I should start by saying that I mostly like all of James Joyner’s new guest posters over at OTB And so far, I’ve liked Steve Verdon. I’m sure many people find him (like me) often a tad caustic, but I admire someone who will stand up and call a dimwit a dimwit.
Having said that; He blew it…. a mile high.
(He gave no link for his excerpt, so I have none)
Dover High School Administrators: Dimwits
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, “Of Pandas and People,” is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.
[Steve’s words]
Well it isn’t as bad as it could be. At least they make the tautological statement that a theory is just a theory instead of saying evolution is a theory (i.e., evolution is a fact, the theory of evolution is “just” a theory). Of course, this is true of all theories. The statement that theory is just a theory is like saying, rain is just rain. It is an obvious truism that contains almost no information.There are gaps in a great many theories. All theories have controversies. These two facts do not render theories false, meaningless nor does it mean that alternatives are to be considered on equal footing. Such views underscore either an empty-headed understanding of science or it is a sign of dishonesty. …
Also, I think it is misleading to simply say that students should keep an open mind about any scientific theory in general. Science does not work that way. Theories are ranked according to how well the theories fit the data. If a theory does not fit the data as well as another theory why should we opt for the theory with less explanatory power?
Excuse me? Did he just say, “I think it is misleading to simply say that students should keep an open mind about any scientific theory in general.” WOW! The ego of man on proud display.
Considering he prides himself on being a scientist, I’m quite stunned he said that. I guess Steve would have thrown rocks at Copernicus.*
The guidelines were extremely well thought out and well worded. It covered all aspects fairly. (and that’s hard to come by nowadays.)
In case Steve was asleep in 9th grade, the Sun does not rotate around the Earth, the planet is not flat and angels do not dance on the heads of pins. If there is one truism in science is, it is that the more man is convinced he is right, the more often he is proven wrong. And every generation thinks theirs’ is enlightened – immune to such folly.
If there is a ‘dimwit’ to be castigated, it is Steve himself for unfathomable hubris.
When you fail to question a theory, you have officially made your beliefs into a religion.
Clarification: I get his point that “there are theories and then there are theories.” In rereading my post it looked like that was my only problem with it. It was not. I disagree strongly with refusing to teach another theory because “we all know” which one is right. History should have taught us the danger in that.
I tried very hard to NOT talk about the merits of one theory over another and perhaps I was unclear.
I’ll stop now, lest I change the discussion from one of the scientific method to one of the origin of man. (which I’m not discussing, but I’ll put a further comment in the comments)
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Sue,
Also, I should point out that 10^65 times 3 is much less than 10^150.
for instance:
2^10 = 1024 x 3 = 3072
2^30 = 1073741824
Sue:
First off Sue, I think your math teacher would get upset with you for not understanding exponents. Reminds me of the story of the politician hearing testimony from physicists on the feasability of some SDI energy beam in the 1980’s. I’m not sure what the exact values or units were, but in describing the power needed to be generated in order for the laser to effectively blow up incoming missiles, the scientist said “We need 10^12, we have 10^6.” At which point the politician was heard to exclaim “My God! We’re half way there!” when, in fact, the scientist was saying that they were only one millionth of the way there. From the numbers you have provided, it would seem that there would be a hell of a lot more proteins floating around than a mere two or three. We’re talking trillions of zillions here; 10^84th would be my guess.
Known universe is apparently a bit smaller than I thought:
“Modern science says that the known universe extends about 10 billion light years in all directions, and consists of 200 billion galaxies. This means it can take light approximately 20 billion years to cross from one side of the universe to the other. These numbers, however, are only of the known universe. No one knows exactly how big the universe actually is, or how far it extends.”
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/CarmenBissessar.shtml
If the universe is infinite, there are an infinite number of spaces the size of our known universe, and you’re back where we started.
If anyone else finds this as fascinating as I do, I highly recommend Brian Greene’s books, Fabric of the Cosmos and Elegant Universe.
One of the most interesting things I learned is that perceived relative velocity can actually be far greater than the speed of light for distant objects, due to the accumulated expansion of space over that distance, which is not limited by SOL considerations that only apply to movement through space.
