What if science is wrong?

[Karis]

My sarcasm as gone over your head sorry.

 

It's OK. You're forgiven. It was probably the aliens influencing you anyway...

 

Edit: Hang on. What am I saying? If it was the aliens, you'd have been all nice and fluffy and 'enlightened'

 

><

[MrSmith]

This isn't science being wrong, science depends on postulating hypothesis and then attempting to disprove them. Every disproven hypothesis advanced our knowledge. You could argue that postulating an incorrect hypothesis is as important as stumbling on one that isn't proven wrong.

If you were a scientist you probably wouldn't have made an absolute statement in the first place, you'd suggest that it might be this way, and then you'd think about how to prove yourself wrong.

 

But even so, scientists are human and they can be wrong. Science is a process, and when followed it can't be 'wrong'.

 

I didn't say it was, I said some scientists are wrong about infinity and some are because both opinions can’t be right.

[MrSmith]

It's OK. You're forgiven. It was probably the aliens influencing you anyway...

 

Edit: Hang on. What am I saying? If it was the aliens, you'd have been all nice and fluffy and 'enlightened'

 

><

 

Different aliens, my alien visitors were very sarcastic; they even tried to convince me that they were actually humans that had travelled back in time. It was their big heads and little bodies that gave them away though.

[Cyclone]

I didn't say it was, I said some scientists are wrong about infinity and some are because both opinions can’t be right.

 

Do I need to quote you again, you referred to science, not scientists.

 

PS - you're still getting this wrong, what you're saying here is that some scientists are wrong about the size of the universe. Not about infinity. If I incorrectly tell you that my car is green, I'm wrong about my car, not wrong about green.

 

And as I also said, it is unlikely that any scientist would give you an absolute answer to the question, they will say that of the possibilities they think x is more likely. They may be factually wrong, and they know full well that they could be, this is not a problem nor is it science being wrong.

The very title of this entire topic is "What if science is wrong?"

[MrSmith]

Do I need to quote you again, you referred to science, not scientists.

PS - you're still getting this wrong, what you're saying here is that some scientists are wrong about the size of the universe. Not about infinity. If I incorrectly tell you that my car is green, I'm wrong about my car, not wrong about green.

 

And as I also said, it is unlikely that any scientist would give you an absolute answer to the question, they will say that of the possibilities they think x is more likely. They may be factually wrong, and they know full well that they could be, this is not a problem nor is it science being wrong.

The very title of this entire topic is "What if science is wrong?"

 

Go for it.

[Cyclone]

I stand corrected, you did say scientists.

 

You're point still makes no sense, being wrong about the universe doesn't make them wrong about infinity, it makes them wrong about the universe. Nor is it (or should it be) a surprise that scientists get things wrong, it's a key part of the scientific method.

[esme]

So one endless group cannot be larger than another endless group.

Sorry but you are incorrect, an uncountably infinite group is larger than a countably infinite group.

 

Not sure of the reliability of this site but there's a proof here http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/51913.html

 

and this is what the universities are teaching too

 

http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/30001.4.shtml

Cantor shocked the world by showing that the real numbers are not countable... there are "more" of them than the integers!

 

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0geu8S5Y5FPSF4A9HVLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMDhrMzdqBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=15lilfqjm/EXP=1334957113/**http%3a//philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ccallender/index_files/Phil%2520131/131%2520Topics%2520in%2520Metaphysics_files/Time,%2520Infinity%2520and%2520Zeno.DOC - MS Word format the last sentence states

the reals can’t be paired with the natural numbers, which in turn implies that the set of real numbers is bigger than the set of natural numbers.

Will you accept this as a proof ?

[esme]

and further has anyone thought of an answer to the question I asked here ?

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8786711&postcount=61

[Cyclone]

Sorry but you are incorrect, an uncountably infinite group is larger than a countably infinite group.

 

Not sure of the reliability of this site but there's a proof here http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/51913.html

 

and this is what the universities are teaching too

 

http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/30001.4.shtml

 

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0geu8S5Y5FPSF4A9HVLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMDhrMzdqBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=15lilfqjm/EXP=1334957113/**http%3a//philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ccallender/index_files/Phil%2520131/131%2520Topics%2520in%2520Metaphysics_files/Time,%2520Infinity%2520and%2520Zeno.DOC - MS Word format the last sentence statesWill you accept this as a proof ?

 

 

Maybe I've misunderstood this, I didn't do much maths at degree level and what I did wasn't pure maths.

 

Additionally, different characterizations of size, when extended to infinite sets, will break different "rules" which held for finite sets. Which rules are broken varies from characterization to characterization. For example, Cantor's characterization, while preserving the rule that sometimes one set is larger than another, breaks the rule that deleting an element makes the set smaller. Another characterization may preserve the rule that deleting an element makes the set smaller, but break another rule.[citation needed] Furthermore, some characterization may not "directly" break a rule, but it may not "directly" uphold it either, in the sense that whichever is the case depends upon a controversial axiom such as the axiom of choice or the continuum hypothesis. Thus there are three possibilities. Each characterization will break some rules, uphold some others, and may be indecisive about some others.

If one extends to multisets, further rules are broken (assuming Cantor's approach), which hold for finite multisets. If we have two multisets A and B, A not being larger than B and B not being larger than A does not necessarily imply A has the same size as B.[citation needed] This rule holds for multisets that are finite. Needless to say, the law of trichotomy is explicitly broken in this case, as opposed to the situation with sets, where it is equivalent to the axiom of choice.

Dedekind simply defined an infinite set as one having the same size (in Cantor's sense) as at least one of its proper parts; this notion of infinity is called Dedekind infinite. This definition only works in the presence of some form of the axiom of choice, however, so will not be considered to work by some mathematicians.

Cantor introduced the above-mentioned cardinal numbers, and showed that (in Cantor's sense) some infinite sets are greater than others. The smallest infinite cardinality is that of the natural numbers (ℵ0).

 

 

But this seems to imply that Cantors is only one characterisation and that you can look at infinities in other ways. And that if you do then different results occur.

Which I think is what I said earlier, it depends on how you look at it.

[quisquose]

So if science is wrong I would say from those events, that science will accept the fact that it is wrong and move on, there won't be any suppression of repeatable contradictory results just because they disagree with established theory, red faces perhaps but no suppression, science does not have an agenda, it's not big brother, it's a search for the truth not a suppression of the truth.

 

Now turning this around slightly, what if religion were wrong, would we get the same response ?

 

Say some highly respected religious person, I'm not sure what the equivalent of a PHd is, produced evidence, which contradicted religious teachings, how would religious people react to this evidence ?

 

There is no emotional investment in science, so it remains neutral and can adapt. There's tons of emotional investment in religion which provides resistance. Religion can, and will, change, but the change will be slower. Change will come about through new sects, or even new religions. Many people keep the religion of birth, but many also choose. Change comes about by people choosing the religion that best fits their beliefs, and those beliefs can change due to outside influences, including science.

 

Change in religions will be over generations, but change in science can be instantaneous with the publication of a paper, or Crick & Watson running into a pub.

 

I was going to add that the only thing that religion won't change on is the existence of god, and that since this was impossible to disprove it was no problem to religion. But since some religions don't even have a god this is somewhat debatable, I guess it is possible for an atheistic religion to evolve out of a theistic religion. Scientology?