It's the END OF THE WORLD!!!!!

I tried to discuss your theory, Soaring Eagle, with the number one cockroach here. Only problem was, I forgot to call him 'Sir', so he refused debate...

 

How about 'red hot' or 'yellow hot' steel? You (or any germs you're aware of) going to use yellow hot steel as a pillow at night? Certainly cockroaches or other Family Insecta members won't.

 

What's going on. Nothing makes sense anymore on this page.

 

Largely I agree with everything you've said, except your questioning of the uniqueness (on Earth) of human intelligence which, by the scientific principles you've put forward, would appear to be quite proveable in relation to numerous criteria determining intelligence....

 

It ain't no bullshit theory. How is a star supposed to stay burning forever. It has a limited amount of Hydrogen with which is makes fusion and thus energy. When it runs out of hydrogen, we'll be in big trouble. But that will be several billion years. So we ain't got to worry about that now. I don't think interstellar space travel will ever be possible, because the distances necessary to travel to far off places are just too great. So, our great X (5x10^13) grandchildren are going to have a major problem on there hands as the sun expands to consume mercury, then venus, then US.

 

Theory, theory, theory, theory, theory, theory theory theory theory, and.....THEORY!

 

I stopped reading after this. I've been passing Science all year long. In fact, it's my best and favorite subject but most of it is theory. In fact, 95% of it is theory, with little of it being fact. The end of the world is one of those things that fall into the 95% category.

 

All rather academic really, by the time the sun expands to end our little rock, what we recognise today to be humans will no longer exist. We've only been around in our present state for a mere fraction of the planet's history. In the timespan we're talking about, we'll have evolved beyond all recognition....

 

Dirtydog's right, you don't really have much understanding of scientific method, of positivism or empiricism. All I can suggest is keep reading, keep learning, you're not going to get very far by shouting theory theory theory and plucking wild statistics out of the air....

 

a lot of people seem to not understand the definition of "theory" as it relates to science. Yes, in some contexts a theory does mean speculation, but in science it is the strongest kind of argument, one that is generally agreed upon. Its not "just a theory" as much as you would like to think...

I really don't understand you not believing in the sun's burning out. How would you explain it just burning for eternity?

 

Exactly. By the time the sun becomes dangerous to this little blue marble (supposedly 900 million years before it gets too hot for life to continue here), the genus Homo will probably be long gone. We've only been around for less than 1% of Earth's current existence.

 

My theory is: All theories are true.

 

i believe in science, so i believe in the theory of the red giant.

 

I don't believe the world will end. It will only evolve.

 

Isn't that based on the rather huge assumption that the future will resemble the past purely because past futures have resembled past pasts? There's no real reason to think human beings will continue to evolve just because we have up to this point, and especially given that we're more and more fussy about subjects like eugenics, designer babies, etc. The conditions under which we evolved no longer exist and no longer affect us in the way that they did, and we're showing great resistance to any NEW conditions that would allow us to control our own evolution.

 

I'm not plucking anything out of the air. It's common knowledge or it should be common knowledge that most of science is theory.

 

If the sun becomes a red giant, won't it kill us?

 

I think you're overestimating what that actually means. The fact that something is a theory (rather than a theorem) doesn't mean that one can argue that it's likely to be wrong. A theory is based on evidence, and becomes stronger with more evidence. Pretty much anything in physics is based on the assumption that, if (x) happened as a result of (y) happening under (z) conditions, and has consistently happened thousands of times, it will probably happen again next time we do it. That is still only a theory, because we cannot prove it will happen again until it's happened, but realistically, it's unlikely that it won't. There's theological stuff on this subject as well as scientific, so it's not really worth arguing against it. There are qualitative differences between a theory and a belief and an idea, even though none of them are 100% proven.

 

Yes. Did I say something to the contrary??

But in all likelihood we will be extinct some time before the sun turns into a red giant.

 

...as opposed to anything based on the bible, wich is cold, hard fact from the first page to the last.
Also, how can you put aliens destroying the world and the sun expiring next to each other, and call the latter the "bullshit theory"?

I believe humanity will not see the dawn of the next millennium, and after reading your post, I think it's for the best. The world may survive, I hope, but inevitably cease to exist as all things must, except maybe universe as a whole. Though "the world ending" is a big concept... you could argue that a world has ended when all living things on it have disappeared. Then a planet is no longer a world, but a just some rock/iceball/gaseous orb floating in space!