Carleton Wu,
I am not aware of any attempt to remove the teaching of natural selection from any classroom. Selection in general is almost universally accepted. The point of the debate is the origin of the kinds. Let me elaborate.
There is a point of agreement between most models that I think should be used as a starting point. When we look at the life on the planet today, it is obvious that certain species share a common ancestor. (Note: I do not use the term species to refer to a taxonomic species, but rather two animals belong to the same species if they can interbreed).
The point of agreement is that the current species of today are descended from an ancestor species that may or may not be extinct. (I am using the word “kind” to refer to this ancestor species and all of its descendent species).
Now comes the disagreement,
The Creationist position is that selection can only remove information and that observable mutations do not increase information; thus, the information in the ancestral species’ DNA is a union of the information in the descendent species. This process cannot be extended back indefinitely unless you have the entire biosphere’s information contained in the original life form. The question to be answered then is where did the original ancestors come from–usually answered as God (Creationists) or some other intelligent designer (IDers).
This obviously does not sit well with the materialist. Since, we cannot start out with all of the information in the original life form, and because we must have a naturalistic explanation of the origin of the kinds without any designer, we have the proposed, but unobserved, increases of information of the organism (which originated from another unobserved process). I’m actually oversimplifying the massive complexities that must be overcome, but it is immaterial to my point.
To discuss genetics, natural selection, mutations, etc. in the classroom is essential to science education. However, how these organisms originally came to be is in the realm of philosophy. When an IDer looks at the evidence, (s)he sees overwhelming support that the information present today is from a designer. When a naturalist looks at the evidence, (s)he knows that it must have arrived over eons of changes. Competing models may be internally and externally consistent to the point that they can be verified, but the adoption of one over the other is much more likely to be attributed to a worldview than to anything else.
Adherents to both views can be equally educated and equally intelligent but arrive at completely different conclusions (not so different from liberals and conservatives again). It is the heavy-handedness against the competing models that this thread is all about.
Sorry for the verbosity,
PaulD
Hunter,
I think I was misunderstood when I said that the odds wouldn’t cause a rational person to abandon scientific explainations. By that, I didn’t mean that one would be forced to accept those scientific explainations- people are still free to believe what they choose- just that a rational person would not be forced to turn away from a scientific explaination based on the numbers.
I think the most fascinating thing about the universe is not so much its size, but that the net energy present in it is a whopping zero. Apparently God runs a huge deficit.
As opposed to of space?
I checked out the H2G2 website, and it looks like it’ll be really, really good. Hope the guy they got to play my part is more dashing than he looks.
Apologies, that was me. This is what I get for impersonating someone else as a joke.
PaulD, you said it yourself;
However, how these organisms originally came to be is in the realm of philosophy.
Which is exactly why it has no place in a hard science class. So stop putting those ID stickers in the front of biology books and put ID where it belongs: in a philosophy class.
Remember, this thread was started in relation to a story where a philosophical rumination was pitted against a scientific theory in the world of academia, which is rediculous no matter what topics are being discussed.
It certainly looks better than that BBC travesty.
Yes, as opposed to of. This is on p247 of Fabric.
The relativity time-slice stuff is also fascinating, wherein someone 10 billion lightyears away can move into our past or future just by walking back and forth across a room. The implications of relativistic determinism are interesting. Or will be interesting. Or were interesting. Or willen should willen won’t wuzzen be.
PaulD,
I wasn’t trying to imply that natural selection was being removed from science classrooms- my objection was to introducing ID, which is not a scientific theory, and clearly has its basis in religious ideas. I have no objection to those religious ideas, except in that particular context…
I also disagree with the premise that Creationists and scientists are attempting to do the same thing from different worldviews.
I disagree with that premise bc it’s abundantly clear that the Creationist position is one that is derived from a dogma. For example, there is no scientific reason to believe that information (by the normal definiation, or by Dembski’s quirky one) cannot be created in genetic information by natural selection- certainly, both the biological evidence and computer simulations indicdate that this is not the case. Yet this is the current battle line, and the IDers will hold it for a while until it crumbles. Then, they will stake out another unlikely position with another set of preudoscientific postulates, until it is debunked as well.
