NASA gets religion

Blog 20160824 NASA gets religion

[GB: Thanks to Jerry Coyne for his excellent blog post on NASA’s million dollar sponsorship of religion]:

“What’s up with the NASA grant to study theology?”

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/whats-up-with-the-nasa-grant-to-study-theology/

[GB: All this shows the close association between science and religion among cosmogonists and, in this case, Christians. The grant is about what the effect of discovering extraterrestrial life might be on religion. Duh? Every new discovery by the Hubble telescope is a ding on religion. Each one gets us closer to realizing that the universe is infinite. For god’s sake, NASA has observed over a trillion trillion stars (10²⁴). So much for the creation of a special place for us on our way to some imagined eternal nirvana.

Will the announcement cause a “War of the Worlds” reaction, with rioting in the streets? Don’t count on it. There have been inklings of the conditions for extraterrestrial life before: fossils that almost look like worms, water once on Mars, and water beneath the surface of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. All this has amounted to nothing more than a big snooze. At best, cutting-edge religions will make up new stories to handle the new contradictions.

No, what this really amounts to is a free gift to Christianity made with your tax dollars. As Jerry mentions, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is challenging NASA’s faux pas as a church-state separation issue prohibited by the constitution. Sociology and religion should be studied by scientists, not those having a clear conflict of interest. A good topic for a proposal would be "The influence of religion on cosmology, physics, and NASA." Let’s hope NASA wakes up and rescinds its overt incursion into religion.]

Quantum mechanics discovers soul

Blog 20160817 Quantum mechanics discovers soul

[GB: Thanks to Fred Frees for this latest woo-woo in regressive physics.]:

“Physicists Claim that Consciousness Lives in Quantum State After Death”

http://globalnetwork.info/2016/08/09/physicists-claim-consciousness-lives-quantum-state-death/

“Testimonials from prominent physics researchers from institutions such as Cambridge University, Princeton University, and the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich claim that quantum mechanics predicts some version of “life after death.”

“They assert that a person may possess a body-soul duality that is an extension of the wave-particle duality of subatomic particles.”

“Although there is no definitive concrete evidence for this theory, one could arguably afford some weight to these claims if some of the most brilliant minds in quantum mechanics believe that it is consistent with the general patterns and trends of modern science. If proven, this theory could have monumental implications; if humans do “download” their consciousness into a thus far unobservable field, then a person’s consciousness could, in Dürr’s [former head of Max Planck] words, truly be immortal.”

All this mixing of science and religion is a blatant example of why regressive physics has been so popular and long-lasting. None of this speculation could be possible for anyone who adhered to "The Ten Assumptions of Science.”[1] I have chastised wave-particle duality here and here. The nonsensical duality is simply a product of aether denial. Here is my piece on “The soul of regressive physics.”

Because the “testimonials from prominent physics researchers” were so preposterous, I asked our discussion group if they thought that maybe the reporter was pulling our legs and that the whole thing was a fake:

In response, Rick Dutkiewicz wrote this:

“I don't think it's fake. Plenty of people believe in duality. Throw in a belief in quantum fluctuation between existence and non-existence, and you can pretty much make up anything you like.

Like the physicist who asserted that quantum "reality" allows for a toaster oven (or was it a clock radio?) to materialize from the "void" of outer space. 

He allows that it is an infinitesimally slight chance, but in his mind there is absolutely a chance of complex objects materializing from nothingness. Man, if that doesn't tell you to examine your premises, I don't know what does.

A perfect illustration of indeterminism and what it leads to. If it all wasn't so ridiculously funny, I'd have to cry.

But then I stop laughing and I think:

This type of thinking is what supports every religion. "Let's just make up some untestable bullshit, and we'll teach that to our children as the ultimate truth".

Too often those religions support violence, mutilation, psychological torture, dominance, war-mongering, terrorism, and a constant state of fear in many a human heart.

Keep fighting the good fight against this type of thinking which causes so much needless pain.

And don't forget to live well; eat, work, play, drink, dance, and buy a new guitar now and then.”

---

[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2004, The ten assumptions of science: Toward a new scientific worldview: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 125 p. [http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/].

 

Hadron fail

Blog 20160810 Hadron fail

[GB: Editorial from Nature]:

Physicists need to make the case for high-energy experiments

The disappearance of a tantalizing LHC signal is disappointing for those who want to build the next big accelerator.

10 August 2016

LHCb Experiment/LHCb Collaboration

Visualization of a typical event in CERN’s LHCb experiment, with subatomic particles including pions and kaons in different colours.

Science thrives on discovery, so it’s natural for physicists to mourn this week. As the high-energy-physics community gathered in Chicago on Friday, hopes were high (if cautious) that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, had chalked up another finding to build on the discovery of the Higgs boson. Not so — the bump in the data that had caused such excitement was washed away with a flood of data that revealed it to be a mere statistical fluctuation.

Ordinarily, physicists would be satisfied if the LHC continued its bread-and-butter existence of confirming with ever-greater precision the standard model — a remarkably successful theory that is known to be incomplete. But the excitement over the bump has left them hungry for more. As is evident from the 500 theory papers written about the bump, physics is ready for something new.

That the LHC has not turned up anything beyond the standard model does not mean it never will. The machine has collected just one-tenth of the data that scientists hoped to amass by the end of 2022, and just 1% of those it could collect if a planned revamp to increase the intensity of collisions goes ahead. But the dry spell worries some. The idea of supersymmetry predicts that heavier counterparts to regular particles will become evident at higher collision energies. Before the LHC was switched on, fans of the theory would have gambled on being able to see something by now. And if the dry spell extends to a drought, high-energy physics could descend into what some call the nightmare scenario — the collider finds nothing beyond the Higgs boson. Without ‘new’ physics, there is no thread to pull to unravel the countless mysteries that the standard model fails to account for, including dark matter and gravity.

There remain strong reasons to build a successor machine. But without another discovery, the public’s delight in high-energy physics could fade: there comes a time when exploration alone no longer satisfies.

Convincing funding agencies to cough up several billion dollars to continue the same approach will therefore be tough, especially when neutrino and lab-based precision experiments cost a fraction of the price. It will be physicists’ job to consider carefully the worth of pursuing that discovery strategy. And if high-energy colliders remain essential, they need to work on their sales pitch.

Nature 536, 125 (11 August 2016)

doi:10.1038/536125b

Here are the related stories and links in order of appearance:

From nature.com

·         Who ordered that?

08 March 2016

·         Hints of new LHC particle get slightly stronger

17 March 2016

·         Hopes for revolutionary new LHC particle dashed

05 August 2016

[GB: Thanks to Julie Haberle for the heads up on this. Apparently, the Higgs boson is still kicking, along with the gravity wave that waved through perfectly empty spacetime in the LIGO experiment.]

Dilbert on Free Will

Blog 20160807 Dilbert on Free Will

For the latest on no-nonsense physics and cosmology, see:

Borchardt, Glenn, 2017, Infinite Universe Theory: Berkeley, California, Progressive Science Institute, 327 p. [http://go.glennborchardt.com/IUTebook].