Another theory that must be rejected by conservatives

[PLC1]

This is really not a first amendment issue at all. It's an education issue, and an economic one. The United States is once again missing from the list of top-10 science and math education countries. A new Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study last year confirmed that America lags behind many other industrialized countries at the task of preparing tomorrow's labor force. Long-term economic growth depends on a fully competent talent pool, including workers who can excel in a technology-based economy. But young people in many less-developed countries now outperform their American counterparts in both science and math.

US students' presently have stagnant science scores. This is very disconcerting since we are also confronting the largest number of job losses since 1945. Science and technology have been powerful engines of prosperity since World War II, but, sadly, science education and the versatility of the American workforce are both in decline. In 2006, the respected Programme for International Student Assessment reported that 15-year-olds in the United States ranked 17th on science tests and 24th on math tests, compared with teens from 29 other wealthy nations. The United States is failing to address the problems of science education for tomorrow's workforce. And if we don't so something ahbout that soon, we might well be finding ourselves concentrating more on teaching them Mandarin. I mean that literally. Few other countries have been more successful at getting their students up to speed in science than the Chinese. I think its a wake up call, but if we ignore it, then I think our children are going to be much worse off than we ever were. We are already the first generation in decades who don't believe that our children will be better off than we are.

And so education is, I believe, the most important issue in this debate. And yet, when we look at our education system in this country, we see, for instance, Texas school boards more interested in promoting an anti-science religious agenda than in promoting real science education. It is regressive, and an unfortunately distraction that is damaging to our children's future, and the furture prosperity of this country.

I think you would be hard put to attribute the supposed science education lag to religion. It's much more likely to be due to the kind of evaluation we do, along with our philosophy that all students can learn at a high level. Those foreign students who score better on average had to earn a place in academic education. Here, we try to educate everyone, and so, test everyone. Not everyone is able to learn math and science at a high level.

But no, trying to push "creation science", which is not a science at all, isn't helping either.

 

[PLC1]

 

[orogenicman]

I think you would be hard put to attribute the supposed science education lag to religion. It's much more likely to be due to the kind of evaluation we do, along with our philosophy that all students can learn at a high level. Those foreign students who score better on average had to earn a place in academic education. Here, we try to educate everyone, and so, test everyone. Not everyone is able to learn math and science at a high level.

But no, trying to push "creation science", which is not a science at all, isn't helping either.

No, actually I attribute the bulk of the lag to the fact that American students know they can make more money in business than they can in a science profession. This has been the case since the early 1970s. It's just that decade after decade, the gap between our need for scientists and the number that our colleges have produced have continued to lag. Our national priorites have to change.

That aside, my concern here with regard to things like the creation museum and what is going on at our school boards is that those trends indicate to me that the future of science in this country will only get much worse, and if that is the case, you can expect the science, technology and industry job losses to continue well into the future while our country becomes more and more parochial, and the available jobs become less and less rewarding. I feel we are fast becoming a nation of Walmart workers.

Did you know that of all the Industrial countries, the only one with a more religious population than the United States is Turkey?

 

[GenSeneca]

The United States is once again missing from the list of top-10 science and math education countries. A new Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study last year confirmed that America lags behind many other industrialized countries at the task of preparing tomorrow's labor force. Long-term economic growth depends on a fully competent talent pool, including workers who can excel in a technology-based economy. But young people in many less-developed countries now outperform their American counterparts in both science and math.

US students' presently have stagnant science scores. This is very disconcerting since we are also confronting the largest number of job losses since 1945. Science and technology have been powerful engines of prosperity since World War II, but, sadly, science education and the versatility of the American workforce are both in decline. In 2006, the respected Programme for International Student Assessment reported that 15-year-olds in the United States ranked 17th on science tests and 24th on math tests, compared with teens from 29 other wealthy nations. The United States is failing to address the problems of science education for tomorrow's workforce.

Plagiarize: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.

Boston Globe
A wake-up call for science education
By Alan I. Leshner

The United States is once again missing from the list of top-10 science and math education countries. A new Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study confirmed that America lags behind many other industrialized countries at the task of preparing tomorrow's labor force. Long-term economic growth depends on a fully competent talent pool, including workers who can excel in a technology-based economy. But young people in many less-developed countries now outperform their American counterparts in both science and math.

