Comments by "Flook D" (@flookd5516) on "Why You Should Never Say "It's Just A Theory"" video.

@EdgeOfEntropy17 Enough. You’re willfully ignorant and wish to remain ignorant rather than question your religious convictions. Try to have the good grace to recognise your own ignorance.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Seriously? You didn’t do practicals back in school? You aren’t surrounded by appliances with electronics that depend on precise control of electromagnetism? How do you think they can be designed & built without an understanding of how they could work?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 You mean you can’t prove a theory absolutely; you can reach the point where the accumulated evidence is such that it would be unreasonable not to consider it valid and certainly dumb to reject it simply because you don’t like it.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 The age of the Earth was not known in 1859.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 That was 1859. This is 2022. 1859 is not yesterday. 163 years have passed in the interval. Surely that is not too difficult to comprehend, even for a FE'er. There was no way to date the Earth in 1859. Estimates were largely conjecture based on how long it would take for sedimentary rock to form. In those intervening 163 years geology has advanced and we now have radiometric dating. Genetics was not understood in 1859. Darwin merely perceived there was a change in hereditary characteristics over time. Only around 1900 did a basis even start to take form for how hereditary characteristics were passed on. It was the 1950's before DNA was recognised, the 1960's before the basis of encoding was founded. Only in the last 20 years have we been able to sequence genomes. Fossils were known of in 1859 and it was generally recognised they came from extinct species but only with the latter half of the 19th century did paleontology start advancing. Observations made 163 years ago were not made yesterday. Is that clear?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 I said that we DIDN’T know the age of the Earth in 1859.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 <eye-roll> What is flawed about radiometric dating?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Radiometric dating is not limited to carbon-14 dating; about 40 pairs & trios are collectively used to cover billions of years. Like everything else, techniques become better honed with time. Dating is repeatedly checked as the techniques improve. "how is it that something is said to be 60,000 years when we humans had no idea of such dating until 1907 or so?" Technology did not freeze in 1907. "leads me to believe that they started with an idea, it didn't work, so they changed the dates" As I said before, the dates prior to radiometric dating were estimates on how long it would take for sedimentary rock to build up which were made when geology was still in its infancy. You seem to have difficulty grasping how data accumulates with the passage of time. "For decades, their precise age has been debated" Did you bother asking why the doubt or did you just assume generalities? Did you consider what technological changes may have occurred over the last 40 years or did you just assume it was all the same? "Getting the picture yet?" Yes; you haven't realised how little you know about the subject.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 I corrected you on each point; how is that not a response? You had no idea that there was more to it than carbon dating, nor how usable samples are obtained and sneered at technology being honed with time. Televisions are relevant in that it is something you have experienced first hand; have televisions improved in your lifetime?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Has television improved with time?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 You're sneering at the notion that technology can improve with time. Has television improved with time? Do you wish to argue the first broadcasts should have been in 4K with LCD screens & surround sound otherwise television didn't work at all?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Televisions are dependent on scientific theory.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 No electromagnetism in your televisions?
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Your television needs to plugged into the wall to work and it picks up a signal from the air; you can’t see any relationship between electromagnetism and televisions?
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You can observe effects arising from something that is itself unobservable.
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@EdgeOfEntropy17 Scientific theory: a comprehensive explanation of a natural phenomenon that is well-substantiated by extensive experimentation & observation. It is not a guess or hunch; that is the vernacular meaning of theory. Scientific method is an iterative procedure: make initial observations, formulate a hypothesis for the mechanism, use the hypothesis to make a prediction, test the prediction through more observation or experimentation, reject the hypothesis or build upon it. The whole cycle keeps going with data and successful hypotheses accumulating with time, eventually giving rise to theories (scientific, not vernacular) that are accurately descriptive, consistently predictive and have no valid alternatives. Each will be accepted indefinitely until somebody comes up with data that isn't explained or predicted by the theory (and, no, "I don;'t see how..." is not data). Something is not lightly accepted as a scientific theory; the evidence in favour needs to be overwhelming. "you can test and retest electromagnetism and get the same results" Because the theory is accurately predictive. I brought up televisions because you were saying scientific research in 1859, 1909 and 2022 were contemporary; you had no grasp of what changes in science with time. Televisions are mundane to you; you have seen the improvements in them in the course of your life time and would not (I hope) perceive a 425 line, black & white, 8" CRT screen as identical to a modern television. Scientific theory is not something totally divorced from your world, just not obviously apparent; every appliance around you is dependent on scientific theory for their for their design & function, theories that have been built up for centuries by scientific research. That you don't know and don't need to know how combustion theory works for your car to run does not mean it doesn't involve combustion theory. "at the end of the day, it is all guesswork" Like hell it is. Ignorance is not knowledge; that you don't know how something works does not mean that you know it doesn't work. A subject being largely a mystery to you does not imbue you with wondrous insight. You thought carbon dating was the only form of radiometric dating and it don't occur to ask why a technique was being used for determining millions of years if it was limited to thousands. Televisions are mundane for you; radiometric dating is mundane for others. The same is true for other branches of sciences. Bear that in mind. "we can never EVER watch as an ape...." That's your limited thinking; you are not limited to what you personally can see. You haven't seen the Creator or seen the Creator do anything or able to produce any evidence of the Creator's existence other than assumption but you are quite happy with your lack of reasoning. That is double standards, not profound insight. There is abundant evidence for evolution; that you are unaware of it and wish to remain unaware of it does not undermine it. "I can show you how humans share DNA with snails and bananas" Numbers confuse you? Why doesn't that surprise me. When all life comes for the same primordial cells then of course you would expect some similar sequences between different kingdoms. That does not magically preclude observation on what proportion similarity there is between different species or tracking how additions, deletions & substitutions have accumulated with evolution. Camelid species (camels & llamas) are possess an extra antibody, the result of a partial duplication of the IgG gene in their (single) ancestral species. You can determine the order in which the intermediate species formed and branched off (with time estimates) from looking at the accumulated changes in that gene. That somewhere in the genome some sequence has resemblance to that found in a banana does not change that. "You take the words of men you perceive to be much smarter than you and I" Smarter than you; I am one of the men you're criticising. If you wish to criticise science then take the trouble to learn it first; don't just wave a Bible and complain we're upsetting your worldview.
