Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religous about their science

So were you lying again when you said this?...




You seemed to agree that there is a physical cause of the accelerated expansion of the Universe. You change your mind so soon? :boggled:

Just out of morbid curiosity, how are my two statements even remotely related in your twisted mind? I'm sure we'll discover the empirical disconnect in there somewhere. ;)
 
The fact you cannot empirically demonstrate a cause/effect relationship between acceleration and "dark energy" matters. Erroneously labeling an EM field "dark energy" matters. Erroneously labeling induction "magnetic reconnection" matters.
The fact is that we can empirically demonstrate a cause/effect relationship between acceleration and "dark energy" as done in these papers, thanks to Tim Thompson
  1. Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant; Riess, et al., The Astronomical Journal 116(3): 1009-1038, September 1998.
  2. Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae; Perlmutter, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 571(2): 565-586, June 1999.
  3. First-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters; Spergel, et al., The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 148(1): 175-194, September 2003.
  4. Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1 from the Hubble Space Telescope: Evidence for Past Deceleration and Constraints on the Dark Energy Equation of State; Riess, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 607(2): 665-687, June 2004.
  5. The Supernova Legacy Survey: measurement of ΩM, ΩΛ and w from the first year data set; Astier, et al., Astronomy and Astrophysics 447(1): February III 2006.
  6. Three-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Cosmology; Spergel, et al., The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 170(2): 377-408, June 2007.
  7. Observational Constraints on the Nature of Dark Energy: First Results from the ESSENCE Supernova Survey; Wood-Vasey, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 666(2): 694-715, September 2007.
  8. Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation; Komatsu, et al., preprint submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, version 2 dated 12 February 2010.
Of course the really, really simple reason that we can do this that any one with 2 brain cells can understand is: Dark energy is defined as the cause of the acceleration :jaw-dropp !
Your continuing ignorance of this simple fact is astounding.

For the umpteenth time
  • It is physically impossible for an EM field to be dark energy as pointed out to you before.
  • It is physically impossible for induction to be magnetic reconnection as pointed out to you before.
You are just continuing to demonstrate that you are incapable of learning.
This is actually a good thing. Since you are making this abundantly clear it means that anyone in the world with access to Google will quickly realize that your ignorance makes your assertions about anything scientific probably wrong.
 
Just out of morbid curiosity, how are my two statements even remotely related in your twisted mind? I'm sure we'll discover the empirical disconnect in there somewhere. ;)


Let's take it bit by bit, you know, since your qualifications to communicate in a sane and rational way on the subject of, well just about anything, have been challenged, and you have been unable to show that you possess any such qualifications. Were you lying again when you said this?...

I certainly believe that everything has a physical cause.


Or do you indeed agree that everything has a physical cause?
 
I have one complaint with your post. I have no disrespect for science in general, just "disrespect' (if that's even the right word) for *ONE* and only one cosmology theory that just so happens to be "popular" at the moment.

It's fine to be skeptical about one particular theory, or all scientific theories for that matter. If you're going to argue against a scientific theory, though, you should make an effort to understand it, and your argument should be a scientific argument. As illustrated below, your argument has been explicitly religious and magical, as though incessant repetition of that theme can attach religious/magical baggage to the theory instead of to the person making that religious/magical argument.

You're wrong about that. I'm aware that, lacking knowledge of the relevant mathematics and physics, you are unable to sustain a scientific argument, but your attempt to compensate by flooding this subforum with religious/magical name-calling is worse than foolish. It's disrespectful.

In every other respect I have *great* respect for various branches of science and special appreciation for all the wonderful consumer products that are direct result of scientific efforts. Your portrayal of me as some sort of "anti-scientist" is absurd and simply a villianization technique. You're just "dumbing down" the argument IMO to make cheap points. You don't hear me bitching about electrical engineers do you?
You don't seem to understand the difference between science and engineering. Electrical engineering has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Neither do consumer products. For you to accuse me of "dumbing down" the argument to make cheap points is deliciously ironic.

Err, yes we do. Like various properties of the CMBR.
Er, no you don't. When did you provide any kind of empirical cause/effect demonstration between the behaviors of light and your invisible entities?
Aha. You must be ignorant of the empirical evidence for

Rab - ½Rgab + Λgab = (8πG/c4)Tab

Not to mention Newton's law of gravity and Maxwell's equations.

So why can't any theist use your exact same argument, brazenly pilfer your math and point at the sky and claim "God did it"? What is the *EMPIRICAL* difference between "science" and any standard religion that requires faith in the unseen (in the lab) when you cannot show any effect of your invisible entity in the lab right here, right now?
Because math is not a sacred text to be pulled out and used as an argument from authority. Consider the equation I wrote above. If theists were to pilfer that equation to claim "God did it", it would be obvious that they don't know what they're talking about. Their argument would be indistinguishable from yours:

...invisible friend...belief...invisible friends...impotent...

...theism...God...subjective...subjective...religious deity...mythical...deity...invisible make-believe friend...

You believe in invisible entities...impotent...religious deity...belief system...invisible entity...impotent...religious deity...

...unadulterated lies! Wow! ...hard core denial...beliefs...belief...Holy cow...God...belief...pure blind faith...invisible entities...impotent...religious deity...belief systems...

...point at the sky...God did it...point at sky and play around with math formulas.

Seeing is believing. I believe that your invisible entities are figments of your overactive imagination...waving at the sky...invisible friends...

You can't do that of course, so you'll just go on with your incredibly lame personal attacks and you'll hope nobody sees what an impotent set gods you believe in.
Everyone sees what you've been doing, Michael. Until you show some respect for math, physics, and empirical observations obtained by instruments both on and around earth, your argument will remain impotent.
 
It's too bad that this thread has been hijacked by Mozina. I am quite weary of his twaddle. If any one is interested in the OP, or my question:

So, I have some thoughts about the OP, if anyone is interested.
I'm not sure what it means to be "religious about science," other than to accept science as the only method of obtaining objective truth. We can all have hunches about things, but in order for these things to gain the status of truth, the scientific method is the only way for some of us. Even then, we feel that we can only strive for better models to understand reality, but never being certain that we can ever really get there. Is that being religious about science or is it just being logical?

please respond; if not, so be it.
 
Why should it? It explains a lot.

