User:Saintrain/Common answers

The Wikipedia science reference desk is a wikipedia community who help other editors answer their questions related to scientific terms and concepts. Often, when the question isn't answered in the, the question is answered directly. Often these questions have been asked and answered before. This is especially true of topics in the news and anything regarding relativity or quantum mechanics.

This is a list of common answers to aid the reference desk in their services to the wikipedia community.

Try to answer this yourself

Search first. Wikipedia is huge, and you can probably find the answer to your question much more quickly by looking for it yourself. Use the search box on the left or Google site search for searching Wikipedia. If there is no relevant information on Wikipedia, try an Internet search engine.

Do your own homework

Do your own homework. The reference desk will not give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there is a specific part of your homework you do not understand. Make an effort to show that you have tried solving it first.

Please. If you wouldn't ask you teacher to tell you the answer don't ask here. If, though, you are having trouble with a step in the solution and it's Sunday night and the project is due tomorrow and you're bum is sore from kicking yourself for not starting the project three weeks ago ... Chill. We'll be glad to try to help.

Do not for medical or legal advice

Do not request medical or legal advice. Any such questions may be removed. If you need medical or legal advice, do not ask it here. Ask a doctor, dentist, veterinarian, or lawyer instead. See also Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer.

Please ask a question

Do not start debates or post diatribes. The reference desk is not a soapbox.

A question is a request for information. Don't ask the question if:

1. it's not a question;
2. you won't like the answer;
3. you won't believe the answer.

Arguing with the editor because of a "feeling" or because the answer doesn't agree with your understanding of the subject will mark you as a troll. If the answer is wrong, it will be swiftly and genially corrected!

Scientific theories are not "hunches" or "what ifs?"

A scientific theory is an explanation, a model, of how things work.

Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena.

Understanding quantum mechanics is hard

Quantum mechanics is the study of the interaction of subatomic particles. Few of the rules used describe these interactions agree with common experience. This is not a flaw in the theory.

Understanding relativity is hard

Albert Einstein's theories of relativity about the structure of spacetime and how gravity works are extremely well tested. Their effects, though, do not become apparent or measurably different from Isaac Newton's familiar laws of motion or gravity until speeds are very high or gravity is very strong, realms outside of common experience.

It's a hoax

If it's not the banner headline on every newspaper in the world then it's a hoax.

Evolution is not concerned with the beginning of life

Charles Darwin's famous book is titled On the Origin of Species. It proposes a natural explanation for the diversity of life on Earth but not how life started. People who say otherwise are perpetuating a falsehood. Evolution is very well studied and is one of the central pillars of modern biology. (It is interesting to note that Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's work was done decades before Gregor Johann Mendel's work on biological inheritance (the foundation of modern genetics) was well known. Genetics provides a biological mechanism to explain how species originate. Even without knowing how evolution could be accomplished, there was more than enough evidence to show that it did.)

If a biologist thought the theory could be disproven they would not hesitate to do it. Everybody wants to be on the Cover of Rolling Stone.

Don't learn the tricks of the trade until you've learned the trade

Modern scientific understanding requires years of hard work and learning lots of unfamiliar stuff. Knowledge gained over the centuries that the scientific method has been in use, and the methods used to discover them, are vast and growing.

Much has been condensed, both for teaching and for popularizations. Learning the condensations, though, is not the same as rigorous learning the subjects.

The LHC is not going to destroy the Earth

The Large Hadron Collider is a tool that will be used to examine subatomic particles and the forces with which they interact, and to study some areas of physics where certain theories were not testable experimentally until now.

If a black hole were to form, it would evaporate before it had a chance to interact with matter.

Alternative medicine

If it really worked, it wouldn't be alternative.

Schrodinger's cat is not a real experiment

It was a joke. The description of the experiment was meant to show how silly some explanations of quantum mechanics sounded.

Don't learn the tricks of the trade until you've learned the trade

Modern scientific understanding requires years of hard work and learning lots of unfamiliar stuff. Knowledge gained over the centuries that the scientific method has been in use, and the methods used to discover them, are vast and growing.

Much has been condensed, both for teaching and for popularizations. Learning the condensations, though, is not the same as rigorous learning the subjects.

Global warming

How did this ever get to be a political/religious thing?

ESP

Extrasensory perception is the apparent ability to acquire information by supernatureal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience. Since nature and deduction from previous experience is what science is all about, questions about ESP should be asked elsewhere.