Science Fantasy and Science Reality

OK, it's not that hard to understand why there is no reason to believe physicists will ever have a Theory of Everything, a T.O.E. and that cosmology will never have the equivalent, a complete and total knowledge of the universe.   Physics, on which cosmology depends, does not have a comprehensive and exhaustive knowledge of even one thing in the universe, not even of a single hydrogen atom or molecule, not even a subatomic particle.  The discoveries of physics in the first half of the 20th century would seem to pretty much rule out that ever being possible, and that's not to mention the epistemological [update: epistemological, not epidemiological, damned spell-check] barriers that aren't really part of physics but which became ever more relevant as they started looking at things way down there on a subatomic level.

If you can't know everything about even one member in a set of objects, you can't know everything about the set of objects.  And the universe is a mighty big set of objects, not all of them of any known character, not all of them even known to be "objects".

That is all the more true if you can't even know how big the set is and even what kind of objects are contained in it or possibly contained in it and that is a description of the quest to have a Theory of Everything.  The claim that one could be had is absurd, it, literally, violates what is known about physics to claim that one is possible.  Why that violation of known physical law doesn't upset the ideological materialists, oh, sorry, in Carroll's case that would be "naturalists", as much as other claims made about the universe is worth considering.   The primary reason they seem to be in it is to construct a model of the universe in which God is impossible and that, in itself, is a more ridiculous quest than the famous one Cervantes mocked.

In the mean time, here is some real science that was ignored, to little notice by the champions of science and a lot of people got killed because of it.


The plateau above the soggy hillside that gave way Saturday has been logged for almost a century, with hundreds of acres of softwoods cut and hauled away, according to state records.

But in recent decades, as the slope has become more unstable, scientists have increasingly challenged the timber harvests, with some even warning of possible calamity.

The state has continued to allow logging on the plateau, although it has imposed restrictions at least twice since the 1980s. The remnant of one clear-cut operation is visible in aerial photographs of Saturday’s monstrous mudslide. A triangle — 7½ acres, the shape of a pie slice — can be seen atop the destruction, its tip just cutting into where the hill collapsed.

Multiple factors can contribute to a slide.

With the hill that caved in over the weekend, geologists have pointed to the Stillaguamish River’s erosion of the hill’s base, or toe. [Now that's a toe that is indisputably there and really matters.]

But logging can also play a role in instigating or intensifying a slide, by increasing the amount of water seeping into an unstable zone, according to an analysis of the watershed submitted to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
In May 1988, when a private landowner, Summit Timber, received approval to begin logging above the slope, scientists raised alarms about the removal of trees that intercept or absorb so much water, according to documents obtained by The Seattle Times.

Paul Kennard, a geologist for the Tulalip Tribes, warned regulators that harvesting holds “the potential for a massive and catastrophic failure of the entire hillslope.”
Others echoed his concerns. Noel Wolff, a hydrologist who worked for the state, wrote that “Timber harvesting could possibly cause what is likely an inevitable event to occur sooner.” And Pat Stevenson, an environmental biologist for the Stillaguamish Tribe, cited “the potential for massive failure,” similar to a slide that occurred in 1967.

The agency that issued the permit — the DNR — responded to the concerns by assembling a team of geologists and hydrologists to study the harvest’s potential impact on landslides.

Lee Benda, a geologist with the University of Washington, wrote a report that said harvesting can increase soil water “on the order of 20 to 35 percent” — with that impact lasting 16 to 27 years, until new trees matured. Benda looked at past slides on the hill and found they occurred within five to 10 years of harvests.
In August 1988, the DNR issued a stop-work order, putting Summit Timber’s logging operation on temporary hold.

“1988 was maybe the first time that we were getting serious as to what you should or should not do in terms of logging and road construction around those things,” said Matt Brunengo, at that time a DNR geologist.

A week after the stop-work order, a Summit representative wrote DNR, saying $750,000 to $1 million worth of timber was at stake. He listed alternative steps that could be taken to lessen the risks of a slide — for example, having the state relocate the channel of the Stillaguamish River that was cutting into the hill’s base.

How many hits do you think a story about that would get at Alternet, Salon, Truthdig or any of the other places where neo-atheist click bait will rack up more than a thousand hits of something that is not life threatening nor of any knowable reality.