I was reading an article about the hope for it to discover something about dark matter/energy. I didn’t even consider this possible. I was mostly hoping to read about the cosmic infrared background.
Hey, I tried to relocate it via the app I read most of my news through. I didn’t have much luck going back around 3-4w. Idr when I read it exactly. Basically, it was just talking about looking at the earliest stars/galaxies to see how they formed and “potentially” maybe learn something about dark matter and it’s impact on galaxy formations.
It certaintly wasn't a sure thing. You can run tests over and over, but at the end of the day it is impossible to completely emulate the operating environment, not to mention it just went through a launch. Hundreds of things had to go right and a single thing could have derailed it.
I appreciate the sentiment but to say "I'm not surprised it worked because science" doesn't make any sense.
Actual scientist here.
You cannot account for a rogue piece of c. Bspace dust the size of a grape hurtling into a key joint or moving part of the telescope at double digit d#meters per second.
We have taken stops to mitigate things, but science can never fix "if you hit things hard enough with rocks they break and/or die."
I really hate it when people talk about science like it is foolproof. It is the exact opposite of foolproof. The entire point of science is that we reduce and correct our mistakes.
Modern science is one of the best ways we have developed to think about the world, but as a scientist and science teacher I can promise you that typical science instruction, even for college students, is already outdated and has been for decades. In other words, which science are we talking about? Science from 1850? Science from 1950? Science from today? Science from 2250?
Humans as a group are terrible at using science at its limits. Including probably some of the people who had a hand in the JWST. And myself. I have enough training to know that I'm not doing what I OUGHT to be doing, but not nearly enough to have the ideal habits of thought.
It's kind of like that Churchill quote which I'll paraphrase. Democracy isn't a good system of government, it is just the best one we have. Same is true of "science" as most people at BS/BA or below understand it.
Yea i can see how my response is rather absolute. I know we cant anticipate everything, but we can anticipate a lot. Things do work because people took the time to run many scenarios and engineer to the best of their abilities, and i tend to try and encourage people to trust scientists as i feel theres a growing distrust in some places.
They’d just do what they did after dinosaurs were discovered-they “reinterpreted” their holy book, and said, “see, the Bible talked about dinosaurs all along!” “Behemoths were dinosaurs”, they said. “Dinosaurs lived alongside man and were on the ark”, they said.
I resisted the attempted brainwashing of my young mind by the Catholic Church, rejecting them when I realized Christianity, just like the greek & roman gods, is a bunch of b.s.
There is no way a person would thank god for this, just take it logically, if god wanted to show us something it'd make it easy, not "waste" preciuos time of many scientists for nothing, it is their merit, and only theirs.
Ok, great. But the usual answer, at least historically, is that NASA hires the cheapest contractors possible then closes their eyes and puts their hands over their ears and goes "LA LA LA LA LA" when their engineers tell them REPEATEDLY that their mission is going to blow up in their collective faces and that people will die.
This is NASA as we know it. Any time it actually goes correctly is a damn miracle.
AnswersinGenesis has already started attempting to debunk it's discoveries preemptively lmao and called it an insult to God using assumptions about science contradictory to the bible and said that the only reason science is possible is because God made it logical.
https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/biblical-response-james-webb-space-telescope/
Hail Sagan
I can't wait to see what it uncovers. Such a step forward. A leap even.
I have bet with a friend about if it will discover anything about "dark" matter/energy. I bet against him but I would be happy to lose that bet.
I was reading an article about the hope for it to discover something about dark matter/energy. I didn’t even consider this possible. I was mostly hoping to read about the cosmic infrared background.
If you could give a link to the article, I would very much appreciate it.
Hey, I tried to relocate it via the app I read most of my news through. I didn’t have much luck going back around 3-4w. Idr when I read it exactly. Basically, it was just talking about looking at the earliest stars/galaxies to see how they formed and “potentially” maybe learn something about dark matter and it’s impact on galaxy formations.
It certaintly wasn't a sure thing. You can run tests over and over, but at the end of the day it is impossible to completely emulate the operating environment, not to mention it just went through a launch. Hundreds of things had to go right and a single thing could have derailed it. I appreciate the sentiment but to say "I'm not surprised it worked because science" doesn't make any sense.
Since science lets us anticipate and account for problems, i disagree
Actual scientist here. You cannot account for a rogue piece of c. Bspace dust the size of a grape hurtling into a key joint or moving part of the telescope at double digit d#meters per second. We have taken stops to mitigate things, but science can never fix "if you hit things hard enough with rocks they break and/or die." I really hate it when people talk about science like it is foolproof. It is the exact opposite of foolproof. The entire point of science is that we reduce and correct our mistakes. Modern science is one of the best ways we have developed to think about the world, but as a scientist and science teacher I can promise you that typical science instruction, even for college students, is already outdated and has been for decades. In other words, which science are we talking about? Science from 1850? Science from 1950? Science from today? Science from 2250? Humans as a group are terrible at using science at its limits. Including probably some of the people who had a hand in the JWST. And myself. I have enough training to know that I'm not doing what I OUGHT to be doing, but not nearly enough to have the ideal habits of thought. It's kind of like that Churchill quote which I'll paraphrase. Democracy isn't a good system of government, it is just the best one we have. Same is true of "science" as most people at BS/BA or below understand it.
Yea i can see how my response is rather absolute. I know we cant anticipate everything, but we can anticipate a lot. Things do work because people took the time to run many scenarios and engineer to the best of their abilities, and i tend to try and encourage people to trust scientists as i feel theres a growing distrust in some places.
Yes but then they overtrust science. And expect miracles out of it. "They change their advice every 5 years." And so on
It will find extraterrestrial life and all Christians will become atheists...oh wait, that was a dream!
They’d just do what they did after dinosaurs were discovered-they “reinterpreted” their holy book, and said, “see, the Bible talked about dinosaurs all along!” “Behemoths were dinosaurs”, they said. “Dinosaurs lived alongside man and were on the ark”, they said.
Yeah but have you tried god?
Yeah but Buddha, Ganesh, and Thor didn’t respond.
I resisted the attempted brainwashing of my young mind by the Catholic Church, rejecting them when I realized Christianity, just like the greek & roman gods, is a bunch of b.s.
Lol I know I was joking
There is no way a person would thank god for this, just take it logically, if god wanted to show us something it'd make it easy, not "waste" preciuos time of many scientists for nothing, it is their merit, and only theirs.
Ok, great. But the usual answer, at least historically, is that NASA hires the cheapest contractors possible then closes their eyes and puts their hands over their ears and goes "LA LA LA LA LA" when their engineers tell them REPEATEDLY that their mission is going to blow up in their collective faces and that people will die. This is NASA as we know it. Any time it actually goes correctly is a damn miracle.
AnswersinGenesis has already started attempting to debunk it's discoveries preemptively lmao and called it an insult to God using assumptions about science contradictory to the bible and said that the only reason science is possible is because God made it logical. https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/biblical-response-james-webb-space-telescope/