Why do people think that electrons in atoms are tiny beads flying in circles around the nucleus?

[Jim]

They believe what they do because someone they trust told them 'so.'

The way this started for me was someone asking why people sometimes believe in God without seeing any evidence for it, as if that’s some incomprehensible thing that only happens to people who believe in God. I chose an example of people believing something without seeing any evidence for it, that can’t be blamed on religion, to see if anyone could think of any reasons for believing that way, without it being some kind of defect in character or capacities. One answer is, trusting what some other people say.

I don’t think that anyone thinks that it’s always wrong to believe something without seeing any evidence for it, so that can just be ignored as a reason not to believe in God. That brings up another point. Denunciations of belief in God have nothing to do with atheism, even when the people doing it are calling themselves atheists. The debate is not between people who believe in God and people who don’t. It’s between believers and people who denounce their beliefs. Some of the detractors happen to be atheists, but that has nothing to do with the debates.

Now I see that there’s another debate happening at the same time, between people who don’t believe in God, and people who depreciate them and discriminate against them. Maybe a Venn diagram would help. I’ll work on that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The way this started for me was someone asking why people sometimes believe in God without seeing any evidence for it, as if that’s some incomprehensible thing that only happens to people who believe in God. I chose an example of people believing something without seeing any evidence for it, that can’t be blamed on religion, to see if anyone could think of any reasons for believing that way, without it being some kind of defect in character or capacities. One answer is, trusting what some other people say.

I don’t think that anyone thinks that it’s always wrong to believe something without seeing any evidence for it, so that can just be ignored as a reason not to believe in God. That brings up another point. Denunciations of belief in God have nothing to do with atheism, even when the people doing it are calling themselves atheists. The debate is not between people who believe in God and people who don’t. It’s between believers and people who denounce their beliefs. Some of the detractors happen to be atheists, but that has nothing to do with the debates.

Now I see that there’s another debate happening at the same time, between people who don’t believe in God, and people who depreciate them and discriminate against them. Maybe a Venn diagram would help. I’ll work on that.

Now I am going to derail:
The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of wisdom." Six Branches of Philosophy - Epistemology, Logic,Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy. These branches originate from basic questions.

These branches are always there in wide enough debates: E.g. that the math(logic) and models(epistemology) in theoretical physics(combination of epistemology, logic and metaphysics) are elegant(aesthetics) and useful(ethics as worthwhile and works as good) and that we all(politics) ought(ethics) to accept(logic, epistemology and metaphysics) them(the totality of a certain philosophical system).

So what is it you are pointing out?
Well, here you go:
Doxa, Episteme, and Gnosis - Map and Territory
Please read it.

So do a theoretical physicist have gnosis? Yes, but that is the personal experience of that the math and model works in her/his mind. I only have doxa of that. But what I have gnosis of, is that when somebody goes wide enough for all humans and all of the world and claim knowledge(episteme) of how I ought to live, I use gnosis. I know that I can do it differently in some cases relevant to other humans.
So as absurd as it goes: When somebody claims knowledge(episteme) as the same for all humans and I can get away with saying: No! - I do so. Because I know with personal experience (gnosis) that I can do so.

For all the fancy words in science, I test in effect if I can do it differently that another human and then I point out that we do it differently.
That has nothing to do with science versus religion per se.
That has to do with doxa(what we have been told), what we have checked(episteme) and how we experience it(gnosis).
It always goes to "the funny farm", when somebody claims personal experience(not empirical as per observation) over another persons gnosis when it comes to individual lives.

So what do a non-believer do? She/he says to the effect of - I don't have the same personal experience as you. What also happens is that some believers project their personal experience of making sense of reality onto all other humans. Some non-believers in effect do that, but they do it differently in their own understanding. They only use knowledge and never personal experience, because their personal experience is knowledge for all.
I then test that and note - No, I experience that differently. And they answer - But that is not knowledge!!! And I answer - You don't do that either, you just treat your personal experience of making sense of reality as knowledge for all humans.

