# Unsupported Science Beliefs You Hold **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2023, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365 "2023-11-19T11:40:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/21 "2023-11-19T15:27:30Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I believe that intelligent life is exceedingly rare, while doltish, half-witted life is common. - What about _other_ planets? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/22 "2023-11-19T15:28:43Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I find the thread title confusing. If something is unsupported, then how is it science? It is a stretch to use the term “science”, but it is IMO valid to express guesses that haven’t yet gained any evidence, such as the abundance of life in the universe (as has been brought up). What isn’t IMO valid is calling “science” “ideas” that are simply a result of deep ignorance of the real science that refutes the idea. Like the idea that the Gulf of Mexico is an impact crater, which indicates both an absence of knowledge of plate tectonics and the geology and physics of impact craters [https://www.pangea.ca/](https://www.pangea.ca/) [http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website\_05-2018/Criteria.html](http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website_05-2018/Criteria.html) So you can say “I think my cat loves me because of _x_” and it isn’t 100% out of line as a hypothesis, but you can’t say “I think my cat evolved from squirrels” and be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/23 "2023-11-19T15:50:12Z")
Since it was mentioned, I believe the egg is the best protein source you can consume (except I think I can back that up with science). I also think that the universe is teeming with life. There are tens of millions of planets in our galaxy with life as complex and abundant as our own. The notion that earth is the only place hosting life is absurd; it exists wherever the conditions allow it to exist. But, we are just way too small to ever observe the scope of it all. I also believe that human intelligence isn’t novel, even on our planet. What has allowed humans to create such elaborate civilizations is our ability to communicate, which is better developed than any other organism on earth. With communication comes the ability to record ideas, describe them in detail, and, most importantly, build upon them. But native intelligence? Humans aren’t alone at our level. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/24 "2023-11-19T16:02:21Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > What about _other_ planets? Precisely ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/25 "2023-11-19T16:03:37Z")
I believe that quantum mechanics don’t make no sense. Ya want me to believe that ya can take two entangled particles, send ‘em a million miles in opposite directions, move one, and the other one moves too? Nah…There’s somethin’ else going on. But I ain’t gonna tell you what it is. (But I bet it would be a good way to win the prize on Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us”) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/26 "2023-11-19T16:18:03Z")
I think intelligence and mental aptitude/proclivities/personalities have **much** more to do with genetics than is commonly acknowledged. Somehow there’s this strange attitude in science that freely acknowledges that genetics can lead to physical differences, but adamantly denies that anything genetics can lead to mental differences. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/27 "2023-11-19T16:23:12Z")
I don’t think that’s particularly controversial, unless the genetic differences are associated with race (which definitely has no scientific support). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/28 "2023-11-19T16:36:45Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I believe that intelligent life is exceedingly rare, while doltish, half-witted life is common. It is objectively the case that the vast majority of life quite literally doesn’t have a brain. Most life is single-cell. Multicellular life is the exception by a pretty fair margin, and even most multicellular life is extremely simplistic. It’s stuff like plants and lichens and coral and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/29 "2023-11-19T16:41:19Z")
I believe that at a certain point enough black holes will develop that the universe will implode, resulting in a big bang creating the next universe. Basically an internal combustion engine ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/30 "2023-11-19T16:42:54Z")
I believe that getting behind the wheel of car to drive causes people’s cognitive abilities to drop. (At least for others—my driving ability is flawless.) ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/31 "2023-11-19T16:43:01Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I suspect that matter and antimatter could not exist without each other. If everything came from nothing there would have to be a negative on one side to match the positive on the other side of nothing. What “nothing”? As far as we can really tell the Universe has never not existed (in some form) and there never was a nothing. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/32 "2023-11-19T16:44:11Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I believe that garden hoses are possessed by malign spirits Copy that. One of their properties though is their tremendous tensile strength. Couple this with their just-the-right-amount-of-flexibility and pliability and we can see that when a hose gets wedged between a vehicle’s tire and a concrete driveway, it represents the world’s absolute strongest physical connection between two objects possible. I’m thoroughly convinced that a garden hose, so wedged, could be used to tie an ocean liner to a dock, in place of the usual hauser/cable and cleats. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/33 "2023-11-19T16:58:41Z")
