Life of Cells -- Poll

Are you a mechanist or a vitalist?

  • Mechanist

    Votes: 14 63.6%

  • Vitalist

    Votes: 4 18.2%

  • No opinion

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Don't understand the question

    Votes: 4 18.2%
  • Total voters
    22
TheAlphaWolf said:
If you CAN prove it true then it is a theory.
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i swear to god this is one of alphas qoutes verbatum. you should be banned from this board for making such a dumb ass statement. you talk about dumb-ass replies. talk about moronic replies, and i was ready to have an intelligent discussion whith you.
 
what? you disagree that the THEORIES of gravity, atoms, that the earth revolves around the sun, etc haven't been proven?

You should be the one banned from this board for having no scientific background whatsoever. If you don't know the difference between scientific terminology and common parlance, why do you come to a SCIENCE forum?
 
correct me if i am wrong alpha, when you prove a theory it is no longer a theory but a fact. please read my posts on the previous page and tell me what you think. i came to this board to learn by the way.
 
correct me if i am wrong alpha, when you prove a theory it is no longer a theory but a fact.
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scientifically speaking, a theory is not a theory until a hypothesis is observed, tested, etc. over and over and over for a very long time. Basically, it's a fact. It's still a theory though... fact and theory are not mutually exclusive. The only reason why they're not called facts is because one, technically there is no such thing as "proof" or "facts" in science, as you can't "prove" that you are not just a brain in a jar being stimulated by electrical impulses. It's not a "fact" that the world you think exists really exists.
A theory is also not called a fact (it is accepted as fact but not called so) because by saying it's a theory, you are admitting that it can be improved or added upon. As an example, a long time ago people used to call things laws, like what's-his-name's physic's "laws". However, while that IS true for big things like planets and stuff, it's not true at the molecular level. Then einstein came about and thought up the theory of relativity (theory AND fact) that explained the "laws" further. Didn't prove them wrong, he just added to them.
or at least that's how I remember it... here's the actual source and a better explanation- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7490426/
please read my posts on the previous page and tell me what you think.
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any particular post(s) you have in mind? I already told you waht I think about some parts.

i came to this board to learn by the way.
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That's great, the only problem I have is that you took one little thing I said and totally dismissed the rest of that post and the others. If you think I edited the content or whatever tell me, look for sources yourself, whatever. And don't compare an AP book (basically a college textbook) with the bible.... and other things... that i already told you about.
It does you no good to take nobody's word and to be such a big skeptic. It's good to be skeptical but not so much so that you won't take any evidence.
 
from wikipedia

As noted above, in common usage a theory is defined as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or much of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory is not considered fact or infallible, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified to fit the additional data
 
yeah that's right. scientifically speaking NOTHING is a fact or infallible, so saying that is pretty much pointless... but for most intents and purposes, theories are facts.... or at least as close as you will ever get to facts.
 
alpha
for me to compare the bible with an ap book would be ridiculous. do not make the assumption i am a "religious nut" for i am not. just like a lot of other people i have questions. as far as "god" goes even the religious people can't come to a consensus. sorry about the name calling it won't happen again.
 
leopold99 said:
so, according to wiki 3+2=5 is a theory???
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or should we say a theory that has been proven true? natural processes to me makes a lot more sense than a "god". as you can tell i have a real problem with things i don't have proof for. as far as edgecashun goes i have a g..e.d.
 
leopold99 said:
the words "big bang theory" was coined by an astronomer (hubble i believe) as a sarcastic joke.
i have no problem with evolution being taught in our schools, the problem is it doesn't say it does not expain how we got here in the first place (abiogenisis) and it should be stated that abiogenisis and evolution are two different things.
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The beginning of evolution starts with the origin of life. Abiogenisis is a theory of evolution that postulates that life evolved from non-living chemical matter to a "universal common ancestor" to the speciation today.

Evolutionary developmental biology looks at the evolution of nucleotides in RNA and DNA gene sequences: the chemical evolution from self-catalytic chemicals to life. First there was an inorganic chemical preRNA World then an (ribosomal nucleotide) RNA World then today's RNA/DNA world: this is evolution.
 
TheAlphaWolf said:
well, if anything it's a part of a theory, but math isn't really science... there is no scientific method...
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Mathematics is sometimes referred to as "the Queen of the Sciences" because it is necessary in all other sciences and used in the scientific method.

"If one considers science to be strictly about the physical world, then mathematics, or at least pure mathematics, is not a science. An alternative view is that certain scientific fields (such as theoretical physics) are mathematics with axioms that are intended to correspond to reality...mathematics shares much in common with many fields in the physical sciences, notably the exploration of the logical consequences of assumptions. Intuition and experimentation also play a role in the formulation of conjectures in both mathematics and the other sciences."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics

Just as with the scientific method, mathematic theorists first ask questions, then propose a hypothesis, then develop a theorem that needs to be proven through a series of logical deductions and formulations. The theorem is then tested before it is accepted in the mathematical community. And just as in other sciences, these theorems sometimes become axioms and laws.
 
And just as in other sciences, these theorems sometimes become axioms and laws.
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as my msnbc article states, that's not true anymore. Calling scientific truths "laws" is an outdated practice. Now it's only theories.
 
Using the scientific method, a theory becomes a law - in an informal sense - to distinguish it from just being a theory. It becomes a law when the theory has been confirmed through repeated experimental tests under every possible conceivable conditions known to man in the physics of our current universe. We use the term "law" to distinguish it from "theory" in this sense, similar to the same way that we distinguish a theory from a hypothesis.
 
But we're not talking about the informal sense, as a theory would be a hypothesis in the informal sense. Nowdays theories do not "graduate" into laws.
 
TheAlphaWolf said:
The only reason why they're not called facts is because one, technically there is no such thing as "proof" or "facts" in science, as you can't "prove" that you are not just a brain in a jar being stimulated by electrical impulses. It's not a "fact" that the world you think exists really exists.
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then why is it so difficult for you to say there might be a "god"? for the life of me i can't accept women giving birth to babies a theory. the sun rising in the east a theory.3+2=5 a theory. in short all facts are theories? or better yet there are no facts? now that i call heavy.
 
then why is it so difficult for you to say there might be a "god"?
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It's not, I'm agnostic... although I usually say god(s) might exist. I don't limit myself to one god... however, I don't think it's possible for us puny humans to know if there is a god or not, and I completely reject religion. If god(s) really existed and wanted us to believe in him/her/it/them, we WOULD believe in them. Not necessarily because they force us, but because they have shown themselves. but anyway that's another topic.
for the life of me i can't accept women giving birth to babies a theory. the sun rising in the east a theory.3+2=5 a theory. in short all facts are theories? or better yet there are no facts?
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no, in short theories can be considered facts. it's a fact that right now i'm looking at my birds... is that a theory? no. Or at least I don't think i'm so important that people are theorizing about what i'm looking at... lol
but yeah, technically there are no facts as like I said... it's possible that my birds aren't there right now, they could be in my imagination, they could be how my brain interprets the electrical impulses that some crazy scientists are feeding it, etc.
 
alpha
you are right though, we have no proof that we are brains in jars and every thing we "know" merely an illusion. if that statement is true who or what is doing the stimulating? scratch that, it's a ridiculous question.
 
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