We learned about US students' stagnant science scores while also, not coincidentally, confronting the largest number of job losses since 1945.

Science and technology have been powerful engines of prosperity since World War II, but, sadly, science education and the versatility of the American workforce are both in decline. In 2006, the respected Programme for International Student Assessment reported that 15-year-olds in the United States ranked 17th on science tests and 24th on math tests, compared with teens from 29 other wealthy nations. The United States is failing to address the problems of science education for tomorrow's workforce.

I hope for the sake of science that you bring a higher regard for ethics to your work than you do to this forum.

 

[orogenicman]

Plagiarize: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.



I hope for the sake of science that you bring a higher regard for ethics to your work than you do to this forum.

My apologies. I did not intend to leave out the citation, which I nearly always include.

 

[numinus]

I accept the scientific method without question. That's the direction the facts and observations point, so, until new facts not currently in evidence come to light, yes, I accept the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and global warming theory to be correct as currently understood.

Your sarcasm in this thread is entirely misplaced. Einstein's theory of relativity, if you are even aware of the current trends in quantum cosmology, is being challenged -- more specifically, einstein's postulate of the constancy of the speed of light.

Try googling any of the lorentz variant theories and tell me whether one's politics is relevant to the argument, hmmmm?

 

[numinus]

In contrast, it is difficult to ignore the fact of gravity when anyone can readily demonstrate its existence by dropping a soild red ball and allowing it to naturally fall to the ground. Explaining what gravity is, howerver, is another matter entirely, since we still, after all these centuries, don't know what it is, though we have clues, and are making progress every day.

That's a rather dishonest way of looking at it.

If a ball falls on the ground when it is dropped, it is gravity regardless of whether you understand what gravity is to begin with, correct?

In the same manner, the law of inertia states that a body will remain at rest or in uniform (inertial) motion UNLESS AN OUTSIDE FORCE ACTS ON IT, correct?

So, when we see the universe currently EXPANDING AT AN ACCELERATING RATE, we would conclude that at its INITIAL STATE (the current theory being a space-time singularity), an outside 'force' must have acted upon it.

Is that a scientifically logical enough conclusion?

But wait, we are talking about the universe. What else is there OUTSIDE the universe, hmmmm?

And here I am not even talking about how the words 'outside' or 'before' are entirely meaningless concepts as far as singularities are concerned.

 

[numinus]

Then why all the attitude? I'm guessing you didn't bother to read the actual "article" in question. It didn't appear to me they were calling for the GTR to be abandonded but rather more openly questioned.

They made a point which I think is valid, that the "wide acceptance" of GTR as fact, rather than theory, could retard progress in that field of science. Just look at the knee jerk reaction the suggestion of GTR's fallability has solicited from you. Attacking anyone who points out the fallability of the GTR theory is no way to go about finding a new, and better, theory.


I'm not claiming GTR is wrong, I think it is the best explanation out there so far, but the reality remains that it has not been proven to be a fact (true). To ignore it's contradictions with known scientific laws is illogical.


Here you are saying that because many people believe it to be correct, that it is more likely to be correct. That is illogical.


If you want to argue that something is more likely to be correct because a great number of people believe it to be so, then the God analogy is very apropos.


That's nonsense. Only if you wanted to replace the current theory with your another would you have to both disprove the first and prove the second.

You are correct. The theoretical physics community is about as tribal and dogmatic as a medieval cleric. They will not hesitate to gut any competing theory that would jeopardize a fat grant or research time with the large hadron collider.

The thing is, einstein's relativity rests on a single, completely counter-intuitive postulate -- the constancy of the speed of light. I mean, if the fundamental units of physics such as length and time are relative quantities, how can something like the speed of light (a quantity defined by these 'relative' quantities) be constant?

 

[PLC1]

You are correct. The theoretical physics community is about as tribal and dogmatic as a medieval cleric. They will not hesitate to gut any competing theory that would jeopardize a fat grant or research time with the large hadron collider.

The thing is, einstein's relativity rests on a single, completely counter-intuitive postulate -- the constancy of the speed of light. I mean, if the fundamental units of physics such as length and time are relative quantities, how can something like the speed of light (a quantity defined by these 'relative' quantities) be constant?

numinus, Einstein, let's see, who to believe? That's a difficult one.

