# Kirk Cameron schools Stephen Hawking in science **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 22, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818 "2011-05-22T21:45:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/221 "2011-05-24T01:39:11Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > You’re either trolling or the dumbest motherfucker alive. > > Nobody ever says “I don’t know, lets find out?” Basically. Seriously. When in history has that ever happened? When didn’t we have an answer? Look at stars. First we thought they were stories written in the sky. Then we thought they were pinpricks in a black sheet with a candle behind them. Than we thought they were the souls of our ancestors. Then we thought they were lights on concentric spheres. When in history did we not have an explanation for what the stars were? When did we ever say we didn’t know? When, in our entire history as a race were we ever faced with an unanswerable conundrum and failed to totally make something up to explain it? When did we ever say we didn’t know? Show me some ancient tome of knowledge that says “I don’t know,” that doesn’t make something up or seek to explain a phenomenom no matter how unsatisfactory. What universe do you live in that you think humans say “I don’t know?” to the big questions? Recognition of ignorance is an extremely rare quality. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/222 "2011-05-24T01:40:40Z")
The problem is you are using the term “science” incorrectly. It’s a common error, actually. It doesn’t mean you are doing something to explain the world, or simply based on an idea that may have some intuitive logic. Science is the philosophy that employs a process of testable hypotheses and the collection of information. So to say “leeches are bad science” is incorrect, as no testable hypothesis was put forth and no experiments designed to falsify that hypothesis were conducted. Someone had an idea of why they might work and gave it the old college try, but no one actually set up a process to test if it worked. That process was the breakthrough that was the birth of science. ETA: Same thing with starring at the stars- you said “science never says ‘I don’t know’”. Staring at the stars is not science. Science has a specific definition. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/223 "2011-05-24T01:45:39Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I defined God as the creator of the universe imbued with omnipotence. I didn’t say anything about intelligence. Why do we need that? You think any concept of God worthy of the name needs or posesses something recognizable to us as intelligence? That might be like saying your spaceship needs to be pulled by a horse. No it isn’t. How many theists believe in a non-intelligent God? If the universe were created by some natural process, calling it God in a theistic sense isn’t even a little smart. > [@](#): > > So, if you think God needs intelligence, you are going to need to tell me why. Does spouting gibberish normally work for you? > [@](#): > > No. I’m not using God as a metaphor. The laws of physics are not a precursor to the universe, they are a part of it. They were created with it. I was assuming you couldn’t possibly be as stupid as you were letting on. I stand corrected. > [@](#): > > It’s like the Seinfeld dog thing. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t think you have the intellectual precursors to get what I’m saying. I’m pretty sure your dog watches you fumble ineptly through your existence and thinks to itself, “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” 😃 > [@](#): > > Oh, leeches were science. They just got replaced by something better. Bad science is still science. Newtonian physics aren’t correct, either, you know? Nor was Newton’s concept of the aether as the medium for action at a distance. It was a wrong idea that an immense scientific treatment… as were leeches and the concept of humors. They are attempts to explain the observed world. Not though inquiry, but through pure intellectual bullshittery. Aristotle pulled it out of his ass that things fall and speeds based on their weight. He couldn’t be bothered to drop two rocks. That isn’t science, it’s stupidity. Like religion. > [@](#): > > Thinking leeches weren’t scientific medicine is just stupid. If you don’t get that, you are really just too ignorant to be here. Lawls. Keep fucking that chicken Scylla. Keep fucking that chicken. > [@](#): > > What makes you think that theology doesn’t improve? You ever hear of somebody called Thomas Aquinas? You realize that science that western science and the scientific method was directly spawned out of attempts to systematize theological thinking, right? Religion is based on fiat declarations. The Catholic church for all its complexity and richness is as wrong as a shaman spreading chicken entrails for glimpses of the future. > [@](#): > > You telling me that a concept of God is talking about the grey haired dude telling me to cut my penis tip is that me telling you that medicine is talking about leeches, right? Rewrite that sentence so as to convey information and I’ll get back to you. > [@](#): > > I fear you don’t get this. I think you are kind of at this absolutist stage that thinks something is either all right, or all wrong and there is not much room for any subtlety in that 25 watt bulb of yours. I’m all about subtlety, Scylla old bean, but you being laughably wrong about everything you’ve written here isn’t about subtlety. It’s about your lack of understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/224 "2011-05-24T01:47:54Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Recognition of ignorance is an extremely rare quality. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/225 "2011-05-24T01:52:18Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > ETA: Same thing with starring at the stars- you said “science never says ‘I don’t know’”. Staring at the stars is not science. Science has a specific definition. I was waiting for this debate to start hinging on the typical connotation of “science” vs. the specific definition of “science”. 😃 Well, that and “god”. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/226 "2011-05-24T01:53:11Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > The problem is you are using the term “science” incorrectly. It’s a common error, actually. It doesn’t mean you are doing something to explain the world, or simply based on an idea that may have some intuitive logic. Science is the philosophy that employs a process of testable hypotheses and the collection of information. So to say “leeches are bad science” is incorrect, as no testable hypothesis was put forth and no experiments designed to falsify that hypothesis were not conducted. I believe you may be mistaken. Allow me to attempt to define terms to reach an accommodation. What you are referring to as “science,” is, I think, actually the “scientific method.” However, science has existed a lot longer than the scientific method, and the latter is a relatively recent development to help scientists do good science. You, as a scientist, probably do no distinguish the scientific method from science, as it so all encompassing to what you do. However, scientists did not develop and refine that tool and have it available throughout history. > [@](#): > > Someone had an idea of why they might work and gave it the old college try, but no one actually set up a process to test if it worked. That process was the breakthrough that was the birth of science. I think Hippocrates was practicing science even though he didn’t have the scientific method. So, was Aristotle. I have a good book here, **The Scientist** by John Gribbin which talks about Tycho, Fallopio, Fabricious, Kepler, Gilbert et al. Science as you seem to define really didn’t begin until the late 1600s. Leeches actually did work for some things, though. It was the fact that they seemed to work for some things that made people think they worked for everything… bad thinking that continues to occur even today, and it takes a lot of discipline to avoid that kind of thinking. Anyway, I would say that science is the pursuit of knowledge and the Scientific method is the best method we know for doing science, but that science existed before that. How does that sound? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/227 "2011-05-24T01:55:12Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I was waiting for this debate to start hinging on the typical connotation of “science” vs. the specific definition of “science”. 😃 > > Well, that and “god”. Well, words have definitions and that word is pretty close to my heart. When someone starts making assertions and drawing conclusions based on an incorrect premise, it becomes a problem when we’re all not using words based on their actual definitions. And plus I’m right. 🙂 It doesn’t happen too often, so I grab it when it does! ETA: I hear what you are saying. However, using the broader def for Science is fine, right up until you starting making assertions that were incorrect. Whether leeches work or not (and I know all about modern uses)is irrelevant. You called using them “bad science”. They were not bad science- they were not science in a way that can be interpreted as good or bad. WHen you say “science never says 'I don’t know” and back it up with people looking at the stars, again you mistaken. The problem with your stated definition, is that the pursuit of knowledge is housed in religion and philosophy. Science is subset of philosophy with a specific meaning. It’s fine for some applications, but not all. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/228 "2011-05-24T01:58:46Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I believe you may be mistaken. Allow me to attempt to define terms to reach an accommodation. What you are referring to as “science,” is, I think, actually the “scientific method.” However, science has existed a lot longer than the scientific method, and the latter is a relatively recent development to help scientists do good science. > > You, as a scientist, probably do no distinguish the scientific method from science, as it so all encompassing to what you do. However, scientists did not develop and refine that tool and have it available throughout history. > > I think Hippocrates was practicing science even though he didn’t have the scientific method. So, was Aristotle. > > I have a good book here, **The Scientist** by John Gribbin which talks about Tycho, Fallopio, Fabricious, Kepler, Gilbert et al. Science as you seem to define really didn’t begin until the late 1600s. > > Leeches actually did work for some things, though. It was the fact that they seemed to work for some things that made people think they worked for everything… bad thinking that continues to occur even today, and it takes a lot of discipline to avoid that kind of thinking. > > Anyway, I would say that science is the pursuit of knowledge and the Scientific method is the best method we know for doing science, but that science existed before that. > > How does that sound? So you’re just gonna randomly misuse both \*God \*and _Science_. If you don’t even try to communicate in an intelligent manner no one is going to take you seriously. Herp-Derp, you fucking retard. Herp-Derp. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/229 "2011-05-24T02:03:11Z")
Lost the edit window: [QUOTE= wiki] Science (from Latin: scientia meaning “knowledge”) is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.[1][2][3][4] An older and closely related meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained (see “History and etymology” section below).[5] [/QUOTE] Science, as used today, and the scientific methodology describe the same process. The science of antiquity can be described in similar terms, but it is a very narrow definition and not nearly as broad as you suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/230 "2011-05-24T02:15:52Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > So you’re just gonna randomly misuse both \*God \*and _Science_. If you don’t even try to communicate in an intelligent manner no one is going to take you seriously. > > Herp-Derp, you fucking retard. Herp-Derp. Oh, **Scylla** is trying. He’s very trying. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/231 "2011-05-24T02:17:13Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > No it isn’t. How many theists believe in a non-intelligent God? You don’t get it. You’re thinking about God as a really powerful guy. It probably wouldn’t be like that. Let’s posit something as a thought experiment: God would be omnipotent, right? Omniscient, too? God would basically be everywhere at once, contain all things, as a consequence. God would also be every time at once. To you reality is like a film. You have a single camera viewpoint and you move through the film frame by frame, experiencing time and your single changing viewpoint. God though would have every possible viewpoint and camera angle for every single frame simultaneously. You might see a duck in your film. God would see you, and the duck both from your viewpoint and the duck’s and from every other possible camera angle in the entire universe simultaneously. You only see one frame at a time, but God would see every frame from every angle all at once. For God, the concept of seeing would be moot, as would time. The omniscient viewpoint requires neither. Intelligence is the ability to reason. God wouldn’t need that. There are no questions when you already have all the answers, right? Could you classify something possessing that viewpoint as an entity, and intelligence? Not in any way that the words have any meaning. You saying that a God requires intelligence, is like an ant assuming that human beings require pheromone trails, because that’s all an ant has in place of intelligence. Similarly God would be beyond intelligence in any recognizable sense, as a simple consequence of omnipotence (which actually contains omniscience.) You are thinking way to small. You are thinking of the god of penis cutting. I am thinking of the consequences of omnipotence. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/232 "2011-05-24T02:25:46Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > So you’re just gonna randomly misuse both \*God \*and _Science_. If you don’t even try to communicate in an intelligent manner no one is going to take you seriously. > > Herp-Derp, you fucking retard. Herp-Derp. Yeah ok. In the meantime most of this shit I’m pulling out of **A Brief History of Time** and **The Grand Design**. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/233 "2011-05-24T02:51:42Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > \*God \*suggests the cause is intelligent. Only a complete idiot would assume that the universe was created by an intelligence without any evidence to that effect. So what would be evidence for an intelligently designed universe? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/234 "2011-05-24T03:11:51Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Why on earth would you choose that definition? There are tons and tons of different religions with different concepts of what God is and what God does. You just chose the Dick Cozie one and assigned it to me? Why that one? I suspect that part of the reason may have to do with the fact that the role you have found yourself in is that of “defender of the notion that Kirk Cameron’s cosmology is superior to Stephen Hawking’s.” Cameron’s concept of God is inarguably the Dick Cozy God (albeit v.2.0). You are being assumed to have bought into the entire package that Cameron comes with. Despite the esteem in which I hold you and your intellect, I have to confess that I find your asking the question above to smack of disingenuousness. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/235 "2011-05-24T03:21:48Z")
