Sunday, June 5, 2016
ON MY MIND RIGHT NOW: A Fascinating read - The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality (The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions)
More from QuantaMagazine Here
Our Universe May Exist in a Multiverse, Cosmic Inflation Discovery Suggests:
"The new research also lends credence to the idea of a multiverse. This theory posits that, when the universe grew exponentially in the first tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, some parts of space-time expanded more quickly than others. This could have created "bubbles" of space-time that then developed into other universes. The known universe has its own laws of physics, while other universes could have different laws, according to the multiverse concept."
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Tuesday, October 6, 2015
As a scientist, I can state unequivocally that if we never discussed anything just because we had no "proof", then we would never get anywhere, in any scientific field...
The FUNDAMENTAL basis for science is OBSERVATION. From observation come ideas and hypothesis and THEN hopefully someday the repeatable confirmation of our idea/hypothesis which will constitute proof.
But the FIRST step is the SHARING of observation and experience. It is an invalid circular argument by the NON-scientists who make up the majority of the self proclaimed "Flesh & Blood" Bigfoot "Research" crowd that anyone attempting to discuss an experience or observation that CURRENTLY cannot be explained or proven by known scientific techniques are hoaxers, delusional, or worse, and do not belong in the realm of what they think is "true research".
Science is built on anecdotal evidence.
And when one throws out anything that does not fit into their preconceived paradigm they are not practicing pure science, they are practicing censorship and creating a biased set of data.....
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but "That's funny"
- Isaac Asimov
"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing"
- Wernher von Braun
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
Observation/Question – “The question can refer to the explanation of a specific observation, as in "Why is the sky blue?", but can also be open-ended, as in "Does sound travel faster in air than in water?" or "How can I design a drug to cure this particular disease?"
Research – “This stage also involves looking up and evaluating previous evidence from other scientists, as well as considering one's own experience. If the answer is already known, a different question that builds on the previous evidence can be posed.”
Hypothesis – “An hypothesis is a conjecture, based on the knowledge obtained while formulating the question, that may explain an observed behavior of a part of our universe. The hypothesis might be very specific, or it might be broad” Sometimes a Null Hypothesis is used for statistical comparison of the hypothesis, or to show that there is no relationship between two objects of study.
Experimentation – “The purpose of an experiment is to determine whether observations of the real world agree with or conflict with the predictions derived from an hypothesis. If they agree, confidence in the hypothesis increases; otherwise, it decreases. Agreement does not assure that the hypothesis is true; future experiments may reveal problems.”
Conclusion – “This involves determining what the results of the experiment show and deciding on the next actions to take. If the evidence has falsified the hypothesis, a new hypothesis is required; if the experiment supports the hypothesis but the evidence is not strong enough for high confidence, other predictions from the hypothesis must be tested. Once a hypothesis is strongly supported by evidence, a new question can be asked to provide further insight on the same topic. Evidence from other scientists and one's own experience can be incorporated at any stage in the process.”
