The Big Bang Theory a Fairy Tale? So says presidential candidate Ben Carson....

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Ben Carson's dismissal of the Big Bang Theory as a "fairy tale" raises concerns about potential impacts on scientific funding if he were to become president. His beliefs may align with a growing fundamentalist movement that could threaten federal support for scientific research, particularly through the National Science Foundation (NSF). The discussion highlights the fear that a scientifically challenged leadership could undermine public faith in science and lead to reduced funding for critical programs. Historical parallels are drawn to past political actions that negatively affected scientific initiatives, suggesting a worrying trend. The conversation reflects broader anxieties about the intersection of personal beliefs and scientific integrity in governance.
  • #61
Bernie G said:
The big bang coming from a point source or initiating from something larger is on topic.
Actually the science isn't, it's already been pointed out repeatedly that he doesn't know what he's talking about and this forum is to discuss the politicians. It doesn't matter what version he thinks is wrong.
 
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  • #62
Bernie G said:
Would you prefer him or Hillary?
You put me in a bad spot with this question, but honestly him because Hilary should be in jail for some of the things she has done. She is not a person anyone should look up to as a leader she just appeals to the liberals and feminist for votes. Ben Carson I can look up to a little but he is not the ideal candidate
 
  • #63
Evo said:
Actually the science isn't, it's already been pointed out repeatedly that he doesn't know what he's talking about and this forum is to discuss the politicians. It doesn't matter what version he thinks is wrong.
Science has been wrong at times. Actually many times its just a dispute between theory and ideology and people have to pick a side. But if something is true beyond a shadow of a doubt which a lot of science is, it would be foolish for any candidate to deny it without any factual backing.
 
  • #64
Nico Crawford said:
Science has been wrong at times. Actually many times its just a dispute between theory and ideology and people have to pick a side. But if something is true beyond a shadow of a doubt which a lot of science is, it would be foolish for any candidate to deny it without any factual backing.
But we're not debating the science in this thread, and posts will be deleted to keep the thread on topic.
 
  • #65
gleem said:
With an ever strained federal budget will His beliefs still be able to influence NSF funding?
If he does, it would be very disappointing! The thought of him hindering scientific development such as the deployment of the James Webb space telescope is very unsettling.

Although i honestly doubt it. It's hard to fathom some of the things he believes to be true (as mentioned in the article posted), and so will the majority of the scientific community (i hope).
 
  • #66
phinds said:
Actually that sort of thing is quite common for fundamentalists in the US. I have a nephew who is scholastically brilliant and a very nice fellow, outstanding family man, with a PhD in math and a solid 4.0 throughout Electrical Engineering undergraduate school and he believes that Evolution is nonsense. Religious faith trumps logic every time.
A childhood friend of my wife married a biologist, who does not believe in evolution, who teaches biology at NC State...maybe he's retired by now.
 
  • #67
The problem, for me, is that a President of the US can't be in denial, he/she can't let personal beliefs cloud their judgement. I'd vote for someone that mis-used e-mails over a nut any day. My personal opinion. E-mail, not scary, denial of accepted science, scary.

Got to ask yourself 'what would keep you up at night"? E-mail is at the bottom of my list. Deliberate fraud that Fiorina is doing, that would keep me up, anti-science nut, that would keep me up, Trump, that would keep me up.
 
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  • #68
Personally, what would keep me up at night the most is Socialism.

I think losing government funding would be fine, and I really doubt Carson would be the only candidate to withdraw funding. Any real republican would withdraw funding because of their preference to Reagonomics over FDR New Deal tactics.. Taxes would probably go down with it.

Then you can just post the proposed scientific development on Kickstarter and it will be funded by whoever wants to. Because why not? (And then sell T-shirts. That's the best part).
 
  • #69
William T said:
Has nobody mentioned that when it comes to the topic of private-sector funding, conservatives prefer Reaganomics, less government involvement in the private sector, and a shrink in government spending as a whole? If science loses funding, I have a feeling it'll be more because of Reaganomics than Creationism. Besides, as stated by some people during the Planned Parenthood disagreement, "Go Fund Yourselves". As scientists, how hard can it be to commercialize new discoveries?