I say this because the Creationist goal is not knowledge. The Creationist position is one that already knows the answer, and is merely searching for the mechanism by which that answer can be shown to be true. This is the antithesis of scientific inquiry. Which is why the two cannot be compared in the manner that you have done, I think.
Whereas, the scientific position has evolved ( 🙂 ) over time to conform to the facts in evidence and the theories which those facts have failed to falsify. The scientific goal is a better understanding of biology; the Creationist goal is demonstration of a known truth.
I do agree that the choice between those viewpoints is often based on worldview, but do not agree that those worldviews are equal in some way in the scientific realm, or that both are therefore equally supported by the facts. There are plenty of young-earth Creationists who believe that the world was created more or less whole-cloth. There is nothing wrong with that worldview. But it is not a valid scientific worldview, it has no basis in science, and it is a mistake to include it in the discussion of the subject.
Adherents to both views can be equally educated and equally intelligent but arrive at completely different conclusions… They can, but for very different reasons. I would suspect that no one could arrive at the ID ‘scientific position’ without a prior worldview that endorsed a creator deity.
CrowScape,
If you accept that the question of origins is a matter of philosophy and that all questions of philosophy should be kept out of a “hard science class”, are you proposing that Neo-Darwinian theory should be removed as well?
For the record, I am not supporting the addition of ID/Creationism to the current public school curriculum, nor am I advocating the removal of Neo-Darwinian theory. I also do not have a problem with the discussion of philosophy (especially in areas relevant to the material) in the classroom (hard science or otherwise), as long as there is freedom to disagree. That is all that I am supporting here…. intellectual freedom.
PaulD
Anyway, I think we as Christians set ourselves apart by being the rational religion. That’s why we don’t issue fatwas when people criticize Christianity. (can you imagine if an image of Mohammed in a jar of urine or spattered with dung was displayed in a museum? Can you say “suicide bomber attractant”?) I think we shouldn’t believe in ID in the absence of compelling arguments.
Carleton Wu,
I agree that Creationists rely on revealed truth as a starting point, and see the role of science to fill in the gaps of the unknown. I would propose that materialists are in search of a completely naturalistic process for every aspect of life, including origins. IDers, while mostly naturalistic in approach, disagree with a naturalistic origin, because they reject the notion (theoretically and observationally) of information increase.
However large these differences, all are attempting to achieve the same goal: describe reality. Worldview is a key factor in defining reality. If you doubt this, talk to a member of the “reality based community”
Unless we are willing to address some philosophical matters, it is difficult to seriously discuss origins. Hence the sticker in the textbook.
PaulD
Sue,
I think you misunderstood it when I said “you’d swear it was man-made.” I meant the impersonal you; perhaps it would make more sense replaced with “one”. I wasn’t suggesting that you’re ignorant of geological processes; I was suggesting that things which appear to be formed with some intent can in fact be formed by physcial processes. That was in response to the idea that we can look at a complex world and therefore deduce a guiding intellligence.
No, telling people that they’re stupid if they don’t bother to understand the science before they critique or discard it for religious reasons isn’t “science”. However, it is something that scientists sometimes do, and bluntly, with good reason. Because they’ve spent years actually doing science, and when some farmer comes up to them and demands to be recognized as a scientific equal for saying “Jesus makes babies”, they don’t have to go through the scientific method to debunk it. There are thousands of ridiulous theories out there, from deranged people, people who want attention, and people whose dogmas demand that the universe behave a certain way. There is no need for them to waste their productive lives debunking that sort of junk.
Im not trying to argue from authority with the “ongoing research” line. Im merely pointing out that, for example, the supposed irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum has been shown to be incorrect.
http://tinyurl.com/96zm
The ID ‘scientists’ are constantly coming up with assertions and probabilities, and those assertions and probabilities are constantly being debunked or reduced by the actual scientific community. If you only read the former, you’ll be deluded into thinking that their claims are holding up under scrutiny.
Dr.Gee is not necssarily authoritative. Im not sure why you’ll ignore the vast majority of scientists, but when one fellow is misquoted, you’ll bet the farm on it… Gee meant that specific ancestory cannot be traced. Ill fill in the part right after the misleading elipses: Just try this thought experiment — let’s say you find a fossil of a hominid, an ancient member of the human family. You can recognize various attributes that suggest kinship to humanity, but you would never know whether this particular fossil represented your lineal ancestor – even if that were actually the case. The reason is that fossils are never buried with their birth certificates.
http://tinyurl.com/4ju2z
As far as I can see, Gee is merely suggesting that the fossil record’s completeness will never be known, so we will never know if a specific fossil is the ancestor of a specific later fossil. We can find an A. afarensis, but we can’t tell if that particular organism was ancestoral to any other, because we can never know whether it produced any offspring, let alone trace her line through the fossil record.
If you understand his criticism, you’ll understand why he continues to support both evolutionary theory, natural selection, and the idea that the fossil record demonstrates both of those.
Yes, hypothesizing a new species from a single tooth is what is passing for science these days. First, it’s a hypothesis. It will be tested, and it isn’t unlikely that it will be rejected. Second, if you knew much about the field, you’d know that typing teeth is very advanced- teeth are the fingerprints of the fossil world (loose analogy, but close). So, yeah, you find a new fingerprint, it’s smudged a little bit, maybe you think you have a new suspect. But perhaps not, so file it as a hypothesis and move on to see what other evidence you can find.
That is exactly what passes for science these days.
For a summary of the state-of-debunking-ID field, here’s a good link:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000430.html
He touches on some of the Cambrian stuff you’re off to find, so his links may be useful.
PaulD,
Unless we are willing to address some philosophical matters, it is difficult to seriously discuss origins.
I don’t agree with the idea that discussions of ‘origins’ are philosophical and not scientific. Although that might be because of the vagueness of the term ‘origins’. If you mean ‘origins of life on earth’, then I do disagree.
I think that there’s no reason that science could not come up with a plausible scenario for the beginnings of life on our planet. Again (sorry if I reiterate this too often, but I dont want to be accused of dogmatism- it’s very hard to not sound judgemental), it’s perfectly possible that such an explaination would actually be incorrect, but it would be a good scientific theory (testable and all that), and therefore open for discussion in a science classroom.
If ‘origins’ is more a philosophical issue (eg where the basic physical laws come from), then I do agree. Physics has pushed the barrier pretty far, but my gut(!) says that it’ll have a hard time pushing much farther.
On a broader scale, I agree that science is one way of looking at the world, and that in order to discuss competing worldviews we would need to resort to the philosophy classroom. My objection is, again, to take a different worldview than the scientific one, and attempt to smuggle it in to the science classroom by assuming some of the methods and terminology.
But you’ve already disavowed that; I think we agree that both materialists and religious dogmatics operate from worldviews which dicatate how they will interpret the objective world, reaching very different conclusions… (which maybe was your point all along and Ive just been repeating my anti-ID position over and over again while you gently talked me down? 🙂 )
So, if that’s the conclusion, then what’s the next step? Do we abandon the idea of objective knowledge? Or is there some worldview or (combination of worldviews 🙂 ) that we can use to iterate closer to an objective truth?
(ignore that last paragraph if you’re a philosophy professor, I don’t want to get in that>/b> deep!)
If you accept that the question of origins is a matter of philosophy and that all questions of philosophy should be kept out of a “hard science class”, are you proposing that Neo-Darwinian theory should be removed as well?
If you understand what science is, you would see that the answer is obviously “no.” Evolution is a scientific theory because, well, it evolves. It is open to change and revision as new information emerges, as is true of all scientific theories. You can create testable hypothesis for evolutionary theories all day long, as is true of all scientific theories. You can go into the lab or into the field and add to the understanding of the topic.
This is all in stark contrast to ID and Creationism. There is no way possible to prove or disprove the existance of God and come to final conclusions on all related topics. There is no test that can be run to determine what hand God used to put what rock where. Aditionally, whether or not the universe exists due to random chance or divine intervention is irrelevant to science; the universe is what it is and science is just trying to see how it works.
What you are talking about is like the Whole Math that was being pushed a few years ago, where children could say 2+2=5 and be right as long as they felt good about the answer. Just as deconstruction should have been kept confined to English, so to should ID be kept confined to philosophy.
And you know what? I too have no problem with ID being taught in school; just not in biology class!
