Strange

So, if all you are saying is that science is slow to overthrow established theories then I don't think anyone would disagree. That "conservatism" is one of the reasons for the success of the process. If scientists did things like observe the anomalous orbit of Uranus and say "oh no, Newton got it all wrong; let's throw it all away and start again" then science would never progress. So you weren't being "provocative," just stating the obvious.

But this picking over the choice of words is slightly irrelevant to the point: you appeared to be saying, originally, that you thought scientists would ignore contradictory evidence to hang on to existing theories. That is obviously not what happens (or we wowuld never have any new theories!)

I guess I will just have to quote what I said: "Does correctly explain this" ["this" being the anomalous precession of Mercury]. Note that I didn't say "GR is correct" or "GR is the correct explanation". GR gives the "correct" value (within experimental error bounds) while Newtonian gravity doesn't. It also provides an explanation for this value. [Note: "an" explanation, not "the" explanation.]

No, I said that GR gives the correct value for the precession of Mercury. I think that is because you are reading more into what I write than was intended. That may be a result of me being slightly careless with wording in an informal setting.

You can't. Obviously. All scientific theories are provisional, based on the evidence currently available. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that GR produces results that are consistent with observation (while Newtonian gravity doesn't.) That is what I meant by "correct". What was? We have a more correct description. Currently the best we have. But it is known to be incomplete.

GR matches the observed data. That is what we expect scientific theories to do. Other new theories attempted at the time failed to do that. Other alternative theories of gravity since then have also failed to match all the evidence. Of course not (to both of those). Theories are never dropped "just like that". That is why science works. A huge amount of work would, I assume, go into trying to understand how something that is self-evidently true turned out not to be so (which is why the theory of evolution is rather a silly example). But, again, take it to the appropriate forum.

I am baffled by this. Where is there any sign of "religious zealotry"? Who is doing that? I am happy to admit that sometime scientists get it wrong; either because of deliberate fraud or wishful thinking. But this is, in the long run, corrected by the scientific method. Science has (almost) nothing to do with "truth", whatever that is. For that you want religion. What are these absurd claims? Evidence that traits are not inherited. Or evidence that there are no new sources of variation in a population. Or evidence that no variants in the population are more or less successful at surviving or breeding. (I can't think of much else. But if you ask in the appropriate forum you will probably get a much better answer.) When the new (better) theory completely contradicts the old one (as with phlogiston) rather than just modifying or extending it (e.g. Newtonian vs GR descriptions of gravity).

The anomalous precession of Mercury was one reason why an improved/alternative explanation of gravity was being looked at in the early 20th century. And what happened was that Einstein came up with GR which does correctly explain this. So this appears to be a counter-example to your claim. Or are you objecting to the fact that the Newtonian model of gravity is still being used despite the fact we have a more accurate theory? That is just pragmatic: Newtonian gravity is good enough for most work and is much, much simpler. Remember, science is not about "truth" but about models that work; Newtonian gravity still works well enough most of the time. Uranus? Are you thinking of the orbital perturbations that led to the discovery of Neptune? If so, this also seems to counter your claim: the evidence led to a new hypothesis (an unknown planet, the "dark matter" of its time) which was confirmed by observation. So in both cases, unexpected (contradictory) evidence led to new theories and or discoveries. Rather then being ignored to preserve the status quo, as you claim. There are examples where evidence has shown a theory to be completely wrong and it has been abandoned. But these are pretty rare (for obvious reasons). I can think of phlogiston and the steady state model of the universe. That's about it.

As you posted this in the philosophy forum, presumably it is fake. In which case, I won't bother to read it.

Exactly. I don't think we all know that. The "something better" is the theory that isn't falsified by the tests. There is, of course, a reluctance to discard a theory at the first whiff of evidence that might possibly be contradictory. But that conservatism is the reason that science works. Perhaps you could provide some examples of scientists ignoring evidence that contradicts a theory? I suppose you deserve minor credit for not using the word "sheeple". You should probably ask that in the appropriate part of the forum, where you are more likely to get an answer from experts. But you could start here: http://www.talkorigins.org/

One (Perhaps simplistic) difference is that engineers tend to take existing knowledge and technology to develop new products - or new technology that can then be used by other engineers. Scientists, on the other hand, tend to develop the new knowledge used by engineering. However, I used to work in test and verification, and that was much closer to a scientific approach: making hypotheses about how a "black box" design works and what could go wrong, writing tests to test that idea (and hopefully "break" the design).