It doesn't "explain" anything. It doesn't actually "explain" anything more than simply beginning with an expanding physical universe (objects in motion stay in motion). It doesn't "explain" anything because it requires a negative pressure from a vacuum and not one of you can even tell me what you would physically add or subtract from a "pure" vacuum (no particles of mass) to create a "negative pressure" even if we could create one. Never mind the fact that it's physically impossible for us to create such a thing.

You still use Newtonian gravity even though it gets stuff wrong.

Yes. That is because unlike inflation, gravity is something that A) appears on Earth and B) has predicable patterns and Newtonian mechanics is "good enough" to land us on the moon and reach planets inside our solar system. Inflation however has no effect on anything anymore.

The theory of evolution looks somewhat different to Darwin's theory these days but you still use it. The three quark standard model doesn't work. But nobody gave up on quarks, they just added another 3. Etc etc etc...
But in each of these cases, these theories applied to real, tangible things, that appear on Earth and can be "picked apart" in the lab. Your inflation entity is dead and impotent in the present moment. These aren't even valid comparisons.

Michael, what is the cause of the gravitational constant, G?

"I don't know". I've learned to simply admit my ignorance.

And no, a negative pressure is perfectly possible so long as the energy decreases with decreasing volume. This is true by definition.

You'll have to give me a better explanation of what you mean. What "energy" are you claiming is 'increasing" or "decreasing" in the "pure vacuum" (no kinetic energy in the system)?

Because thats the commonly accepted scientific term. It'd be a bit stupid if I called it Jimminybobbobsplat and RC called it qwertyuiopium and DRD called it flabberdangdingdongdoodle. We'd never know what the others were talking about.

The term "acceleration" was fine. You never actually established that A) energy was involved to begin with (vs. a fundamental in our misunderstanding of GR like MOND theory), or B) that the energy is "dark". You added nothing by making up a "dark" term since "dark" really just seems to relate to your (our collective) ignorance of the actual cause. The whole "dark" thing is purely "assumed".

You can call it what the hell you like. But civilization has been progressed greatly through the use of common languages.

The basic problem is that astronomers go out of their way to avoid "common language". Instead of adopting terms that are consistent with particle physical theory or electrical engineering they go out of their way to use pseudoscientific terms that confuse the hell out of *everyone*, themselves included. It's not my fault they make up pointless terms for human ignorance like "dark energy" that may or may not be energy and may or may not be dark. Had you simply stuck to "unexplained acceleration" at least everyone would start on the same page.

I can go to a fruit and veg shop and ask for an apple and I'm likely to get exactly what I want (assuming they haven't sold out). I'm unlikely to get a cucumber. The problem with inventing your own language is that nobody else is likely to know what you mean. For example, if I decided apple was a stupid name and I'd much prefer to call them flubles, my trip to the fruit and veg store is likely to be much less successful.

The basic flaw in your argument is that you aren't talking about a tangible or real "thing" when discussing inflation, dark energy, or dark matter.

I could in fact go to China and have no clue (I don't have a clue) how to ask for an apple in Chinese, but I could probably walk into any store and find one in the store and purchase it anyway. Since inflation isn't "real" in any current physical sense, the whole "belief" in inflation is forever going to be an "act of faith" on the part of the "believer". I can't go get one. I can't test to see that it actually has any of the properties you assign to it. I essentially have to have faith in a dead supernatural entity. It's not exactly the same as simply having a language barrier. You have a giant empirical cause/effect demonstration problem on your hands and it's not related to language, it's related to the existence or lack thereof of the actual thing in question.

Likewise the problems with "dark energy" go far beyond a problem with communication. You can't show it has any effect on anything on Earth either. You aren't sure it's energy. You aren't sure it's even dark. Therefore the term "dark energy" is simply a pointless and misleading term at best, a metaphysical Frankenstein at worst. You've created the *illusion* that some new force of nature exists where none may exist at all. How exactly is that a "step forward"?
 
It's too bad that this thread has been hijacked by Mozina. I am quite weary of his twaddle. If any one is interested in the OP, or my question:

So, I have some thoughts about the OP, if anyone is interested.
I'm not sure what it means to be "religious about science," other than to accept science as the only method of obtaining objective truth. We can all have hunches about things, but in order for these things to gain the status of truth, the scientific method is the only way for some of us. Even then, we feel that we can only strive for better models to understand reality, but never being certain that we can ever really get there. Is that being religious about science or is it just being logical?
please respond; if not, so be it.

Since I finally gave up and put MM on ignore, I will cheerfully discuss this.

I used to be of the opinion that scientism (that's the philosophy that science is the most authoritative and superior method for finding out what reality is like) was somewhat narrow-minded. A god-of-the-gaps "lite" school of thought, so to speak.

However, the argument for scientism is that science is so darn powerful when you apply it properly. For example, the benefits of various religions and philosophies could be studied statistically. Any deity or method that provides any kind of benefit should be revealed quite handily. The only remaining escape route is to postulate a deity that meddles in the scientific data to keep us fooled, which starts to sound like solipsism.

As far as current evidence goes, it seems any benefits of supernatural beliefs are equally supernatural (ie, good luck finding them in this universe). Add the rule of parsimony to this, and ignoring any such belief systems seems perfectly logical to me.

Certainly, science is never quite sure it has gotten things exactly right, but it's usually quite sure when something is wrong. Falsification works well for any philosophy that claims to have real-world effects.
 
Certainly, science is never quite sure it has gotten things exactly right, but it's usually quite sure when something is wrong. Falsification works well for any philosophy that claims to have real-world effects.

He has me on ignore so he won't care but therein lies the rub IMO. Inflation has no "real world" effects in the present moment. Falsification is therefore impossible. While some brands (like Guth's original brand) of inflation can be falsified, a never ending army of new metaphysical options to choose from keep popping up like weeds. Taken as a whole it's *IMPOSSIBLE* falsify an infinite number of "possible" hypothetical forces that have no real world effect in the present moment and who's so called "properties" relate entirely to events in the long distant past.
 
Since I finally gave up and put MM on ignore, I will cheerfully discuss this.

I used to be of the opinion that scientism (that's the philosophy that science is the most authoritative and superior method for finding out what reality is like) was somewhat narrow-minded. A god-of-the-gaps "lite" school of thought, so to speak.

However, the argument for scientism is that science is so darn powerful when you apply it properly. For example, the benefits of various religions and philosophies could be studied statistically. Any deity or method that provides any kind of benefit should be revealed quite handily. The only remaining escape route is to postulate a deity that meddles in the scientific data to keep us fooled, which starts to sound like solipsism.

