All of these are contingent on the degree of certainty the available evidence allows us to have in the theories that predict these results. I don’t think there’s any degree of evidence that would make a 100% prediction rational. (To illustrate, consider independently the probabilities that all physicists are part of a conspiracy, supernatural entities exist and/or we live in a simulation.)
I realise this was probably meant flippantly, but there is a serious point to be made about confusing ‘the best estimates based on our currently available knowledge and theory’ and ‘immutable laws of the universe.’
I quite like prediction that Sean Carrol made on his blog. So much so, I will adopt them in full. They are, after all, based on Science!
Freely-falling objects will accelerate toward the ground at an approximately constant rate, up to corrections due to air resistance.
Of all the Radium-226 nuclei on the Earth today, 0.04% will decay by the end of the year.
A line drawn between any planet (or even dwarf planet) and the Sun will sweep out equal areas in equal times.
Hurricanes in the Northern hemisphere will rotate counterclockwise as seen from above.
The pressure of a gas squeezed in a piston will rise inversely with the change in volume.
Electric charges in motion will give rise to magnetic fields.
The energy of an object at rest whose mass decreases will also decrease, by the change in mass times the speed of light squared.
The content of the world’s genomes will gradually evolve in ways determined by fitness in a given environment, sexual selection, and random chance.
The entropy of closed systems will increase.
People will do many stupid things, and some surprisingly smart ones.
Death, taxes.
All of these are contingent on the degree of certainty the available evidence allows us to have in the theories that predict these results. I don’t think there’s any degree of evidence that would make a 100% prediction rational. (To illustrate, consider independently the probabilities that all physicists are part of a conspiracy, supernatural entities exist and/or we live in a simulation.)
I realise this was probably meant flippantly, but there is a serious point to be made about confusing ‘the best estimates based on our currently available knowledge and theory’ and ‘immutable laws of the universe.’
Yep! :)