I was listening to BBC radio this morning and they were talking about today's probable announcement that the LIGO experiment has discovered gravitational waves. This would be a major advance in physics, and the announcers were speculating about who might win the Nobel Prize for the work. One name they mentioned was Kip Thorne, a physicist who specializes in General Relativity and who co-founded the LIGO project.

Thorne is an exmo. You can read more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne

Lawrence Krauss has been hinting at this on Twitter for a while now, and today is the day.

Gravitational waves: pretty exciting stuff if that’s what is indeed revealed:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ligo-gravitational-wave-1.3440315


I like this from the Kip Thorne wiki bio:

“Thorne's parents were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and raised Thorne in the LDS faith, though he now describes himself as atheist. Regarding his views on science and religion, Thorne has stated: ‘There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God [...] There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God.’”

What may be revealed today was hinted at only by mathematics. Like the Higgs Boson, its existence was theoretical until observed. It took a hundred years to "see" gravitational waves. One hundred years of believing something that was yet scientifically observed.

Sure, the math (Einstein's general theory of relativity) worked out in so many other ways so why wouldn’t it work in the ways yet unknown? There were lots of good reasons to believe in what was hitherto unseen, for one hundred years.

What else yet 'unseen' is there reason to believe?

Human

Human Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sure, the math (Einstein's general theory of
> relativity) worked out in so many other ways so
> why wouldn’t it work in the ways yet unknown?
> There were lots of good reasons to believe in what
> was hitherto unseen, for one hundred years.

Well, actually...the quest was to find out if there were gravity waves or not. It wasn't "I believe!" It was, "The math works, let's see if we can find these or not." There's never reason to "believe" without evidence.

> What else yet 'unseen' is there reason to
> believe?

Nothing. There's reason, with things that are plausible, to determine ways we can find out if they're real or not. But not to "believe." Knowledge (finding out) trumps "belief" every time. That's what science does -- it finds out. It doesn't "believe."

"Well, actually...the quest was to find out if there were gravity waves or not. It wasn't "I believe!" It was, "The math works, let's see if we can find these or not." There's never reason to "believe" without evidence."

COMMENT: This statement is misleading. General relativity, which has been verified by experiment on multiple occasions, implies that gravitational waves exist; i.e. it follows from the mathematics of general relativity. Since the acceptance of general relativity there has been little doubt in the scientific community that gravitational waves exist, whether confirmed by experiment or not. Note, however, that it is possible (presumably) that the mathematics of general relativity could be modified to account for gravitation in some other ontological way. Notwithstanding, essentially all of science "believed" in gravitational waves prior to the present experimental discovery. In fact, such belief, without confirming evidence, is precisely what drives research and experiment in science, including this one. So, your constant attempt to distance science from belief is seriously misplaced.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Notwithstanding,
> essentially all of science "believed" in
> gravitational waves prior to the present
> experimental discovery. In fact, such belief,
> without confirming evidence, is precisely what
> drives research and experiment in science,
> including this one. So, your constant attempt to
> distance science from belief is seriously
> misplaced.

You've clearly never been a scientist.
It's your characterization that is "misleading."
They didn't "believe." They considered them probable based on the math in general relativity.
Then, instead of "believing," they went out to see if they existed or not.
Turns out, they do.
No "belief" used.
Your constant attempt to impose "belief" on science when it doesn't use it is seriously misplaced.

Rationally assessing probability, and seeking reliable confirmation (or falsification) is not "belief."

Forgive me for saying this, for you're not asking for it:

You seem to have an ex-mo recovery problem here. I've seen similar hang-ups with the word "sacred", posters going long out of their way to avoid using the word, which is a perfectly good word. As is "belief/believe".

My Oxford has it this way:

1. Have confidence or faith in or on 2. Put one's trust or have confidence in the truth of... Only in 3. is the more religious "exercise faith (esp. religious), hold an opinion, think.

But forget the dictionary. Every day people use "believe" in the above way every day.

It is not weird to say the NSF funded the building of LIGO because they *believed* it might find the existence of gravitational waves by doing so. It is weird to insist that the word "believe" must be verboten in scientific talk.

I believe 'believe' is a good, everyday word; and I don't believe that's in any way controversial (except with dedicated Logical Positivists, perhaps?)

