The public’s misconceptions of science or scientific topics

Mid

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Mid
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Well in response to this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1532308,00.html

I was wondering if anyone had any examples of strange beliefs/misconceptions about science that they’ve been exposed to and wish to share?

I would love to start the ball rolling with some misconception I’ve heard but I can’t think of any memorable ones at the moment; still I thought I would start the thread as it could be potentially interesting.
 
I agree, this could be interesting.

The thing about "organic" being superior to "artificial" is one of those misconceptions, as its pointed out in the article. But, for me, one of the most interesting ones is related to "time travel".

Yes, maybe the idea is older than science (now that I think about it, I really dont know when it begun), still, the possibility (or impossibility) it is based on science.

For me is absurd. Where is a minute ago? Its gone. End of story.

One thing is that physics formulaes "allow it" and another very different the ontollogical status of past and future.

Oh well, complex subject, and now that I think it twice, maybe its not that related to the opening post! But hey, I need my breakfast before deep thinking. ;)
 
Last night I attended a meeting of the Carlisle Education Foundation, I've which I am treasurer. We spent half the meeting discussing an idea to start a science club at the school. A couple of town scientists (physicist, electrical engineer) presented their ideas for teaching units for the club, along with a request for funds for equipment. Great stuff. Everyone agreed it was a marvelous idea and that we would fund it, with hopes to integrate it into the curriculum in the future.

At the end of the meeting, I volunteered to teach the astrology unit. Three people looked at me and said "Really? Cool." I explained that I would pass out the same chart to all the students and have them evaluate it, then switch charts. Ha ha, funny. Two people got mad at me. One person told me she could tell me exactly where the planets were on the day I was born, just from my personality.

We're an upscale town with smart people. Amazing. At least the two scientists were not impressed. The planet reader is an artist. :D

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
The planet reader is an artist. :D

~~ Paul
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I would at this point like to deny any possible allegations that this person represents the typical art student. At least I hope not. Got lucky enough to get my BA in art without encountering any big woos.
 
Well, what about evolution theory itself? I still meet plenty of folks who insist there is no possible way that they evolved from monkeys.

"After all, there are still monkeys!" they insist.

:rolleyes:

Or those thinking we can just whip together a warp drive sometime in the next century and break the 'light barrier'. Hmmm... Methinks not.
 
In relation to evolution, I think one of the most common and pertinent misconceptions is the definition of the words 'theory' and 'hypothesis' as used in science.

As an example, a friend of mine recently betrayed this particular misconception recently when we were discussing religion. She said "I believe the theory of evolution is just that - a theory".
She doesn't lack intelligence and had gotten quite incensed eariler when we were both browsing through the brick testament website: neither of us are really fans of organised religion. But I did take a few moments to politely explain the correct use of the word 'theory' re: evolution.
 
Mid said:
Well in response to this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1532308,00.html
Click to expand...

The person in the article states:

I'll get the ball rolling. Last week, I was at a party and somebody starting telling me that the theories produced by science would be different if it had been done by women. I asked her whether she thought Newton's three laws of motion might have turned out differently if he had been a woman, and she said yes, of course. I asked her how, exactly, she thought that Newton could single-handedly change the fact that acceleration of a body is proportional to the force acting on it, divided by its mass? And she walked off. Chalk up one to the nerds; and this is only the most stupid thing I've heard this week.
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There's a confusion here between the way the world really is, and our theories describing that world. For any macroscopic state of affairs it seems to be possible to devise mutually incompatible theories utilising differing scientific entities which adequately describe such a state of affairs.

Now if I were that woman, that is what I would have said! :D

Chalk one down to the nerds :)
 
zaayrdragon said:
Well, what about evolution theory itself? I still meet plenty of folks who insist there is no possible way that they evolved from monkeys.

"After all, there are still monkeys!" they insist.

:rolleyes:
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We didn't evolve from monkeys.

Or those thinking we can just whip together a warp drive sometime in the next century and break the 'light barrier'. Hmmm... Methinks not.
Click to expand...

Why couldn't you break the light barrier?
 
Mid said:

I was wondering if anyone had any examples of strange beliefs/misconceptions about science that they’ve been exposed to and wish to share?
Click to expand...

