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Seth should pick his examples more carefully, he obviously doesn't know anything about science. ----------- Seth: They say he discovered gravity. Nonsense. He
by mixmax 18y ago
Seth should pick his examples more carefully, he obviously doesn't know anything about science.
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Seth: They say he discovered gravity. Nonsense. He just named it.
Fact: He didn't discover gravity, and has never been accredited for doing so. The famous story of Gallileo dropping balls from the tower of Pisa to measure gravity happened in the 17'th century, so obviously the idea of gravity was around for a while before Newton. What he did do, however, was to publish the Principia Mathematica in 1687 that gives an in-depth explanation of gravity, including the famous inverse square law. In the book he theorised his three laws of motion, invented calculus and basically lay the whoole foundation for classical mechanics. This is what we remember him for, not for having named gravity.
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Seth: Everyone 'believes' in gravity. And yet, we know virtually nothing about it
fact: Seth should read up on his physics, starting with Einstein.
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seth: There are very few people doing serious gravity research
Fact: One of the major goals of modern physics is a theory of everything where the four natural forces (weak force, strong force, electromagnetic force and gravity) are combined into one. Gravity has always been the odd one out and hard to explain, thus spawning massive research into gravity. One of the reasone the LHC, the most expensive physical experiment to date, was conceived was to learn more about gravity. Oh, and there's this guy called Einstein that apparently did some work in this area too.
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Seth: There are evolution skeptics who would prefer a different story, but no gravity skeptics, even though there's a lot less science there.
Fact: Religion always tries to put down science that reaches contradictory conclusions than scripture, and gravity is no exception since it implies that the earth is not at the center of the universe. Seth doesn't seem to get this though, since the battle was lost by the church long ago. Take Gallileo who was on trial on the suspicion of heresy in 1633 because of his theories of gravity. If found guilty he would have paid with his life. The laws of gravity were much more opposed by the church than evolution is today.
- mynameishere 18y agoFact: Religion always tries to put down science that reaches contradictory conclusions than scripture Fact: Not "always". For the most part, religious people are oblivious to science, and only highly visible matters like heliocentricity (gravity, less so) become contentious. It's clear that he's making an imperfect metaphor and the details aren't especially important. That is, are you marketing evolution? Even the smart lads believe in evolution because it's fashionable, like the iphone, and not because they followed through all the relevant citations. Rather, merely quoting the full title of "On the origin of species" is enough to put fair weather Darwinists in a tizzy--and the atheists are right in there with the Pope, depending on how you advertise the inquisition. It's a marketing problem and has a marketing solution.
- mixmax 18y agoI'm not disagreeing with his central thesis, I'm just saying that it is undermined tremendously by his bad examples. And since he is in marketing he should know better.
- wheels 18y agoA good marketing campaign is rarely deterred by facts.
- gjm11 18y ago1. There's a broad space between "because it's fashionable" and "because they followed through all the relevant citations". It seems to me that "the smart lads", if you mean anything sensible by that, occupy a point of that space that's somewhere near "because they looked to see what people who show genuine signs of expertise tend to think". Which, given that science is a field in which expertise is actually possible and somewhat assessable, seems to me quite different from "because it's fashionable". 2. The full title of the "Origin of Species"? What, you mean the fact that (gasp) it has the words "favoured races" in it? Well, I suppose that someone who doesn't have any clue what Darwin meant by that might be worried that it's talking about human "races", but ignorance and stupidity are always with us.
- smwhreyebelong 18y agoAgreed. Momentum might have been a better concept to use here than gravity: Use something that a lot of people already believe in than trying to change their belief completely. In other words, push the ball that's already in motion than trying to stop it and move in the opposite direction.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- nebula 18y agoGravity has always been the odd one out and hard to explain What do you mean by this? can you please elaborate. Einstein has already explained gravity as curvature of space caused by the presence of mass. And this is a well tested theory.
- mixmax 18y agoI'm not a scientist, just have a casual interest in science and its history, so please allow for some inaccuracies and feel free to correct me. It appears that gravity is somewhat different than the other forces in fundamental ways. The other three forces are adequately described using quantum mechanics - gravity not so. Gravity is explained using Einsteins general theory of relativity, and describes gravity as a curvature of the time-space continuum. Modern physics rests on two main pillars: quantum mechanics and relativity. Gravity is the only one of the fundamental forces explained by the relativity column, and so it is harder to incorporate into a unified theory encompassing all the forces. Of course it doesn't help that quantum mechanics and relativity are by many thought to be incompatible theories: The first works well for sub-atom sizes and weights, the latter works well for planet sizes and weights. This is also one of the reasons black holes are so interesting - sub atom size and planet weight. Both quantum mechanics and relativity must be at work. Really interesting stuff :-)