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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the controlling-the-papacy dept.

Ed Mazza writes that Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says he loves Pope Francis, but he wants the pontiff to stop talking about climate change and "leave science to the scientists." Santorum's comments come as the Pope, who holds a degree as a chemical technician and worked as a chemist before turning to the priesthood, has become increasingly vocal about climate change. "The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists," says Santorum, "and focusing on what we're really good at, which is theology and morality, When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, I think the church is not as forceful and credible."

But Santorum's not a scientist either so using Santorum's own logic why is Santorum more qualified than the Pope to discuss climate change? "I guess the question would be, if he shouldn't talk about it, should you?" asked Chris Wallace of Fox News. "Politicians, whether we like it or not, people in government have to make decision with regard to public policy that affect American workers," answered Santorum, adding that while "the pope can talk about whatever he wants to talk about," he questions the Pope's use of his moral authority to combat the issue of climate change.. Santorum — a devout Catholic — disagrees with the Pope's stance that climate change is man-made and has often called climate science "political science," arguing that a scientific consensus on climate change underscores this point. "All of this certainty, which is what bothers me about the debate, the idea that science is settled," says Santorum. "Any time you hear a scientist say science is settled, that's political science, not real science."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:21PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:21PM (#194161) Journal

    "Any time you hear a scientist say science is settled, that's political science, not real science."

    Ah, so the question of the earth revolving around the sun is not yet settled? Or is orbital mechanics just political science?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:34PM (#194171)

    No, it's not "settled". Science, by definition, cannot be "settled". Science deals with theories, not fact. Theories cannot be "settled". Therefore science cannot be "settled".

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:20PM (#194300)

      Settling science is core to the method, and nothing useful would happen if we didn't do it. Settled doesn't mean the theory is perfect, in fact it it only weakly implies the theory is even correct. Settled does mean the debate is over though, that all proposed alternatives have been discounted. If you have a novel alternative theory or if you can disprove the settled theory then fire away, but you don't get to just keep throwing peanuts from the gallery because you didn't like the results.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:01PM (#194480)

      Theories cannot be "settled".

      Theories are, by definition, "settled". A "theory" is a hypothesis which has been tested extensively and has yet to be disproven. You must mean "Hypotheses cannot be 'settled'", because a "settled" hypothesis is called a theory.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @02:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @02:09PM (#194531)

        Great! Now define the world "settled".

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:05PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:05PM (#194189) Journal

    Now, here's the thing. Particularly noxious idiots do exist and contest that.

    I seem to recall Conservapedia's incredibly disturbed owner-in-chief once claim quite avidly that scientists can't know that gravitational force is proportional to the square of distance between objects. (it was part of a "science is closed minded, only fundamentalist Christians can be open minded" rant)

    His own conservative editors couldn't convince him of it through the basic calculus of spherical shells or that simulations of physics at other possible values blowing up quite catastrophically, because his ignorance was as good as their knowledge.

    So, yeah. The right-wing infatuation with claiming "scientific" certainty about ideas that are antithetical to the best collated understandings of modern science do go that far sometimes. I have theories about why this happens, but this post is already pretty long-winded.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:13PM (#194197)

      scientists can't know that gravitational force is proportional to the square of distance between objects.

      This is an active field of research... You may have heard that 95% of the universe is invisible if we accept that relationship?
      http://astroweb.case.edu/ssm/mond/ [case.edu]

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:35PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:35PM (#194216) Journal

        Those represent other forces besides direct gravitational interaction. They're accounted for Einstein's formula for general relativity.

        Andy Schlafly, by the way, thinks that relativity was invented by liberals to use science to force moral relativism on people. True fact.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:40PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:40PM (#194224)

          Those represent other forces besides direct gravitational interaction. They're accounted for Einstein's formula for general relativity.

          Please clarify what "those" and "they" refer to in that sentence because I don't think we are talking about the same thing.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:56PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:56PM (#194231)

          Andy Schlafly, by the way, thinks that relativity was invented by liberals to use science to force moral relativism on people. True fact.

          I used to laugh at that kind of stuff, but the insight is its not that it was invented but that its forced on people with 10000 bad popular science books explaining its all eastern mysticism and stuff like that, despite nobody in the general public caring beyond Einstein is that crazy hair guy who sticks his tongue out has an accent and is smart as hell.

          Compare to something that people really do care about like magnetism, look at all the "fuckin magnets how do they work" stuff on the internet, yet theres no popular science claptrap about stuff people actually want to understand. Now why is that, that editors and publishers appear to like certain physics concepts but not others?

          • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:42AM

            by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:42AM (#194337)

            Compare to something that people really do care about like magnetism, look at all the "fuckin magnets how do they work" stuff on the internet, yet theres no popular science claptrap about stuff people actually want to understand. Now why is that, that editors and publishers appear to like certain physics concepts but not others?

            No one is trying to deny magnets do what they do because that fact hurts their business model?

            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:41AM

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:41AM (#194474)

              True, but ditto the popular physics axis of eastern mysticism/crystal power, quantum mechanics, and relativity.

              Personally I think the electron orbital issues WRT ferromagnetism or perhaps the invention, design, and implementation of powdered ferrite electromagnetic inductor cores COULD be as much of a page turner as any of the average popular science physics books, but "someone" in the publishing ogliopoly insists on shoveling out "relativity for dummies" and "quantum mechanics for dummies" sequel number 5000.

              I could even concede the point that maybe cultural relativism is great and if the cathedral wants to preach its an inherent good or even something far fetched like the 5000th shitty sequel of relativity for dummies (that title probably does exist, sadly) would be better than anything else in physics for a popular audience. However, even in that situation, the loonies have a point that a very small number of people (with very bad taste) decide what to shovel and what we'll get to see. Not entirely different than the poisonous effect of record company execs on music.

              • (Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:48PM

                by TK (2760) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:48PM (#194521)

                I think you're seeing a conspiracy that isn't there.

                Is quantum physics the go-to solution to power your unobtainium drive? Yes. Why? Because no one knows what it is, and the name sounds cool. It's in that area of modern science that is indistinguishable from magic to the average person.

                I remember an episode of Get Smart where Max explains to Agent 99 how a gadget works: an electric snake.
                99: What does it run on?
                Max: Tiny little feet.
                99: No, I mean how is it powered?
                Max: Transistors

                It's the same thing today as it was in the 60's. Explain your magical gadget with a word people have heard before, but don't really know what it is.

                The publishing cabal isn't pushing relativity because of some ulterior motive, it's just what the masses want right now. A quick hand waving solution to faster than light travel so that we can get back to Game of Thrones in Space 2: Orgies of the Cosmos.

                Wouldn't "quantum morality" be very black and white, the very opposite of relative morality?

                --
                The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
                • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:52PM

                  by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:52PM (#194629) Journal

                  Wouldn't "quantum morality" be very black and white, the very opposite of relative morality?

                  Actually quantum morality would be inherently uncertain. You'd never know whether something is moral until you tried it. And in the same situation, you'd find the very same action sometimes to be moral, and sometimes to be immoral.

                  --
                  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
                  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 10 2015, @07:54PM

                    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 10 2015, @07:54PM (#194646)

                    Actually quantum morality would be inherently uncertain. You'd never know whether something is moral until you tried it. And in the same situation, you'd find the very same action sometimes to be moral, and sometimes to be immoral.

                    That would make it a good title for a teen drama TV show. Or a pr0n movie. Maybe a critique of organized religion? Probably best to combine all three, maximize potential audience.

                    This is turning into my favorite discussion in weeks!

                    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 11 2015, @06:51AM

                      by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday June 11 2015, @06:51AM (#194867) Journal

                      If you combine all three, I think you get child porn featuring abusive priests.

                      --
                      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:41PM

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:41PM (#194622) Journal

            Now why is that, that editors and publishers appear to like certain physics concepts but not others?

            Maybe the market for a "magnets" book would not be as large as you think? Or maybe it's just that the publishers think it woulf be?

            But I suspect the main reason why you don't find such books is that nobody (or at least nobody with the ability to write readable books) has written them. I mean, a book only exists if someone writes it.

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:48PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:48PM (#194269) Journal

      I seem to recall Conservapedia's incredibly disturbed owner-in-chief once claim quite avidly that scientists can't know that gravitational force is proportional to the square of distance between objects.

      It may well be so. For example, the -exp(-k*R)/R [wikipedia.org] is still a potential function (conserves the energy on closed trajectories) and if the k is very small you aren't going to notice the variation except at huge scales.
      I wonder if "dark energy" isn't actually an artefact attempting to provide an explanation to a decaying gravitational interaction at galactic distances.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:45PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:45PM (#194626) Journal

        I wonder if "dark energy" isn't actually an artefact attempting to provide an explanation to a decaying gravitational interaction at galactic distances.