Hi Jim. Please don't become a skeptic like me. You don't have to - I learn a lot from you, because you force me to think and remember what I have sometimes forgotten. That is good.

 

[exchemist]

I’ve known about the probability cloud model for more than fifty years. but I personally know people who still think of tiny beads flying in circles around the nucleus as an actual physical description of the electrons in atoms. There might be many people who still think that. In any case, there was a time when most people of all ages believed it, without anyone claiming to have any evidence for it. The people who first proposed the model didn’t even believe in it themselves, as a literal description.

There was a question in another thread, about why people sometimes believe things without any evidence for them. The purpose of this thread was to consider something that multitudes of people once believed, and many still do, without any evidence for it, and what their reasons might be for believing it.

This post persists in distorting the science, in spite of previous explanation in this thread. Just as I originally feared, it is trying to set up a false equivalence between science teaching and religious belief, in spite of your assurance to me, in post 23, that that was not what you were trying to do.

For one thing, the electrons are in motion about the nucleus, at a distance from it. So anyone with a mental picture of the Bohr model has got the right general idea. So it is a physical description, just not a very sophisticated one. It is not just an analogy.

There was never a time when most people of all ages believed it without any evidence. That is a falsehood. The model was created as a direct response to evidence (the Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden experiment). It was the best model for about 20 years, between the time of that experiment and the successful application of Schrödinger's equation to the hydrogen atom. During that time it was recognised - by Bohr and others - that something unknown must be preventing the electron from radiating and spiralling into the nucleus. Bohr therefore hypothesised the idea that its behaviour was restricted by quantum constraints of some sort (which is absolutely true) and hypothesed "quantum jumps" from one orbit to another. This enabled the lines in the atomic spectrum of hydrogen to be explained for the first time (I referred to this in post 46), another piece of evidence in favour of the model.

So it is quite false to assert that this model was ever "believed" without "any evidence". It was a big step forward in direct response to the evidence and it made some correct predictions.

It is now plain what you are doing: trying to force a false equivalence between scientific understanding and religious belief, in spite of assuring me this was not your intention.

 

[Revoltingest]

The 3rd one looks like what baby suck on...sorry, I can't remember what you would actually call it.

Usually it's called a "binky".

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

This post persists in distorting the science, in spite of previous explanation in this thread. Just as I originally feared, it is trying to set up a false equivalence between science teaching and religious belief, in spite of your assurance to me, in post 23, that that was not what you were trying to do.

For one thing, the electrons are in motion about the nucleus, at a distance from it. So anyone with a mental picture of the Bohr model has got the right general idea. So it is a physical description, just not a very sophisticated one. It is not just an analogy.

There was never a time when most people of all ages believed it without any evidence. That is a falsehood. The model was created as a direct response to evidence (the Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden experiment). It was the best model for about 20 years, between the time of that experiment and the successful application of Schrödinger's equation to the hydrogen atom. During that time it was recognised - by Bohr and others - that something unknown must be preventing the electron from radiating and spiralling into the nucleus. Bohr therefore hypothesised the idea that its behaviour was restricted by quantum constraints of some sort (which is absolutely true) and hypothesed "quantum jumps" from one orbit to another. This enabled the lines in the atomic spectrum of hydrogen to be explained for the first time (I referred to this in post 46), another piece of evidence in favour of the model.

So it is quite false to assert that this model was ever "believed" without "any evidence". It was a big step forward in direct response to the evidence and it made some correct predictions.

It is now plain what you are doing: trying to force a false equivalence between scientific understanding and religious belief, in spite of assuring me this was not your intention.