As far as current evidence goes, it seems any benefits of supernatural beliefs are equally supernatural (ie, good luck finding them in this universe). Add the rule of parsimony to this, and ignoring any such belief systems seems perfectly logical to me.

Certainly, science is never quite sure it has gotten things exactly right, but it's usually quite sure when something is wrong. Falsification works well for any philosophy that claims to have real-world effects.

If one has rejected all religious and supernatural belief systems for lack of evidence and for having what I believe to be internal contradictions, then the only thing left is science. That is about where I am; consequently, I have encountered people who have claimed that science is my religion. I believe they are mistaken. It seems to me that science is nothing more than the application of rigorous logic to everything around us in our quest to deal with it all and to understand it. It's not religious; it's just the logical way.

P.S. I have also decided to put Mozina on "ignore" for a while so that I can enjoy the educational and thoughtful aspects of these threads. When I regain the stamina to deal with his twaddle, I may reinstate him.
 
Or do you indeed agree that everything has a physical cause?

Sure. What does that have to do with any of your mythical invisible entities that utterly fail to do anything in the lab? What possible hope do you have of demonstrating an empirical cause/effect link between acceleration of matter and 'dark energy" *BEFORE* you stat pointing at the sky and claiming "dark energy did it"?
 
It's fine to be skeptical about one particular theory, or all scientific theories for that matter. If you're going to argue against a scientific theory, though, you should make an effort to understand it, and your argument should be a scientific argument. As illustrated below, your argument has been explicitly religious and magical, as though incessant repetition of that theme can attach religious/magical baggage to the theory instead of to the person making that religious/magical argument.

But Mr. Spock that is because your theory is comparable to any standard religious argument. You've shown no cause effect links between GR theory and inflation, dark energy and dark matter. We all agree that GR theory isn't dependent upon those things in any empirical way. What does your impotent stuff actually have to do with GR other than the fact you stuffed your mythical forces into a GR formula? How is that any different than claiming "God energy did it"?

You're wrong about that. I'm aware that, lacking knowledge of the relevant mathematics and physics, you are unable to sustain a scientific argument, but your attempt to compensate by flooding this subforum with religious/magical name-calling is worse than foolish. It's disrespectful.

Well, somewhere in there is some truth, but my "disrespect" isn't actually personal in any way. Were your invisible entities able to have some influence on a real experiment with actual control mechanisms, we wouldn't be having this discussion. For instance if you claimed an EM field was responsible for acceleration, well that's a logical and physical possibility. Dark energy isn't an option because it doesn't exist. The acceleration may in fact be real, but it isn't related to "dark energy".

You don't seem to understand the difference between science and engineering. Electrical engineering has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Neither do consumer products. For you to accuse me of "dumbing down" the argument to make cheap points is deliciously ironic.

Well, I'm certainly not anti-science as you seem to believe. I have no beef with electrical theory. I have no beef with standard particle physics theory either, although I do have some reservations. None of it is beyond empirical test of concept however so it's all good from my perspective. It's only when we get to the topic of cosmology where I "lack belief". At least acknowledge that point.

Because math is not a sacred text to be pulled out and used as an argument from authority. Consider the equation I wrote above. If theists were to pilfer that equation to claim "God did it", it would be obvious that they don't know what they're talking about. Their argument would be indistinguishable from yours:

You assume a lot about "all theists" I'm afraid. The point is that *IF* they did follow the math, their math and your math are identical and your invisible entity isn't any more 'real" by virtue of math than their entity. It then becomes physically (empirically) impossible to distinguish between religion and science. That's all due to the fact that your invisible entities are so shy around the lab.

Everyone sees what you've been doing, Michael. Until you show some respect for math, physics, and empirical observations obtained by instruments both on and around earth, your argument will remain impotent.

IMO that whole "disrespect for math" concept is purely contrived and nothing more than a silly rationalization on you part. You don't hear my bitch about Maxwell's equations, just your use of them at worst case. It's only when you start creating math formulas full of invisible entities that never show up in the lab that I get annoyed.

FYI it's because I certainly *DO* have respect for "physics" that I don't buy your brands of metaphysics and what Alfven flatly referred to as pseudoscience. The only thing that's impotent on Earth are your invisible entities. Dark energy never shows up on Earth. Inflation has *never* shown up on Earth and never will. Convincing or not, I'm here and I can affect things here and now. That's a lot more than can be said for your invisible entities.
 
Okay. So you agree that dark energy exists. Dark energy is the nickname that scientists have given to the cause of the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

I wonder about this. If the term "dark energy" is merely a synonym for cosmic expansion, why is the word energy part of the term? I believe there are some explanations of cosmic expansion that do not involve energy; would we still call it dark energy if those explanations prevailed?
It seems that it would be logical to reserve the term "dark energy" for those explanations that do rely on an unknown energy.

Mozina: This is not for your benefit. You are on ignore. I do not see your posts so don't waste your time responding.
 
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Okay. So you agree that dark energy exists.

No. Whatever the empirical cause might be it has nothing whatsoever to do with "dark energy" because "dark energy" is figment of your imagination and is at least as impotent in the lab as any religious deity.

Dark energy is the nickname that scientists have given to the cause of the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

It's a stupid name for the reasons that PS cited. You don't even know if it actually involves "energy" at all, and you have no clue if it's actually "dark" energy even *IF* it actually involves real energy.
 
I wonder about this. If the term "dark energy" is merely a synonym for cosmic expansion, why is the word energy part of the term? I believe there are some explanations of cosmic expansion that do not involve energy; would we still call it dark energy if those explanations prevailed?
It seems that it would be logical to reserve the term "dark energy" for those explanations that do rely on an unknown energy.

Mozina: This is not for your benefit. You are on ignore. I do not see your posts so don't waste your time responding.
Well, thanks anyway. :)
 
Okay, so you didn't mean it when you said...

No. Do you have a reading comprehension problem? When did you show any cause/effect relationship between your invisible friends and anything?

You sure do have one hell of a stupid religion if you can't make up your mind (or be honest) about such a trivial matter.

Oh, I've made up my mind, you just can't comprehend English evidently. I lack belief that your mythical buddies (including by not limited to dark energy) have any empirical effect on anything. They aren't the empirical "cause" of anything and you have never demonstrated anything of the sort.
 
No. Do you have a reading comprehension problem? When did you show any cause/effect relationship between your invisible friends and anything?