 

[GenSeneca]

numinus, Einstein, let's see, who to believe? That's a difficult one.

Numinus made a valid point, perhaps you could speak to his point rather than dismissing it because he isn't Einstein.

 

[PLC1]

Numinus made a valid point, perhaps you could speak to his point rather than dismissing it because he isn't Einstein.

One point was that the speed of light being a constant is counter intuitive.

Lots of things are counter intuitive, but correct nonetheless.

Let's see..

The thing is, einstein's relativity rests on a single, completely counter-intuitive postulate -- the constancy of the speed of light. I mean, if the fundamental units of physics such as length and time are relative quantities, how can something like the speed of light (a quantity defined by these 'relative' quantities) be constant?

That is how I understand the theory of relativity as well, it is based on the constant speed of light, in space that is. Light does slow down in a denser medium.

So, is the speed of light a constant? This seems to indicate that it is.

The quantum theory of atoms tells us that these frequencies and wavelengths depend chiefly on the values of Planck's constant, the electronic charge, and the masses of the electron and nucleons, as well as on the speed of light. By eliminating the dimensions of units from the parameters we can derive a few dimensionless quantities, such as the fine structure constant and the electron to proton mass ratio. These values are independent of the definition of the units, so it makes much more sense to ask whether these values change. If they did change, it would not just be the speed of light which was affected. The whole of chemistry is dependent on their values, and significant changes would alter the chemical and mechanical properties of all substances. Furthermore, the speed of light itself would change by different amounts according to which definition of units you used. In that case, it would make more sense to attribute the changes to variations in the charge on the electron or the particle masses than to changes in the speed of light.

In any case, there is good observational evidence to indicate that those parameters have not changed over most of the lifetime of the universe. See the FAQ article Have physical constants changed with time?

 

[GenSeneca]

WTF happened to the reply I made in this thread?

 

[PLC1]

WTF happened to the reply I made in this thread?

Well, I screwed up, and have been trying to fix it.

I pushed the "edit" button instead of the 'reply" button, then tried to delete my response, and wound up deleting the whole thing.

Then the message came up that this forum isn't accepting any more replies.

let's see if I can fix it with a cut and paste.

Originally Posted by PLC1 View Post
So, is the speed of light a constant? This seems to indicate that it is.
From that same source:

Quote:
In the 1920 book "Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote:

. . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity [. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position.

Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to special relativity suggests that he did mean so. This interpretation is perfectly valid and makes good physical sense, but a more modern interpretation is that the speed of light is constant in general relativity.

The problem here comes from the fact that speed is a coordinate-dependent quantity, and is therefore somewhat ambiguous.


from the same source, but with a later date, it says:

The theory is not only mathematically consistent, it is in agreement with countless direct experiments. The Michelson-Morley experiment was repeated with greater accuracy in the years that followed. In 1925 Dayton Miller announced that he had detected a change in velocity of the speed of light and was even awarded prizes for the discovery, but a 1950s appraisal of his work indicated that the most likely origin of his results lay with diurnal and seasonal variations in the temperature of his equipment.

Modern instruments could easily detect any ether drift if it existed. The Earth moves around the sun at a speed of about 30 km/s, so if velocities added vectorially as newtonian mechanics requires, the last 5 digits in the value of the speed of light now used in the SI definition of the metre would be meaningless. Today, high energy physicists at CERN in Geneva and Fermilab in Chicago routinely accelerate particles to within a whisper of the speed of light. Any dependence of the speed of light on reference frames would have shown up long ago, unless it is very slight indeed.

So, it looks like the speed of light as a constant has stood up to further experimentation and observations.
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[PLC1]

OK, it looks a little funky, but I think it's all there at least. Sorry about that.

 

[numinus]

numinus, Einstein, let's see, who to believe? That's a difficult one.

I never intended to claim any of the many lorentz variant theories as my own. I invited you to check them out, and see for yourself if their theories are related to their politics.

And quite frankly, this is the same bs attitude the theoretical physics community has heaped on anyone who might suggest the possibility that c is not constant.

As I said -- it is quite possible that scientists could be as dogmatic as a medieval cleric.