        That might explain a lower deceleration of expansion than expected, but it certainly does not explain an acceleration of expansion, as observed.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:41PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:41PM (#194665) Journal
          Because... everybody knows gravitation is an repulsive force and the expansion is due to it, thus the lower the gravitation the lower the expansion acceleration, right?
          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:49PM

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:49PM (#194670) Journal

            ???

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:12PM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 10 2015, @11:12PM (#194746) Journal
              (parent asserted that the lower the gravity the slower the universe expansion. I inquired about the basis of his assertion in a slighly sarcastic way - at least that's how it was intended).
              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
              • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 11 2015, @06:45AM

                by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday June 11 2015, @06:45AM (#194866) Journal

                Ah, OK, it's your reading comprehension that failed:

                parent asserted that the lower the gravity the slower the universe expansion

                Wrong. Here's the relevant quote, with emphasis added:

                That might explain a lower deceleration of expansion than expected

                That is, the lower the gravity, the less the expansion is slowing down. Assuming the same initial expansion rate, a lower deceleration means a faster expansion. However, a lower gravity cannot cause an accelerated expansion.

                A car analogy:

                If you press the brake less strong, you car will decelerate less, and therefore it will still be faster after a given time. However it will not accelerate; to accelerate you need to press the accelerator. What we've observed is an accelerating car; this cannot be explained by just assuming the driver is putting less force on the break pedal. There must be something that accelerates the car; that something is what we call dark energy.

                --
                The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
                • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 11 2015, @08:50AM

                  by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 11 2015, @08:50AM (#194895) Journal

                  Right. On top of it, I made the mistake to use "dark energy" when in fact I intended to put a blame on "dark matter" as a possible artefact introduced to explain a screened potential gravity law, detectable only at galactic distances . Of course, all just speculations.

                  --
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:07PM (#194190)

    Ah, so the question of the earth revolving around the sun is not yet settled? Or is orbital mechanics just political science?

    No, it's not "settled". Science, by definition, cannot be "settled". Science deals with theories, not fact. Theories cannot be "settled". Therefore science cannot be "settled".

    Orbital Mechanics is science, a group of theories, formulations, calculations and research that try to explain how to maintain a smaller object's orbit around a larger object in space. The Earth revolving around the sun is an instance of an application of orbital science, but not "science" in and of itself.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:10PM (#194196)

    Ah, so the question of the earth revolving around the sun is not yet settled? Or is orbital mechanics just political science?

    I learned this from a more detailed site but can't find it at the moment:

    From a strictly mathematical point of view, the two models are equivalent--both can be used to predict the motions of the planets with great accuracy. The decision to endorse the Copernican model and reject the Ptolemaic model could not be made strictly on the criterion of accuracy.

    http://faculty.fullerton.edu/cmcconnell/Planets.html [fullerton.edu]

    Whether the earth revolves around the sun or vice versa is a dumb question. They revolve around each other and there are a number of ways of looking at this, we choose the one easiest to work with so far.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:43PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:43PM (#194225) Journal

      Even to say they revolve around each other is to assume a definiteness that is not strictly warranted. It's quite possible to have an accurate theory in which the universe is centered around a particular pingpong ball. It would make doing the math a LOT more difficult, but it can be done. And it is KNOWN (for commonly accepted values of known) that the heliocentric model is wrong. The sun is moving around the galaxy, the galaxy is moving within the local group, the local group is moving towards "The Great Attractor" (which we can't see because there's too much stuff in the way...but it's in the direction of Virgo), etc. But do note the "commonly accepted values". These are normally accepted because they make the math easier, not because they are the only possible way of figuring things. And the "theories" are translations of the math into "English" (or French, Russian, Chinese, Basque, etc.) They didn't start out that way, but it's the math that can be tested against experiment, so it's the math that's the basis of the theory.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @08:56PM (#194676)

        Many good points.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:49PM (#194270)

    The Earth and Sun both revolve around a common barycenter that lies within the Sun.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @09:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @09:47AM (#194455)

      If the barycenter lies within the sun, the earth revolves around the sun. Just not around the sun's center.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:36AM

    by looorg (578) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:36AM (#194332)

    If there is one thing I do know it's that political science is never settled; it feels more like it's in constant evolution.

    But if the Vatican is just supposed to engage in questions of morality and theological issues why did they build that big observatory? I am fairly certain they didn't build it for either moral or theological reasons -- or was this like some 18th century version of SETI but instead of aliens they tried to look for God?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Observatory [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by penguinoid on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:44AM

    by penguinoid (5331) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:44AM (#194397)

    Or is orbital mechanics just political science?

    Are you kidding? I've never seen a field of science with more spin.

    --
    RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.