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Hedra42 on 10 January 2018
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o_O.Q said:
Hedra42 said:

In answer to your first question, yes, and yes. Quite apart from experiments that have been conducted since the late 19th century proving their existence, electrons have been imaged and filmed using quantum microscopes since 2008. https://phys.org/news/2008-02-electron.html

In answer to your second point, science is a quest for knowledge. There is risk associated with every step into the unknown. While we might do our best to anticipate and avoid risks in the advancement of science, some problems develop over such a long period,  that their causes are not obvious to start with.

Example: Greenhouse gases have been increasing since the early 19th century - the start of the industrial revolution. This has been measured through ice cores https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/ice-cores-and-climate-change/ but not until this century. It has taken decades of complex analysis of these and other phenomenon to prove humanity's impact on the environment. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovery-of-global-warming/

Here is a medical example - Lung cancer went from being a rarity to a global epidemic  in the late 19th century. But it wasn't until the 1940's, (after extensive medical research) that the cause was confirmed as being directly linked to smoking. This may be a no-brainer now, but there was a complete ignorance about the relationship between cancer and tobacco back then. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22345227

Your final comment is a pointless one to make, considering that risks are integral to advancing science and technology. If we didn't take risks and learn lessons from their consequences, we would all still be sitting in caves wearing animal furs (taken from animals we'd probably already hunted to near extinction) and making flint spears.

The industrial revolution brought about changes for the better - for example, cheaper and more accessible goods, labour saving inventions, electronic communication, better medicine etc. but affecting climate globally was a byproduct that would not become apparent for many decades.

If recent science hadn't shown us that climate change and environmental destruction was the result of the technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries, we might never have developed new technologies for harnessing clean and renewable energies and fuels, recycling our waste or developing electric and hybrid powered vehicles. We might never have developed methods to help balance and renew the planet's resources.

Just as proof of a link between tobacco and lung cancer eventually changed our views on smoking, proof of a link between human activities and the environment is now triggering a change in the way we value our environment, forcing us to learn how to look after it.

"n answer to your first question, yes, and yes. Quite apart from experiments that have been conducted since the late 19th century proving their existence, electrons have been imaged and filmed using quantum microscopes since 2008. https://phys.org/news/2008-02-electron.html"

ok that was a bad example but the point i was making is that in the scientific community there is a fair deal of faith in things that do not at present have conclusive evidence

but i do acknowledge your argument that we have solved various problems through thorough research and i wasn't ever denying that, i'm just saying that at times we take risks that have far reaching consequences for us and the environment

Where is your evidence supporting your point that "in the scientific community there is a fair deal of faith in things that do not at present have conclusive evidence" ?

Scientists may propose theories to explain a phenomenon that they are investigating, but don't confuse that with faith. Theories are not proposed to be believed in. They are proposed so that they can be tested again and again until they are either proved, disproved or modified based on ongoing experiments and observations.  An example of this process can be found in the piece 'A Brief Outline of the Development of the Theory of Relativity'  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Brief_Outline_of_the_Development_of_the_Theory_of_Relativity by Albert Einstein.

And yes, regarding your final point, I have already explained the intrinsic risks that are taken with taking steps into the unknown, and have even provided links to examples. What point are you trying to make about this? That we should never have progressed from the stone age?

I haven't seen, at any point in this thread, at least up until this post, you backing up any of your claims with evidence. Please, if you are going to respond to this post, back it up with a credible source.