Despite what the astro-industrial complex wants you to believe… Pluto is a planet. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/34 "2023-11-19T17:07:25Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > I believe that at a certain point enough black holes will develop that the universe will implode, resulting in a big bang creating the next universe. Black holes don’t form extra mass, they just occur when the mass already there collapses in on itself. A black hole doesn’t have any more gravity than its paren star(s, because black holes can merge). If anything, it has _less_ gravity because some mass is blasted away when the star goes supernova. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/35 "2023-11-19T17:08:00Z")
Cholesterol was not an issue for early humans, but for todays sedentary cubicle-dwelling, video game couch potatoes who consume vast amounts of it and can live 2x as long as our ancient ancestors, it can create potential problems along the way. I beleive life does exist elsewhere in the universe, since all the elements that are present here originated in space, where presumably they could be gathered any number of times and under similar conditions. But intelligent life, depending on your definition, is likely exceedingly rare, to the point of nearly impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/36 "2023-11-19T17:09:47Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > I believe that quantum mechanics don’t make no sense. > > Ya want me to believe that ya can take two entangled particles, send ‘em a million miles in opposite directions, move one, and the other one moves too? > Nah…There’s somethin’ else going on. > > But I ain’t gonna tell you what it is. > (But I bet it would be a good way to win the prize on Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us”) Actually not. What entanglement means is if you measure the properties of an entangled particle and get a particular result, the other particle is guaranteed to have a corresponding result. But there’s no way to transmit information using this; if you alter one of the particles in any way they’re no longer entangled. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that it is provable that the particle was not already in one state or another before you measured it. So how can a distant particle immediately “know” what corresponding state to be in after you make the measurement? In quantum physics as well as in statistics, correlation does not equal causation. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/37 "2023-11-19T17:14:48Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I find the thread title confusing. If something is unsupported, then how is it science? Science abounds with unsupported hypotheses, and always will, as well as currently untestable ones like string-theory or multiverse hypotheses. If I happened to have a strong belief in Hugh Everett’s “many worlds” hypotheses to explain quantum decoherence, that would be a good example for this thread. It may be true, it may not, and it’s likely that we’ll never know. Sometimes hypotheses are abandoned in the face of sufficient contrary evidence, or conversely, sometimes additional evidence elevates a hypotheses to the status of a widely accepted theory. For instance, geophysicist Alfred Wegener developed the hypothesis for continental drift in the late 18th century and formally proposed it in 1912, but it was widely ridiculed as there was no persuasive evidence to support it. It took another half century before Wegener was vindicated by new evidence that gave rise to the theory of plate tectonics and the driving forces behind it, and continental drift became accepted theory. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/38 "2023-11-19T17:18:29Z")
Yeah, but…Bigfoot. 😊 ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/39 "2023-11-19T17:22:53Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Alfred Wegener developed the hypothesis for continental drift in the late 18th century and formally proposed it in 1912, but it was widely ridiculed as there was no persuasive evidence to support it. Nitpick: That was a long life! And there was a lot of evidence for continental drift, he did not make it up out of thin air: the form of continents, the minerals on both sides of oceans, fossils, distribution of animals, in particular marsupials, etc. What was lacking was the mechanism to get the continents moving. That took a while to figure out, and poor Mr. Wegener was dead by then. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365/40 "2023-11-19T17:29:46Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think intelligence and mental aptitude/proclivities/personalities have **much** more to do with genetics than is commonly acknowledged. Somehow there’s this strange attitude in science that freely acknowledges that genetics can lead to physical differences, but adamantly denies that anything genetics can lead to mental differences That would have been a pretty unsupported belief in the 70s and 80s, but a much more mainstream belief among scientists today. The exact details of how much genetics influences any particular trait, and exactly which genes are involved is very far from resolved. However, it is generally acknowledged that genes play an important role in almost all behavioral traits. You’re not behind the times, you were right all along! > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t think that’s particularly controversial, unless the genetic differences are associated with race (which definitely has no scientific support When race is defined by a haphazard set of traits selected for political and economic, etc. reasons, then you have race as a social construct, which will not map cleanly onto genetic ancestry groups. This is the case even when some of the chosen traits _are_ genetically determined. For example, skin color is largely genetically determined, but skin color is a poor indicator of genetic ancestry (it can distinguish some groups, but not others). My unsupported belief, I think I’ve mentioned in similar threads: the obesity epidemic is in a large part due to environmental contaminants such as pesticides, microplastics, and non-natural endocrine disrupters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsupported-science-beliefs-you-hold/993365.md?page=3)