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[GamerKnight]

Yeah, but there is a myth that all Jehovahs Witnesses do. I've got a friend next door and he has never visited my house, noone in his church does, and at my place we get more reborn christians knocking door to door.

[Siquo]

"All of them" is a gross generalisation.

You can safely assume that ANY generalisation is wrong.

[ECrownofFire]

"All of them" is a gross generalisation.

You can safely assume that ANY generalisation is wrong.

"All generalizations are false."

[Siquo]

"All generalizations are false!"

Well, yeah. That's kind of a tautology. Unless you define true and false according to statistical significance. Which is one of my problems with Science (which, for the record, I love in many other aspects).

[GamerKnight]

Statistics will kill this world. I mean that seriously. What's going to happen when they make the perfect robot, and the corporate arseholes decide: Oh, wait, we can cut down this balance sheet by changing these numbers to these numbers. Number set A being humans, and number set B being the robots. This is every company in the world. No-one will have a job.

This isn't really related to the thread, is it?

[Phmcw]

"All generalizations are false!"

Well, yeah. That's kind of a tautology. Unless you define true and false according to statistical significance. Which is one of my problems with Science (which, for the record, I love in many other aspects).

Nope in science that is a common mistake. A law have to be true all the time to be accepted. Even a statistical one. (Such even will happen 67% of the time, on average, is true only if i's always 67% of the time).
Mos studies, (often sociological or medical) that only link two data are mock up science. Sometime, sadly, it's the best that we have, but that's still not good, nor a scientific demonstration, even thought advertising and news are quite fond to present hem as such.

[Siquo]

Nope in science that is a common mistake. A law have to be true all the time to be accepted.

Only measurably, and measuring is averaged statistically, accounting for measurement errors is done statistically, and ignoring outliers is standard practice. When I say Science I mean Physics, by the way, as the rest is not worthy of the capital S.

Edit: well, Mathematics is pure enough to be worthy, but that's not really a science per se. Plus that statistics comes from Mathematics and I'll never forgive them for that.

[Phmcw]

Not really. Measure is average in the extend that errors are explainable by incertitude margin.
Except when quantum behavior come into play, but then the phenomenon have a probabilistic nature.
And again the laws are expected to give the exact probabilities involved.
Ignoring outliers is standard malpractice. In any serious experience you don't do that. (Except when you're lazy     but it's rather an "ho snap" move than a correct procedure).

[Siquo]

Ignoring outliers is standard malpractice. In any serious experience you don't do that. (Except when you're lazy     but it's rather an "ho snap" move than a correct procedure).

Have you ever performed physics experiments? Out of the 1000 (if you're lazy ) measurements there's bound to be a few outliers. It's standard procedure to try to explain them, and if you can't, ignore them. Now the fact that I've taken 1000 measurements that all differ just ever so slightly means that I've got 1000 wrong answers, but you try to get close to the real one by using analysis such as averaging those numbers, you get your deviance and distribution type, and you've got a statistical answer that's bound to be wrong anyway. That's what I don't like about it. It works, but I don't like it.

[Leafsnail]

I'm not sure what your problem with statistics is, really.  It can be a very powerful predictive tool, as well as often the best way to find out how things work in practise.  For instance, massive medical improvements have been made in the past due to statistical work (such as that performed by Florence Nightingale).

That's what I don't like about it. It works, but I don't like it.

What are you expecting?  There's no such thing as perfect apparatus that removes all measurement error, or an experiment that takes every factor into account...

[Farmerbob]

How we view the world is certainly not a complete picture of the actual state of things. A lot of the light spectrum is outside our ability to perceive, there is a lot of sound above or below our range of hearing and the many things are on a scale far too vast or too tiny for us to be able to study (at this time, anyway).

However, if religion is another way of perceiving the universe, it seems strange that we have so many different, mutually exclusive religions.

If dark matter and dark energy are part of what we need in order to explain the universe, why do we have do many people arguing about it?

At least scientists (rarely) kill each other over their pet theories.  Scientists also have it pretty easy, considering that dark matter and dark energy aren't all powerful, all knowing, and actively not wanting us to be able to prove they exist.

[Andir]

How we view the world is certainly not a complete picture of the actual state of things. A lot of the light spectrum is outside our ability to perceive, there is a lot of sound above or below our range of hearing and the many things are on a scale far too vast or too tiny for us to be able to study (at this time, anyway).

However, if religion is another way of perceiving the universe, it seems strange that we have so many different, mutually exclusive religions.

If dark matter and dark energy are part of what we need in order to explain the universe, why do we have do many people arguing about it?

At least scientists (rarely) kill each other over their pet theories.  Scientists also have it pretty easy, considering that dark matter and dark energy aren't all powerful, all knowing, and actively not wanting us to be able to prove they exist.

Because right now Dark Energy and Dark Matter are simply there to make the equations work...  They are like imaginary numbers in Mathematics.  Until someone finds/proves those two pieces, the whole expansion theory remains theory (even though some claim it as fact...)

[Siquo]

What are you expecting?  There's no such thing as perfect apparatus that removes all measurement error

I'm expecting an explanation, not an estimate. Admittedly, we've got nothing better than an estimate, but I'm not going to settle for it.

[Andir]

What are you expecting?  There's no such thing as perfect apparatus that removes all measurement error

I'm expecting an explanation, not an estimate. Admittedly, we've got nothing better than an estimate, but I'm not going to settle for it.

Even finding the constant for gravity is tough... you have differences in air pressure/density when dealing with fall rates.  Granted, most of this is eliminated with Vacuum chambers, but what if some magnetic force is interacting with it?  Solar flare?

The only true way to get it as close as you can to "true" is to run hundreds/thousands of tests to eliminate as much "noise" as possible.  Creating a tool to eliminate all that is next to impossible.

[Shambling Zombie]

Isn't going for all or nothing a little unrealistic when trying to figure out how the universe works? There are more states of an idea than just "wrong" and "right".

If a theory's testable effects are true 992 times out of 1000, surely it is more useful than a theory which is true 500 times out of 1000. Even so, one rarely is ever 100% certain of anything in science.

There's a reason even Gravity is still a theory. We can't get 100% certainty, and it's doubtful we ever will. 99.99% will just have to do sometimes, unfortunately.