That is fascinating in itself, because it means truly elementary particles can exert no force except by direct contact through momentum: They possess no component particles to carry any other force. Aaaand this is why our deuling tangents are hard on other members.

First off, LYING requires not only stating a falsehood but KNOWINGLY with deceptive INTENT, which has not been demonstrated, because I 1) did not deny anyone believes anything (so THAT statement is false,) 2) therefore COULD NOT have KNOWN my truthful statements false and 3) showed no deceptive INTENT even were the first and second criteria met (instead of refuted.) I am not perfect and my past has shameful moments, but gave up lying long before joining wotmania. Apart from the moral dimension, I value my integrity too highly to sacrifice it, let alone for something so cheap as scoring cheap easily disproven internet debate points.

The VALIDITY of fanatic fundamentalist beliefs is precisely what I deny, because they are demonstrably false, self-serving and continue inflicting incalculable harm both on themselves and many others. I am all too keenly aware they are sincere in noncredible disastrously destructive errors—and that their sincerely false beliefs have caused multiple existential crises for all life on Earth. The selfishly deceitful can be open to reason and incentives; honest fanatics never are. The Falls lesson is two-fold: That God gave us free will, and that His gift includes the consequences of how we use it.

I confess not seeing the link between this and the rest of the discussion, but do not mind turning an apparent non sequitur into a tangent:

1) Aes Sedai channeled the very ESSENCE of the Creator; what greater divine authority is possible in Randland? The original Aes Sedai were the SOLE authority of ANY kind, which those surviving the Breaking remained.

2) Those CHANNELING THE CREATOR HIMSELF then established training standards for all potential successors, promoting only those who passed a graduated series of competency tests, and admitting only candidates who also CHANNELED THE CREATOR HIMSELF (itself partly due to blood descent from those likewise gifted and partly by some divinely imbued "X factor.")

3) Said training included ALL of Randlands SOLE theology, by design of those supposedly wholly ignorant of the mandatory catechism classes they TAUGHT. “C’mon, Cannoli,” the WT was the SOLE reason any of humanity even knew about the DARK ONE or LAST BATTLE (let alone any deeper theology) after the Breaking; how much of that makes it through the Trolloc Wars and survives another 2000 years without the WT? The Karaethon Cycle—written in the Old Tongue known only to aristocrats and academics even WITH the WTs constant efforts to preserve knowledge? Absent the WTs desperate final attempt to collect and preserve remaining knowledge despite being in the midst of the Breaking eradicating civilization, humanity would have been reduced to Bronze Age nomads with little knowledge of theology or anything else.

The WT explicitly claimed all the stated criteria of authority, mainly because it DID possess each one. If Jordans feminist caricature of the Roman Catholic Church is as unpalatable as (because of...?) Egwene and the rest of his "agender," that is not entirely (nor even primarily) his fault. His Manicheanism is not exactly right out of a papal bull (at least not an approving one.) There is always Goodkinds Objectivist polemic for those who loathe government and its mewling do-gooders, who coddle the weak by enabling their survival like some kind of (GASP!) public servants.

The Carolingians last desperate stand to defend Europe would never have been needed had Arab conquerors not ALREADY poured into Europe the long way around, blitzkrieging over and through HALF OF CATHOLIC EUROPE IN JUST TWENTY YEARS. Even Charles Martel and Charlemagne needed 70 years just to push them back to they Pyrennes, after which it took 700 years to push them back into Africa. Only the Arabs OWN long supply lines prevented them finishing the job DESPITE the Franks brief resurgence, all while Constantinoples "decadent heretics" prevented Arab conquest of Asia Minor for another two centuries. That is, it took the Arabs 10X longer to seize a subcontinent from “decadent heretics” than to seize all but the German and northern Italian parts of Catholic Europe.

Speaking of "heresy," neither Jesus nor His original disciples had a filioque, and the only Old or New Testament references to anything like venerating righteous mortals or using relics like angreals is consistent condemnation of both as idolatry, so maybe let he who is without heresy cast the first stone. It was the science of those "decadent heretics" that cooked the Arab navy; CATHOLIC Christianity was so far behind that the secret of Greek fire died with Constantinople—which "decadent heretical" science resisted for centuries before the worlds first cannon overwhelmed it. Even cannon might not have sufficed against the Earths strongest defences had the city and neighboring garrisons not been permanently and fatally crippled when Catholic Europe arrived to "aid" defenses, realized the Turks hopelessly outmatched them, tried to extort their "allies" emperor on his own throne, then looted, pillaged and slaughtered their way out of the city when he refused. Kind of a mixed bag: All the looted "decadent heresies" (i.e. a millennium or two of cultural and scientific progress) carried back to Europe sparked a Renaissance that raised Europe from "the Pope orders you burned alive for saying the Earth moves; DEUS VULT!" to something resembling modern civilization; on the other hand, it left NOTHING in the path of invaders who advanced all the way to Vienna before finally halted a century later, and that advance was not REVERSED until the Enlightenment two centuries later.

"C'mon, Cannoli." Arabs needed barely 20 years to do what Europes barbarians needed EIGHT CENTURIES to undo: Cross Gibraltar, conquer Spain and drive within a days march of the English Channel and Rhine before Martel saved Europe from extinction. That earned all of 70 years respite before 700 years of Islam savaging all of Christendom resumed, effectively opposed by none but the "decadent heretic" Byzantine heretics who held out for a millennium before Europes saintly Roman Catholics stuck a knife in their backs and left them lying in a pool of their own blood as Turkish cannon arrived. It took more Arab time and effort to conquer a few distant Byzantine outposts in North Africa than to subsequently conquer most of Catholic Europe, and Constantinople would have indefinitely endured by virtue of its preeminent technology and engineering had it not naïvely allowed "righteously treacherous" barbarian Catholic murderers behind its impregnable walls.

