Smart people rejecting science

[Inferno]

Well, I'd actually prefer that we got back on topic.

It's an important topic, because there are a lot of these people, and I think it would be good to figure out how to... talk sense into them.

If you could reason with such people, they wouldn't be the way they are.

Taken from here:

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

And today, my mother told me about some dudes who apparently take energy from the Sun. Don't eat, don't drink. Just... energy!


The problem with this is that I can't even find anything about this on the interwebz.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

And today, my mother told me about some dudes who apparently take energy from the Sun. Don't eat, don't drink. Just... energy!


The problem with this is that I can't even find anything about this on the interwebz.

Try searching for it on Hindu websites. Being able to survive without food or drink is a very popular claim made by the religious in India.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

And today, my mother told me about some dudes who apparently take energy from the Sun. Don't eat, don't drink. Just... energy!


The problem with this is that I can't even find anything about this on the interwebz.

Easy peasy - tell them to put up or shut up. Have them go off food for a week and see how well they do with it.

 

[Inferno]

And today, my mother told me about some dudes who apparently take energy from the Sun. Don't eat, don't drink. Just... energy!


The problem with this is that I can't even find anything about this on the interwebz.

That's the same that was told to me. Here are some links, though I haven't bothered to check it yet:
Movie: In the Beginning There Was Light
NASA To Study Man Who Survives On Liquids And Sunlight
Man lives for 11 years eating only sunlight

That's merely the first three google articles I could find. There is a lot of stuff going around, but no studies that I can find. You apparently have to rely on their witness, which isn't anything at all.

 

[Grimlock]

Scientists lack more spokespeople. People who are good at actually conveying the message. It's usually some journalist interviewing a scientist about something, and that usually goes horribly wrong.

And when scientists DO try to use more everyday language to describe something, it often becomes oversimplified, or they use an analogy that is easily misunderstood.
The name "Big Bang" is a good example of this phenomenon. (I realize the name was initially derisive, but it's been adopted by everyone.)

The big bang is an excellent example of things that has been misunderstood by normal people several times.

Let's play out a debate between a scientist and a creationist with an audience who doesn't know first thing about science: the topic the origin of the universe.

The scientist: the universe was created in an event known as the big bang.

Audience: Okay like an explosion and explosion have an epicenter so how long from the center are we and what was there before this event.

The Scientist: No not as much an explosion as a big expansion of both space and time it started of smaller then an atom and then started to expand. in the first millionth of a second space, time and matter was one, until time started to separate then space and then at last matter.

Audience: How can time and space be in the same substance?

The Scientist Goes on with a long scientific explanation that's pure Greek for most of the audience.

The audience: Well you still haven,´t explained how far we are from the center?

The Scientist(trying his best to explain it in layman,´s terms): Well the universe isn,´t a circle, it's more like a balloon with the galaxies plastered all over it and since you can,´t really say that there is any center on the balloon there isn,´t really a center of the universe.

The audience: So if we wanted to fly to another galaxy all we had was fly straight ahead right?

The Scientist: Well no because space isn,´t two dimensional its three dimensional and in space there really isn,´t any up down left or right.

The Audience: But you just said space was a balloon? With galaxies plastered all over it, if we fly upwards from that all that would happen was that we would remove our self from the balloon we wouldn't reach any galaxies.

The Scientist: Well I was trying to simplify it Of course Space isn,´t like a rubber balloon not as such it,´s more complicated than that.

The Audience: I see.....no not really, what happened afterwards?

The Scientist: Well as the universe started to cool off of.

The Audience: Cool off, but you just said it wasn,´t an explosion, how could there have been any heat?

The Scientist: Well the matter as this point in time was a lot of small particles and when particles move fast they generate heat and transfer it to other particles by transferring the energy stored in it to the other particles.

The Audience: Okay if you say so, what happens afterwards?

The Scientist: After the universe had cooled sufficiently, due to imperfections and cracks in space time the particles started to come together and form the first basic elements of our universe.

The Audience: What cracks, what are you talking about are you saying our universe is broken?

The Scientist: Not broken think of it as small imperfections like those you might in a glass vase made by a glassblower or in a handmade clay pot.

The Audience: First you say our universe is a balloon then it,´s not a balloon and now it's a glass vase or a clay pot will you make up your mind which is it?

The Scientist: Once again I was trying to speak of it in every day terms anyway moving on after a certain point in time the first stars where formed composed mainly of hydrogen and helium with a pinch of other trace elements. Inside these giant stars there were enough heat, energy and pressure to form heavier elements.

The Audience: Now hold on just a minute there gas you mean air how can such a thing even be held together?

The Scientist: Gas is like every other thing in our universe basically small particles and if two particles stars to smash into one another they can start fusing together and form heavier elements that started to attracting other particles thus gaining more mass and more higher force of attraction, basically gravity and fusion is holding the star together.

The Audience: So basically what your saying is that there,´s a huge magnet inside each star?

The Scientist: In a way yes you could put it like that anyways these stars had only limited amount of fuel and in order to fuse heavier elements it used up its fuel of it basically collapses in on itself and then soon afterwards blows up leaving a cloud of gas and heavier elements of which new stars and planets are formed.
Our own sun is basically a third generation star formed approximately 7 billion years ago, the leftover from its formation would later form smaller rocks and planets that would start to smash into one another with such energy that the pieces would fuse together and form the planets.

The Audience: So how long did that take?

The Scientist: Approximately 3, 45 billion years before earth was completely formed and another 0,75 billion years before the first single celled organisms appeared then about 1 billion years ago the very first Multicellular organism appeared.

The Audience: Single celled Multicellular organism, do you speak English?

The Scientist: Single Celled organisms are things like Bacterias and such. Multicellular organism are things like small worms and other thing in that magnitude.

The Audience: Okay how was the Moon created?

The Scientist: We have several Theories on that but the most dominant among them is the Theory that say that at a point somewhere early in earth's history a large celestial body approximately the size of Mars collided with Earth. The angle of which the planet impacted earth meant that instead of destroying earth completely it created enough debris that though most fell back towards Earth some started to collide with one another and form the moon.

The Audience: Okay..what does the creationist say?

The Creationist: In the beginning god created heaven earth the sun the moon everything he did that in 7 days.

The Scientist: What a complete and utter horseshit it doesn,´t explain anything how did god create earth why did he create earth? Why isn,´t there a single piece of evidence that supports this.

The Creationist: Simple because Satan manipulated the evidence to make it show the Earth as "several billion years old" he did this to turn you from god's grace.

The Scientist facepalm at this.

The audience loves it however unlike the Scientist explanation which most though was 50% gobiligog and 50% tall tales with a spectrum of time nobody could relate to or understand and most unforgivable of all he made the human race sound small and insignificant in the larger order of things, the creationists arguments was simple and direct everybody understood it, it was within a time period everybody could understand and relate to and it put the earth and the humans at the center of the universe where everybody knew they belonged.

(I might have gotten some of the details wrong if so please correct the mistakes, but I think this very much illustrate the point you where making most of the scientific language is simply unbelievable complex and most ordinary people doesn,´t even get the half of it.)