Can you make assumptions in science?

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lol.. so true to form, David. Ignore the log in your own eye.
And just to up the anti.... I'm drinking a Corona or two

I can't drink Corona.... I don't have an appropriate tie to match.... or any of the other lah-de-dah that identifies me with the "in" crowd.

I have consistently said, and always implied, that natural science is the discovery of the workings of nature by observation, hypothesis, and experimentation. There must be a method to science or it degenerates into a mush of conjecture, assumption and superstition; as it has done in the current popularised "versions" sold entirely by media hype.

That's simple enough; though I expect it's way more than you "Snake-oil" salesmen can understand or accept because it's inconvenient to your ideological prejudices (assumptions).

What popularised nonscience does (as in the example of climate "science" above) is to assume the desired "result" then "cherry-pick", or fraudulently misrepresent, or simply fabricate "observations" to suit.

It's painfully obvious that there is here a cadre of "Jihadists" who's mission is to eliminate any questioning of their Materialist ideology and its prophets so that no debate can ensue about any genuinely scientific issues.
Dogma #1: Everything is explained by Materialism.
Dogma #2: Anything that can't be explained by Materialism... refer to Dogma #1.

I was rather hoping that there might be some sharp-minded and interestingly "unconventional" folk to be found on a supposedly "'spergic" forum but, once again, I am disappointed.

Perhaps the problem is that the "diagnostic tools" for diagnosing 'Spergia can't distinguish between 'Spergics and ordinary, common, garden variety, narcissists.

Anyhow*, I'll continue with the beer and direct my conversation to people who have a bit more to their knowledge base than commonplace media hype.

We also have our own warped take on Australian beer which is confined exclusively to Fosters. There was a commercial saying "Fosters, it's Australian for beer" and since it's the only Australian beer here, Americans sometimes get the impression it's the only one in Australia too, or at least the most popular

I did learn something new today.....about Australia and beer. I had no idea Corona was popular or considered a fancy beer (per the "wear a tie" remark). Perhaps that is due to expense from shipping costs? In the U.S. it's considered a laid back summer party beer. This is kicked off on May 5 of every year with Cinco de Mayo parties (where non-Mexicans inexplicably use the liberation of Mexico as a reason for Mexican themed parties with lots of Corona). It continues through summer with Corona at picnics and barbecues. People drink Corona at other times too but its' main association is with the laid back relaxation of outdoor get-togethers. It's a beach and poolside beer. The very thought of it being 'posh' in Australia is hilarious.

We also have our own warped take on Australian beer which is confined exclusively to Fosters. There was a commercial saying "Fosters, it's Australian for beer" and since it's the only Australian beer here, Americans sometimes get the impression it's the only one in Australia too, or at least the most popular.

We agree. And thank you for answering. When it comes to media hype, I think it's important to distinguish between what gets reported in the media and the actual research. Reporters, including science reporters, are all about headlines and tightened up narratives. They will draw unsupported conclusions from inconclusive research in order to tighten a narrative for the article. I always go back to the original paper if possible- thanl you internet for making this easy. I am unable to understand the math in physics papers but do fine with papers that don't use math beyond statistics (the math course I did well in, unlike the others).

What you are calling "popularised nonscience" is probably articles writen which do in fact cherry pick research. Google could probably find some. But the actual research and data are not fabricated. That's quite an accusation to claim that researchers have fabricated data to fit a narrative.

Alternatively, refer back to your own definition of science(which I agree with) that it is the discovery of the workings of nature through observation, hypothesis and experimentation. This means the supernatural is excluded. What you call jihadists are just people trying to get you to nstick to nature and stop trying to find supernatural (religious) reasons for things.

A whole section of insults. Not cool.

And true to form you provide no evidence for your claims.

If there is something in my "claims" that you think requires "evidence" beyond your potential observation and recollection you will itemise such, perhaps?

I can't, Arty, because I'm too afraid to look into a microscope and see the diatoms turning themselves into dinosaurs and I can't examine all the thousands of generations of fruit flies that have been irradiated with every imaginable radiation because they've turned themselves into spacemen, built spaceships, and gone off to colonise other worlds in the farthest reaches of the Universe.

I'm also too afraid to start my motor car in case it sucks energy out of the Sun and overflows the petrol tank all over the road causing a traffic hazard; or maybe, worse still, it might suck energy out of the Sun and assemble itself into a spaceship and dump me on the Moon without any food, or water, or air.

The world is a very scary place now that you've abolished entropy.

I think I itemised 15 or 16 of your "claims" on page 6, or should I say, your "subjective assumptions."

Your list of "15 or16" straw men arguments have nothing at all to do with assumptions in science. It's just a diversion hoping to intimidate me and bluff others into thinking that any disagreement with fad nonscience is ipso facto invalid.

Merely rubbishing your incoherence does not represent a scientific or philosophical "claim".

