Which Is A Bigger Threat To Humanity? Science Or Religion?

[pleaserecycle]

o_O.Q said:

pleaserecycle said:

Okay, thank you for your clarification.  The singularity is a mathematical artifact that may or may not physically exist.  In the case of classical mechanics, Newton's Laws allowed objects to accelerate to infinite speeds.   We later realized that the speed of light is a maximum, so the singularity didn't physically exist.  But Newton's Laws are still very valid in the domain of objects traveling at relatively slow speeds (compared to the speed of light) and they're much more practical, so we continue to teach and use them.  The same instance happens with the Big Bang: the singularity appears as a consequence of the mathematical model and we need to conduct further tests to support or debunk its physical existence.  I guarantee you that any reasonable cosmologist (or researcher in general) will not discuss a "faith" or "belief" in an infinitely dense universe or other singularity; they will always assert that this singularity is a result of the currently accepted mathematical model.  

yes i agree with you, but there are many people that accept it as gospel because they trust the source of information, often without understanding the information themselves

I agree that there are people who accept ideas without understanding the details, but I wouldn't attribute that characterization to most researchers.  This is an issue with the general population.  The researchers themselves are not using faith or belief.  

o_O.Q said: 

lmao singularities break the laws of physics

 

I'm sorry, but you're misinterpreting singularities.  They do not break physics; they just mean that we need to update that specific part of our model.  In the example with Newton's Laws, we needed to reconcile classical mechanics with classical electromagnetism in order to find a model that accurately represents objects moving at every day speeds and objects that move close to (or at) the speed of light.  In the case of the Big Bang singularity, we need to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics.  The model itself works well for what we can currently observe.  

A model that violates the conservation of energy would most likely break physics if it accurately represented physical observations.  

Last edited by pleaserecycle - on 13 January 2018