Astronomers Find Ancient Star Which Appears To Be Older Than The Universe

[magnifier661]

Yeah, that opening post article is full of arrogance. It uses words like "appears to be," "estimate," and "margin of error."

And once again, you failed to read who this was directed at. Poor Denny.

 

[Denny Crane]

And once again, you failed to read who this was directed at. Poor Denny.

You win.

 

[magnifier661]

You win.

You're damn right I win. I see your new tactic of responding to another poster; with the intention of a dig on mine; then when I confront your feeble attempt; you use sarcasm and hyperbole. This new tactic is a losing effort. Try harder

 

[Denny Crane]

You're damn right I win. I see your new tactic of responding to another poster; with the intention of a dig on mine; then when I confront your feeble attempt; you use sarcasm and hyperbole. This new tactic is a losing effort. Try harder

My bad. It's poor etiquette to respond to posts I agree with.

You win. Feel free to have the last word, too.

 

[Further]

You win.

You are right, Mags is always wrong.

 

[magnifier661]

My bad. It's poor etiquette to respond to posts I agree with.

You win. Feel free to have the last word, too.

Thanks, I will. Glad you are finally seeing the light.

 

[Denny Crane]

You are right, Mags is always wrong.

Dunno. I just though you were right. ;-)

 

[Further]

I absolutely agree that many theists act in arrogance. The difference between the two is science is like law; its supposed to be unbiased without prejudice. Most religions are based on faith. Most don't require pHd's in order to teach the teachings of their faith. I hold science to a greater bar than one lead by theism. It would be dangerous if someone in science explained 2+2 = 10; then years later they must reprogram the flock with the new, right answer.

Show me an example of 2+2=10. every situation is different, but I think that overall, most non-theists are much more likely to base their opinions on fact or perceived fact, then theists.

 

[Further]

Dunno. I just though you were right. ;-)

I know, I was just making a joke, responding to your post to criticize our dear Mags.

 

[magnifier661]

Show me an example of 2+2=10. every situation is different, but I think that overall, most non-theists are much more likely to base their opinions on fact or perceived fact, then theists.

I was using hyperbole. The simple example would be the explanation of life coming from non-life; with zero evidence that supports this; yet it is used by many in the field of science as the sole explanation of our genesis. <--- That is about as frivolous as you can get.

 

[Denny Crane]

I know, I was just making a joke, responding to your post to criticize our dear Mags.

Nah. I seriously thought words like "appears to be" in the article pretty much sounded like "believe to be true" in your post. No more, no less.

 

[Further]

I was using hyperbole. The simple example would be the explanation of life coming from non-life; with zero evidence that supports this; yet it is used by many in the field of science as the sole explanation of our genesis. <--- That is about as frivolous as you can get.

I hear that being discussed as a likely theory, with all sorts of supportive data but certainly not enough to make it into a statement of fact. I just never really hear it mentioned as fact.

 

[Denny Crane]

I know, I was just making a joke, responding to your post to criticize our dear Mags.

Fun stuff I thought you might get a kick out of. The article in the opening post does state some things as fact. "The universe is known to be 13.8B years old." For example. Is that a fact?

I checked and it turns out our friend WMAP has the answer!

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

WMAP CAN MEASURE THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Measurements by the WMAP satellite can help determine the age of the universe. The detailed structure of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations depends on the current density of the universe, the composition of the universe and its expansion rate. As of 2013, WMAP determined these parameters with an accuracy of better than than 1.5%. In turn, knowing the composition with this precision, we can estimate the age of the universe to about 0.4%: 13.77 ± 0.059 billion years!

How does WMAP data enable us to determine the age of the universe is 13.77 billion years, with an uncertainty of only 0.4%? The key to this is that by knowing the composition of matter and energy density in the universe, we can use Einstein's General Relativity to compute how fast the universe has been expanding in the past. With that information, we can turn the clock back and determine when the universe had "zero" size, according to Einstein. The time between then and now is the age of the universe. There is one caveat to keep in mind that affects the certainty of the age determination: we assume that the universe is flat, which is well supported by WMAP and other data. If we relax this assumption within the allowed range, the uncertainty increase a bit. Inflation naturally predicts a very nearly flat universe.

 

[magnifier661]

I hear that being discussed as a likely theory, with all sorts of supportive data but certainly not enough to make it into a statement of fact. I just never really hear it mentioned as fact.

You sure?

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml

 

[Denny Crane]

You sure?

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml

Would you mind quoting the first paragraph?

Thanks.

 

[magnifier661]

Would you mind quoting the first paragraph?

Thanks.

Living things (even ancient organisms like bacteria) are enormously complex. However, all this complexity did not leap fully-formed from the primordial soup. Instead life almost certainly originated in a series of small steps, each building upon the complexity that evolved previously:

Well yeah, but there definitely needed to be the "first self replicating molecule". Maybe you missed that part of my argument.

 

[Denny Crane]

Well yeah, but there definitely needed to be the "first self replicating molecule". Maybe you missed that part of my argument.

I thought the words "almost certainly" cast some doubt, though minuscule, on the factual nature of what the article talks about. As if they said, "to the best of our understanding." At least that's my interpretation.

 

[magnifier661]

I thought the words "almost certainly" cast some doubt, though minuscule, on the factual nature of what the article talks about. As if they said, "to the best of our understanding." At least that's my interpretation.

Well, it's definitely a good way to not fully commit and suffer the ridicule if it is disproved. But looking at the bigger picture; these "hypothesis" are used in todays debates regarding the origin of life, life of the universe or other very important details.

See I believe that understanding how 1+1=2 helps with more advanced mathematics. If math didn't have the basic formulas down; the rest of the math will be completely wrong.

 

[Further]

almost certainly

That's a very important thing that you glossed over, as Denny pointed out. There is a bunch of data supporting the theory, enough that most people who study it believe it to be by far the most likely answer. But that does not mean that a new piece of information won't change our thinking on the subject. almost certainly

Of course you will find some people who go too far in absolute nature of their beliefs. When I was at PSU taking a geology course my professor said that he received one F in college, and it was in Geology. He had written a paper in the 1960 detailing why the Plate Tectonics theory was most likely correct. But his professor came from an earlier era and just couldn't believe that everything he had based his life on was fundamentally incorrect. So he flunked my professor and basically said that his ideas were so obviously crazy and ill conceived that only the druggies could believe such rubbish.

These stories exist and are often repeated time after time throughout schooling to point out that we march forward if the science makes sense and have to be ready to toss old theories away once they don't match the current vat of information.

Working in a lab one of the weirdest things to get used to is my bosses, who come up with a hypothesis design an experiment for me to do. I spend time and effort doing the experiment and analyzing the data, often taking months to get solid results. Then, I bring the information to my bosses and somewhat apologetically tell them the data doesn't support the hypothesis, and the last couple months were a fail. Every time that happened, my bosses said, Not at all, this gave us a result and now we know that our hypothesis was wrong, we are now one step closer to finding the truth. Often its these failed results that become the most intriguing because they challenge our beliefs and it's that challenge that forces us to better think through the situation.

 

[BlazerWookee]

Mags, would you and Denny just ***IOW?