Did you or did you not mean it when you said this?...

I certainly believe that everything has a physical cause.


And if you did mean it, were you counting the accelerated expansion of the Universe as part of "everything"?

Oh, I've made up my mind, you just can't comprehend English evidently. I lack belief that your mythical buddies (including by not limited to dark energy) have any empirical effect on anything. They aren't the empirical "cause" of anything and you have never demonstrated anything of the sort.


Need I mention again that I don't have any mythical buddies? I didn't think so. Your comment makes you a liar, or should I say, adds to the ever growing body of evidence that shows you are a liar?

If anyone is wondering how Michael's inability to engage in an honest discussion connects to the OP, his constant need to lie to support his faith based beliefs and his willful ignorance is an excellent example of the crackpot version of lying for Jesus.
 
Did you or did you not mean it when you said this?...

I meant it and I still don't see any connection to any empirical cause and your invisible friends.

If anyone is wondering how Michael's inability to engage in an honest discussion connects to the OP, his constant need to lie to support his faith based beliefs and his willful ignorance is an excellent example of the crackpot version of lying for Jesus.

You've got the whole thing completely backwards. I lack belief in your invisible friends. It's your beliefs that are based on "blind faith in the unseen" (in the lab), not mine and you're essentially "lying for baby inflation Jesus".
 
I meant it [...]


So you meant this...

I certainly believe that everything has a physical cause.


Okay, so you do accept that there is a cause for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. And the name for that cause is dark energy. So like it or not, no matter how it might piss you off, no matter what level of contempt, bigotry, and disdain you posses towards legitimate science, math, and the English language, you accept that dark energy exists. Isn't it good that scientists agree to use certain terms to describe the concepts they discuss? :D

[...] and I still don't see any connection to any empirical cause and your invisible friends.


You've got the whole thing completely backwards. I lack belief in your invisible friends. It's your beliefs that are based on "blind faith in the unseen" (in the lab), not mine and you're essentially "lying for baby inflation Jesus".


And I still don't have any invisible friends, so you are still a liar. :p
 
I wonder about this. If the term "dark energy" is merely a synonym for cosmic expansion, why is the word energy part of the term? I believe there are some explanations of cosmic expansion that do not involve energy; would we still call it dark energy if those explanations prevailed?
It seems that it would be logical to reserve the term "dark energy" for those explanations that do rely on an unknown energy.

Mozina: This is not for your benefit. You are on ignore. I do not see your posts so don't waste your time responding.
The reason that energy is part of the term "dark energy" is that
two best causes that match the effect (the acceleration in cosmic expansion) are described as energies:
  • A non-zero cosmological constant which is sometimes called a vacuum energy (the intrinsic energy of an empty vacuum).
  • Quintessence - a varying scalar field added to general relativity. This quintessence field has a potential energy.
Then there are the less likely (but still possible) causes such as the failure of general relativity at very large scales, string theory (branes) and dark fluid.

So you can see that there could be many terms that could be constructed to describe the acceleration, e.g. dark constant, dark quintessence, dark GR failure, dark brane, dark fluid, etc. But scientists like use a single term to describe an empirical measurement. Thus dark energy was coined to reflect Fritz Zwicky's "dark matter".
 
Because math is not a sacred text to be pulled out and used as an argument from authority. Consider the equation I wrote above. If theists were to pilfer that equation to claim "God did it", it would be obvious that they don't know what they're talking about. Their argument would be indistinguishable from yours:
You assume a lot about "all theists" I'm afraid. The point is that *IF* they did follow the math, their math and your math are identical and your invisible entity isn't any more 'real" by virtue of math than their entity. It then becomes physically (empirically) impossible to distinguish between religion and science. That's all due to the fact that your invisible entities are so shy around the lab.
Utter nonsense. Here's the equation we're discussing above:

Rab - ½Rgab + Λgab = (8πG/c4)Tab

There must be tens of thousands of people who understand that equation. Some of them are theists. You're claiming that one of those theists could pilfer that equation to claim "God did it." I have pointed out that any such claim would reveal that the claimant is being dishonest or doesn't understand the equation. To support your claim, you'll have to explain how an honest theist who understands that equation could use it to claim "God did it."

You can't support your claim, but that hasn't stopped you from arguing the way a dishonest or ignorant theist might argue---like this:
...invisible entities...metaphysics...pseudoscience...impotent...invisible entities....invisible entities...
Honest, knowledgeable theists don't argue like that. In particular, Georges LemaîtreWP, the Catholic priest/mathematician/physicist who proposed what we now call the Big Bang, didn't argue like that.

Einstein and Eddington were skeptical at first, but were respectful in their opposition to Lemaître's ideas. Within a few years, they became convinced. Einstein was among those who nominated Lemaître for the 1934 Francqui PrizeWP, and Eddington was one of the three jurors who awarded Lemaître that prize.

No one expects you to match Lemaître's brilliance, but you could reasonably aspire to improve your arguments until they're at the level we'd expect from an honest but ignorant theist.
 
The reason that energy is part of the term "dark energy" is that
two best causes that match the effect (the acceleration in cosmic expansion) are described as energies:
  • A non-zero cosmological constant which is sometimes called a vacuum energy (the intrinsic energy of an empty vacuum).
  • Quintessence - a varying scalar field added to general relativity. This quintessence field has a potential energy.
Then there are the less likely (but still possible) causes such as the failure of general relativity at very large scales, string theory (branes) and dark fluid.

So you can see that there could be many terms that could be constructed to describe the acceleration, e.g. dark constant, dark quintessence, dark GR failure, dark brane, dark fluid, etc. But scientists like use a single term to describe an empirical measurement. Thus dark energy was coined to reflect Fritz Zwicky's "dark matter".

Makes sense, but "cosmic acceleration" would seem to be a more neutral term. It would be hard to anticipate someone like Mozina, basing his understanding of cosmology on terminology instead of mathematics -- if anyone really cared. Thanks.
 