Missed the edit window. Or perhaps because of it. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/236 "2011-05-24T03:45:10Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > If there is a hell you’ve got a seat reserved there too:D > You don’t seriously fucking believe that I mean I want him or you to suffer eternal damnation. You take things waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too literally. Go take your meds now. > Some people can’t take a fucking joke. A “joke”? Define hell for me. What is your definition of “hell”? What is hell to you? Because I assure you, if it’s anything like what most christians assume (The Divine Comedy-style stuff) then it’s incredibly sadistic to even _think_ that someone deserves to go there; it’s a sign of incredible thoughtlessness or sociopathy. Knowing you, I wouldn’t doubt either. > [@](#): > > Wow. You’re dumb. > if you think I’m actually going to post in your retarted dumbass thread then you’re even crazier than I thought. This just in: ClassyLadyhp is a bad troll. [![](http://static.allegro.cc/image/cache/8/0/80957c72518411bd61070d1b9a026d61.jpg) ](http://static.allegro.cc/image/cache/8/0/80957c72518411bd61070d1b9a026d61.jpg) Also, I hope you get waterboarded. 🙂 I’m a sociopath but at least I’ll be honest about it. > [@Scylla](#): > > Except that it is total fucking bullshit. Science never says “I don’t know.” > > (Well maybe some scientist sometime said that, but it’s damn rare.) Actually, this is a big part of the scientific process. Maybe they aren’t actively saying “I don’t know” a lot, but they certainly aren’t giving false answers to real questions. > [@](#): > > Scientific history is the march of really bad ideas being stated as a certainty eventually getting replace with other (usually pretty bad,) ideas. > > Bodily Humors, the Aether, the flat world, Newtonian physics, Dark matter, etc. etc. Every fucking idea we ever had in our entire history up till now basically turned out to be wrong and got replaced by an idea that was only slightly less bad. “Scientific” history started around the 1600s at the beginning of the enlightenment with Newton. Before then, there _was_ no real scientific method. As pointed out before, do you really think people actually _tested_ leeches? The Aether? Newtonian physics and the flat earth model do not belong on the upper list though. Science does not ever claim to be 100% right. It can’t be. After all, all it does is provide _predictive models_ based on the evidence we have. For the evidence we had, Newtonian physics and the flat earth model were both perfectly reasonable, rational models. While the latter was instantly abandoned because it loses all worth by being falsified, the former is _still taught_ because for everything short of obscenely tiny/massive and obscenely fast things, it works perfectly well. It’s still a useful predictive model, conforming with what we know about reality; it just has its limits. Same with the flat earth model. We didn’t know back then that the earth _was_ round. We had no evidence as such, so we took a look, didn’t _“see”_ the earth’s curvature because it’s so slight, and assumed that it was flat. The important thing, however, is that we _retired_ the model after it was proven faulty. > [@](#): > > You think science says “I Don’t know?” Are you insane? > > How much do you think we actually know? We know that every time you drop an object, it will fall until it hits another object that it can’t pierce with its speed and hardness. We extrapolate from that that it is highly likely to do so in every case from reasoned logic. > [@](#): > > Do you think is true now is going to hold up? Do you think it’s that much better than “God?” Depends… how do you think we made the computer you’re typing this on? Was it “god” or was it “hundreds of years of reasonable application of the scientific method”? What about the medicine that keeps you alive past 50-60. Was it “god” or was it “hundreds of years of reasonable application of the scientific method”? What about feeding a massively swelling human population. Was it “god” or was it “hundreds of years of reasonable application of the scientific method”? What about taking you across the world within a mere day for only a few thousand dollars. Was it “god” or was it “hundreds of years of reasonable application of the scientific method”? What allows you to _post on this fucking forum_? Was it “god” or was it “hundreds of years of reasonable application of the scientific method”? That you would even _make_ that comparison is sickening. I imagine that _if_ the basic theories of things like electronics, gravity, quantum mechanics, etc. are false, they are only false in miniscule ways and still apply for all but the most extreme cases (_like newtonian mechanics!