Human

Human Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Forgive me for saying this, for you're not asking
> for it:

No problem. :)

> You seem to have an ex-mo recovery problem here.
> I've seen similar hang-ups with the word "sacred",
> posters going long out of their way to avoid using
> the word, which is a perfectly good word. As is
> "belief/believe."

It may be a "perfectly good word," but it's not the *appropriate* word. It's not one that Kip used. So why use it, when it's not what the people involved use?

> My Oxford has it this way:
>
> 1. Have confidence or faith in or on

No 'faith' is involved. Toss that one.

> 2. Put one's
> trust or have confidence in the truth of...

Testing an hypothesis *requires* that the testers be unbiased, and not have "trust" or "confidence" their hypothesis will be confirmed. They have to be ready for it to be false. And they usually are. When they're not, that's when bias mistakes occur.

> Only
> in 3. is the more religious "exercise faith (esp.
> religious), hold an opinion, think.

That one's already out (no religion in science).

> But forget the dictionary. Every day people use
> "believe" in the above way every day.

Every day people drive while texting on their phones. I think that's absurdly stupid. So I don't put any value in what "people" do every day. I prefer being accurate in word use, and "believe" doesn't fit here.

> It is not weird to say the NSF funded the building
> of LIGO because they *believed* it might find the
> existence of gravitational waves by doing so.

Weird? Got me.
Inappropriate? Yep.
I'll bet real money that none of the grant applications or approvals ever once say they "believe" anything. For very good reasons. Yet you still want to insist they're using belief, when they don't use that word (or any of the 3 definitions above). So why insist? Because "people" do it every day?

As I've said before: a rational assessment of probability (or the decision to fund an experiment based on a detailed scientific explanation of it) is not "belief." If you insist on calling it that, you can of course do so...but it's not what the people involved use.

> It
> is weird to insist that the word "believe" must be
> verboten in scientific talk.

Never once have I (or "science") said the word "believe" must be verboten. Scientists themselves use the word all the time -- when it's appropriate. Here, it's not.

> I believe 'believe' is a good, everyday word; and
> I don't believe that's in any way controversial
> (except with dedicated Logical Positivists,
> perhaps?)

It is a good everyday word, where it's appropriate.
Here, it's not. And that's got nothing to do with "dedicated Logical Positivism."

Let me give you another example:

Young Earth Creationists often ask how anyone can "believe" in evolution. "Believe" is not appropriate (or correct) there. There's no need to "believe" in evolution, unless you're lazy or ignorant. It's an observed fact. If you think it's a matter of "belief," you've missed the point entirely.

The same applies here.

The whole point of LIGO was to NOT engage in "belief." But to find out facts. If, as the math suggested, gravity waves exist and have the properties calculated, this experiment would be able to confirm their existence. It succeeded. Had it failed, that would still give us some facts -- that gravity waves may still exist (or not), but they don't have the properties calculated. If they were using "belief," LIGO wouldn't have been built -- they could just "believe" in gravity waves, and leave it at that. That's not what they did.


Cheers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 06:08PM by ificouldhietokolob.

... even in scientific papers, like those found published in the journal Science. Here are search results for just the last year:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=90&q=site:sciencemag.org+believe&hl=en&as_sdt=0,45&as_ylo=2015



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 08:17PM by lurking in.

lurking in Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... even in scientific papers...

Oh, well -- a fair number of scientists 'believe' in 'god,' too. They can do so. Doesn't make 'em right :)

I don't like it, either, when scientists say "we believe ..." or when the media uses terms like "scientists believe ...," but it appears that the scientists are using the word more in the sense of "we think, based on evidence,..." or "we hypothesize/theorize that ...."

It does muddy the waters, though, doesn't it?

: )



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 08:57PM by lurking in.

I am a scientist, in particular a theoretical physicist. I first heard about gravitational waves in a general relativity lecture thirty years ago. Detecting them has been one of the holy grails of physics throughout my career.

Bemis is right. Nobody doubted that gravitational waves were real. The challenge was to see them.

Nobody has yet tested the theory that the sun will come up tomorrow. We believe it will, because the general pattern of sunrises seems well established, even though this one particular detail about tomorrow hasn't yet been confirmed. Gravitational waves were part of the well-established pattern of general relativity.