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Religious Scientists VI

I'm not sure what it means to be "religious about science," other than to accept science as the only method of obtaining objective truth. We can all have hunches about things, but in order for these things to gain the status of truth, the scientific method is the only way for some of us. Even then, we feel that we can only strive for better models to understand reality, but never being certain that we can ever really get there. Is that being religious about science or is it just being logical?
If one has rejected all religious and supernatural belief systems for lack of evidence and for having what I believe to be internal contradictions, then the only thing left is science. That is about where I am; consequently, I have encountered people who have claimed that science is my religion. I believe they are mistaken. It seems to me that science is nothing more than the application of rigorous logic to everything around us in our quest to deal with it all and to understand it. It's not religious; it's just the logical way.
There is a thread in the repository, from 2008, that might be relevant: Is Science Faith Based? I think in that context the problem is what we mean by "faith". As one poster pointed out, there is a difference between "faith" (in an infallible religious doctrine) and "trust" (in experience). There certainly is a philosophical foundation for science, but again I would say that "trust" in philosophical principles is not the same as "faith".

You ask "Is that being religious about science or is it just being logical?" I don't think it is being religious about science. I would say that is being "trusting", in that you have chosen to trust the principles of science, based on your experience that those principles work, in a very practical sense. As our friend the Bad Astronomer put it ... "The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior."

Experience teaches us that observation actually does allow us to deduce the rules which the universe obeys. The road to gravity is one of the best examples of this. Old time astronomers were data gatherers; they never really tried to explain anything in what we would call the "scientific" sense, but carefully observed and recorded their observations. The pinnacle of this process was exemplified by Tycho Brahe, who was the first "scientist" I am aware of who carefully & properly included error propagation in computing positions on the sky from his observations. That fact made his the most precise data set of its kind at that time, and the first data set sufficiently precise to allow one to distinguish between elliptical and circular orbits (see the discussion of Tycho and his data in the excellent & highly recommended book Theoretical Concepts in Physics by Malcolm Longair; Cambridge University Press 2003, 2nd edition). And Johannes Kepler quickly did just that. Kepler's laws are a description of how planets move, without any reference to (or need for) any theory of why they move that way. But armed with Kepler's laws (thanks to Brahe's data), Newton was able finally to deduce the basic law of gravity. First comes the data, then comes the rules derived from the data, then comes the theory derived from the rules. Centuries of experience teach us over & over that the process allows us to deduce the rules, as long as we observe carefully enough. I agree with the use of the word (and its associated concept) "trust", over the words & concepts of "religion" or "faith".
 
Are the words "dark energy" reasonable?

So you can see that there could be many terms that could be constructed to describe the acceleration, e.g. dark constant, dark quintessence, dark GR failure, dark brane, dark fluid, etc. But scientists like use a single term to describe an empirical measurement. Thus dark energy was coined to reflect Fritz Zwicky's "dark matter".
That's the way the Wikipedia page on dark energy tells it. They say that ... "The term 'dark energy', echoing Fritz Zwicky's 'dark matter' from the 1930s, was coined by Michael Turner in 1998" (Huterer & Turner, 1999). I don't think Zwicky ever used the term "dark matter"; certainly in his early papers he used the term "missing mass", the "dark matter" came later as people came to realize that normal matter didn't cut it.
Makes sense, but "cosmic acceleration" would seem to be a more neutral term. It would be hard to anticipate someone like Mozina, basing his understanding of cosmology on terminology instead of mathematics ...
"Dark energy" is really not a bad choice of words. "Dark" can refer either to the fact that we don't know what it is (e.g., "dark" & "darkest" Africa on the old maps), or to the evident fact that it does not shine on us, or both. And of course, it should come as no surprise if people think that it takes energy of some kind to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Why did "big bang" stick? Why is it "big bang cosmology" instead of "expanding universe cosmology"? It's just one of those people are people things. But you can always spot the midgets when they decide to complain about the words instead of the concepts behind them. Mozina has to complain about the words; form is all he can complain about because he has no substance to offer.
 
I do think your industry has an emotional attachment to what Alfven called "pseudoscience" and you have not desire to bring your theories into alignment with A) particle physics theory or B) electrical engineering principles. That part is kinda sad from my perspective, and there is a stubbornness related to the fixation on the field orientation of MHD theory IMO. At no time did I claim you or anyone else was a "fraud". Anyone can just be wrong without any sort of malicious intent.

Alfvén also invested all his money in a a kind of pyramid scheme and lost it, should we do that too? Alfvén also describe a current system with outflowing currents at the poles of the sun, and lo-and-behold Ulysses did not measure anything that confirmed this, after having crossed the solar poles several times during different stages of the solar cycle. Alfvén can also be (dare I say it?) wrong.

If you would actually read up on REAL papers on reconnection then you would find that particles play an important role. That the de-magnetization of the ions, which lets them move across the magnetic field and creates so called Hall magnetic fields through the Hall currents was predicted by theory (not MHD because in MHD reconnection cannot happen) and subsequently, when we had the possibility with Cluster actually measured. See e.g. Runov et al. 2003, you can't get any more empirical than that.

We have hybrid codes describing reconnection, where the ions are real particles etc. etc. It is just in your fantasy world that things don't happen as you would like them to happen. In the real world we have moved much farther already than you can imagine.

And please, answer me this, why can't circuit theory describe reconnection?

What everyone got sick of was the fact you *COULD NOT* differentiate MR theory from induction or collisions. Somehow it's all my fault it requires "circuits" to change their flow patterns to make your theories work in the lab.

Induction does NOT change the topology. Let's take a simple example of the Earth's tail or of a solar flare:

Code:
<------------------------<
<------------------------<
*********************
>------------------------->
>------------------------->

gets changed into

<-------\    /-----------<
<------\ \  / /----------<
*******| | | |  *******
>------/ /  \ \--------->
>------/     \--------->

where the --- are the magnetic field lines and the *** show the current sheet needed for this magnetic field reversal.

Please, show me exactly how induction (or whatever you understand under induction) changes the top topology in the bottom topology.

Why? Birkeland described and even simulated the process in the lab. What's the big enigma of "current flow"?

Birkeland did none of this, he did his experiments long before reconnection was even thought about and his terrella experiments did not model anything remotely related to reconnection. He just had a sphere with a voltage and had electrons emitted from a cathode and created an impression of the aurora. That is all he did. He also played around with variations on this and got some loops on his terrella, but never ever did he simulate topological changes of the magnetic field as are seen in reconnection events.

There is no enigma of current flow, current flows from one side to the other.

Er no. I'm "gung-ho" on the idea because Alfven used a "circuit" orientation when describing events in space and they make sense.

And prithee, what are the limitations on circuit theory? Care to answer that? (or look it up in another thread because I have already told you before).

tusenfem said:
The particle acceleration comes from the tension of the magnetic field which is released.
That already has a proper scientific name. It's called "induction".

