Thread: Science vs Pseudoscience

Originally Posted by sparq

And now we know why...

Yes, the famous auntie Jimbo law of academic dating - 'the ugly ones are very thankful'

Sorry to derail the thread with my VSL ideas....

Back to the topic at hand, I believe that all science is pseudo-science. Science is an ideal toward which we strive, but can never attain. Like generating random numbers on a computer - randomness exists as a construct, but no matter how sophisticated we make random number generation algorithms, the best we can expect from finite machines is pseudo-randomness. It's just a matter of degrees of pseudo-ness.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Sorry to derail the thread with my VSL ideas....

Back to the topic at hand, I believe that all science is pseudo-science. Science is an ideal toward which we strive, but can never attain. Like generating random numbers on a computer - randomness exists as a construct, but no matter how sophisticated we make random number generation algorithms, the best we can expect from finite machines is pseudo-randomness. It's just a matter of degrees of pseudo-ness.

James.

It is obviously our nature to be fuzzy. However, I do think that mathematics is pure. There is nothing pseudo about it.

Oh, mathematics is fuzzy, or can be. Mathematics, and the proofs contained therein, is riddled with approximations - Taylor's Theorem is all about approximation, for example. A lot of real-world applications of mathematical constructs simply descend (or ascend, depending on your point of view) into approximation sophistry.

"Sometimes it is useful to know how large your zero is." Unknown.

"[G]eometry is not true, it is advantageous." Henri Poincaré.

And, my own personal favourite:

"There was a young man from Trinity,
Who solved the square root of infinity.
While counting the digits,
He was seized by the fidgets,
Dropped science, and took up divinity."

lol!!

James.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

However, that is not the entire story:

Well, I agree that the purpose of the said press release is to assure the public that LHC is safe. But your claim is that because of this they are misleading the public and so far you have provided exactly zero evidence to support that.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Does saying my laser has less output power than a nightlight tell the whole story? It certainly is not a lie. Or does it simply present one side of the information I want to reveal?

I am sorry, but demonstrating how you can mislead does not offer any support that they actually have done that.

That's why in my earlier post I suggested you instead propose some actual scenarios how a proton with 7TeV energy can create big damage, and then I will be able to judge for myself how good your estimates are and how realistic your scenario.

Here's the first estimate I ran in my head about how dangerous 7TeV energy is:
Human body has on the order of 10^14 cells. Some of them are disproportionately critical so I can certainly pick 1% of them and if I damage them to the point of being disfunctional the body will be dead (this is conservative estimate, I can do it with 0.01% as well). So let's see if a single LHC proton can kill a human by damaging 10^12 of its cells. The energy barriers for molecular bindings in proteins are on the order of a millielectronvolt, so with 7TeV you can influct at least 10^15 single damages, or 1000 molecular damages for each cell. There are, of course repair mechanisms, but 1000 targeted damages are enough to make he cell disfunctional, So, my answer was, yes the energy of a mosquito is enough to kill a human.
However it is far more realistic that this be done by a mosquito transmitting a deadly virus which can actually make cells function in a different way (and the energy for that is many orders of magnitude less), than an actual stream of proton from LHC do it.

As far as I remember the media stories about LHC were something about creating wormholes in the spacetime continuum, or blackholes, or in other words 'I am completely clueless, so I have no bias whatsoever, and thus I my opinion is actually by far more important than that of an expert who is biased'.
Now I normally wouldn't bother to put so much effort in a thread, but I expected that you would know better than offer the same type of argument. You may be a hack, but you're the type that builds lasers, and not the sixpackjoe'.

I think Seraphim was getting at the point that there are lots and lots of protons in the ring at any one time, so there is really lots and lots of energy in there. I don't know about at the LHC, but at Fermi there is very careful monotering of the beam, an emerency beam dump protocol and mechanism, and a protective lining in the tube. There have been instances where the beam has had to be dumped, and there have been instances where the beam has strayed into the protective lining. But neither posed any threat for people in the area.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I believe that all science is pseudo-science. Science is an ideal toward which we strive, but can never attain.

I don't think of science as an ideal. Now if you try to equate science with absolute truth that may be a problem because they are definitely not the same thing. Science has place for every hypothesis, no matter how crazy it is. Many scientist are not very good at basic logic either, so they draw wrong conclusions etc., but the process of leaving your research for everybody to critique is very good at weeding out these things.
That's not what pseudoscience or religion do. Religion is dogma - you have very little room for challenging it, testing the hypotheses of it, people sometimes get killed for that, these days the usual approach is to just expel them from the religious group. I've seen pseudoscientists give talks at scientific conferences (where your fee entitles you to a presentation), and I've seen a lot of politics in science that rob people off their research, or attempt to shut them down. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to matter much because at the end it all depends on the ability to produce description of the phenomena that has correct predictions (even the stochastic phenomena can be described with concrete numbers for probabilities).
The astrology for example gives the wrong probabilities for how the current location of the planets combined with the date of birth determine the future of a person. I have tested it myself.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I think Seraphim was getting at the point that there are lots and lots of protons in the ring at any one time, so there is really lots and lots of energy in there. I don't know about at the LHC, but at Fermi there is very careful monotering of the beam, an emerency beam dump protocol and mechanism, and a protective lining in the tube. There have been instances where the beam has had to be dumped, and there have been instances where the beam has strayed into the protective lining. But neither posed any threat for people in the area.

No, my point was that giving such a benign example of the power was painting a picture that was not telling the whole story.

As to why they may, or may not be trying to mi$lead anybody. We'd have to a$k them.

All I can tell you, is that I have a nightlight in my lab that you would not want anywhere near your kid's bedroom!