James Burke : The Day The Universe Changed: "Infinitely Reasonable", 3 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 5 of James Burke's ground-breaking series "The Day The Universe Changed" which explores the evolution of Western Scientific thought starting from the fall of Rome.

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• James
• Burke
• Science
• History
• The
• Day
• Universe
• Changed
• Infinitely
• Reasonable
• Galileo
• Newton
• Copernicus
• Kepler
• Gravity
• Physics
• JamesBurkeFan

[TheLastBrainLeft]

Wonder why Burke is ragging on Ven so much....it's quite a popular summer tourist destination for mainlander Swedes.

[gerrymoran1]

(inaudible) = Brahe

[Jcolinsol]

@Primalxbeast

One thing I've noticed: Dawkins actually isn't very enlightened. On the subjects he knows, evolutionary biology, memetics, (physics maybe?) he can hold his own. But he demonstrates a lack of understanding of philosophy, so he mistakes the scientific narrative for reality.

Also, no one needs to stand up for Atheists as a collective. I've lived my whole life as an Atheist (aside from all the Apotheosis) and I can't think of a real case where I needed to be defended for my Atheism.

[Jcolinsol]

@JamesBurkeWeb

*cough*general semantics*cough*

[Primalxbeast]

@JBW

Why do you think Dawkins is crazy?

Just because he painted a giant bull's eye on his back?

Somebody needs to stand up for us atheists. The theists are a bunch of brain-washed bullys who always get their way, at least here in the USA.

Thanks for putting this videos up btw, especially in organized playlists that make them so easy to watch.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Truth has meaning, but only "as a direction".

There *is* convergence in science. It's not like suddenly everything changed when Einstein corrected Newton. We still use Newtonian physics to build bridges, and design missiles and so on. From a descriptive point of view, it's not "wrong" it's just not the whole story.

- JBW

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Newton had nothing to say about the speed of gravitational interaction. The assumption was that time was not involved at all (ie. that the interaction was a property of inertial bodies and their distance ONLY). There's no 't' in Newton's universal law of gravitation.

I might add that Newton was dismayed over the universal law of gravitation as it demonstrated what was considered to be an absurdity at the time. That physical bodies could interact without being in direct contact.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Good scientists simply accept exactly what the universe happens to be. It would be nice if there were universal laws that applied to everything. That's the assumption anyway, but if that's not evidently the case then we have to accept whatever chaos we observe. So far it has turned out that there are underlying simplifications that describe a vast array of seeming complex scenarios. But it doesn't *have* to be that way.

- JBW

[JamesBurkeWeb]

I have come to detest Richard Dawkins. Though I still love his first book "the selfish gene". After that he kinda went nuts ;)

[Philonus]

Anyways, I just wanted to talk about because it a lot of what James Burke says in his program really reminds me about a lot of the things that I just said in my comments, that "Truth" is simply a bunch of verified and accepted conjectures and hypothesis.