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Could the established society of scientists conspire to suppress information?
If for instance they had information that was relevant to the health of say 1 in 1000 people and they conferred to hide this knowledge for financial reasons, could it not also be true then (in that instance) that the same powers that be would be inclined to suppress information about God?
Think about it, how many millions of pounds are spent on research if only at the end of it all they found was God sitting on his chair eating a biscuit.
What would all these scientists do?
Join the clergy?
If for instance they had information that was relevant to the health of say 1 in 1000 people and they conferred to hide this knowledge for financial reasons, could it not also be true then (in that instance) that the same powers that be would be inclined to suppress information about God?
Think about it, how many millions of pounds are spent on research if only at the end of it all they found was God sitting on his chair eating a biscuit.
What would all these scientists do?
Join the clergy?
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The way Science is set up makes it very difficult for this to happen.
When a discovery, especially an important one is made the world tends to hold it's breath for independant corroberation.
There are a number of examples where deliberate falsification has been discovered, there was a Guy in Germany and another in Korea.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/ 277/5328/894
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/99298 .php
Then there are numerous cases of self-deception where Scientists have jumped to early and wrong conclusions - cold fusion being the most famous of these.
So generally these things tend to come out because of the highly competetive nature of Science and there are rather obvious smoking guns - most often, remarkable results nobody else can reproduce.
Finding God would not be the end of Science anyway - after all the most obvious problem with all Gods is you have to ask where they came from.
The answer is always an unscientific - "Go away it's a mystery we can't understand"
It seems many people find it acceptable that a God we can't understand created a universe, but unacceptable that a Universe came into being in a way we can't understand all on it's own.
Guess it's because Universes aren't people shaped but Gods are!
When a discovery, especially an important one is made the world tends to hold it's breath for independant corroberation.
There are a number of examples where deliberate falsification has been discovered, there was a Guy in Germany and another in Korea.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/ 277/5328/894
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/99298 .php
Then there are numerous cases of self-deception where Scientists have jumped to early and wrong conclusions - cold fusion being the most famous of these.
So generally these things tend to come out because of the highly competetive nature of Science and there are rather obvious smoking guns - most often, remarkable results nobody else can reproduce.
Finding God would not be the end of Science anyway - after all the most obvious problem with all Gods is you have to ask where they came from.
The answer is always an unscientific - "Go away it's a mystery we can't understand"
It seems many people find it acceptable that a God we can't understand created a universe, but unacceptable that a Universe came into being in a way we can't understand all on it's own.
Guess it's because Universes aren't people shaped but Gods are!
You tar the scientific community with the the same (Conspiracy ) brush as the religious community has used for hundreds of years.
The nature of science is to discover, as Jake states, science draws many theories, these are published and are there to be enquired, experimented or enlarged upon. Many theories are discredited but unlike religion, science is "happy" to discard that which it know to be true.
Science would be happy to find god existed because it would answer the question.
Those of religion would be distraught to discover god didn't exist.
So we have religious paranoia trying to ask a question of scientific fact.
The nature of science is to discover, as Jake states, science draws many theories, these are published and are there to be enquired, experimented or enlarged upon. Many theories are discredited but unlike religion, science is "happy" to discard that which it know to be true.
Science would be happy to find god existed because it would answer the question.
Those of religion would be distraught to discover god didn't exist.
So we have religious paranoia trying to ask a question of scientific fact.
Jake, I wonder if a new fuel was developed, clean and efficient and cheap if oil producers would conspire to keep the innovation a secret. I seem to recall a case where such a clean fuel was purchased from the inventor and 'kept in hibernation' because it would do away with the need for petrol..... even if not true the scenario is interesting.
It's never as easy as it looks Dave.
That "secret" fuel has been worked on for years, BMW is trying really hard on hydrogen burning engines.
Alas there are still many problems James May neglected to tell you about.
Apart from the huge amounts of electricity required to generate the hydrogen, the cylinder in the car is a whopping 5000psi and still gives you a tiny boot space.
It's also a problem for service stations. A tanker load is sufficient to fill about 100 cars.
Honda have a long list of Hydrogen stations most can fuel less than 10 cars a day
That means you have to have a constant stream of tankers or a hugely expensive infrastructure of pipelines to make it work.
We'll not even get started on the safety issues.
You see these, the trouble is most people get their information about science from journalists who either don't fully understand or have dumbed it down so far it's ridiculous.
Then when the scientific revolution fails to appear it feeds the conspiracy theorists or images of scientists promising the moon and failing to deliver.
Don't get me wrong I think Hydrogen cars are the way forward but I doubt we'll all be driving them for another 20-30 years or so.
That "secret" fuel has been worked on for years, BMW is trying really hard on hydrogen burning engines.