So at the most fundamental level of how most people understand the world, is there a difference between science and religion?
No, most people believe that world is fair(no wrong God, no Boltzmann Brain or what ever) and that they can trust what comes to them as their experiences; in their senses and reasoning.
Now what then happens is that some people makes science more than it is; Methodological naturalism and turn it into a respectively positive or negative version of metaphysics.
So some people believe that science tells us how reality really is. It doesn't. It appears to work, I will grant you that, but it has limits both in terms of metaphysics and in practice.
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

When you start looking for that and how it plays out in some of these thread, you will notice the following distortion of science.
Strong version. It is possible to only have beliefs, which are based on scientific evidence. - No, neither for metaphysics nor for the 4 categories in the link.
Weak version: It is possible to have opinions based on science and always separate those from opinions not based on science. - No, it is a fact that people can believe in the supernatural, thus the answer is: I have tested it and indeed it is a fact, that I can believe in God. And I, Mikkel, indeed believe in God and that is a fact. A part of the world works. The same for all opinions about the four categories as such.

So here is the practical version. If people believe in positive metaphysical claims, they can believe as they like, because in practice all versions are subjective beliefs without evidence.
For the everyday world, there are things you properly shouldn't do, e.g. i.e. jump out from a tall place and try to fly. But for certain beliefs they are always subjective and can't be done using science, because these beliefs are what motivates humans and they can't be turned into tests confirmed by observation alone. They can be described, explained and informed by science, but you can't do human subjectivity doing science, because science is an objective methodology.

Once you start looking for that, you will notice that some humans use non-scientific terms to describe their understanding of science and taken for granted that must be so for all humans. Science is useful and worthwhile as a human behavior for all human behavior and it explains how the world works in a strong sense.
That one comes in many variation, but always involve subjective evaluation and that science explains how the world works down to what reality really is.
And for metaphysics all positive claims are in effect the same: The world is fair(no wrong version God, no Boltzmann Brain or what ever) and that they can trust what comes to them as their experiences; in their senses and reasoning.

So yes, Jim could have done it better, but the point stands. So some people take as knowledge what they have been told, but have not checked themselves and some people are functionally unable to do so, because their feelings and emotions bias their reasoning. And that has nothing to do with any everyday divide between science and religion.

You are scientist, you know better, you know what science is. Well, so do I. I am a skeptic. So start looking for what I describe and you will find it.

 

[gnostic]

Usually it's called a "binky".

LOL

I don't think that's what they call them in Australia, but it is a cute name. Nevertheless, thank you.

 

[Jim]

This post persists in distorting the science, in spite of previous explanation in this thread. Just as I originally feared, it is trying to set up a false equivalence between science teaching and religious belief, in spite of your assurance to me, in post 23, that that was not what you were trying to do.

For one thing, the electrons are in motion about the nucleus, at a distance from it. So anyone with a mental picture of the Bohr model has got the right general idea. So it is a physical description, just not a very sophisticated one. It is not just an analogy.

There was never a time when most people of all ages believed it without any evidence. That is a falsehood. The model was created as a direct response to evidence (the Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden experiment). It was the best model for about 20 years, between the time of that experiment and the successful application of Schrödinger's equation to the hydrogen atom. During that time it was recognised - by Bohr and others - that something unknown must be preventing the electron from radiating and spiralling into the nucleus. Bohr therefore hypothesised the idea that its behaviour was restricted by quantum constraints of some sort (which is absolutely true) and hypothesed "quantum jumps" from one orbit to another. This enabled the lines in the atomic spectrum of hydrogen to be explained for the first time (I referred to this in post 46), another piece of evidence in favour of the model.

So it is quite false to assert that this model was ever "believed" without "any evidence". It was a big step forward in direct response to the evidence and it made some correct predictions.

It is now plain what you are doing: trying to force a false equivalence between scientific understanding and religious belief, in spite of assuring me this was not your intention.

But there are two separate things here:

i) the way we may take on trust the evidenced-based* ideas of science, without demanding to see that evidence with our own eyes, and

ii) the way we may take certain other ideas on trust, which are not evidence-based in the same way at all.

What we have been talking about up to now is (i). But if someone is questioning the basis of religious belief they are almost certainly talking about (ii).

Do not try to establish a false equivalence by conflating the teo.

