840
submitted 8 months ago by some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to c/news@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Thorry84@feddit.nl 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Agreed, but it leads to people who are less knowledgeable to draw the wrong conclusions.

Basically for just about anything you want to do on Earth Newton works perfectly fine. You can send people to the moon using nothing but Newton. Two big things you need Einstein for is the orbit of Mercury and GPS satellites. So from a pure science point of view Newton is wrong or maybe incomplete. From a regular Joe point of view Newton is dead on. By proclaiming Newton is wrong, it leads to people concluding that all science is wrong, because there is always someone working on the next iteration. So people think vaccines are dangerous, wearing masks is dumb, herbs and spices cure cancer, global warming is fake and homeopathic shit does anything except remove money from their wallets. Because what do scientists know, they've been wrong all the time in the past.

Newton is not wrong, it's just incomplete for some very niche things. And Einstein fixed all of that so we're all good.

In reality it's good to always be looking to disprove something and create new and better knowledge. But only if that's your job and only for very niche things. We've got the basics down for most things on Earth and there is no reason any regular person should doubt that.

[-] confusedbytheBasics@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Be careful saying homeopathy only removes money from wallets. Yes it does that but it can be worse. Most of the vials are just water but any with a 1x or 1c designation actually do have some of the herbal element remaining and can cause problems.

[-] voluble@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

By proclaiming Newton is wrong, it leads to people concluding that all science is wrong, because there is always someone working on the next iteration

I've never had sympathy for this line of thinking. Is the average person truly too ignorant to understand that science is a constantly developing process of better understanding our universe, not some set of unimpeachable rules carved into stone tablets once and forever? The fact that science can be updated, changed, revolutionized, is what makes it powerful.

If people need to be 'protected' from that fact, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way science is taught in schools. I can't accept that the average person can't comprehend such a simple idea that would take less than an hour to convincingly communicate.

[-] yarr@feddit.nl 16 points 8 months ago

I’ve never had sympathy for this line of thinking. Is the average person truly too ignorant to understand that science is a constantly developing process of better understanding our universe, not some set of unimpeachable rules carved into stone tablets once and forever?

YES because often times the opposing model is the Bible, which is updated very irregularly and people will form sects over a single differing interpretation of a single passage.

Changing your mind / learning new information can be construed as the super-hated "flip-flop".

Unfortunately, the illogical are immune to logic. No amount of it will be effective.

[-] Lath@kbin.earth 9 points 8 months ago

Yes, the average person is ignorant of stuff that need to be updated once in a while. There is something wrong with the current form of education. And you need to accept that understanding doesn't come easy.

If you can't do that last part, well, there you go. Same thing for the average person.

[-] kurwa@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

It's less that Newton is wrong and more like it's an approximation. Things always get more complicated because we are learning more about everything all the time, but for simple day to day things Newton is fine to be used and even taught.

You could also say it's important from a historical perspective, learning how we got from Newton to bigger and better things is important too.

[-] systemglitch@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

I think you communicated it well in two paragraphs.

[-] ferralcat 3 points 8 months ago

You see this thinking in science too. Dark matter has always struck me as an awful solution to a model breaking down. It's basically "the numbers don't add up so let's add a fudge factor to make it say what we want". But you're generally considered a kook for questioning it now. People will spout a bunch of big words and hope you shut up if you do.

[-] Scrof@sopuli.xyz 8 points 8 months ago

It's called dark because we can't see it, and matter because it interacts gravitationally. There is nothing wrong with the term and the model of it even if we don't fully understand what the hell exactly it actually is and most importantly why it actually is. It's literally how science works. We don't know what the hell quantum probabilities and all the weird particles and fields mean on a metaphysical level either but QFT is the most tested and predictively powerful theory of science ever made. Is it complete? No, we may even never find the theory of everything. But it doesn't make our discoveries wrong.

[-] Klear@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Dark matter has been supported by various observations and is the best explanation we have. It's not the most widely accepted model just by pure faith, you know.

I have to admit I never liked it too much myself, but what do I know? There is an alternative theory, but it has its own problems.

[-] paddirn@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

I think it's more a matter of, "We know there's something that's causing an effect, but we can't see it or fully explain it... yet." There's something in the science and observations that's just not lining up the way it should. There are some ideas that have floated around that say that dark matter isn't necessary, it's just a misunderstanding of one factor or another, but nobody has really been able to nail the question yet, so it persists.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It’s more than that. There’s something that doesn’t add up, but if we assume the answer is “dark matter”, we can make predictions about it, that can guide us toward proving or disproving. Similarly, if we assume it’s one of the other theories, we can make predictions on what it must be like.

Dark matter is most straightforward because we understand best how matter acts. How much more matter do we need for the observations to make sense, based on current understanding? Ok, what could that matter be that acts gravitationally but we can’t see? How can we detect that?

[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Mmmm, Earth Newton...

this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
840 points (98.8% liked)

News

23367 readers
1864 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS