Percy wrote:
If you read back in the thread you'll see where Randman and I agreed upon a definition of "detectable". It doesn't refer only to things that *have* been detected, but to everything that *can* be detected given time and appropriate technology.
Looking through your list it looks like in some cases you're just unaware of what science has actually accomplished, and that in other cases you're confusing indetectable phenomena with phenomena for which we haven't yet detected an actual instance in nature, but were one to occur it would be perfectly detectable.
OK, the operational idea here is detectability. Given that, you agreed with absolute zero but you disputed action at a distance:
I assume you're referring to what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance", and what we know today as quantum entanglement. I don't know why you've included this one in your list because the phenomenon is detected all the time. Quantum entanglement is beginning to form the basis of practical applications, such as secure communications, and the principle is the foundation of quantum computing.
I'll have to agree. I knew about quantum entanglement, but I was not entirely sure if that qualifies as "action at a distance." And if it does how is it detectable? Can it be observed microscopically? (Or is that question too reductionistic for quantum theory?) Macroscopically, perhaps?
Re: gravity waves, which I had in mind concering the question of gravitational action at a distance, and also re: neutrinos and dark matter, I was unaware that they are considered detectable. Thanks.
However, regarding speciation, I still don't think the event itself is detectable, while I do agree that the result certainly can be detected.
Finally, concerning abiogenesis:
The fact that the abiogenesis event that resulted in us occurred about 3.8 billion years ago when we weren't around to observe it directly doesn't mean it is an indetectable phenomenon.
I disagree with you here. For one thing, I don't think it is a fact that abiogenesis occurred on Earth. Given what little we know about it, abiogenesis could have occurred somewhere else and life could have arrived here by way of panspermia. For another, as with speciation, I don't think scientists know enough about abiogenesis to detect the event itself. But of course they can detect the oucome.
What is the temporal criterion for detectability?
”Hoot Mon
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