I didn’t see what I was doing as conflating those two things, and I still don’t.

I have two questions.
- I’m asking this question because from what you’ve said, I’m really not sure. Do you think that the electrons in atoms actually, literally fly around in circles that are centered in the nucleus?
- What is the evidence for the model? The Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden experiment, and the explanation of the lines in the atomic spectrum of hydrogen? Do you think that most of the people over the years who have thought that the electrons in atoms fly around in circles centered inside the nucleus, have read those reports?

 

[dianaiad]

This post persists in distorting the science, in spite of previous explanation in this thread. Just as I originally feared, it is trying to set up a false equivalence between science teaching and religious belief, in spite of your assurance to me, in post 23, that that was not what you were trying to do.

For one thing, the electrons are in motion about the nucleus, at a distance from it. So anyone with a mental picture of the Bohr model has got the right general idea. So it is a physical description, just not a very sophisticated one. It is not just an analogy.

There was never a time when most people of all ages believed it without any evidence. That is a falsehood. The model was created as a direct response to evidence (the Rutherford-Geiger-Marsden experiment). It was the best model for about 20 years, between the time of that experiment and the successful application of Schrödinger's equation to the hydrogen atom. During that time it was recognised - by Bohr and others - that something unknown must be preventing the electron from radiating and spiralling into the nucleus. Bohr therefore hypothesised the idea that its behaviour was restricted by quantum constraints of some sort (which is absolutely true) and hypothesed "quantum jumps" from one orbit to another. This enabled the lines in the atomic spectrum of hydrogen to be explained for the first time (I referred to this in post 46), another piece of evidence in favour of the model.

So it is quite false to assert that this model was ever "believed" without "any evidence". It was a big step forward in direct response to the evidence and it made some correct predictions.

It is now plain what you are doing: trying to force a false equivalence between scientific understanding and religious belief, in spite of assuring me this was not your intention.

Excuse me, but you have just described the reasoning and hypotheses of several good scientific thinkers who have told us what they think, and who published their findings/beliefs.

Why do you accept what they say to be true? Have you reproduced the thinking, from the beginning, that they did? Have you done any experiments that confirm their ideas? You may well have done so, but I haven't....and neither have the vast majority of people in the world.

However, you expect us to believe that what you tell us about atoms is true...why?

Because you say so? Because YOU can be trusted? Because the people before you did all the work, and you have, perhaps, repeated that work for yourself?

Why should WE accept what you say?

Think about that for a bit, OK?

Y'know, I have seen pictures of Mt. St Helens and Crater Lake. I watched, on TV, the eruption of that volcano. I have a nativity set made from the ashes of the erupton, so the manufacturers say. I have personally gone to Mt. St. Helens, taken pictures of Crater Lake (and painted it...it's hanging above my long arm quilting machine). I have taken courses on geology which have included volcanoes, including the stories regarding Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Mazama eruptions.

I trust what I have been told; but everything I have been told (except for my personal visits) CAN BE INVENTED. Films of the eruption have been better 'done' by CGI effects. Authors lie when they write stuff. There is nothing about my personal observations that prove anything at all, objectively; they simply 'go with' the stuff I have been taught and subsequently learned.

The same can be said of the moon landing, or, well, atoms.

The vast majority of us believe what 'science' tells us simply and only because we trust what those scientists say, NOT because we have personally replicated the experiments or done our own reasoning/mathematics. The vast majority of us are NOT Einsteins, and don't spend hours concocting mind experiments.

We believe what we are told by those we trust.

It doesn't matter one bit whether someone else COULD repeat experiments; if we don't, then OUR reason for belief is because we trust the informant.

Now let us talk about religious beliefs.

Tell me again why people believe in their own faith systems, the ones they are brought up in?

Do you know what the real difference is, as far as I can tell?

Most religions tell the believers to go pray and get their own 'testimonies,' or confirmation of their beliefs. They are told, frankly, to go repeat the experiment for themselves. Certainly my own belief system is very serious about that; go pray and get your own evidence.

The vast majority of those who hold to science don't go after their own evidence. They hold up the science text, say 'this book says it, I believe it, that settles it."

It is, in other words, backwards.


BTW, nobody believes anything without evidence. It's just that some people discount the evidence accepted by others.

 

[Jim]

But there are two separate things here:

i) the way we may take on trust the evidenced-based* ideas of science, without demanding to see that evidence with our own eyes, and

ii) the way we may take certain other ideas on trust, which are not evidence-based in the same way at all.

What we have been talking about up to now is (i). But if someone is questioning the basis of religious belief they are almost certainly talking about (ii).

Do not try to establish a false equivalence by conflating the two.

All I was looking for in this thread was possible reasons for people to believe things without seeing the evidence for themselves, without it being some kind of defect in character or capacities. Now for some reason you think that it’s important to distinguish between trusting what people say when it’s an evidence-based idea of science, and trusting what people say when it isn’t. Do you think that there are people who never trust anything that other people say that is not an evidence-based idea of science, and that all other people besides them have some kind of defect in character or capacities that none of those people have?

 

[Jim]

@exchemist I want to revise my last question. Do you think that it’s always wrong to believe what some other people tell us, if it isn’t an evidence-based idea from science?

 

[Jim]

@exchemist I’ve been thinking some more about what your objection might be to what I’ve said. Maybe you think that I’m trying to say that trusting what people say when it’s an evidence-based idea from science is no more reliable than trusting what people say when it isn’t. If that’s what you’re objecting to, the answer is no, that isn’t what I’m trying to say. I’m not trying to say that trusting what people say when it’s an evidence-based idea from science is no more reliable than trusting what people say when it isn’t.

 

[gnostic]

Most religions tell the believers to go pray and get their own 'testimonies,' or confirmation of their beliefs. They are told, frankly, to go repeat the experiment for themselves. Certainly my own belief system is very serious about that; go pray and get your own evidence.

It is called "faith", dianaiad, not "evidence".

Prayer is nothing more than belief and faith. Acceptance of prayers that works, is just faith that you believe God has or will answer your prayer.

If prayers were evidences, then even non-believers should be to verify the prayers are true.

 

[dianaiad]

It is called "faith", dianaiad, not "evidence".

Prayer is nothing more than belief and faith. Acceptance of prayers that works, is just faith that you believe God has or will answer your prayer.

If prayers were evidences, then even non-believers should be to verify the prayers are true.

Prayer is the evidence of faith. It is NOT the evidence of the truth of that faith.

Faith is...the willingness to behave as if the things you believe to be true are true. "Faith" is trust...and actually has absolutely nothing to do with whether the thing one has faith in is true, factual, or not.

Even if people like to conflate the concepts of 'belief,' and 'faith,' they are not the same thing. After all, even the Bible separates the concepts of faith, belief, and knowledge. It does, after all, mention that 'even the devils believe, and tremble..." but they don't DO anything about that belief, do they?

Here is where I generally pull out the story about my sister, who has plenty of objective evidence that a bridge will hold her up if she wants to cross it. More than most...her husband was a specialist in metal fatigue for NASA, and did a bunch of research on any bridges she might need to cross.

Doesn't matter, though. She will not cross a bridge. Period. ANY bridge that puts her more than two or three feet above the surface, and she gets antsy about those. She has no faith in them. She DOES have faith in ferries and airplanes. For some reason, if it's an overpass that does NOT cross water, she'll go on those, but bridges over water? Not a chance.

So we have two examples, one literary, one real world, about how faith works.

Faith is based upon belief, and every belief is based upon evidence. That evidence may not rise to the level YOU like in objectivity or repeatability, but it is evidence just the same. When I pray, I get what I honestly believe to be an answer, and my beliefs are based upon that answer. I don't really give a hoot whether you approve of that answer as 'proper evidence' or not. It's evidence to ME, and it is evidence to others when they get their own.