Be happy to. :D

Cut n' pasted from OccultForums:

[...] Lifeforce energy (or prana, chi, ki,) is channeled to the earth from the sun. it is absorbed by organic life here on earth. (among which man is only 8%) and then fed to the moon.... the energy from the sun is known under many terms such as prana, ki, and etc. however, these are finer hydrogens which very few humans can manipulate or even store for that matter. the hydrogens that are neede for pyschic use are hydrogen 48, hydrogen 24, and hydrogen 12. [...]
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Oh my. What the hell do you say to that, besides linking to Wikipedia's isotope page? :hit:
 
Re: Re: The public’s misconceptions of science or scientific topics

Nex said:
...snip...
Oh my. What the hell do you say to that, besides linking to Wikipedia's isotope page? :hit:
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Wow so many strange ideas all wraped up into one unified theory, it most have taken some effort to think up is all I can say

Edited to make clear the strange ideas related to the woo-woo and not me
 
Misconception

Interesting Ian said:
We didn't evolve from monkeys.



Why couldn't you break the light barrier?
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It is a meaningless question. It represents a misunderstanding of the nature of speed of light. It is meaningless to talk about going faster than the speed of light.
 
Re: Misconception

billydkid said:
It is a meaningless question. It represents a misunderstanding of the nature of speed of light. It is meaningless to talk about going faster than the speed of light.
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Breaking the light barrier is certainly not meaningless even if it were impossible.
 
A few years back, I heard a radio phone-in show which was talking about God, nature, evolution, and similar.

One man phoned in and said that God must exist because it’s too much to believe that there is ground to walk on, food to eat, oxygen to breathe etc. All just a bit too convenient. :D

Unfortunately the host didn’t know how to counteract the point. :rolleyes:
 
We didn't evolve from monkeys.
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What did we evolve from then?
Why couldn't you break the light barrier?
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Because things become more massive the more kinetic energy they have, meaning that they require more energy to accelerate the faster they move. This means that you get diminishing returns on your attempts to accelerate something past light-speed, returns which vanish completely before you have reached light-speed.
 
Dorfl said:

Because things become more massive the more kinetic energy they have, meaning that they require more energy to accelerate the faster they move. This means that you get diminishing returns on your attempts to accelerate something past light-speed, returns which vanish completely before you have reached light-speed.
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Unfortunately, this doesn't answer the question "why can't you break the light barrier?" It only answers the question "why can't you break the light barrier by accelerating?"

A stable of the sci-fi thrillers that routinely break the light barrier do by some form of a doublespeak drive (think of the Falcon trying to "jump to hyperspace"), using some method other than simple acceleration, for example by bending space into some sort of topological nightmare or transitioning between universes where the laws of physics are different.
 
Dorfl said:
What did we evolve from then?

Because things become more massive the more kinetic energy they have, meaning that they require more energy to accelerate the faster they move. This means that you get diminishing returns on your attempts to accelerate something past light-speed, returns which vanish completely before you have reached light-speed.
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Both humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. Monkeys and humans are seperate lines on the evolutionary tree.

Our current models of motion through space produce either division by 0 or square roots of negative numbers when velocity exceeds the speed of light. Which is not to say we can't imagine other methods of travel, such as worm holes, which are different from ordinary linear motion through 3D space. We are no where close to any such practical possibility, nor have any such ideas been proven even theoretically feasible. But they can't actually be ruled out...
 
new drkitten said:
Unfortunately, this doesn't answer the question "why can't you break the light barrier?" It only answers the question "why can't you break the light barrier by accelerating?"
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Sure it does. The only question it doesn't address is a different one: why isn't light emitted from a moving object traveling at c + the object's speed.
 
Unfortunately, this doesn't answer the question "why can't you break the light barrier?" It only answers the question "why can't you break the light barrier by accelerating?"

A stable of the sci-fi thrillers that routinely break the light barrier do by some form of a doublespeak drive (think of the Falcon trying to "jump to hyperspace"), using some method other than simple acceleration, for example by bending space into some sort of topological nightmare or transitioning between universes where the laws of physics are different.
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True.
Hmm... I remember reading that this would make you end up in the past, but since I don't remember where I read this I'm not very confident in it's truthhood. Does anybody know if this is true or just part of an SF-story?
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
One person told me she could tell me exactly where the planets were on the day I was born, just from my personality.
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Well??? Did you take her up on it?
 
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