Well maybe your quoted "induction" which probably is something different from regular induction (like in the electric field generated by a time varying magnetic field). Please show us in detail how your "induction" is the same as releasing magnetic tension, although I must admit that that release will induce an electric field in the frame where the field is moving, naturally not in the co-moving frame. Induction would go around the circuit, will move the electrons and ions around the "wires" (which would be the magnetic field lines here, therefore the " "), however, this process, the release of magnetic tension accelerates the plasma perpendicular to the wires, and moves along with the wires.

So please, present to us your detailed particle-current-circuit reconnection model, that at least can explain the observations by the paper by Runov et al. mentioned above.

Otherwise, this whole discussion is moot and your "model" of what reconnection is is just a figment of your imagination.
 
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It doesn't "explain" anything. It doesn't actually "explain" anything more than simply beginning with an expanding physical universe (objects in motion stay in motion).
Well, not really. The Big Bang isn't stuff moving apart through space, its stuff moving apart by the space between them expanding. And yes, it does explain stuff. Like aspects of the CMBR.

It doesn't "explain" anything because it requires a negative pressure from a vacuum and not one of you can even tell me what you would physically add or subtract from a "pure" vacuum (no particles of mass) to create a "negative pressure" even if we could create one.
Vacuum energy. The greater the amount of vacuum, the greater the vacuum energy. You clearly still have this silly idea that all pressure is gas pressure.

. Never mind the fact that it's physically impossible for us to create such a thing.
We can and have done


Yes. That is because unlike inflation, gravity is something that A) appears on Earth and B) has predicable patterns and Newtonian mechanics is "good enough" to land us on the moon and reach planets inside our solar system. Inflation however has no effect on anything anymore.
Well A) is utterly irrelevant since there is no reason whatsoever (unless your religiosity believes you to think that the Universe was designed for humans) to think that all aspects of physics should be observable on scales of human convienience. None.
As for B), inflation also makes successful predictions so that is a nonsense point too.

But in each of these cases, these theories applied to real, tangible things, that appear on Earth and can be "picked apart" in the lab.
Yes, but the only reason to think that all physical phenomena should be obviously observable on scales of human convienience is if you believe the Universe is designed for humans. Which bit of this do you not understand?

Your inflation entity is dead and impotent in the present moment. These aren't even valid comparisons.
Your colourful use of English underlines your complete inability to make a scientific argument.

"I don't know". I've learned to simply admit my ignorance.
And yet you're still happy to believe in gravity even though you have no cause for G to be G?

You'll have to give me a better explanation of what you mean. What "energy" are you claiming is 'increasing" or "decreasing" in the "pure vacuum" (no kinetic energy in the system)?
The vacuum energy.

The term "acceleration" was fine. You never actually established that A) energy was involved to begin with (vs. a fundamental in our misunderstanding of GR like MOND theory), or B) that the energy is "dark". You added nothing by making up a "dark" term since "dark" really just seems to relate to your (our collective) ignorance of the actual cause. The whole "dark" thing is purely "assumed".
The whole thing dark was a parallel with dark matter, which certainly is dark. You are arguing semantics, nothing more Michael.

The basic problem is that astronomers go out of their way to avoid "common language". Instead of adopting terms that are consistent with particle physical theory or electrical engineering they go out of their way to use pseudoscientific terms that confuse the hell out of *everyone*, themselves included.
Astronomy can be confusing that is true. But terms themselves cannot possibly pseudoscientifc, only concepts and hypotheses. The fact that you object to a name is utterly irrelevant to it's validity or otherwise. This a science forum, not a semantics forum. Please discuss science and not semantics.

It's not my fault they make up pointless terms for human ignorance like "dark energy" that may or may not be energy and may or may not be dark. Had you simply stuck to "unexplained acceleration" at least everyone would start on the same page.
Michael, nobody cares about your semantic objections. This is a science forum.

The basic flaw in your argument is that you aren't talking about a tangible or real "thing" when discussing inflation, dark energy, or dark matter.
Define "real".

I could in fact go to China and have no clue (I don't have a clue) how to ask for an apple in Chinese, but I could probably walk into any store and find one in the store and purchase it anyway.
That's true, but communication is usually a lot easier when you speak the same language.

Since inflation isn't "real" in any current physical sense, the whole "belief" in inflation is forever going to be an "act of faith" on the part of the "believer".
Not an act of faith in the slightest. An act of comparing the theory with the observational evidence. Just like every other theory in the entire history of physics.

I can't go get one. I can't test to see that it actually has any of the properties you assign to it.
I can't get hold of a top quark. Does that mean I have to have faith that Fermilab is actually making them?

I essentially have to have faith in a dead supernatural entity.
Clearly not, since it was never alive and it isn't supernatural.

It's not exactly the same as simply having a language barrier. You have a giant empirical cause/effect demonstration problem on your hands and it's not related to language, it's related to the existence or lack thereof of the actual thing in question.
We have no more of a cause/effect demonstration problem than you have a causal problem with showing why G = 6.67 x 10-11.

Likewise the problems with "dark energy" go far beyond a problem with communication. You can't show it has any effect on anything on Earth either.
The only reason to think that all physical phenomena should be obviously observable on scales of human convienience is if you believe the Universe is designed for humans. Which bit of this do you not understand

You aren't sure it's energy. You aren't sure it's even dark. Therefore the term "dark energy" is simply a pointless and misleading term at best, a metaphysical Frankenstein at worst.
This has nothing to do with Frankenstein (who was, by the way a literary human), metaphysical or otherwise. Stop with your silly comparisons and talk science. This is a science forum after all.

You've created the *illusion* that some new force of nature exists where none may exist at all. How exactly is that a "step forward"?
No, we haven't, so your last question is meaningless.
 
"Dark energy" is really not a bad choice of words.

You mean other than the fact that it might not involve energy and if it does, it may not even be "dark"? Ya, other than that, it's a "great" term Tim.

I think the primary reason you folks didn't select something more neutral as PS suggested is due to the fact that you couldn't make up stuff with it. You would have to admit your ignorance up front, so you couldn't make up claims like "70+ percent of the universe is composed of "dark energy" in a purely ad hoc manner. By giving it a sense of "we know for sure it's energy and some kind of new energy", you've created a "metaphysical mythology" out of your own ignorance!

"Dark" can refer either to the fact that we don't know what it is.....

Ya, but admitting ignorance doesn't seem to be your strong suit (as a group).

