board77

who says the earth revolves around the sun?

Its not a born knowledge. Everyone one knows it, but who told everyone? Its a fact. How did it become a fact?

Things do not "become" facts. Facts simply are.

and we all know that objective knowledge does not change

facts are facts

that is not like that ridiculous subjective opinion which is neither right or wrong

one thing I am not clear on though ..... in the time before Columbus, when the Pope and others in authority declared that the world was flat, was that an objective unchanging fact - something that simply is...... or was that an opinion that was neither right nor wrong but is wrong?

this is all so confusing

Really.

Just a few hundred years ago that fact was different. The Sun revolved around the Earth. What changed the fact?

wolfgangbos

it seems that some other. very prominent historians, do not feel as constrained as your friend does...

In popular usage, a theory is just a vague and fuzzy sort of fact and a hypothesis is often used as a fancy synonym to `guess'. But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that explains existing observations and predicts new ones. For instance, suppose you see the Sun rise. This is an existing observation which is explained by the theory of gravity proposed by Newton. This theory, in addition to explaining why we see the Sun move across the sky, also explains many other phenomena such as the path followed by the Sun as it moves (as seen from Earth) across the sky, the phases of the Moon, the phases of Venus, the tides, just to mention a few. You can today make a calculation and predict the position of the Sun, the phases of the Moon and Venus, the hour of maximal tide, all 200 years from now. The same theory is used to guide spacecraft all over the Solar System.

A hypothesis is a working assumption. Typically, a scientist devises a hypothesis and then sees if it ``holds water'' by testing it against available data (obtained from previous experiments and observations). If the hypothesis does hold water, the scientist declares it to be a theory. If the theory is proven to be true it becomes a fact.

So low and behold, scientists (not job blow drop out student) tested a theory about the sun. And now we have the fact that we revolve around the sun, by scientists (you know those educated people who spend years learning their field, being critiqued by peer review and testing the theories of their educated opinions, much like historians). I bet Joe Blow Dropout has an opinion also, but I am not going to let him guide my spaceship, thank you very much.

sauronsfinger wrote:

wolfgangbos

it seems that some other. very prominent historians, do not feel as constrained as your friend does...

And that is exactly one of the reasons why I respect Kushana so much. She is fully aware of the limits of her training.


P.S. Slight osgiliation, but I've often thought that it is the most prominent atheists who do the most damage to the general perception of atheism. Why? Because to become prominent in the wider culture requires a certain pizzazz, a certain willingness to market one's opinions to the uneducated masses. Entertainment value takes priority over truth, and what we are left with is a populace who thinks atheists are pissed off god-haters.

I wonder if the same holds true for prominent historians? Inquiring minds want to know!

The true fact is always there. Simply because people thought the sun revolved around the earth did not make it so. What someone believes to be fact, and what actually is fact, is not always the same thing. But this is all beside the point.

We already covered this, sf. I'm amazed we have to have this discussion, really.

To borrow Wolfgang's statements:

1. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated

2. Abraham Lincoln should have been assassinated

The first statement is either true or it is false. Most humans who know about Lincoln believe it is true. But whatever humans think about it, it IS true or it IS false.

The second statement cannot be true and it cannot be false. It is an opinion.

Ara-Anna, you proved just how little you know about astronomy and astrophysics in that last post of yours. You support SF's claim at the very least: un-educated opinion versus educated opinion, or rather, dilly-dallying in a matter which one knows little about. No offense, of course.

No, Ara did a good job describing the difference between popular usage "theory" and scientific usage "theory".

And it is a convenient intellectual shorthand to say the Earth orbits the Sun instead of the Sun orbiting the Earth, even though a completely accurate representation would have both orbiting each other with the focus point inside the Sun while both travel in a wide orbit around the Galaxy which is ...

The only question left is whether Ara, like SF, is blurring the line between professional opinion and subjective moral opinion. That wasn't very clear from her post.

Yeah that part she did quite well and I suppose I should have made mention of that. Sorry, Ara.

The Sun rising has very little to do with gravity. Gravity influences everything, of course, but the sun rising and the sun's path through the sky is largely due to the Earth spinning on an axis.

One more edit: the theory of gravity guides spaceships and probes? That's news to me.

At least one of the voyagers used the strong gravitational field of Jupiter to accelerate to the next planet in a slingshot maneuver.

There is, in the planning stage, a probe that will observe the Sun from above (outside the orbital plane) that will use the slingshot around Jupiter to propel it out and go above the Sun and look at it's "North Pole".

I don't think we're on the same page when we say "guidance." When I say guidance, I mean the ingenuity and intuition of the pilot, captain, crew, etc. When you say guidance, it seems you include the means (and even the theories which govern those means) by which the course of the vessel will be influenced, rather than just the general flight plan (determined by people).

It's almost like how you and SF aren't on the same page with this mess about opinions. At least I see where you're coming from.

from CG

Quote:

The only question left is whether Ara, like SF, is blurring the line between professional opinion and subjective moral opinion.

NOPE,
The other question, at least the most prominent question, is where the heck are those pesky surveys of Ph. D. holders that you claim are rating presidents as great ... you remember the ones you referred to as the reason for starting this thread in the first place?

False premise --- false everything else from you that follows. And nothing including the very little you said to it on Dec 22 changes anything.

Onizuka - I must say I am shocked that you would see the position of CG before mine. Claude Raines forgive me. I am out for the evening so enjoy each others mutual opinion. Just remember that its only opinion and Clem down at the bait shop probably knows more than all of you put together. Or so its been intimated by some here.

Why do you keep bringing up that silly PHd thing? It was mentioned once, in passing, while making an entirely different point then the one you keep bringing up, and yet you keep talking about bringing it up like it's the only thing that matters here. Would it actually matter one way or the other if some surveys amongst PHd holders was presented? It wouldn't prove anything one way or the other, would it? So why do you keep bringing it up??

"Great spirits will always encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds"
-Albert Einstein

Indeed.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.
Cullen Hightower

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom.
Mahatma Gandhi

No man is wise enough by himself.
Titus Maccius Plautus

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn vos Savant

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.
Confucius

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
Richard Feynman

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
Socrates

The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
George Santayana

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.
Cato the Elder

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.
Dale Carnegie

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.
Benjamin Franklin

Ara, whether or not we can ever Know it, do you believe that Truth exists? Like, say Lincoln was assasinated - even if we did not know that that happened, it would still be True that it happened, right?