Oh David maybe you are a figment of Joseph Heller's imagination as you seem to be a conflation of several characters from Catch 22.

you have been asked to provide evidence for several specific comments you have made.

You refused to falsify my explanation of why you were wrong on entopy. So once more I will try again. Please provide empirical evidence for the above statement.

Is my rubbishing your silly, unfounded assertion that the mere input of energy (from the Sun) somehow produces "anti-entropy" invalidated simply because it is inconsistent with your ideological assumptions?

The second law of thermodynamics (the law of increase of entropy) is sometimes used as an argument against evolution. Evolution, the argument goes, is a decrease of entropy, because it involves things getting more organized over time, while the second law says that things get more disordered over time. So evolution violates the second law.

There are many things wrong with this argument, and it has been discussed ad infinitum. A summary of the arguments on both sides can be found on the links at www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html. These discussions never seem to involve any numerical calculations. This is unfortunate, since a very simple calculation shows that it is physically impossible for evolution to violate the second law of thermodynamics.

It is important to note that the earth is not an isolated system: it receives energy from the sun, and radiates energy back into space. The second law doesn't claim that the entropy of any part of a system increases: if it did, ice would never form and vapor would never condense, since both of those processes involve a decrease of entropy. Rather, the second law says that the total entropy of the whole system must increase. Any decrease of entropy (like the water freezing into ice cubes in your freezer) must be compensated by an increase in entropy elsewhere (the heat released into your kitchen by the refrigerator).

Let me do it again: take a "closed system": (say a test tube) containing all the chemicals that make up a typical rabbit and supply energy from outside that system (shaking, electrical sparks, heat, light, and any other kind of EMR you like) and you claim that it will spontaneously turn itself into a typical live rabbit if you wait long enough.

However, we ordinary people who are "unenlightened" with nonscience ideological esoterica would confidently predict, with our intuitive grasp of entropy, that if you take a perfectly live, healthy typical rabbit and put it into your "closed system" and give it the treatment you will very smartly get a very dead rabbit that will eventually degrade into the simplest, lowest energy and order, chemical components.

Obviously not "empirical evidence" because I didn't do the experiment under your nose... maybe you should do it yourself.

I really don't think you get it, you do not seem to understand the full nature of the amount of energy coming from the sun nor the amount of energy required for the evolution of all life on this planet. I can furnish you with the maths if you like, but essentially the the amount of entropy for all lifeforms on the planet would be around -302 j/ks yet the amount of energy throughput coming into the system from the sun is around 420 x 10 to the power of 12 J/Ks. In short your argument is nonsense. Areas of the universe can decrease in entropy so long as other areas increase by a greater amount, entropy is not universal in the sense of the a steady increase throughout all areas of the universe. Another canard you are guilty of is to assume evolution is all about increased complexity, it is not, it is about adaptability. And on a final note it's also necessary to deal with the canard that entropy equals 'disorder'. This is a non-rigorous view of entropy that scientists engaged in precise work discarded some time ago. Not least because there are documented examples of systems that have a precisely calculated entropy increase after spontaneously self-organising into well-defined structures. Phospholipids are the classic example of such a system - a suspension of phospholipids in aqueous solution will spontaneously self-assemble into structures such as micelles, bilayer sheets and liposomes upon receiving an energy input consisting of nothing more than gentle agitation. To Quote a paper from 1998

Gentle Force Of Entropy Bridges Disciplines by David Kestenbaum, Science, 279: 1849 (20th March 1998)
Kestenbaum, 1998 wrote:Normally, entropy is a force of disorder rather than organization. But physicists have recently explored the ways in which an increase in entropy in one part of a system can force another part into greater order. The findings have rekindled speculation that living cells might take advantage of this little-known trick of physics.

And from wikibooks:Structural Biochemistry/Lipids/Micelles

Micelles form spontaneously in water, as stated above this spontaneous arrangement is due to the amphipatic nature of the molecule. The driving force for this arrangement is the hydrophobic interactions the molecules experience. When the hydrophobic tails are not sequestered from water this results in in the water forming an organized cage around the hydrophobic tail and this entropy is unfavorable. However, when the lipids form micelles the hydrophobic tails interact with each other, and this interaction releases water from the hydrophobic tail and this increases the disorder of the system, and this is increase in entropy is favorable

Let me do it again: take a "closed system": (say a test tube) containing all the chemicals that make up a typical rabbit and supply energy from outside that system (shaking, electrical sparks, heat, light, and any other kind of EMR you like) and you claim that it will spontaneously turn itself into a typical live rabbit if you wait long enough.

You bods can get as sanctimonious as you like; it will not make me forget or ignore all the natural science and philosophy I've been practically obsessed with for many years... ever since I was logically forced, kicking and screaming, into the exact opposite journey Narrator describes of himself.