Popular accounts of what science is and how it works often exaggerate both scientific certainty and scientific skepticism. No scientific facts are really certain, but scientists certainly believe things that are not yet facts.

I attended a lecture Kip Thorne gave about 38 years ago at, of
all places, BYU. He mentioned there that gravitational waves
are predicted by all theories which are consistent with Special
Relativity. So, although this does "confirm" GR, it evidently
also confirms rival theories.

Agreed 100%

The problem with religion is that their beliefs are unproven theories (or theories proven to be false), yet they accept them as fact. Science requires theories to be proven, not accepted on faith as truth.

What may be revealed today was hinted at only by mathematics. Like the Higgs Boson, its existence was theoretical until observed. It took a hundred years to "see" gravitational waves. One hundred years of believing something that was yet scientifically observed.

COMMENT: Exactly correct; Well, almost. My only objection is to the word "hinted at" It has been quite well established as part of relativity for decades. But, your last sentence is entirely correct. (See my response to Kolob)
_______________________________________

Sure, the math (Einstein's general theory of relativity) worked out in so many other ways so why wouldn’t it work in the ways yet unknown? There were lots of good reasons to believe in what was hitherto unseen, for one hundred years.

COMMENT: Exactly, "good reasons to believe" does not require direct empirical evidence in science, anymore than it does in ordinary life.
_________________________________________

What else yet 'unseen' is there reason to believe?

COMMENT: Don't get me started.

He is totally wrong about that.
I wonder what else he is wrong about ?

God is totally irrelevant to science. According to the preponderance of the evidence, God never does anything in the real world, has never done anything in the past, and did not create the world. So what a scientist does in doing science, is sideline God and not allow ideas about God to sneak into his or her ideas, theories, and calculations. A bad scientist, who is not likely to win awards, is one who allows God to creep into his or her thinking about scientific issues. It is all about compartmentalization.

“I want to know God's thoughts - the rest are mere details.”


― Albert Einstein


edit:

"BAD scientist!
BAD!"

;-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2016 12:11PM by zenjamin.

Here is an example of Einstein speaking metaphorically or redefining terms. Einstein was pretty much an atheist, deist, or pantheist. He did not believe in miracles and a personal God who interacts with His worshipers and with the world. In his poetic way of thinking it was sort of like:

The physical laws of the universe = God

Einstein didn't believe in a personal God, but he was no atheist. He was offended by those who ascribed atheism to him. Some of his quotes on God include:

“Behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force is my religion. To that extent, I am in point of fact, religious.”[8]

“Every scientist becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men.”[9]

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man.”[10]

“The divine reveals itself in the physical world.”[11]

“My God created laws… His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking but by immutable laws.”[12]

“I want to know how God created this world. I want to know his thoughts.”[13]

“What I am really interested in knowing is whether God could have created the world in a different way.”[14]

“This firm belief in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.”[15]

“My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit, …That superior reasoning power forms my idea of God.”[16]

“I am not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist.”[20]

“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source.”[21]

"There is harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, yet there are people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me to support such views."[22]

He also never renounced his Judaism. He lived and died a Jew.

"It is clear Einstein believed that there is something beyond the natural, physical world – a supernatural creative intelligence. Further confirmation that Einstein believed in a transcendent God comes from his conversations with his friends. David Ben-Gurion, the former Prime Minister of Israel, records Einstein saying “There must be something behind the energy.”[17] And the distinguished physicist Max Born commented, “He did not think religious belief a sign of stupidity, not unbelief a sign of intelligence.”[18]

http://www.bethinking.org/god/did-einstein-believe-in-god

Einstein compartmentalized. Like he never plugged God into any of his equations. Like you won't see one of his equations where he assigned a letter to God such as X=God or Y=magic done by God to locally change the strength of gravity. You won't read a theory he wrote where he says something like, "The chemical reaction does this, and the light energy has that effect, and the power of God causes this portion of the process to occur."

To Einstein, God was hidden so deeply that it would pretty much take a genius to detect him. Part of the wonder of creation was that God made it look like there was no God. All the physical laws accounted for how things worked, and God was not necessary to keep things working. Perhaps deism best describes Einstein's view of the world. God set things in motion, carefully covered his tracks, and retired to never be seen again.

