David B. - 02 June 2007 09:00 PM

It would be pointless as you have clearly not understood them.

I certainly do not understand most details - I lack the raw intelligence and mathematical proficiency - but I certainly understand the watered-down versions in the books you mention which I have both read.

For example, Woit’s Not Even Wrong is not arguing against string theory per se but at it’s undeserved dominance in modern physics research,

he is very well arguing aginst SS theory - not just its dominance - read it again!

while Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics is more critical of string theory, but then it is written by the principle advocate of the competing theory of loop quantum gravity, so this is only to be expected.

what a great argument - because I have a competing theory I can not criticise SS? well, that would certainly put all other critics of SS out of your loop too. all critics worth the name have a competing theory!

Nor is it correct that string theory makes no predictions,

I stand corrected - BUT what a great result for all the man-years and $$$ invested - in 2008 we will know and I would bet against SS at this time.

String theory itself is an offshoot of the ‘standard model’ of quantum mechanics,

what standard model would that be? not the one I know.

acknowledged by both Smolin and Woit as one of the most successful scientific theories ever.

you cant be serious - except you define “success” in purely financial (pocket filler for professors) or mathematical terms. NOTHING OF ANY VALUE in practical terms has come of it - ever!

Red shift has not been proved wrong, it is an observed fact.

An attempt was made to prove the Big Bang by searching for the “Cosmic Background Radiation”, the presumed energy echo from the primordial explosion. and indeed a radio noise signal was picked up. The discoverers of the Cosmic Background Radiation assumed the signal meant what they thought it did and could have no alternative explanation. The discovery of the Cosmic Background Radiation was then heralded as final proof of the Big Bang theory, and those institutions invested in that theory celebrated.
But just as the theory of epicycles did not accurately predict the observed motion of the planets, the Big Bang Theory turned out to be less than accurate about the radiation signal detected in space. When the satellite COBE was sent up to analyze the Cosmic Background Radiation, it discovered instead of the smooth featureless glow predicted by the cosmologists a highly complex and detailed structure. Yet again, rather than question the prime assumption that the signal being analyzed was actually from a supposed “Big Bang”, research was encouraged to find a way to fit the data into the existing theory, again on the assumption that the signal detected could not be from any other source.
there is more - just google >“Red shift” invalidated<

Wrong again. OGOP means that a gene codes for at most one polypeptide

I know all about it - in fact genetic was my stronghold. I still read a lot about it and just finished the Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Sixth Edition. it is all in there.

the PERCENTAGE OF Junk DNA does invalidate the theory that all polypeptid based structures are coded in core DNA. where is the information needed to build a human? not in the DNA sequence.

Darwin was a thief btw - he was NOT the inventor of his theory but a unknown scientist who sent him his manuscript (I forgot the name but google would probably come up with it)
the theory was quite remarkable in its time but today archeology does not confirm most data darwinistic biology would predict.
if you have read up on biology you must know this to be a fact - it isnt even skeptcism - its plain ol’ science.
I will outline the simple example of the development of the bird’s wing.
how do you suggest that this complex biological structure developed by darwinistic means (survival of the fittest)? it is coded by a plethora of genes. any one of them faulty or not-yet-existing makes a proto-bird easy prey. half a wing is not good enough to fly and not good for anything else either. how long does it take for accidental mutation to hit the right cord to make the wing work in all its aspects?

Yeah, like “para normal”.

OK.

What about my reply that is post number 74. Can we have some comment from samvado about that?

samvado claims to be psychic but it seems to me he’s using arguments about Darwin and physics as a Red Herring to avoid any critical analysis of this claim. Can anybody else see this and how about we delve a bit deeper into this claim?

samvado, can you address my scepticism on your psychic ability? Is there any documented proof that you can show us?

samvado - 04 June 2007 11:33 AM

For example, Woit’s Not Even Wrong is not arguing against string theory per se but at it’s undeserved dominance in modern physics research,

he is very well arguing aginst SS theory - not just its dominance - read it again!

