I received this link in an email...its not the best. This video has little value as a source of information, doesn't do much to development any arguments, has a severe flaw in the way it excerpts quotes, and makes many broad statements.

It summarizes to "be careful who you take as an authority, be cautious in what you believe."

Having formally studied physics, and having read a few very misleading popular books on physics/QM, I'm always glad to see people warning others of the charlatanism that goes on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmv1Ai2P7uQ&feature=related

Excellent, yes, I will comment more fully later after reading his list of articles he cites as his resources.


I wonder if we can find a full video of that conference where Lawrence Krauss calls nonsense on the quantum word soup.

Yeah, the show is full of flaky stuff and the hard science contributors were misquoted by the filmmakers "leaning" towards the mystical. But for gosh sake, it's just a movie! Who cares? Whatever fraction of real science was in the film got watched too by millions of people. I would rather that fraction of real science inspire someone to think for themselves and pursue a real education. If they do, they are going to learn the difference between classroom science and movie science anyway.

If you watch the extras that come with the extended version of the film, you get a perspective of who these people are and the "real" opinions of the fourteen people who were interviewed.

I would rather a film that has twenty minutes of correct science shown to twenty million people than a film that has 100% correct science viewed by five thousand... from a science education perspective. This show was not, IMO, presented as one view. I took that it was the opinion of fourteen different physicists, psychics, and a few other's views that was edited to make it look like they were more in agreement than they actually were.

Judge it by watching it and the extras, not by someone's else's opinion.

I took the basic message to be, "Be All You Can Be". What's wrong with that?

No its worse then that, its a fairy tale told by pseudoscience advocates that want to make Reiki an insurance paid medical treatment.

The new age movement is mostly a business endeavor that just uses the complexity of physics as a smoke screen to peddle snake oil.

Just my opinion . . . wouldn't want to get sued for libel . . .


Cough cough Simon Singh cough.

I can't watch the youtube video at this moment - but I curious if all the comments in this thread are directly related to the content of that video, or if this is spillover from your disagreements elsewhere.

I'm happy either way, I'm not trying to constrain the convo here, I'm just curious if I'm mis-remembering or mis-understood the topics of the youtube video.

This is why www.skepdic.com is one of my favorite sites. The omnipresence of 'disinformation' posing as 'real science' will, unfortunately, always be out there, and there are enough of the 'Gullible's Travels' types standing with their glasses ready to get as much of the Kool-Aid® as it will hold - quantum or not ... I wonder if they ever debate whether or not 'quantum BS' also exists ...

Well... science and scientists have been wrong more than once in history. The thing about it is that it is self correcting and able to learn from previous mistakes. I mean, "Flat Earthers" are pretty scarce right now.

As far as QM goes, the one thing that appeals to me is that through the mathematics it is able to go beyond the time line of "0" before Big Bang. Maybe it is because I have always had troubles with the Big Bang theory to begin with.

But I have to agree... there is a lot of "junk science" out there.

Has anyone been keeping up with the IBEX probe and what it is finding?

No I was definitely speaking about this video and the general theme of using QM as a means to confuse and create a guise of scientific credibility to pseudoscience.
What the bleep is just a movie designed to get people comfortable with the ideas in a general way and uses real science as a mask to lend cred. Next we are selling you healing quantum crystals, sessions of quantum energy healing, quantum _____________

Just my opinion m8.

Science has been self-correcting for quite a while, but what I consider to be 'science' wasn't around during the heyday of 'flat earthers'.

Semantic tangent: I always thought that any 'system of knowledge' could be called a 'science' - so that 'the science of yoga' is a valid phrase for a collection of completely 'non-scientific' information. I just found this definition - "An activity that appears to require study and method" - which is consistent with this usage.

But I think its vital to discriminate between the 'approach to truth' which dominated when 'flat earthers' ruled public opinion, and the approach to truth which modern scientists take.

Its true that modern science is self correcting, yes! Its also true that modern scientists have had many stumbling blocks and gone down some bad paths. I just don't consider the 'flat earth' meme to be one of those stumbling blocks, as it simply wasn't science. It was based on 'argument from authority' and 'this idea is too obvious to require testing/evidence.'

Modern science is focused on evidence.

I apologize but I made my comment before actually watching the video in my defense lol. I agree that there is something mystical about QM but then again it seems humans have a tendency to make logical (and illogical) leaps. I have a hard time picturing sub atomic particles being "aware" of our observations and standing still just long enough for us to take a look (see 2 slit experiment) which leads one to think of a "consciousness" behind all subatomic particles. It is magical in a sense so I can see where people take what they can from it and run with it towards mysticism.

If someone tried to sell me a Quantum Crystal I would probably laugh and tell them to carry on. The whole Universe is my quantum crystal. That would probably shut the hawker up.

Oh I agree. Way back in those days a person who had a hypothesis would have to be very careful how to test it lest the Church would find out and put them to death. Strong incentive not to pursue any idea contrary to their present day "teachings". What gets me is we are taught about "European" (I.E, Newton, Galileo, etc) yet history shows that even the Mayans/Aztecs/Incas as well as Sumerians all had a greater understanding of Astronomy thousands of years before the European science infancy yet we hear nothing of those. Maybe it is because of the historical record.

It makes me wonder what this world would be like if the Library of Alexandria had survived in its entirety as well as the records that the Mayans had that were virtually wiped out (except for one single "book") by the Conquistadors.

I wonder this myself quite often.