the electromagnetic and weak force. Sheldon Glashow,[1] Abdus Salam,[2] and Steven Weinberg[3] were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, known as the Weinberg–Salam theory."

Go back a little further and we unify the electroweak and strong nuclear forces: "Grand unification refers to unifying the strong interaction with the unified electroweak interaction."

The holy grail will be the unification of those three with gravity. Incidentally, Steven Weinberg mentioned above is the author of the book I mentioned.

"Reason" doesn't exist.

I can only guess what you mean by that. You must have a private definition of reason.

"Evidence" is only good for making hypothesis.

It's good for coming to sound (demonstrably correct) conclusions about that evidence, its greatest value. That's where valid reasoning comes in, connecting evidence and true premises to those sound conclusions.

"Induction" is based on taxonomies which have existential existence.

Another comment that I cannot parse. Induction is the intuitive art of unifying data points under an overarching rule that explains past outcomes and allows one to predict future ones.

I listed some of these assumptions and could list far more. Just because everyone believes there are "four dimensions" doesn't make it so or affect reality. We could redefine the world to make the point the first dimension and then we can imagine the universe emerging through it. We can define things as we choose and then apply experiment to that. Why is time so unlike the other four dimensions? As you travel along the X, Y or Z axes everything is unique or part of a function but along the time axis everything is the same ol' same ol' pretty much. 19th century science failed long ago and we shouldn't have to wear it like an albatross.

I had written, "You're describing a faith-based confirmation bias, where somebody chooses a belief before they review the evidence, and then evaluate the evidence with the assumption that the faith-based belief is fact." Did you want to comment on that? Do you agree? If you disagree, why? What part of that is incorrect and in your opinion, why?

Darwin took stable populations as being axiomatic. Do you agree with this.

Again, it would be easier to understand you if you fleshed out your thoughts a little. Darwin described continually varying population. Gene pools are inherently unstable, which provides the variation across generations for nature to select from.

He also took survival of the fittest as being axiomatic.

Darwin concluded from evidence that nature selects for the most fecund forms. These are the forms that combine survival to and through reproductive age with reproductive success where success means more offspring making it to reproductive age themselves.

There is no difference in scientific and religious superstition. "Superstition" is believing things not in evidence. If science knows a tiny fraction of 1% and the average skeptic has an answer to everything then he is superstitious.

There is no superstition in science. It's the empiricism that keeps it out. The average skeptic does not claim to have the answer to everything. What they do claim is that religion generates no useful answers (knowledge). It's not that science (empiricism, more properly) reveals everything that is true about the world. It's that nothing else reveals anything we can put to use.

The scary part is at least religion (being founded on ancient science) has morals and codes of behavior

 

[PureX]

I think hypotheticals can work pretty well as analogies. As ways of exemplifying and explaining an idea by presenting it as a scenario. But I find non-representational hypotheticals annoying. "What if an X was a Y?" Who cares? It's not. I see no point to them.