Carleton Wu,
You said, “I think we agree that both materialists and religious dogmatics operate from worldviews which dicatate how they will interpret the objective world, reaching very different conclusions…”
Yes, I agree.
Do we abandon the idea of objective knowledge?
No. The search for truth is a much higher and difficult goal. Truth is a matter most often discussed within the realm of philosophy. However, science is completely dependent upon the existence of truth in order to operate. At the same time, science is limited to only explore those parts of truth that exist in our natural context.
If the materialist philosophy is correct, and the only truth exists is that which is observable/testable, then science can provide answers to all questions.
However, if there is truth that transcends the natural world (as Creationists and many IDers would propose), then you are left with the real possibility of the scenario you described: a fully materialistic, valid scientific theory with no basis in reality (sort of a “Valid but False”).
Obviously, this is a philosophical discussion with scientific ramifications.
Now to throw gasoline on the fire:
Operationally, biologists that approach their work with a common descent framework can easily accept the findings of a biologist working from a common designer framework; and vice versa. Unless the biologist told you which framework (s)he was working from, it would be hard to tell.
PaulD
Crowscape,
I agree with you that Creationism has its basis in philosophy. But as I said to Wu, so does science. Divorcing science from philosophy results in the danger of a “Valid but False” scenairo (see earlier post).
Your analogy to math is poor, because math is the language of science and not built on top of philosophy. Learning a language is by rote, as is math. “I is a college graduate.” is not a valid construct in the English language. Similarily, “2+2=5” is not a valid construct in the language of math.
PaulD
Just to add, because I don’t think I explained this well above.
All objects in space are moving away from each other, because all space is expanding. The more distant an object, the more quickly they are moving away because there is more space in between them to expand. For objects below the scale of a supergalaxy, this movement is imperceptible. But above a certain very large distance, the accumulated expansion “velocity” actually exceeds the speed of light.
– TD – That description sounds like the universe is “evaporating”. If thats the case where is it evaporating “too”. Which brings us full circle and illustrates why saying that we scientists have all the answers or at least the key to all the answers and can discard philosophy as a viable tool is so self defeating and arrogant…..
Just to comment (as opposed to fully address) the hemoglobin hypothetical posed by Sue above:
I don’t think anyone’s proposing that proteins were formed completely randomly from amino acids. Or even that TOE actually requires that we know how life begun.
Not evaporating, just expanding. And it’s not expanding to anywhere, because there is nowhere else. I agree, it is very weird.
Certain aspects of philosophy are very useful and in fact underly science itself, but I think many other aspects are not useful and tend to hinder rather than advance our understanding of the world.
I don’t think anyone’s proposing that proteins were formed completely randomly from amino acids. Or even that TOE actually requires that we know how life begun.
The protein factories in any mammal are incredibly, unbelievably complex. We are building modern supercomputers just to understand some of the simpler protein foldings. When you think of the data requirements to encode the human form, with all the parts that then have have to make the other parts, all in a single cell for reproduction, it is truly awe-inspiring.
Of course, positing the WAP and the infinite universe, the chance evolution of said proteins is inevitable, but it has to be incredibly unlikely. I would venture to guess that intelligent life arises in only an infinitesimal proportion even of “known Universe” sized spaces. This is one reason that although I contribute all my spare processor time to SETI@home, I do not expect them to find anything.
If Moore’s law continues a while, we may get some insights on this front as supercomputers might be able to design new life forms. If evolution follows a very narrow path of what is possible, we should find it impossible to create any kind of fundamentally different synthetic life that doesn’t already exist naturally. If there are many possible forms of life, and evolution just happened to pick the ones it did, that would imply a weaker WAP.
If the universe is expanding, and started from a big bang, how can you call it infinite? Something that is expanding has an end, and a beginning. That is not the definition of infinity. Kind of takes the wind out of WAP’s sails.
Sean,
In fact Brian Greene addresses that exact question in “Fabric.” You can find it in the index under “shape of universe.”
The answer is that it started out at infinite size. Since then, it has expanded. Its size now is also infinite, since any multiple of infinity is still infinity. This may be difficult to envision, but according to Green physicists assure us it is mathematically sound.
That’s ridiculous. Something of “infinite” size cannot, by definition, expand.