One thing is sure: Vatican insistence (pagan) Aristotle permanently defined science before Christs birth did not finally save Europe from Arab (nor Turkish) conquest: Renaissance science did, even with all of Europe divided by intellectual and religous rebellions against absolute Catholic authority. And when gunboat diplomacy brought North African and Mideastern mullash European colonialism a few centuries later, it fired artillery shells, not encylicals.

Sane people know finite resources are just that, and that human population has been growing at an exponential rate for some time. There are roughly TWICE as many humans now as when I was born, and I am no pensioner. It is inconsistent to assume (in defiance of observed fact) the Earths resources too vast for depletion by 7 billion members of one large species (plus livestock) yet ALSO assume far larger extinct species left enough biomass that millions of years of compression provided an inexhaustible energy source. That is trying to drown us now anyway. As for "extremely hazardous expensive conditions," ever spent time drilling for oil or mining? It is not just arrogance but hubris to believe one can do whatever one wishes with no consequences: Koros—>Hubris—>Ate—>Nemesis; those seeking “decadence” need look no further.

Nope

Kevlar stops bullets fine; nothing stops progress. For that matter, plate mail stopped the blows of tulwars and most other blades—then someone discovered longbows launch arrows with more concentrated force than plate can stop and things suddenly changed. THEN someone else discovered gunpowder concentrates just as much force without needing years to train and drill archers nor apply torque to their backs to such a degree it permanently warps their spines. NOW science allows remote control killing of soldiers at NO risk from whatever inferior weapons they may bear. TOMORROW….

Think science will graciously stop advancing just because we foolishly think possessing the most advanced (current) weapons obviates pursuing new ones when they threaten the words men put in Gods mouth? Unlikely, if only because of Gods a stated documented dislike of being libeled. He gave us brains and wills, and probably not just to test our faith by forbidding their use (or having mere mortals do so in His name.)

Technology wins wars. So does will and experience, but professional soldiers invariably have the first and those who survive a wars commencement have or gain the second: When one army meets another with roughly equal determination, experience and size but vastly superior weaponry, its next meeting is with St. Peter. Vietnam proved technology no substitute for commitment, but the eventual victor spent lives at a 10:1 ratio for decades making the case. Ask the Zulus or Indians (either kind) technologys military importance. Ask the Germans what happened to their horrifically superior weapons once ignorant dogma inspired the hubris of purging "Jewish science."

We are not talking generic effete academics (though imaginations loss one place tends to mute it in others) nor even social science, but natural science.

I confess finding it odd you have never heard anyone cite Gods postdeluvian pledge as a rebuttal of observed global warming. But surely you have heard a few fundamentalists cite Revelation to “rebut” any or all our self-inflicted existential crises? I can assure you from bitter personal experience that that is a stock "argument:" We are INCAPABLE of destroying ourselves because God promised to eventually do it for us, and "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." Presumably they also leave town each time they defecate, since He also said THAT in Leviticus. Not that I doubt Revelations validity, but SO much of it is SO metaphorical I do not hang my hat on any particular interpretation of it; I sure as Hell would not bet all terrestrial life on it.

I assume nothing but that we should explore all options while following where the best available observation and logic lead us. If it backtracks or takes a new course (and you are right science often does both; all mortal creations are fallible, so any unable/willing to accept correction are next to useless) fine. Science also requires we (to quote a popular traitor) "trust, but verify." But the only thing more foolish than ASSUMING a conclusion accurate based on its knowledgeable experienced source is assuming it INACCURATE for the same reason. I am as contrarian as the next man (well, maybe not in THIS case) but there is a grave difference between being sceptical and being purblind.

For the same reason teachers do not refuse to teach lest they lose their knowledge; ever seen a banker eagerly give MONEY to anyone and everyone who asks? Knowledge can be shared without loss; it is hardly a zero-sum game. If two people have a dollar and one gives theirs to the other, one has two and the other none, but if one of them teaches the other 1+1=2 they BOTH know it.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to physics, which definitely includes industrial and other machines, but only negligibly applies to thought. Maybe concentration, observation and consideration take more energy than doing nothing, but far less than, say, pushing a plow because no one ever interrupted their manual labor long enough to realize putting it on motorized wheels accomplishes just as much with far less friction (and thus energy.) If anything, the Law of Entropy argues for MORE education, because innovation not only improves labor efficiency, but thinkers consume and expend far less energy than laborers. A popular theory holds Americas rising obesity is partly due continuing a traditional "farmers diet" even though more and more people sit at desks 8 hrs/day, 5 days/week instead of digging a field 12 hrs/day, 6 days/week. Ever seen a fat field hand?

Yet despite "free" trade frauds and futurist fantasies, there never has and probably never will be a society so prosperous it could afford to pay most of its people just to sit around thinking: Rather than just inventing and discovering them, someone must also PRODUCE food, clothing, shelter, medicine etc. Someone (educated in the means) must also apply and employ each new device that improves our lives, else they improve nothing. And doing all those things consumes a certain amount of our finite material and energy resources, if only to keep laborers upright. Entropy means THAT exchange of resources is not EVEN a zero-sum game. The act of education falls in that category too, so it should be as efficient as possible, but one person learning something does not PREVENT anyone else learning it the way drinking water, eating bread, gaining a dollar, owning a car or occupying a house does.