_) and are _still useful models_. If you mean “seriously refuted” then you’re a moron. Why? Because then _all of the predictions that we have successfully made with those theories_ (with mechanical, electronic, and biological theories, that’s “_a whole fucking lot of predictions_”; like, every single time you turn on your computer and it works, you’re confirming them; just FYI) are true, but there’s no underlying pattern. That would probably make the head designer at GE something of a prophet, wouldn’t you think? > [@](#): > > I don’t think that we are much better than the surgeon applying leeches while sneering at a witch doctor mumbling an incantation. As said: that was unverified bullshit based not on the scientific method, but the religious method of “let’s try this and see if it works. Didn’t work? GOD DIDN’T WANT IT TO WORK KEEP TRYING”. Same principle applies to prayer, actually. > [@](#): > > If history is any indicator, pretty much everything that we think is a fact is going to get replaced by another idea which is going to be a better fact. Because _this is how science works_. Just a shame that we’ve kinda reached the point where most of our facts are not just well-established, but _ridiculously_ well-established. As said, to the point where a major refutation makes the people working at NASA, people working at various biolabs around the country, paleontologists, and basically any electrical engineer so good at making accurate predictions based on a faulty model that it becomes ridiculous to even conceptualize. > [@](#): > > Our ideas of what is true are likely very poor. We don’t know shit. We never admit it. Never have, never will. Find me one scientific journal with an article all about stuff that the writer doesn’t know. The point of science. You’ve missed it. :smack: > [@](#): > > What is it you think we actually know for sure? > Absolutely ridiculous. Why would you applaud such a stupidly false statement? > > Science never says it doesn’t know. It cuts birds hearts out and spreads them on goiters as a cure. It poisons my father and kills him before the cancer can and calls it a cure. Oh, chemotherapy. A well-tested treatment _that is known to only sometimes work because of the erratic nature of tumors_. Look, I’m sorry for your loss, but god dammit you are stupid. Look, you want scientists to to answer “I don’t know”? Don’t look to the scientific journals (the entire _point_ of those is sharing what we _do_ know, because that is in general usually way more useful than what we _don’t_ know, by means of not being completely useless). Look to the actual scientists. Hell, isn’t the whole point of this thread that Hawking answered “I don’t know” to the question of if god created the big bang? You see, to get a > [@](#): > > I don’t know almost never happens and it never has any value. Taking your best fucking swing at it and offering the best explanation you can is all that you can do. Yes, and that’s _kinda the point_. What’s the alternative? Once you get past “I think, therefore I am”, deductive reasoning ends. You have to start making assumptions, or you have to switch to what you’re bitching about: deductive reasoning. It’s not always correct, but we’ve got it down to, well, a science. > [@](#): > > “I don’t Know.” is for douchebags and extinct hominids. Funny, I don’t see you saying “I don’t know” very much. > [@](#): > > Hawking agrees with me: > > “But science tells us that we can’t solve the equations, directly in the abstract. We need to use the effective theory of Darwinian natural selection of those societies most likely to survive. We assign them higher value.” And again, you’ve missed the point. You fail at science, congratulations. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/237 "2011-05-24T04:08:46Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Yes, thanks, I know. It’s a fucking fudge factor because the total usefulness of such a measurement is to apply it into the future. You look at what the risk **was** compared to the market in the past and assume or fudge that that will be relevant to the future. Historically it’s been a bad assumption, and it still doesn’t tell you anything about actual risk or volatility even if the relationship was relevant because the variance of the sequence of returns in the markets is so large. > > It’s a fucking double fudge, again the concept that how much it cost to borrow money in the past is relevant to the future. If anything I’d assume an inverse relationship due to the market cycle. The required return for equities is a total fudge factor. How much you need to make in the future to justify taking the historical risk that existed in the past. But, again, you can’t invest in the past and the