Mozina has to complain about the words; form is all he can complain about because he has no substance to offer.

Wow is that an ironic comment. My whole complaint is that *you* do not have any "substance" to offer in terms of actual empirical physics. You're like the vacuum cleaner salesman that comes to the door trying to sell a new vacuum that runs on "dark energy". When asked to provide a demonstration of the product, you whip out a truck load of mathematical formulas and claim "Eureka, it should work when I get it finished". Come back to me Tim when you have a "working" model, otherwise it's simply a ridiculous claim and it is entirely "without substance".
 
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Utter nonsense. Here's the equation we're discussing above:

Rab - ½Rgab + Λgab = (8πG/c4)Tab

Hoy. My dear Mr. Spock, you are missing the point *ENTIRELY* IMO!

Let's try a slightly different approach. What part of that formula is even *REMOTELY* dependent upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic (never been seen in the lab) matter"?

Which experiment did you perform to decide that "dark energy" has the ability to accelerate anything and then where did you decide to stuff it into that formula and why?
 
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The reason that energy is part of the term "dark energy" is that
two best causes that match the effect (the acceleration in cosmic expansion) are described as energies:

A non-zero cosmological constant which is sometimes called a vacuum energy (the intrinsic energy of an empty vacuum).

You know half the problem for anyone that is honestly trying to understand your beliefs has to do with your consistently poor choice of terms. There is no such thing as "intrinsic energy of an empty vacuum". There is only "intrinsic energy in a *NON* empty vacuum*. The vacuum cannot ever be 'empty' since it always contains *POSITIVE* pressure and *POSITIVE* kinetic energy.

Quintessence - a varying scalar field added to general relativity. This quintessence field has a potential energy.

I don't suppose that bad sounding boy actually shows up in lab either?

Then there are the less likely (but still possible) causes such as the failure of general relativity at very large scales,

In which case it had nothing whatsoever to do with "energy", and "dark" simply relates to human ignorance. What a useless snipe hunt looking for something that may not even exist.

string theory (branes) and dark fluid.

Ya, you'll entertain the idea of a boat load of extra dimensions but not PC theory. Right.

So you can see that there could be many terms that could be constructed to describe the acceleration, e.g. dark constant, dark quintessence, dark GR failure, dark brane, dark fluid, etc. But scientists like use a single term to describe an empirical measurement. Thus dark energy was coined to reflect Fritz Zwicky's "dark matter".

So the whole point of *assuming* it's some sort of "new and improved' type of energy is to be able to make claims like 70+ percent of the universe is 'dark energy" and 96 percent is "dark"? I don't get it. You don't even know if this stuff exists, but already you've decided how much of the universe is made of the stuff.
confused.gif
 
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Well, not really. The Big Bang isn't stuff moving apart through space, its stuff moving apart by the space between them expanding. And yes, it does explain stuff. Like aspects of the CMBR.

It's a bit busy today so please pardon me if I "nibble" at your post rather than trying to respond all at once.

That's another concept I evidently have to "take on faith" because the "space" between objects never "expands" in the lab. Supposedly it only happens "somewhere out there" where humans can evidently never reach.

Vacuum energy. The greater the amount of vacuum, the greater the vacuum energy. You clearly still have this silly idea that all pressure is gas pressure.
It's not *ONLY* gas pressure, it's *KINETIC ENERGY* pressure for all the particles, both gas and subatomic particles. Every "vacuum" on Earth has tons of kinetic energy flowing through it in the form of neutrinos, etc. There's not just *ONE* type of kinetic energy, there are several

Well A) is utterly irrelevant since there is no reason whatsoever (unless your religiosity believes you to think that the Universe was designed for humans) to think that all aspects of physics should be observable on scales of human convienience. None.

Nobody said it had to work on a scale that was convenient for humans. Gravity however does not do repulsive tricks at any scale we can directly measure. Whatever drives acceleration, it's not *NECESSARILY* directly related to gravity as far as we know.

As for B), inflation also makes successful predictions

I hate that term "prediction". Which thing(s) did it predict *BEFORE* hand? Guth already knew that the universe was homogeneously distributed, so don't even consider using that argument.
 
Makes sense, but "cosmic acceleration" would seem to be a more neutral term. It would be hard to anticipate someone like Mozina, basing his understanding of cosmology on terminology instead of mathematics -- if anyone really cared. Thanks.

You'll probably never read this, but...

The term "cosmic acceleration" is not only a more "neutral" term, it's a more scientifically precise term. As you noted earlier that acceleration, doesn't *necessarily* involve internal (to this universe) energy, nor is there any guarantee that such energy is 'dark' even *if* it involves energy. Your term is scientifically precise. Their term is meaningless and potentially completely misleading. Your term would also prevent the mainstream from engaging in their most offensive behaviors, like claiming most of the universe is made of something that *MAY NOT EVEN EXIST* as far as they actually know.
 
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Okay, so you do accept that there is a cause for the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

Yep.

And the name for that cause is dark energy.

BZZZT! Dark energy is a figment of your imagination. It doesn't "cause" anything to happen, not ever. That is part of your religious dogma, it is not something that you can empirically demonstrate. Your "dark energy" deity is empirically impotent.
 
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Hoy. My dear Mr. Spock, you are missing the point *ENTIRELY* IMO!

Let's try a slightly different approach. What part of that formula is even *REMOTELY* dependent upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic (never been seen in the lab) matter"?

Which experiment did you perform to decide that "dark energy" has the ability to accelerate anything and then where did you decide to stuff it into that formula and why?
What's going on here is that you have completely missed the point, abandoned the topic of your own derail, and are now hoping to derail your derail.

One term of Einstein's field equation corresponds to dark energy.

Albert EinsteinWP stuffed what we now refer to as dark energy into his field equation, fully aware of its consequences for acceleration, because he needed that acceleration to offset the gravitational collapse that would otherwise befall his static model of the universe. At that time, Einstein knew of no experimental support for his dark energy; when empirical observations revealed that Einstein's cosmological constant could not be far from zero, he assumed it was zero. As has been explained to you countless times, including this very thread, more recent observations imply a small positive value.

Returning to the points you raised but are now trying to derail...

Er, no you don't. When did you provide any kind of empirical cause/effect demonstration between the behaviors of light and your invisible entities?
Aha. You must be ignorant of the empirical evidence for

Rab - ½Rgab + Λgab = (8πG/c4)Tab

Not to mention Newton's law of gravity and Maxwell's equations.
You still have not shown any awareness of the empirical evidence for that equation. You have not even acknowledged that all evidence for Newtonian gravity counts as evidence for that equation in its Newtonian limit.