To Einstein's credit, all of his theories and equations work equally well with the assumption that there is no God as with the assumption that God exists, because he compartmentalized so well and kept his unfounded and untestable opinions about God out of his work, and only included evidence-based things that could potentially be tested in his science.

"What else yet 'unseen' is there reason to believe?"

Here's one that has always been my favorite. First, a thought experiment. Suppose you live in a two dimensional world (a sheet of paper, where the third dimension is 'collapsed') and it is embedded in our regular three dimensional world. In the 3D world, it is possible to bend the sheet of paper so that any two spots on the sheet can be right next to each other. If a 2D being on the sheet of paper could leap through the 3D gap, travel between those two spots on the paper would be essentially instantaneous. It would look like the 2D being disappeared from one spot on the paper and magically appeared on another spot instantly.

For more on this read Flatland, by E A Abbott, written in 1884. Anyway, if our 3D universe is embedded in a 4 (or more) dimensional universe, then it is possible to warp our 3D universe so that any two areas are 'next to' each other, which means that by traveling through that higher dimension, faster than the speed of light travel between two points in the 3D universe is possible. In fact, traveling much faster than the speed of light would be possible.

Does our universe really have more than 3 spatial dimensions? String theory posits more dimensions, but there is no proof that string theory is correct on that point. There is nothing that rules out additional dimensions either.

If it did turn out that there are more than three dimensions, and there is some way we could access them, that would be a dramatic rewriting of our understanding of the nature of the universe.


Or, what if we learned what caused the Big Bang, and how to create them ourselves. Would that make us gods, the creators of universes?

Two hundred years ago, nobody had any idea about lasers, quantum mechanics, or radioactivity. Or software, for that matter. I think there are equally fundamental discoveries yet to be made, about which we don't have a clue right now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2016 12:07PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Very interesting, BofJ. I wanted to add something about your line of thought and the history of math but I gotta run.

Cheers.

Goddamn I wish I was smart...

You are smart. You're an EX mormon.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kip about 15 years ago.
Got to talk to him for about 20 minutes.
We mutually discovered we were both raised mormon.
We both got a good laugh out of it. :)

Way to go, Kip. Nobel, here you come!

In his classic book, Black Holes & Time Warps, he states:

"[T]here were no experimental results to guide the investigators. [Black Hole investigators] Instead, the theory of black holes was developed before there was any indication from observations that they actually existed. I do not know any other example in science where such a great extrapolation was successfully made solely on the basis of thought. It shows the remarkable power and depth of Einstein's theory."

He goes on to talk about gravitational waves, as following from Einstein's theory, as I noted above, and the potential of discovery the same. I have no doubt that today he would say something very similar with respect to gravitational waves; i.e. that they follow from Einstein's theory, which of itself supports belief in such things prior to confirmation.

So, again, it is ludicrous to characterize science as demanding direct, observational, evidence before theory or related belief formation.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, again, it is ludicrous to characterize science
> as demanding direct, observational, evidence
> before theory or related belief formation.

Notice that nowhere does he say, "I believed they [black holes or gravity waves] existed!"
Which, of course, makes it ludicrous to claim that he "believed" in them.

Scientists spend entire careers studying and researching theories, or implications of theories, without initial direct evidence; whether black holes, gravitational waves, string theory, or whatever. To suggest that such scientists are driven without a belief that their efforts will bare fruit; i.e. a belief that the proposed theory will turn out to be true, is just nuts. If you asked Kip Thorne, for example, why he spent his career studying black holes, he would not say; "Well, I didn't believe the theory had any merit, but what-the-hell, I had nothing better to do." Quite the contrary, he would undoubtedly say, "I believed the theory (or idea) had merit, and I was determined to find evidence for it.) Scientists simply do not engage science without a starting presumptive belief; i.e. a mental state that suggests to them that some conclusion is true, and worthy of pursuit. So, if a scientist is interested in a Nobel prize, he or she doesn't pursue something they don't believe in. Right?

As pointed out by Human, your definition of what constitutes "belief" as having some sort of religious implication is not supportable from either the dictionary, or from what scientists themselves would say, and what they clearly do. Moreover, it is not supportable by principles of cognitive science which acknowledges beliefs as mental states and their role in cognitive processing, including as applied to science.