Don’t need to. Woit is not presenting evidence, or indeed an argument, that string theory is wrong, he is saying that more promising avenues of research are being ignored. If you think Woit has disproved string theory, quote the chapter of his book where he does so.

while Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics is more critical of string theory, but then it is written by the principle advocate of the competing theory of loop quantum gravity, so this is only to be expected.

what a great argument - because I have a competing theory I can not criticise SS? well, that would certainly put all other critics of SS out of your loop too. all critics worth the name have a competing theory!

I didn’t say he couldn’t criticize string theory, I said that it was only to be expected that Smolin’s book is more critical of it because he believes it to be wrong. Smolin criticizes string theory’s lack of mathematical rigour, Woit criticizes string theory’s over-reliance on mathematical ‘proofs’. Given that their criticism is contradictory, which one do you think is correct?

what standard model would that be? not the one I know.

This one.

acknowledged by both Smolin and Woit as one of the most successful scientific theories ever.

you cant be serious - except you define “success” in purely financial (pocket filler for professors) or mathematical terms. NOTHING OF ANY VALUE in practical terms has come of it - ever!

Success as a theory is defined in confirmed predictions. The standard model is one of the most well confirmed scientific theories ever. Many of its predictions were worked out when the most powerful instrument available to physicists was a cathode ray tube, and were confirmed by the giant atom smashers like SLAC and CERN.

Red shift has not been proved wrong, it is an observed fact.

An attempt was made to prove… [snip]

Bollocks, to be frank. Cosmological red shift is the tendancy for spectra to be shifted towards the red end of the spectrum by an amount proportional to their distance from the observer. It is based on observational measurements of thousands of spectra. It is a fact.

the PERCENTAGE OF Junk DNA does invalidate the theory that all polypeptid based structures are coded in core DNA. where is the information needed to build a human? not in the DNA sequence.

That leaves about 20 to 30 thousand protein coding genes, although the exact figure is not known yet. Doesn’t sound like a lot, it’s only about 7 to 10 thousand more than a roundworm, but then physically and biochemically we are not that much different to worms anyway. It is in how we are put together that we exceed the complexity of a worm, not what we are put together from. Of course, most of our regulatory genes are both non-coding and unidentified, hence part of the ‘junk’.

Darwin was a thief btw - he was NOT the inventor of his theory but a unknown scientist who sent him his manuscript (I forgot the name but google would probably come up with it) the theory was quite remarkable in its time but today archeology does not confirm most data darwinistic biology would predict. if you have read up on biology you must know this to be a fact - it isnt even skeptcism - its plain ol’ science.

You are referring to Alfred Russel Wallace. Unfortunately, Darwin had arrived at his theory prior to Wallace, and had written about it many times in letters to his contemporaries (these letters can now be viewed online). Wallace accepted this and is the person who coined the term ‘Darwinism’ to describe it. Later editions of the Origin of Species also contain references to earlier similar theories, and are acknowledged as Darwin became aware of them.

how do you suggest that this complex biological structure developed by darwinistic means (survival of the fittest)? it is coded by a plethora of genes. any one of them faulty or not-yet-existing makes a proto-bird easy prey. half a wing is not good enough to fly and not good for anything else either. how long does it take for accidental mutation to hit the right cord to make the wing work in all its aspects?

Apart from being an argument from incredulity, you are wrong on several counts.

Half a wing is half as good as a whole wing, and better than no wing at all. A simple flap of skin is sufficient to give ‘flying squirrels’ a distinct advantage in terms of how far it can both leap and fall, the same is true of some species of lemur. It is also interesting to observe birds today that have ‘half a wing’, i.e. immature examples like ducklings and chicks, which flap their (non-functional) wings to give them extra traction in climbing over difficult surfaces [Science 299: p329][Science 299: p402].

Your argument presumes a static fitness function; wings may not have developed towards the ‘half-way’ stage because of increasing suitability for flight. See the many other uses for wings in the bird family today (exaptation).

