There seems to be growing support for "alternate theories" in recent years. I began to wonder about all the opposition to the solid theories we already hold as true and tested. Where does all this opposition come from?

First of all, I believe that many people don't know what the word theory means. They take it to mean, "this is our current belief of the way things work, but we're not sure."

But a theory is more than a hunch. It's a sturdy scientific model that's been tested by repeated observations and backed up by empirical evidence.

But still, people use theory so loosely that it weakens the meaning. It's not a theory to point out flaws or gaps in evolution. It's not a theory to state that the earth formed in 6,000 years and not over 4.5 bil because we've seen canyons form in a matter of days. Those are limited points with little to no evidence to stand on.

But anyway, could this surge in Woo-woo ideas come from a huge willingness to believe that what we see in science fiction is possible? That because they do it on Star Trek that the current rules of physics limiting velocity to c are wrong?

In short, where do they get all these ideas? Do they just want some notoriety for pointing out phantom flaws in scientific theories?

Faultline

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My son is my universe.

Tis the cash that can be made from the woo woo. Their books are expensive usually hardback and they make $5 per copy at least. Nobody wants to die and that's it and woo woo gives them the escape that they need.

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But wait... There's more!

Over the past several decades, "authority" has made itself easy to distrust. It's not too much of a stretch to take that a step further and believe authority is always lying or covering something up.

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It's because science itself invented woo woo theories in the 20th Century: Schrodinger's cat, SR, the Big Bang (every star in the universe compressed together in an infinitely small dot), spooky action at a distance, etc.

I don't know where the ideas come from, but I did find it interesting reading about which idea-promoters hang around together, in the July/August 2005 Skeptical Inquirer, Psychic Vibrations column. Author Robert Sheaffer attended a recent (14th annual) International UFO Congress.

You might think a UFO Congress would be filled with news and reports about UFOs, but it's not. It's apparently all about woo-woo thinking and the conspiracies that control us. Sheaffer reported on presentations about: near-death experiences, "resonant viewing" (formerly known as remote viewing), September 11 government conspiracies, Bible codes, 2012, the Apocalypse, Nazis and ETs, divine healing frequencies, and so on, and on.

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You are right: to the general public "theory" means hypothesis or little more than conjecture.

My brother in law comes to mind. He isn't stupid, and he is a computer programmer. But get into a scientific discussion with him, and it quickly turns into "Oh, scientists think they are so smart and know everything..." And off we go into something that "couldn't possibly be true" - like evolution. It's only a theory...

Twenty years ago I had little contact with others in my field. But today I have daily communications with others around the world. Including here for that matter. If there were only a handful of guys interested in something esoteric, they never encountered one another. Nowdays we find each other instantly online.

Crackpot ideas have been around forever, but in this day and age we have a venue for such thinking. ANy moron can field a web site and like minded individuals anywhere can find him. For that reason, the unwashed masses are exposed to far more of this stuff than a generation ago. With critical thinking rarely going beyond the gee that sounds reasonable stage, we come to have a big bang of whacko viewpoints.

I find this highly doubtful, as unlike woo-woo theories, many of these have been tested (spooky action at a distance), others verified by observation, still others misunderstood (it's all matter and energy, not all stars...stars came later) Woo woo theories have no basis, mostly because they are not reached by logical means, and more often than not fight tooth and nail against giving predictions or quantifiable results.

why doesn't anyone ever realize that poor Schroedinger was trying to be funny?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Just for clarification, this ATM section ends up with two types of discussion. The first is "woo woo" stuff that does not even fall into the realm of science. The second is true ATM science - alternatives that are in the minority view, and ultimately may be shown to be incorrect, but are presently at least viable scientific proposals.

How does one distinguish the two? I think the easiest criteria is publication in peer reviewed journals. Woo Woo stuff has not a chance in Journals whereas the alternatives - if properly done - will sometimes get published. Such publication does not establish that the alternative is ultimately correct - only that it might be correct.

Researchers that publish books on mainstream theories are not chasing the cash too? Everybody is entitled to profit from their work - whether it be respectable science or woo woo garbage.

I think the ultimate responsibility has to come down to the consumer, not the producer, on things like this. If fewer people bought the woo-woo books/videos, fewer would be produced. If people want to waste their money buying a book about how to build an anti-gravity machine in your garage or whatever it is the woos are selling, well, not much I can do about it...

I realize that. He told his original thought experiment as a JOKE. But everyone today takes it seriously.

Schrodinger's cat story has no basis of reality either. Schrodinger made up his thought experiment as a joke. The cat is NOT both dead and alive at the same time.

Well, there are groups that claim to have observed the equivalent of a Schroedinger cat (superposition of two macroscopic states).

Anyway, since I love cats, I prefer Bell's version.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Hi, could you give us some examples, please?

