Quote:
Originally Posted by StupendousMan
Why are you here?
No, really. If you won't believe anything until it's reproduced, then you should not study astronomy.
It's as if you said, "When I read about the continent called Australia, I will not believe it unless someone brings it here, into this room." That's not possible, and neither is the "reproduction" of almost all of astronomy.
I'm not trying to be mean, but shouldn't you be spending your time doing something else? Based on your own words, you are doomed to disbelieve a very large fraction of what you read here. Why do you read it? Why do you make US read your postings?
|
Sorry if I was unclear, my point is that especially in astronomy some stuff is postulated that we are unable to recreate here on Earth. I want to emphasize we should be very careful with as yet untestable quantities.
I'm sorry if you think that being sceptical means I shouldn't talk about astronomy, but as you say yourself, replication of much in astronomy is not possible. So we should not take stuff like neutron star matter or dark matter for granted just because our theories predict them. It means astronomy is different from other areas of science and we should fully realise it's shortcomings.
And I'm here for 2 reasons: 1. to learn about how we became convinced that neutron star really consist of matter in a condensed state, or why we are convinced dark matter and dark energy (etc. etc.) must be real.
2. To explore alternatives and to express the notion we should take nothing for granted, even if the best scientists all agree otherwise.
Cheers.