I think what you and Mr. Greene mean is that the universe is very very very very very …. very very big, and getting bigger. Not infinite.
The answer is that it started out at infinite size.
What about the Bada-Big Bang theory? The universe supposedly started off very tiny, blew a gasket, then started expanding. Or is that considered “junk science”?
“That’s ridiculous. Something of “infinite” size cannot, by definition, expand.”
Why not? You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that infinity is some sort of ceiling, like some imaginary “highest number.” It’s actually a mathematical concept that means it has no limits.
For instance, imagine a line of infinite length. Now imagine dots spaced along the line. Now imagine all the dots on the line are moving further away from each other. This is the 2d analogue of how the infinite Universe expands.
“I think what you and Mr. Greene mean is that the universe is very very very very very …. very very big, and getting bigger. Not infinite.”
No, infinity is definitely not the same thing as a bunch of “very”s, and physicists are certain the Universe is infinite under the flat or saddle-shaped hypotheses.
“What about the Bada-Big Bang theory? The universe supposedly started off very tiny, blew a gasket, then started expanding. Or is that considered “junk science”?”
No, the big bang theory is entirely consistent with the universe being infinite at the start. You are probably imagining the universe starting as a small sphere of matter which expanded into empty space. In fact, the Big Bang happened EVERYWHERE in the Universe. It is space itself that has been expanding since then, at varying rates.
One interesting point on this is that the Universe is, on large scales, exactly the same in every direction. This uniformity is one of the underlying precepts behind the Big Bang Theory.
It’s now believed by many physicists that the “lumpiness” we see (stars, galaxies, etc) which seems big to us but is insignificent on larger scales is due to… quantum physics! The idea is that during the first moments of the Big Bang, the Universe was totally homogenous. But during a very very very small amount of time (10e-30 secs IIRC) the Universe expanded a huge amount (10e+142 IIRC). This expansion took quantum indeterminacies (at extremely small sizes a phenomenon called quantum fluctuation operates, which dictates that they do not have precise energies), and expanded those differences to interstellar dimensions, creating enough difference to overcome the homogeneity and cause matter to begin to clump and form stars, etc.
Brian Greene explain all this much better than me of course.
Sean
You know, I wondered about some of those same points and probably would have raised some of the same objections before reading the two Brian Greene books. If you’re really interested you should pick them up.
Try Googling aleph null infinity to get a variety of explanations of what the variety of meanings infinity has.
One of the interesting points in this link is that if a set is infinite, you can remove an element from that set and get another infinite set. So of course infinite sets don’t have to contain everything, which makes what TallDave says above a bit easier to swallow.
Thanks for the link. I had number theory in school of course but this is much better.
“Of course”? I don’t think I ever came within spitting distance of number theory. But then, I was ever an applied-math kind of guy. Is it presumptuous of me to ask what your background is, education-wise?
Not saying number theory’s not useful; even abstract algebra has some applications.
Not at all presumptuous. I have a MS in Information Systems, BS in Accounting, CPA certification. I mostly work with database languages for accounting-related systems.
But I actually got number theory way back in 7th grade. Just the basics: natural, whole, rational, irrational, real, etc; no discussion of infinity. My in-school education was pretty standard. I am surprised this is not taught as basic math everywhere.
Hope you get to read this.
For instance, imagine a line of infinite length. Now imagine dots spaced along the line. Now imagine all the dots on the line are moving further away from each other. This is the 2d analogue of how the infinite Universe expands.
It seems to me that the discreet elements along the infinite line are able to move apart, expand, simply because they are within an infinite space. That seems much like our universe. The galaxies, planets, whatnot, are able to expand because they are within an infinite space.
The definitions of infinity still seem to be something without end. While you may be able to travel along a sphere continually I have trouble seeing that as infinite. Travelling in a sphere, like going around the world, you eventually come to the place you started from. To me, once you come to your starting place you’ve reached an end and instead of travelling to infinity you are going in circles. Moving in one direction forever without getting anywhere new doesn’t seem the same as inifinity to me. Otherwise a hamster on an exercise wheel is in infinity.
I’m not trying to refute all the mathematicians out there, ’cause I’m definitely not one myself, just saying what things seem like.