Alas there are still many problems James May neglected to tell you about.
Apart from the huge amounts of electricity required to generate the hydrogen, the cylinder in the car is a whopping 5000psi and still gives you a tiny boot space.
It's also a problem for service stations. A tanker load is sufficient to fill about 100 cars.
Honda have a long list of Hydrogen stations most can fuel less than 10 cars a day
That means you have to have a constant stream of tankers or a hugely expensive infrastructure of pipelines to make it work.
We'll not even get started on the safety issues.
You see these, the trouble is most people get their information about science from journalists who either don't fully understand or have dumbed it down so far it's ridiculous.
Then when the scientific revolution fails to appear it feeds the conspiracy theorists or images of scientists promising the moon and failing to deliver.
Don't get me wrong I think Hydrogen cars are the way forward but I doubt we'll all be driving them for another 20-30 years or so.
Why would concealing any evidence of anything benefit science or anybody Naomi?
Do you think the colective wisdom of science is capable of such a thing?
If the society of science could conspire to conceal uncomfy evidence of a drug for arguments sake, then surely they could do the same for something that would make meaningless the study of the origins of the universe?
Science would have the answer, God did it.
There are 3 questions there.
Do you think the colective wisdom of science is capable of such a thing?
If the society of science could conspire to conceal uncomfy evidence of a drug for arguments sake, then surely they could do the same for something that would make meaningless the study of the origins of the universe?
Science would have the answer, God did it.
There are 3 questions there.
There is a slightly roundabout important point here.
It concerns meta-studies.
These are reviews of other studies.
Say you have a point on which a number of groups are working for example the helath benefits of Goji Berries.
People often conduct meta-studies comparing and contrasting the results of different studies.
You might review the literature and conclude that on balance there is a small positive effect.
However there may have been a number of studies funded by corporations that did not show the desired effects that were never published because they did not show the desired results.
Were such data available a different conclusion might be reached.
This is more of a problem in the US where much work is corporately funded and it tends to be most of an issue in the drug and health world.
In the Intelligent design world the problem is more that too many scientists are wasting their most productive years countering all the rubbish put out by religious groups pretending to be scientists
It concerns meta-studies.
These are reviews of other studies.
Say you have a point on which a number of groups are working for example the helath benefits of Goji Berries.
People often conduct meta-studies comparing and contrasting the results of different studies.
You might review the literature and conclude that on balance there is a small positive effect.
However there may have been a number of studies funded by corporations that did not show the desired effects that were never published because they did not show the desired results.
Were such data available a different conclusion might be reached.
This is more of a problem in the US where much work is corporately funded and it tends to be most of an issue in the drug and health world.
In the Intelligent design world the problem is more that too many scientists are wasting their most productive years countering all the rubbish put out by religious groups pretending to be scientists
The answer to that JTP is that God is was and always has been (not dissimilar to the idea that the universe has always existed) having established conclusively that God is the origin of all life on earth an awful lot of people would find their lifes works and theories worthless, furthermore government subsidy for all manner of projects would dry up, why bother?
God did it, now cure cancer.
Which is great, unless you're a physicist working on particle accelarators and what not.
God did it, now cure cancer.
Which is great, unless you're a physicist working on particle accelarators and what not.
Everton - have you ever met a real life scientis?!
You seem to think all scientists are a cohesive, homogenous group of agnistics or atheists addressing huge important questions.
This is just not true. I personally know heaps of scientists from all sorts of recognised religions, ones who regularly practise... They are of all races and beliefs so do not behave as a cohesive mass. As Jake quite rightly says it is a hugely competitive field and most scientists producing results are working on small elements of the knowledge base - it is all based on small contributions which build an understanding. Occasionally there is a quantum leap in the knowledge but this is actually very rare.
So no, a conspiracy is not possible because I dont think there is 'an established society' of scientists.
If a piece of controversial data were witheld by a group of scientists with a vested interest it would be extremely short lived as other groups will almost certainly be tackling the same question from the same or a different angle.
You seem to think all scientists are a cohesive, homogenous group of agnistics or atheists addressing huge important questions.
This is just not true. I personally know heaps of scientists from all sorts of recognised religions, ones who regularly practise... They are of all races and beliefs so do not behave as a cohesive mass. As Jake quite rightly says it is a hugely competitive field and most scientists producing results are working on small elements of the knowledge base - it is all based on small contributions which build an understanding. Occasionally there is a quantum leap in the knowledge but this is actually very rare.
So no, a conspiracy is not possible because I dont think there is 'an established society' of scientists.
If a piece of controversial data were witheld by a group of scientists with a vested interest it would be extremely short lived as other groups will almost certainly be tackling the same question from the same or a different angle.
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