https://www.edge.org/conversation/paul_davies-taking-science-on-faith

Paul Charles William Davies, AM (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. His research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology.





SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term "doubting Thomas" well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

By Paul Davies [12.31.06]


namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

The_Barnacle wrote on Feb 21^st, 2021 at 11:27am:




Hi Barny,
picture an atom in your  mind.
What do you see?
Is that really what an atom would look like if we could see it?
How can we ever be sure about that and many other things?
The answer is to some extent based on faith -
and is probably not correct as the model
for an atom has changed a lot in the last 100 years.

It gets very tricky:
http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtut/atomic/WhyTheElectron.html


The picture of electrons "orbiting" the nucleus like planets around the sun remains an enduring one, not only in popular images of the atom but also in the minds of many of us who know better. The proposal, first made in 1913, that the centrifugal force of the revolving electron just exactly balances the attractive force of the nucleus (in analogy with the centrifugal force of the moon in its orbit exactly counteracting the pull of the Earth's gravity) is a nice picture, but is simply untenable.

An electron, unlike a planet or a satellite, is electrically charged, and it has been known since the mid-19th century that an electric charge that undergoes acceleration (changes velocity and direction) will emit electromagnetic radiation, losing energy in the process. A revolving electron would transform the atom into a miniature radio station, the energy output of which would be at the cost of the potential energy of the electron; according to classical mechanics, the electron would simply spiral into the nucleus and the atom would collapse.

Isn't faith a poor man's bargaining tool with a book in his hand  at the other end of a Military weapon?

Its a simplified model, useful in teaching high school students how atoms work.
In truth an electrons position at any point in time is only a probability. As i said earlier, a lot of quantum theory seems counter intuitive an contradictory, however the fact that it works and can be used to predict outcomes means that we aren't just relying on faith.

It's not a case of "I don't understand it therefor..........God"

The_Barnacle wrote on Feb 21^st, 2021 at 12:24pm:



When I was young I went to Uni all starry eyed -
I was going to find out what an electron was -
amongst many other things.
Instead I learnt the particle wave duality of electrons
and that what they were depended upon the
experiment used to investigate them.
I expect further changes to the current models.

Did you know that when a neutron is outside of the nucleus
it becomes unstable and has a half life of only 10 minutes?
It decays into into a proton an electron and an antineutrino.
It's strange that the electron is made out of part of a neutron
yet that electron is called a fundamental particle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_neutron_decay

Bobby. wrote on Feb 21^st, 2021 at 3:57pm:



You know that Goober? Or is that just your 'faith' talking?

Frank wrote on Feb 21^st, 2021 at 5:57pm:



It begs the question of how sure we can be about anything but
especially about something that is impossible to see -
the inside of atoms.