That is a pretty general statement, and a fairly obvious one that almost anybody could have made a guess at. If that was his one lucky guess, I suppose it proves he wasn't 100% wrong about everything. That is not a great recommendation.

So you are confirming that there is no support for your claims that: You just made that up and therefore the rest of your argument is wrong. Good. I am glad we have agreed on that. Now about "the Democrat party creates the most laws and regulations by far" - do you have any statistics to support that? Or is it just your personal bias? You are confusing cause and effect. It is like someone I heard say something like: "there always seems to be a crime going on when there are so many police around. Perhaps if we got rid of the police, there would be less crime." The reason there are so many laws about environmental protection is because uncontrolled pollution and burning of fossil fuels has caused serious (and growing problems). The purpose of the law is not to increase or reduce fear. However, as you are claiming that the existence of the EPA and all these laws has increased fear, perhaps you could show the evidence that supports that? (Or is this just another made-up "fact"?) Evidence? Which ancients? And in what way were they ahead of their time? Are you referring to some Golden Age where there were no laws? If so, can you provide evidence that such a time existed?

You can't really fall slowly into a black hole. If you are in free fall then you will be travelling at nearly the speed of light as you pass through the event horizon. So you will be moving towards your feet much faster than the nerve signals can propagate up; so, yes you will feel your feet. The popular explanation that light cannot escape because the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light is wrong and leads to exactly this sort of misunderstanding. The reason light (and everything else) cannot escape is because the curvature of space-time becomes so great that there are no paths that lead out of the event horizon. All paths are curved back towards the centre of the black hole. The minimum is zero. As far as I know there is no maximum; it increases with mass. All our observations are consistent with this. (It is possible, but increasingly unlikely, that the effects ascribed to dark matter are due to gravity not behaving as our theories suggest. But currently the evidence suggests that dark matter really is some form of matter.)

Apache is not "the Windows version" of anything. It is one implementation of an http server. It has been ported to Windows as well as Linux, but that is irrelevant to its functionality. There are many different http servers. The stats link that Sensei posted mentions at least half a dozen different servers. And shows that your claim that "other web servers are rare" is nonsense. They are not web servers. So why mention them?

And how significant is that danger? Compared to something really dangerous like driving a car or crossing the road?

I haven't read all the posts, but are you missing the fact that because both time and distance change (from the other frame of reference) the result is that the speed of light is constant?

Not a rigorous experiment, but this is fun: http://www.leapsecond.com/great2005/ http://leapsecond.com/great2005/tour/

Leonardo was an engineer and artist, not a scientist.

Like everything Freud said, this was just made up. I don't think anything he said has any truth in it. (If it does, it is purely by chance.) I find it hard to understand how he is still treated with any sort of respect.

I think you are being misled by hindsight: are you comparing the entire history of science up to 1900 with the last few decades?

The curvature of space-time by mass-energy, and the effect of that curvature on mass is the strength of GR, not a limitation. GR takes pressure into account. In what way does the phase affect space-time (other than a difference in density and, perhaps, pressure)? So what? And that has nothing to do with GR or space-time. Netonian gravity has to take density into account as well. That is nonsense. What is a "space-time reference"? Nonsense.

Citation needed. (Although, as John pointed out, as your initial premise is bogus the rest of your argument can be dismissed.)

The Python Tutorial

No. You (as always) seem to be attempting to use an over-simplified model of gravity. The Sun is part of a local group of stars which can be considered to orbit one another (while, at the same time orbiting the galaxy). But that group and all the stars within it are affected by the surrounding stars (and groups of stars), the surrounding plasma, the surrounding dark matter and the masses of all the objects in the galaxy. In the case of two objects it is simple to calculate the forces between them, their centre of gravity, etc. When you have three (or more) objects then that becomes mathematically impossible. The only way to work out what will happen is to simulate the interactions and movements of the billions of bodies involved. People have done this and found they can reproduce the patterns we observe.