this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
332 points (99.4% liked)

science

26257 readers
431 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

dart board;; science bs

rule #1: be kind

lemmy.world rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 20cello@lemmy.world 59 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)
[–] funkajunk@lemmy.world 36 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] village604@adultswim.fan 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Plus, religion and science aren't mutually exclusive. One of the guys who contributed to the Big Bang Theory was a priest. He's the one who theorized that the recession of nebula was due to the universe expanding (which Hubble later observed).

[–] duncan_bayne@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They are, but only if you try to resolve the conflict - that is, if you aim for philosophical consistency.

I could believe that a unicorn magicked my lab into existence, and that elves and fairies make and sell the apparatus, and trolls with huuuge rubber stamps make the reference books I use.

I could believe all that, and still do perfectly good science in my lab! Make novel and correct discoveries, and everything.

But if I aimed scientific method, and modern epistemology, at my religious beliefs it'd become apparent that they're wrong.

So what's required to have both "scientist" and "religious" bits flipped is double-think. Nothing new, and it's not surprising that scientists are as prone to it as any other demographic.

[–] joostjakob@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

There will always be a space for God behind the curtain of what we don't understand. And indeed, if you set to stone what God is, then when you lift the curtain a bit, then you have disproved God. But if you're more flexible about it, then their will always be a space behind the curtain we do not understand. And even if we would ever understand the whole mechanism of how the universe came to be, then we can still imagine there to be a meaning behind that whole mechanism. Add to that: science is about what we can observe. But if you believe there are things you can perceive that are not vested in observable phenomena, you have something that can never be disproved by science.

[–] duncan_bayne@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Modern epistemology tells us that things that are not vested in observable phenomena literally may as well not exist. They are nothing.

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

"God of the Gaps" is one of the dumbest arguments for there being a god

It's an ostrich with its head in the sand

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

no i'm gonna keep worshiping a giant space crab. this does not disprove the existence of a giant space crab coming to eat us all.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 2 weeks ago

Or we should at least tax and regulate them.

[–] Flyswat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

"O humanity! If you are in doubt about the Resurrection, then ˹know that˺ We did create you from dust, then from a sperm-drop, then ˹developed you into˺ a clinging clot, then a lump of flesh—fully formed or unformed—in order to demonstrate ˹Our power˺ to you. ˹Then˺ We settle whatever ˹embryo˺ We will in the womb for an appointed term, then bring you forth as infants, so that you may reach your prime. Some of you ˹may˺ die ˹young˺, while others are left to reach the most feeble stage of life so that they may know nothing after having known much."

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Honestly, that's a very, very cool discovery and now I'm thinking that means we can be somewhat confident that the building blocks of life can be found floating in space but yet we don't see any kind of evidence of life in our decades of searching and that's kind of sad to me and thinking of that instead of working.

[–] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 27 points 2 weeks ago

Sample size of 1, admittedly, but we’ve had life on earth for 4 billion years. We’ve had life capable of radio communications for about 50 years. That’s .0000000014% of the time life has existed. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad assumption to think that only that proportion of stars would have even had the time to get to this stage.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Well, the building blocks of life are far from being life. It's like finding bricks and randomly a building appears. Sure, given enough time, samples, and agitation, it'll eventually happen. It's far from saying that if you find bricks you should expect to find buildings though. As far as we can tell, even on Earth, all life has come from one source (they all share common traits), yet we have even further developed building blocks for DNA and RNA. Hell, we have actual DNA and RNA floating about.

[–] Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Maybe we're slow learners and aliens are better at hiding than us because they know better. Maybe Mars is teeming with life under the surface. Though, I guess we'd detect some pretty huge signals like methane exhausts and what not, unless they're just also very good at hiding that. Maybe Jupiter's gas is an artificial smoke screen. We could also be a lot physically closer than we think to dormant alien AI left over from long dead civilizations.

[–] buffing_lecturer@leminal.space 17 points 2 weeks ago

Cesar Menor Salvan, an astrobiologist at Spain's University of Alcala not involved in the research, emphasized that "these results do not suggest that the origin of life took place in space."

However, "with this and the results from Bennu, we have a very clear idea of which organic materials can form under prebiotic conditions anywhere in the universe," he added.

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I like the idea of being the outcome of a violent collision.

[–] essell@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Is your mum that kind of lady?

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago
[–] webp@mander.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] essell@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

DM me her number?

[–] Nomad 1 points 2 weeks ago

Hopefully he wouldn't know

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

Religions should be disbanded by governments. They'll never disband in their own as it's a tool to control people