relevance is more than questionable. > > Finally, you make it sound as if some major calculation was performed with all these numbers to give some scientific discount rate. Nothing of the kind happens. Fed governors consider these factors and take a guess and assign a rate. > > People who design and build fixed income securities like CMOs and such look at what other people have decided to place as their discount rate and kind of play off that in their own expectations. > > If you are doing present value calculations it’s even more difficult because there’s a subjective bird in the hand worth more than a bird and a bush. You takes your guess and you choose your number. > It is a total fudge factor. OK, a couple of things here and then I’m done as I don’t think we approach finance in quite the same way. Beta reflects how sensitive different companies are to market cycles - if you think some companies aren’t more sensitive to systematic risk than others - think software dev and luxury goods vs. beer and utilities, you’re mistaken. It’s not meant to cover idiosyncratic risk, it’s part of portfolio management. And as for discount rates - when a company is doing internal discount rates, they already know what the cost of debt is, because they have the debt - the notes are in place and usually very long term. Now, you have to make assumptions about corporate tax rates and you’ll probably use a CAPM or Fama-French approach on the equity portion, and yeah, you’ll need to extrapolate future debt rates to greater or lesser degrees depending on tenor - so sure, there are assumptions that need to be made. But those are inputs that need to be analyzed for a variety of purposes including the most basic budgeting exercises, the methodology for a WACC is fairly straight forward. So, yes, I agree that all financial exercises involving predicting the future have gaps in them, or things that are difficult to analyze/predict - but to call it fudge assumes that we have no idea idea how it works and are just approximating numbers with an outcome in mind when the fact is we understand the methodology just fine but have a hard time time pinning down inputs because the future, by its nature, has uncertainty. If you want to call that fudge, I guess that’s OK, but I’ll have to disagree with the choice of words, and just letting it stand for other readers without a little explanation isn’t really doing justice to the concepts. /hijack ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/238 "2011-05-24T12:16:38Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > No. It’s so fucking bad. I’ll give you another example. > I am science. I am staring at an electric fence. A guy walks up to me and says “Hey, science. is that fence on?” > > I say “Nope. Definitely not.” > > The guy says “Oh, cool,” and grabs the fence. We learn something from what happens next. In this case a bad answer is just as good as a good answer. We find something out either way. > If, on the other hand, as science, I say “I don’t know,” to the electric fence question than the guy doesn’t grab the fence and we just stand there not knowing, right? > “I don’t know” is a bullshit, stupid answer. It is not scientist. > > Science’s motto is “Often wrong. Seldom in doubt.” Do you actually believe this or are you just trying to get a rise out of people? Naw, you can’t believe this. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/239 "2011-05-24T13:14:15Z")
> [@heatmiserfl](#): > > do you actually believe this or are you just trying to get a rise out of people? Naw, you can’t believe this. :smack: DNFTM n ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818/240 "2011-05-24T14:25:49Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > So what would be evidence for an intelligently designed universe? It depends I suppose. If you mean a universe as most Christians perceive it, I’d say: Evidence we didn’t evolve. Symmetry in the heavens, or perhaps clearly artificial constellations. Better working bodies. Justice would be the rule, not the exception. Prayer would actually work. One religion would actually provide feedback (burning bushes, etc) Holy books that actually have information that primitive bronze-age herders wouldn’t have (In the beginning, everything was simple. The material of the Sun. But large suns made heavy, complex materials and blew them across the firmament when they exploded.) Holy books that didn’t mention firmament. 😃 If you mean the sort of universe that Scylla is fumbling to describe, one where God creates it and then takes no action: Something in cosmology that necessitates a creator. But the main thing is we have no answers. We don’t know what happened that created the universe. When you don’t know, blank assertion is pretty silly. If you find a tree fallen over in the woods, do you immediately say that it was obviously Paul Bunyan that pushed it over with his ox? No? Then why when you see a universe do you immediately say it was obviously God? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kirk-cameron-schools-stephen-hawking-in-science/582818.md?page=13)