"If science loses funding, I have a feeling it'll be more because of Reaganomics..." Do you mean big science funding like green energy, the manned space program, and a manned Mars mission?
 
  • #70
Bernie G said:
"If science loses funding, I have a feeling it'll be more because of Reaganomics..." Do you mean big science funding like green energy, the manned space program, and a manned Mars mission?
I don't think manned missions are on the short term list or realistic/feasible goals.
 
  • #71
Nico Crawford said:
You put me in a bad spot with this question, but honestly him because Hilary should be in jail for some of the things she has done. She is not a person anyone should look up to as a leader she just appeals to the liberals and feminist for votes. Ben Carson I can look up to a little but he is not the ideal candidate

I think if the country picks any lawyer for the next President we are screwed.
 
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  • #72
Bernie G said:
"If science loses funding, I have a feeling it'll be more because of Reaganomics..." Do you mean big science funding like green energy, the manned space program, and a manned Mars mission?

Green energy for sure, because you know how conservatives are with global warming ;)

Essentially, all conservatives would want to decrease government spending, especially when the country's in debt. I'm not sure whether the scale of the project would make a difference. They go by the belief that less government spending + less taxes will allow corporations and businesses to flourish more, which will benefit the country more.

I'm not really sure about Hillary either. Aside from the whole email thing, she doesn't look competent enough to make any changes.
 
  • #73
William T said:
I'm not really sure about Hillary either. Aside from the whole email thing, she doesn't look competent enough to make any changes.
Hillary is the only one with Oval Office experience, that truly knows what the President has to do and know. This, IMO, is why so many Presidential candidates make so many promises that they cannot possibly keep, they do not understand what the President has to deal with and why he cannot do a lot of things. She does. I would feel comfortable with her.
 
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  • #74
Athanatsius said:
I have a degree in theology, and am very familiar with all of the common Christian eschatological positions. The most popular is premillennialism. Neither it nor any of the other major positions call for hurrying up the end of the world by making war or initiating a nuclear attack. Christian fundamentalists are just as afraid of that as you are. It has been claimed that some Muslim beliefs call for that - so perhaps you equated the two - but they are very different. No orthodox Christian eschatological positions do. So you don't have to worry about that.
It just takes one nut with wacky beliefs. That's not saying they are representative of the majority.
 
  • #75
On the democrat side, I personally like Lawrence Lessig. It's a shame he only wants to be in there until he gets what he wants, then will quit his position as president.
 
  • #76
William T said:
On the democrat side, I personally like Lawrence Lessig. It's a shame he only wants to be in there until he gets what he wants, then will quit his position as president.
The proper grammar in this case is "... then would quit ... " :smile:
 
  • #77
Evo said:
It just takes one nut with wacky beliefs. That's not saying they are representative of the majority.
Yes, but there have also been naturalists who were nuts with wacky beliefs, such as Stalin and Mao. If any leader's philosophy or religion calls for warmongering, oppression or injustice to advance their cause, beware. Carson has never said anything to indicate that he is like that, and the religion he follows at its heart is strongly opposed to those very things.
 
  • #78
Athanatsius said:
Yes, but there have also been naturalists who were nuts with wacky beliefs, such as Stalin and Mao. If any leader's philosophy or religion calls for warmongering, oppression or injustice to advance their cause, beware. Carson has never said anything to indicate that he is like that, and the religion he follows at its heart is strongly opposed to those very things.
Christianity has a very violent history, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the persecution of Jews, even the persecution of Catholics, the persecution of scientists, the witch hunts, but that's not what this thread is about, so let's move on.
 
  • #79
Athanatsius said:
Yes, but there have also been naturalists who were nuts with wacky beliefs, such as Stalin and Mao. If any leader's philosophy or religion calls for warmongering, oppression or injustice to advance their cause, beware. Carson has never said anything to indicate that he is like that, and the religion he follows at its heart is strongly opposed to those very things.
It is also strongly opposed to science, which is what this thread is about.
 
