Has Science Died?

“The present boastfulness of the expounders and the gullibility of the listeners alike violate that critical spirit which is supposedly the hallmark of science.” —Jacques Barzun, Science: the glorious entertainment

Being an avid, albeit amateur, physics aficionado, I watched with great interest as the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded. I read the summary findings, which were actually somewhat disappointing. I read the conclusions, and the new theories. In the end I shook my head in disbelief, yet another mythical beast of Greek proportions has been added to our skyline. Among the “black holes” and “dark matter” now there is “dark energy” and I am forced to ask the question: has science died?

If I thought you’d watch a 70 minute lecture I might refer you to this: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_physics, but nowadays folks are much too busy for that. Even our posts here have grown too long to garner the attention we used to see on these topics. We have a headline culture that responds to headline length thoughts.

Given the above, let me give you the simple version. The team that won the Nobel Prize identified that a super-nova remnant is not just moving away, but actually is accelerating away. The reason this is newsworthy is that no accepted model allows for acceleration to occur. Acceleration requires the application of force, and therefore these scientists were obliged to invent a reason for the observed behavior. The reason? “Dark energy”… They won the prize because they kept everyone in business, they were team players.

Realize, despite what you see on “Star Trek” or hear on the most recent episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” black holes and dark matter are only theoretical entities meant to explain unexpected behavior. Hence the term “dark energy” is the logical cause of the unexpected acceleration that has been measured. I’ll leave the question-ability of their results to folks like Wal : http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8qx7sc1r … What I will do here is point out that these fantasies that pass for science nowadays would make Socrates giggle.

Has science died? Well, I hope not. Practical folks that actually produce working technology are continuing to improve them. That is science too. However, we do need a new breed of theoretical philosophy if we hope to make any major leaps in our understanding of nature around us. If you make stuff that works, please take a minute to think about what the AS or the Nobel Committee has done for us lately. They reward rank & file instead of results. Investigate the alternative theories like Wal’s “EU” and question EVERYTHING!

I hope you’ll take time to watch the Harriman lecture above and really grab the concepts he presents. There is a crisis and it affects us all, limits us all, and could kill us all. It’s no wonder that climate science is so unconvincing.