> So, if a scientist is
> interested in a Nobel prize, he or she doesn't
> pursue something they don't believe in. Right?

Once again, a rational assessment of probability is not "belief." Also, as I pointed out above, if LIGO had *failed* to detect gravity waves, it still would have provided knowledge, making the experiment worthwhile whether it succeeded or not, and not requiring any "belief" in gravity waves -- just a quest for knowledge.

> As pointed out by Human, your definition of what
> constitutes "belief" as having some sort of
> religious implication is not supportable from
> either the dictionary, or from what scientists
> themselves would say, and what they clearly do.
> Moreover, it is not supportable by principles of
> cognitive science which acknowledges beliefs as
> mental states and their role in cognitive
> processing, including as applied to science.

I never gave a definition of "belief" as having some sort of religious implication.
I simply pointed out that it's *not* what science uses.

I notice you made up quotes from scientists (like Kip) with them using "belief," but didn't give any actual quotes from actual scientists in actual grant applications, scientific papers, etc. Wonder why that is, hmm? Oh, right -- because you won't find any.
You can find some in "popular" articles from some scientists. You won't find any in scientific papers. For good reasons.

Congratulations to Thorne on a great career.

The media always exaggerate the certainty and significance of discoveries like this one. I guarantee it. But that shouldn't diminish our respect for his talent, his hard work, his dedicated pursuit of evidence before he ever saw it...

It just goes to show how much a person can accomplish when free to work, study, and think, without feeling guilty about "missionary work" or "home teaching." Not to mention the soul-sucking three-hour block, probably the most illogical and least prophetic idea that Kimball and Tanner, both of them nearly dead, ever imposed on the members.

To quote Neil deGrasse Tyson " Science is true whether or not

you believe in it". “Once science has been established, once a scientific truth emerges from a consensus of experiments and observations, it is the way of the world,” Tyson told Colbert. “What I’m saying is, when different experiments give you the same result, it is no longer subject to your opinion. That’s the good thing about science: It’s true whether or not you believe in it. That’s why it works.”

Well maybe I've never seen a gravity wave but I do know one when I feel one.

Another former Mormon to win a Nobel prize is Lars Peter Hansen, who won it in economics. He is really a lapsed, former mormon who never took it seriously.

Science flies you to the moon.

Religion flies you into... buildings.

Well over a decade ago I attended a lecture by Kip Thorne at the
U of U. I had attended one of his lectures a couple of decades
previously at BYU. After the lecture I was discussing things
with then U of U physics professor Richard H. Price. As an
aside, Price mentioned to me that as soon as gravitational waves
are detected it will be an automatic Nobel Prize.

By the way, I strongly suspect that Price's work on numerically
calculating the GW signal that would result from two rotating
and coalescing massive objects is what was used to determine
that the signal they detected was from two black holes doing
just that.

I'll bet the CULT wishes he was still Mormon so he would be looking for Kolob. If anyone of there ilk would fake finding Kolob, it would be a TBM astrophysicist.
Oh silly me.... nobody in the cult has the critical thinking skills to be an astrophysicist.

Scientists, and everyone else, can and do believe things which cannot be proven. In fact, it is necessary to get through life. We simply cannot perfectly prove and predict everything in life, so we have to hold some beliefs in order to function.

The key is understanding the difference between belief and knowledge. I know that I believe some things just because they feel right, or I'm making a guess, or I've formed the best model I can based on what I've got. I even believe some silly things. HOWEVER, I know the difference between my beliefs and facts. I don't think my beliefs and my knowledge are the same. I leave a lot of room to change my beliefs with new information. I don't claim my beliefs are true, and I certainly don't go around demanding that others to share or accept my beliefs.

It seems like that's where a lot of the problems happen with that word. Many religious people are taught to defend their beliefs as though they are knowledge, and to impose them on others. It's not enough that others respect their right to believe, they want the beliefs themselves to be respected. So when someone uses the word "belief" in a scientific or rational context, some people cannot separate it from blind faith or fact based inquiry. Some people just cannot tell the difference.

That's how the word "believe" gets misused and abused.