To come back to the topic, sort of, I was noting that the reason most people believe what they do, about pretty much everything (including science) is because people they trust tell them that this thing or that thing is 'true.' YOU claim to have taken courses, or done studying on your own about scientific stuff, like the make up of atoms and what they would 'look like' if we could actually take a picture and enlarge it enough to see them.

But...have YOU ever sat down to an electron microscope and looked for yourself? Have YOU ever climbed a volcano and personally dipped a rod into the lava...then examined it yourself? Have YOU repeated the experiments and the logical thought paths that confirmed the scientific theories you accept as true?

My guess is...no. You haven't. Not for most of 'em, anyway.

I'm sure you believe that Mt. Everest is 29,029 feet tall. So do I. It has been measured many times, more and more exactly, until the latest findings, done with modern technology, put it at 29,092 feet.

But did YOU measure it?

Then how did you come to believe that it was that tall?

Because people you trust told you it is, that's how.

It IS possible for you to do your own measuring, true enough, as expensive and dicey a thing to do as that is. That isn't the point. You haven't. And that means that your belief regarding the height of Mt Everest is based PRECISELY on the same thing that my belief in God the Father is; someone you trust told you so.

The difference here is that even though you don't like the evidence that I get when I pray, I at least 'do the experiment." And you can do it yourself without having to fund an international exploratory movement involving Sherpas, climbing gear and satellites.

Now. Do I dismiss all science because I am aware of this? No. Because I DO trust those who tell me stuff; I have reason to do so.

But I am quite aware of the FACT that most of what I understand of the world, scientific or cultural or religious, comes to me through tradition, and through people I trust.

And I don't automatically dismiss evidence because I don't personally approve of it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Some people think that the electrons in atoms are tiny little beads flying in circles around the nucleus. Why do some people think that?

Because that's a shape and motion they can actually visualize and "get". The inner workings and composition of atoms is sub-atomic quantum weirdness. Not exactly something our imagination can relate to.

 

[Polymath257]

All I was looking for in this thread was possible reasons for people to believe things without seeing the evidence for themselves, without it being some kind of defect in character or capacities. Now for some reason you think that it’s important to distinguish between trusting what people say when it’s an evidence-based idea of science, and trusting what people say when it isn’t. Do you think that there are people who never trust anything that other people say that is not an evidence-based idea of science, and that all other people besides them have some kind of defect in character or capacities that none of those people have?

Well, people believe things without testing themselves because someone else who they regard as an authority tells them the information.

So, the question becomes how to find actual authorities as opposed to false ones.

The first step is to determine if the proposed authority *could* have the information that they claim. In the case of a scientist who actually performs the experiments, the answer is clearly yes: they can, indeed, know the results of the experiments they did.

On the other hand, in the case of a religious scholar, the basis for their authority simply cannot encompass the information they claim. They can talk about historical viewpoints, they can talk about what people have believed, they can even talk about experiences they have had themselves.

But what they *cannot* have is actual knowledge of a supernatural. For one, they have no way of knowing any experience they have is, indeed, supernatural as opposed to being delusional or hallucinatory. And, the fact that there is no way to test *another* person's religious experience means the *only* thing another person can do is perform their own religious experiment.

But we *also* know that the results of several people performing such religious experiments simply don't give the correlations we would expect from an area of study of reality. So, as opposed to the investigations of science, where different researchers from across the globe get the same results, religious is noted for the wildly different results obtained.

Thus, we find that the investigation of religious truth simply doesn't lead to a comprehensive, testable collection of ideas shared between people (objective truth). Which mean, in turn, that there simply *are no religious authorities*.

Now, this doesn't address how to find legitimate scientific authorities, but the determination that there are none in religion is sufficient to distinguish the two realms of endeavor.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I blame this guy...

I see what you mean about the quality of your posts.

I doubt very much that we would see words spelled out when the little electric man bursts out of the outlet. That's just silly.