Your argument presumes a static environment. It explicitly compares an organism’s past fitness to its current environment, overlooking the fact that everything else in the world has been evolving at the same time as birds. A wing does not have to ‘work in all its aspects’, it has to confer a benefit to the organism in its environment at the time. If a wing allows you to jump a foot further than your main predator, that’s good enough.

Peter - 04 June 2007 12:46 PM

samvado claims to be psychic but it seems to me he’s using arguments about Darwin and physics as a Red Herring to avoid any critical analysis of this claim. Can anybody else see this and how about we delve a bit deeper into this claim?

samvado, can you address my scepticism on your psychic ability? Is there any documented proof that you can show us?

Ah, but you’re only looking at his answers in three dimensions, can’t you tell he’s posting devastating rebuttals to your comments in those unobserved higher dimensions of his.

David B. - 04 June 2007 12:55 PM

Peter - 04 June 2007 12:46 PM

samvado claims to be psychic but it seems to me he’s using arguments about Darwin and physics as a Red Herring to avoid any critical analysis of this claim. Can anybody else see this and how about we delve a bit deeper into this claim?

samvado, can you address my scepticism on your psychic ability? Is there any documented proof that you can show us?

Ah, but you’re only looking at his answers in three dimensions, can’t you tell he’s posting devastating rebuttals to your comments in those unobserved higher dimensions of his.

Aah, you see I’m just a simple man. I prefer to see things in a concrete fashion. I take sustanance from the air, the water and the bread of life. I walk a simple and straight path and I need to see things in black and white when it comes to proof.

That and the fact that I’m a geek who plays around with Unix based operating systems and open source software. How many dimensions do I need?

David B. - 04 June 2007 12:55 PM

Peter - 04 June 2007 12:46 PM

samvado claims to be psychic but it seems to me he’s using arguments about Darwin and physics as a Red Herring to avoid any critical analysis of this claim. Can anybody else see this and how about we delve a bit deeper into this claim?

samvado, can you address my scepticism on your psychic ability? Is there any documented proof that you can show us?

Ah, but you’re only looking at his answers in three dimensions, can’t you tell he’s posting devastating rebuttals to your comments in those unobserved higher dimensions of his.

If he was psychic he’d know by posting in this manner we’d take the piss out of him

More on Peter Woit’s view of string theory (from his blog):

Polchinski notes that I make an important point out of the lack of a non-perturbative formulation of string theory and criticizes this, referring to the existence of non-perturbative definitions based on dualities in certain special backgrounds. The most well-known example of this is AdS/CFT, where it appears that one can simply define string theory in terms of the dual QFT. This gives a string theory with the wrong number of large space-time dimensions (5), and with all sorts of unphysical properties (e.g. exact supersymmetry). If it really works, you

Gee, I was so comfortable with string theory!

In the current issue of Scientific American, they point out String Theory is not dead, by the way, and certainly not dis-credited, but it is certainly being given a rigorous examination, and not always faring that well.

But, I was so fond of the idea that everything basically comes down to energetic vibrations, with no real ‘matter’ as the basis for all things physical.  It kind of explained quite well how all this stuff in the universe could have come out of the singularity of The Big Bang.  It was, to me, quite plausible. 

Now, understand, I am not a scientist like David B, and honestly am barely able to follow his postings (though he presents himself quite well, and should consider writing articles for publication in genuine scientific journals).

But I guess the competing theories will work it all out, too, in their own way.

This is the genuine scientific method at work, and is quite interesting to me!

Dan, feeling that he is just being ‘strung along’ by his betters

samvado - 02 June 2007 12:55 PM

4) psychic phenomena have been proven STATISTICALLY beyond any reasonable doubt - over an over again - so much so the CIA and NSA use it as a matter of course (and books have been written about that too - maybe you should read a bit more?)

5) Randi is a crook who has evaded paying out numerous times and lawsuits have been had because of that - and guess what - books have been written about it.

The only bad part about enjoying posting here is having to put up with people like this.

Not to mention he outright called Charybdis stupid. Whattajerk.

Dan, the current (June) issue has a big article on ‘particle cosmology’, but I can’t remember a specific string theory article. What was it called?