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  • #80
Evo said

Got to ask yourself 'what would keep you up at night"? E-mail is at the bottom of my list. Deliberate fraud that Fiorina is doing, that would keep me up, anti-science nut, that would keep me up, Trump, that would keep me up.[/QUOTE]

It sounds as if things don't go well you may need a doctor to prescribe a sedative. .:-) Only joking.
 
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  • #81
phinds said:
The proper grammar in this case is "... then would quit ... " :smile:

Good catch.
 
  • #82
Evo said:
Hillary is the only one with Oval Office experience, that truly knows what the President has to do and know. This, IMO, is why so many Presidential candidates make so many promises that they cannot possibly keep, they do not understand what the President has to deal with and why he cannot do a lot of things. She does.
Between her experience in her husband's 1992-2000 presidency, her time in the Senate, and her stint as Secretary of State, I'd say she is the most experienced, best qualified candidate in my lifetime. Nothing and no one can guarantee what a person will do with the power of the US Presidency, but at least with Hillary we will not be electing a wild card.
 
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  • #83
Greg Bernhardt said:
I'm still amazed at how such an accomplished neurosurgeon can cling to such anti-science views.
absolutely surprising, and undoubtedly scary
 
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  • #84
Geofleur said:
And here I was thinking that physics was safe from that sort of thing! :frown:

Why? The Big Bang has only escaped the worst attacks from creationists because they have been so busy attacking evolution instead. Neither the Big Bang nor evolution fits with six-day creation in 4004 BC. Since creationism spawned Intelligent Design in a failed attempt to get around the US prohibition on teaching religion in schools, one may expect something similar for cosmology. I solemnly predict the Teleological Argument will be dusted off and re-branded as Fine-Tuned Purpose. I hear the scratching of pencils across paper right now! It will be easier for them the second time round, but that's going to be balanced against the fact that they are going to have to grapple with some serious maths.

And, some time in the distant future, it will start all over again with quantum mechanics. Why not? Everything else does.
 
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  • #85
Athanatsius said:
The highest levels of organization, such as long strings of code organized into a semantic language, have only been observed to be produced by an intelligence at their point of origin. They have an extremely less probable distribution. So a meaningful organized state is an improbable, low entropy state. And the low entropy origin of our universe is a baffling question. (The second law demands that it must have originally been in a state of lower entropy than it is now. ) In light of that relationship, it's challenging to see how a simple singularity could be lower in entropy than the more highly organized universe we see today.
Simple is low entropy. The universe did start in an improbable state but it was not organized into a semantic language. The reason it is baffling is not that it was improbable - given a large enough ensemble anything will happen - but because even within an ensemble, small universes - Boltzmann Brains - will predominate over big ones and we don't live in one of those. Inflation gets rid of the Boltzmann Brains but only at the cost of a metastable false vacuum which would appear to be another way of saying "exceedingly improbable state".
 
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  • #86
Athanatsius said:
When I say Christianity, i am speaking of those who truly follow the teachings of the founder of it. Those who perpetrated those terrible crimes did not do that, and so they were not true Christians, IMHO.
Sure. And Russian communism could hardly be said to truly have carried out the tenets of Marx. Theory is lovely but so what. We live in the real world. I don't judge either group on what they say or on what their philosophy says on paper, I judge them on what they DO. Christians DID do those things, whether you like it or not and modern American fundamentalists consider themselves deeply Christian but they believe in creationism and reject evolution. They believe the world is 6,000 years old and was created in 6 24-hour days. How is that not anti-science?
 
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  • #87
Athanatsius said:
When I say Christianity, i am speaking of those who truly follow the teachings of the founder of it. Those who perpetrated those terrible crimes did not do that, and so they were not true Christians, IMHO.

So who gets to decide who are the "true Christians"? You? Can we have a list of official true Christians, y'know, something opposite to the TSA's "No Fly" list?

Zz.
 
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  • #88
I don't think that Dr. Carson is anti science per se just that it has overstepped it bounds.
 
  • #89
gleem said:
I don't think that Dr. Carson is anti science per se just that it has overstepped it bounds.
How is believing that the world was created in 6 24-hour days not anti-science?
 
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  • #90
In the same way that rejecting the creation of the universe in six days does not mean you are anti Christian.