That's relevant because you have claimed your unholy trinity bear no relationship to Einstein's equation. In reality, they depend upon it. The most charitable way to interpret your obsession with the converse relationship is that you believe dependence to be a symmetric relation. It is not.

There must be tens of thousands of people who understand that equation. Some of them are theists. You're claiming that one of those theists could pilfer that equation to claim "God did it." I have pointed out that any such claim would reveal that the claimant is being dishonest or doesn't understand the equation. To support your claim, you'll have to explain how an honest theist who understands that equation could use it to claim "God did it."

You can't support your claim
Since you can't support your claim, you are derailing your derail while accusing me of missing the point.

Given your evident unwillingness to defend your claims, combined with the obvious fact that neither you nor anyone else have offered any evidence for your claims, empirical or otherwise, I will simply assume your claims are incorrect and you are blowing smoke.
 
And the name for that cause is dark energy.

From the standpoint of psychology, it's fascinating to see how something as simple as a choice of terms can either enable or preclude religious dogma from creeping into science.

Notice that the term that PS selected is scientifically precise. Granted, there are several subjective issues related to redshift to consider, but other than that, it's a clean term. His term ultimately implies nothing other than an "observation" of acceleration. Because the term is scientifically precise, it precludes GM here from playing word games, and it forces him to focus only on science. It's quite fascinating to note that GM's argument falls completely apart the moment we switch terms. GM can't say "Cosmic acceleration is the "cause" of cosmic acceleration". The dogma no longer makes any sense.

By selecting a term that "implies" excess energy (which may not be the case) and that it is "dark" (unique in some way which may also be false), GM's dogma somehow takes on a life of it's own. Because the term implied something other than a simple "observation", it somehow in his mind becomes a "cause". Fascinating.
 
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One term of Einstein's field equation corresponds to dark energy.

Before I go through the whole post, read my last response to GM and switch terms and try again. I think we'll be able to "communicate" a whole lot better if we both switch terms and use "cosmic acceleration" rather than 'dark energy". I honestly think that's our best bet at "communicating" effectively. I have no beef with the concept of acceleration, just the notion that "dark energy" as anything to do with it.
 
That's the way the Wikipedia page on dark energy tells it. They say that ... "The term 'dark energy', echoing Fritz Zwicky's 'dark matter' from the 1930s, was coined by Michael Turner in 1998" (Huterer & Turner, 1999). I don't think Zwicky ever used the term "dark matter"; certainly in his early papers he used the term "missing mass", the "dark matter" came later as people came to realize that normal matter didn't cut it.

"Dark energy" is really not a bad choice of words. "Dark" can refer either to the fact that we don't know what it is (e.g., "dark" & "darkest" Africa on the old maps), or to the evident fact that it does not shine on us, or both. And of course, it should come as no surprise if people think that it takes energy of some kind to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Why did "big bang" stick? Why is it "big bang cosmology" instead of "expanding universe cosmology"? It's just one of those people are people things. But you can always spot the midgets when they decide to complain about the words instead of the concepts behind them. Mozina has to complain about the words; form is all he can complain about because he has no substance to offer.
I don't think Zwicky ever used the term "dark matter"

Apparently, he used the term "Dunkle Materie" in his 1933 paper, "Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln"

I've not managed to get my hands on, or even read, a copy of this paper, so I have not been able to confirm what's widely found on the internet.

Jan Oort found some missing mass in his studies on the Milky Way, and wrote a 1932 paper on it (I've not checked to see if he refers to "dark matter", "missing mass", or something else).

FYI, here's a (the?) German (language) WP on Dunkle Materie.
 
There is a thread in the repository, from 2008, that might be relevant: Is Science Faith Based? I think in that context the problem is what we mean by "faith". As one poster pointed out, there is a difference between "faith" (in an infallible religious doctrine) and "trust" (in experience). There certainly is a philosophical foundation for science, but again I would say that "trust" in philosophical principles is not the same as "faith".

You ask "Is that being religious about science or is it just being logical?" I don't think it is being religious about science. I would say that is being "trusting", in that you have chosen to trust the principles of science, based on your experience that those principles work, in a very practical sense. As our friend the Bad Astronomer put it ... "The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That’s it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves. This follows naturally; if it obeys the rules, then the rules must be revealed by that behavior."

Experience teaches us that observation actually does allow us to deduce the rules which the universe obeys. The road to gravity is one of the best examples of this. Old time astronomers were data gatherers; they never really tried to explain anything in what we would call the "scientific" sense, but carefully observed and recorded their observations. The pinnacle of this process was exemplified by Tycho Brahe, who was the first "scientist" I am aware of who carefully & properly included error propagation in computing positions on the sky from his observations. That fact made his the most precise data set of its kind at that time, and the first data set sufficiently precise to allow one to distinguish between elliptical and circular orbits (see the discussion of Tycho and his data in the excellent & highly recommended book Theoretical Concepts in Physics by Malcolm Longair; Cambridge University Press 2003, 2nd edition). And Johannes Kepler quickly did just that. Kepler's laws are a description of how planets move, without any reference to (or need for) any theory of why they move that way. But armed with Kepler's laws (thanks to Brahe's data), Newton was able finally to deduce the basic law of gravity. First comes the data, then comes the rules derived from the data, then comes the theory derived from the rules. Centuries of experience teach us over & over that the process allows us to deduce the rules, as long as we observe carefully enough. I agree with the use of the word (and its associated concept) "trust", over the words & concepts of "religion" or "faith".

Well said. It seems to me that if there is any aspect of my thinking that could be labeled as "religious" it is my belief in logic. The universe is there to see, tinker with and think about. We have discovered that it behaves logically in that it behaves in accordance with mathematical laws, which are nothing more than the application of logic. However, as you point out it can be attributed to nothing more than being "based on (my) experience that those principles work."
 
I don't think Zwicky ever used the term "dark matter"

Apparently, he used the term "Dunkle Materie" in his 1933 paper, "Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln"

Of course in 1933 *THAT* term didn't imply what it does today either. Back then it simply implied "missing mass". Today's new and improved brand of "dark matter" is evidently based on SUSY theory (a non mainstream particle physics theory), a wing and a prayer. :)
 
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