It was an explanation not a literal example to help people to understand the idea of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle with relation to objects that are observed. An electron can be both a wave in entering a double-slit (passing "through" both) and then a particle as it arrives at the detector. The electron passing through the double-slits is the "unobserved" cat with both wave and particle properties (alive and dead, displaying properties of both), while the electron at the detector is the "observed" cat; either alive or dead (particle or wave).

The spurious argument that because a cat cannot be actually alive and dead the idea is "woo woo" is not very cogent. It is saying the subject of an analogy is impossible because an analogy is impossible. It would be ethically indefensible to put a human in an elevator that has had its cable broken, but it doesn't invalidate Einstein's thought experiments regarding reference frames and relativity.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that the cat was a theory at all, just an extrapolation used to explain a part of a theory.

It was an example within a greater theory of probability. An experiment never conducted because the outcome wouldn't really prove anything.

It's just the thought that counts!

Faultline

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My son is my universe.

Just what the heck is "Spooky action at a distance?" I must have missed that one.

Faultline

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My son is my universe.

In QM, certain particle pairs can be bound together such that if one is measured, the other is forced into the opposite state (even though neither is in any particular state until one is measured).

If the two particles are flying off in opposite directions, the measurement of one particle causes the other to assume the appropriate state instantly, without any time lag for light (or anything else) to travel between them.

This has been observed in well-designed, repeatable experiments, and it's been shown that the state change is real -- they didn't have the final state (without our knowing about it) prior to the measurement.

Various interpretations have been made, including the rather bizarre idea that the communication between the particles involves other particles that travel backward in time.

[Added] Try a Google search on "quantum entanglement".
[Added again] Here is a very nice paper, well worth the effort to follow the description of experiments that demonstrate "spooky action at a distance":
http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ke...pers/bell.html

There was a talk by a group, who claimed to have observed a superposition of states corresponding to opposite macroscopic currents.
Unfortunately I did not follow the whole explanation.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

With the rise of Woowoo I offer a new paradigm.

Out with the old:

Occam's Razor:

Where there are many possible explanations, the simplest is most likely.

In with the new:

Wooccam's Razor:

Where there are many possible explanations, chose the one involving the most government conspiracy to cover up and with the maximal involvement of UFOs and Alien Civilisations.

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But wait... There's more!

Sounds good, except I would drop the "possible" part.

Oh! That's just hysterical! =D> May I quote you? (probably on another bulletin board...of the more woo woo variety).

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

So far, we've got answers of "fun and exciting paranoia" and "money" for why these theories arise.

Of course, some people have other motives. Faith being one that leads people to challenge Darwin and the earth's physical age. Like challenging a haystack with a needle.

You can cast doubt on any major scientific theory. But most of them are solid enough to shrug it off.

I just wish people wouldn't call the "challenges" "theories!"

Faultline

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My son is my universe.

And anyway, wasn't it his wife's cat? [-X

Isn't this what 'quantum computers' are based on? IIRC, several (very simple) such computers have indeed been built and tested (yes, they work). Being simple though, they have only a trivial number of qubits (3?).

There's an interesting corollary to this (seeming) rise of woowoo-dom - the desire of (some) proponents to be taken seriously, to obtain some 'scientific' cred .... it shows that the market places a (not insignificant) value on things like "Ph.D" (esp associated with "physics" and "Princeton", for example). It also accounts for the disproportionate attention woowoos pay to Einstein (how many woowoo 'theories' have you seen that seek to overthrow Gell-Mann and SU(3), the foundation of the Standard Model in particle physics?), and why you see so much deperation to be seen on moderated, 'real' websites (like BA and PhysicsForums). 8) :P

A number of years ago, I saved an article that caught my attention. Basically, an ion was given a superposition of two charges and then exposed to a directional field. It stayed in superposition long enough to be in two places at the same time! It was "positive and here" and "negative and there".

Particles that exist normally as "mixtures" don't count? And don't forget polarized light! Oh, and neutrinos.

When speaking of the word "theory," we must be careful to realize that no segment of society owns any particular word. Words can, and do change meaning over time. Sometimes its for the better, sometimes not.

Merriam Webster's definition holds more credance with the powers that be than our dusty science texts: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Why does woo woo hold such sway? I think it's a lot of reasons already mentioned here--fear of death, excitement of paranoia, etc.--but I also think it has a lot to do with a general lack of critical thinking ability. In my adolescence, I was easy prey for any woo woo theory that crossed my path, and as near as I can tell in retrospect, it had simply to do with 1) my desperation for "answers" and 2) ignoring completely my rational mind. I still find that anytime I engage in activities requiring a lot of logical analysis, I am sharper and less vulnerable to mushy thinking for ages afterwards. The inverse is true as well, I believe.