Unity without Uniformity

I read somewhere, that all of our views can be tolerant of each other, without being the same kind of thinking. Or, "agree to disagree".
This applies to things of opinions and preferences, in cases where the truth of it is inconsequential or the preference of it is according to taste.
Such as, a red car is better than a blue car. You may agree with the statement, or disagree.
However, you can not argue that a red car does NOT get more speeding tickets than a blue car, simply because you are of the opinion that the red car is better.

When it comes to matters of knowledge and actual truth, agreeing to disagree is a joke.
Either you agree with the facts, or you don't.
The best way to demonstrate it is:
"A red car is good, a blue car is not as good."
"2+2=4 is correct, 2+2=5 is not as correct".

It becomes obvious that 2+2=5 isn't "not as correct", it simply is wrong. Where as a blue car is "not as good" is a matter of opinion.
However, if fundamentally, math was wrong, and 2+2=5 is correct, then we'd have to show and prove it to be so. In doing so, we must employ the scientific method.
I'm not saying disagreeing isn't something to do, The scientific discord is based on disagreement. It's this entire, middle luke warm ground that irritates me. If you agree with the facts, great... if you don't, prove to me why the facts are wrong and I'll gladly champion your cause with you.

For once, Christianity got it right.
Revelation 3:16
"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
Being on the fence about facts should be rejected outright. However, the determination of which side of the fence is absolutely wrong when it comes to religion, they don't take reasoning or logic into account, but belief and faith.

 There is a final thing, if we do not personally possess the capacity to understand the information, facts or method upon which the claims are being made, we can not make a judgment. This form of "fence sitting" isn't considered lukewarmness in my book. This is the true fence sitting of any scientific method and logical deduction. This is the null stance that everyone should take when determining and understanding a concept.

Cherished belief 2

Recently, there's been a study on the speed of a Neutrino.
It has been demonstrated in one experiment, several times, that a neutrino would exceed the speed of light. Not by much.. but just enough to record.
Now, to the common folk... this isn't much.
But to a scientist, this is huge!
I mean huge huge!
This would mean Einstein was wrong. Very very wrong in fact.
Every known physical science to date would have to be reworked and "re-calibrated", and even some re-invented.
This would be a shift in paradigm unlike any other.

This can be akin to the shift of the creation story over evolution and abiogenesis. Scientist would, however, not try to "cover up" or "suppress" the truth of it; no matter how inconvenient, and yes.. this is a huge inconvenience. They would not rally against it keep it from being taught in school because it wouldn't fit into the model of "the in group" of scientist.

Would the masses of scientist switch over to "faster than light neutrino" group if proven correct? Yes.
Would a small minority hold to current model of relative physics by Einstein, despite the proof? Yes.
Would they be wrong to do so? NO

Here's the reason why. It isn't wrong to think that a mistake was made in the validation of a sort, they can in fact continue to try to disprove the theory as long as they want, but to be intellectually honest, every time they do, and they get the exact same result, it'll go to the favor of the opposition. They then have to redouble their efforts to not only prove their opponents wrong, but their own previous efforts wrong.
It is a daunting task, but has been done in the past.

Now, this is why I laugh at the ID theorist, they have never made a real effort to do so, and the feeble attempts have been rejected and they cry out persecution.
If ID was a serious shift in paradigm, it would be much like the Neutrino exceeding the speed of light issue. The entire community of science would be in an uproar....

Here's the problem though... bout 10 years or so ago, there was a supernova, who's light finally hit us after some thousand years of travel, simultaneously set off neutrino detectors in japan the same time as the visual recordings took pictures of it occurring.
If indeed neutrinos traveled faster than photons, the bombardment of neutrinos would have been some 6 years earlier at those distances. It wasn't.
So, to explain this.. there has to be a slowing agent over time on the neutrino but not photons... which wouldn't make much sense. Or... that the measurements of that incident was wrong... which wouldn't make much sense either.

Currently the experiment results does not match observable behaviors. This is one of the humps that needs to be explained before the theory is to be believed.
If the explanation are to be accurate and testable, then I would gladly let go of the most cherished belief of Eisenstein relative physics. As is the case of knowledge. A new theory must be placed, since faster than light is proven.. Einstein's theory would have to be reworked from the ground up. The final product, probably nothing resembling it. Needless to say,
I will give up this cherished belief if proven wrong.

It's all a conspiracy!

I've been met with a great deal many complaints about evolution.
That it is a giant conspiracy to suppress creationism, or to use evolution as a tool to further the cause of atheism.
Thus, the disproof of which is resisted and conspirators strive to cover up and propagate it's "lies" for the sake of going against god and the such.

Simply put, scientist are like anyone who else in the world. They seek fame and fortune. Even if not every scientist does, one must.
Now, imagine yourself one of these scientist. A creation scientist no less. You are then tasked to find evidence against evolution, or... for creation.
The moment you find this proof evolution is wrong, demonstrate it, and have your peers independently verify your experiment you would be herald as the person that heightened our understanding that much more.

I would be the first absolute person to admit evolution was wrong if I can review the details of the study that proves it wrong. The likely-hood of which is near insurmountable, but I assure you it can be done. To me it would be liken to telling me gravity isn't real, oddly "gravity" might not be real in the sense of what we understood it to be, but rather an illusion brought about by an interaction with the higgs fields, but that's mostly colloquial semantics.
But I digress.

The reality of it is, the person claiming that conspiracy to suppress creation must in it's core have the same beliefs they do, is absolutely false. I do not hold something so cherished of a belief that I would suppress another for their presented information. I follow where the facts lead, even if I don't like it. I would like to believe most scientist do that as well.
Records seem to show that most do, however, some do not.

Now, though that addresses the motivation, or rather the non-motivation, to suppress creationism, I now have to take one step further.
Has there been a time when a proposed theory was rejected and only later found out to be true?
Or more precisely a theory that was "suppressed" and later, with enough evidence inducted into the realm of fact?
The answer is definitively yes.
The proposed mitochondria as an invader and parasitic anomaly evolving into a structural symbiont, and now even integrated part of living cells, was in it's initial presentation absolutely rejected.
It took years and years to gather enough information and thousands of man hours of work to have it finally accepted as a fact. The implications of which is hugely exploited to the benefit of mankind at the moment.

Now, move on to a held belief that has been since rejected. The cosmological aether. It was widely accepted, coincidentally when the theory of evolution was first proposed, that the universe was made up of a medium called the aether. Like waves on a pond, everything was somehow immersed in it and everything flowed in relation to it.
Mainly this was thought up to explain the travel of light through a vacuum. Since light was observed to behave like a wave it had to flow within a medium like any wave. A beam of light then can not travel through a vacuum, yet.. it does.
The aether theory was believed and assumed by many scientist at the time. It wasn't till later they attempted to measure the travel of light through the medium of the aether that they discovered it's not there. Then there were offshoots of non-resistive aether, and non-stationary aether, and a few other theories that fell short. However, this does not give rise to the default victory of any other theories.
It wasn't until the proposed electromagnetic theory of light came about that the aether theory was finally put to utter rest. And yes, the electromagnetic theory met with stern and very very critical reviews.

So, the conspiracy you seek, doesn't exist. Simply put, the ideas put forward doesn't meet the standard bar of peer-review and testability to be inaugurated in the realm of science. Would scientists welcome something that expands their knowledge that much more, yes. Would scientists want to be the person to usher in a new paradigm shift, yes. Would scientists want fame/fortune and the nobel prize, yes. Would they like to do it by wedging information past the peer review process and undercut the standards of information, no.

All those whom would never be

I had a dream a few weeks ago.

I walked into a room. This room was filled with people. Male, female, intersexed, gay, etc.. all walks of life.
All of them.. somewhat familiar, but I couldn't put a finger on it. They seem to be cousins or relatives of a sort. Someone came up and greeted me.

"Hi" She said with an odd excitement. "You're new, or maybe, I just haven't met you."
"My name is combination 17830284156123. What's your combination number?"

I replied, "I don't have a number."

With a curious look, she said "oh, well... I guess from your corner, you guys don't label yourself like that hm? Of course, around these parts, since we've gotten tired of just saying 'hey you'. We decided to give yourselves the designations of the combination."

"Oh, designation? Then my name is Dark".

With that her eyes grew wide in realization of who I was.
"You're the one! The one that made it!"

Shouting from the tops of her lungs she gathered as many people as she could.
Bewildered, I just stood there dumbstruck.

"I guess you wouldn't know," she continued after calming down a bit, "but we, are the unborn combinations of you.
"We, the millions of people here are the you that never was."

As I looked around I see myself in them, all my age, all of them with similar features to my own. All walks of life I could have been. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Some with deformities, some absolutely flawless, some identical twin.
Yet here I stand. With a name.The gravity of it all hit me.

I stood there looking at the crowd gathering. Each of them looking up expectantly at me, seemingly wanting me to say something, to do something.
With every ounce of courage I could muster I spoke resoundingly.
"I have been fortunate to be the one selected out of the millions of you that did not come to be. Though my life is uneventful and rather unremarkable, I do not squander the gift I have been given and denied you."

I woke up.

I marvel at all the possibilities that could have been, but here I stand. My life unremarkable, uneventful, and for the most part quite common.

But such greatness is grander than any divine plan, greater than any "meaning", itself is beautiful and elegant.
I have won the greatest proverbial lottery ever played. And the jackpot, A chance to live.