SAV
Years ahead of you, Blake. Scientists don’t label “guesses” as scientific theories. That is explained clearly enough for non-dolts to comprehend easily. Thus there is no “relabeling” (your word) when something is established as fact. Ergo, you’re wrong. You’re also an idiot.
When scientists tell you what scientists mean, you’d have to be an idiot to think you know better than they do. QED.

SAV
That’s not what it says at all. Not even close. Please learn how to read.

SAV
I’ve been gone for more than a day, and I’m still ahead of you. Because you apparently missed the memo, I’m a scientist and I teach science. Because you apparently can’t read, nothing I’ve said about the scientific method and scientific terminology has been untrue, mistaken, or misleading. Meanwhile, plenty of what Blake has said about the scientific method and scientific terminology has been wrong.

Educated people might indeed be wasting our time trying to get sixth grade-level facts through Blake’s thick skull, but to argue that I’m out of my league is absurd.

Do you disagree with the statement from the NAS that I linked to?

DAR
Well then you don’t actually pay very close attention. Paine was very much a freethinker, just like many of the other founders. At our last meeting (52 in attendance) we spent the first hour honoring him (it was the 200 year anniversary of his death on June 8). From our meeting notice:

“Come celebrate July 4 at the June 27th meeting as we commemorate Thomas Paine. It is important that the life of this courageous man be remembered, and told to our youth and young in spirit, for the optimistic inspiration it gives of what one person can do to change the world for the better. We will also listen to a dynamic presentation from Carl Shapiro entitled “Thomas Paine and the American Revolution” on CD.”

We also sell his books at our Springfest booth.

D.
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The man who first uttered and printed the name “The United States of America.”

He helped found the first society for the abolition of slavery in America.

He was one of the first to call for the creation of a Union of Nations which would bring some peace and prosperity to the world.

He was the inventor of the first iron (steel) bridge. His pamphlet Common Sense ignited the American Revolution and his booklet “The Rights of Man” helped lead to the liberation of America from the yoke of the British.

etc.

Seriously – you’re out of your league and wasting our time. Seriously!

DAR
Well I guess that is as close as Blake can get to admitting he is wrong on this. If only those darn scientists knew better than to misname things so Blake could understand them!

Schat: “some theories that we believe are proven (theory of relativity for example) are still not proven to be considered, scientifically, a fact. Same with evolution.>>

DAR
Dear Schatzee, I am saddened to hear you didn’t get the note about the theory of relativity being proven to be a fact, over and over and over, a hundred times over. Every television set, every computer, relies upon principles based upon Einstein’s scientific theory (oh the irony of you making a fool of yourself, on, a computer!). Every GPS, which relies upon our measuring the speed of light to *17 decimal places,* every satellite, everything we have ever sent into space and communicated with, every nuclear bomb, every atomic clock… well, you get the idea. In 1905 Einstein’s theory was controversial. A few years later, not so much.

Incidentally, quantum theory is also EXTREMELY well established. That happened probably before your parents were born.

Here are a few simple examples that have confirmed Einstein’s theory:

***
1. Planetary orbits will be slightly different from the paths predicted by classical mechanics;

2. A beam of light will curve when passing near a massive body (i.e., light responds to gravity);

3. Mass has intrinsic energy, in the amount of mc²;

4. Time slows down for moving clocks.

5. Massive object have a higher inertia when they’re moving.

DAR
We even used to postulate an unobserved moon to account for a distortion in the orbit of (I think Neptune). Einstein’s relativity explained the problem with no moon, which we now know, never existed (but this didn’t stop astrologers from incorporating it in their calculations. Oops!).

But if you like to keep it simple, best to stay with the heliocentric theory. Most people can understand that the earth going around the sun is a fact. It’s also a theory. In science, there is no contradiction or even tension between the two. Sorry about that.

D.
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“Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.”
–Stephen J. Gould, 1981