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@takeoffyourblinkers Scientific research is application of the scientific method. The latter is an iterative procedure: starting from an initial observation, a hypothesis is created, a prediction made, experimentation/observation done to test prediction, and the results used to modify the hypothesis. It keeps going around until accumulating data leads (hopefully) to a more accurate hypothesis. How experiments & observations are done is dependent on the branch of science. Some areas (e.g., chemistry) readily lend themselves to direct experimentation while others (e.g., astrophysics) do not and are limited to observation. While it is nice to demonstrate causation much is limited to correlation. In biology you're trying to determine the links between X & Y across a complex and only partially known system so a direct line of causation is difficult to demonstrate. Showing insulin lowers blood sugar is correlation, not causation. It's unethical and impractical to carry out long-term, intrusive research on humans; it's difficult enough on caged mice with only a 2 year life span. You are limited to statistical analysis of large groups of people but it is the same iterative procedure; the results from previous studies are used to modify the hypothesis for the next. The guidelines for nutrition arose from serial, iterative scientific research and are modified according to the outcomes of continuing research.
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@takeoffyourblinkers You misunderstand me. Inject insulin into someone and you will observe a drop in blood sugar; that is correlation. That correlation was used to control diabetics' blood sugar well before insulin was demonstrated to cause the drop; causation was assumed. Only when the full chain of events had been determined could we say insulin is the cause. You keep saying "poor epidemiological data" but you seem to be assuming all epidemiology is poor data. Data is not going to be poor simply because it is epidemiology, or the conclusions drawn from that data. I have explained to you the limitations of data gathering in the different branches of science. With a large enough group of people, be it one or collated groups, you will be able to extract meaningful results. Nutritional research is not limited to epidemiology; it also relies on human physiology. Using mice in place of humans is scientific. As mammals, we have common physiology; what works in a mouse will have a similar basis in a human. Once some aspect of physiology is determined in a mouse, then the knowledge can be applied to humans, determining what differences do exist between them. Working solely on humans is impractical & unethical. Decades ago it was assumed (based on contemporary knowledge of physiology) that most sugar intake would be rapidly metabolised while lipid intake would be either "stored" or metabolised and that obesity (what existed) arose from diet changes that had led to increased fat intake. That turned out to be wrong; higher sugar intake led to increased lipid synthesis and low fat diet actually increased obesity. I assume that is what you are referring to. A simply explanation for the conclusions drawn would be that the folks in the 1950's did not have access to 2020 knowledge. "why the hell can't the academics?" Designing experiments and gathering & analysing data is routine for us. We are familiar with the strengths & weaknesses of different approaches. Our knowledge is not limited to magazine articles, Youtube videos and conspiracy theories. You think you know what we are doing; we know what we're doing.
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Research is a fundamental part of science. The hypothesis was based on the results of research, not just an idea someone had.
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Take Off Your Blinkers Reread you OP; you said that science & research were separate.
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Elias Josephsson Which is why a theory is demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt, not absolute proof. That you can never absolutely prove a theory does not nullify the research that demonstrates its accuracy beyond reasonable doubt; it does not render it a hypothesis.
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@eliasjosephsson3994 You do understand that hypotheses get tested?
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@eliasjosephsson3994 3:54 He's using theory in the vernacular sense, not the scientific. You're positing a false dichotomy of guess or proven; a hypothesis can be described as an educated guess (as Feynman says) but a scientific theory is a comprehensive explanation thar has been tested every which way and is consistent with extensively gathered evidence. That you can't prove something absolutely does not mean conclusions such as scientific theories are doubtful.
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Apologists don't apologise and the terrific isn't terrifying; the meaning of some words has changed with vernacular usage. Theory meant explanation like theorem in maths; vernacular use is now an idea.
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Val Izawesome Look up Asimov’s The Relativity of Wrong; it’s available on line.
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Val Izawesome I thought you might find it interesting. Hopefully there is a progression to greater accuracy as theories evolve or are replaced.
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