Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,394 
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
February 2nd, 2008, 01:54 AM
No probs Pangloss, glad to help out a weary fellow traveler, but I'm sure we both know that no amount of evidence or reason will change anyone's mind. Sometimes I wonder why I keep fighting this battle, because I know I can't win it, logic and evidence mean nothing to a true believer: this is what I believe and there's nothing you can say or do that will ever change my mind; I'm right by definition, and you're screwed.
Guess I'll see you in Hell someday, eh? I'll happily buy you a beer and a smoke and we can laugh about carcinogens 'cause we're already dead...
No probs Pangloss, glad to help out a weary fellow traveler, but I'm sure we both know that no amount of evidence or reason will change anyone's mind. Sometimes I wonder why I keep fighting this battle, because I know I can't win it, logic and evidence mean nothing to a true believer: this is what I believe and there's nothing you can say or do that will ever change my mind; I'm right by definition, and you're screwed.
Guess I'll see you in Hell someday, eh? I'll happily buy you a beer and a smoke and we can laugh about carcinogens 'cause we're already dead...
Genius
Posts: 959
Location: BC
Location: BC
February 2nd, 2008, 01:47 PM
Now you will no doubt refute that claim, but then I will ask you what vaccines did we have prior to that accidental discovery?
My argument isn't against science though, because it has brought us some great breakthroughs, but rather my argument is that skepticism is a religion. Skepticism and science are two different things and this conversation won't be well served by confusing the two. Skepticism, not in it's technical definition, but rather, in its practice and practical application has trance formed science, so though they are not one and the same, the culture of skepticism plays a key role in science.
"There have been few leaps forward, and none as definitive or important as those of the previous two hundred years. When something like this happens in sports or business, it's called hitting the wall."
Many sciences are "sexy" and subject to the economic forces he describes as holding physics back. The piety that science students must show to already existing clergy in the church of skepticism. If a young scientist wishes to work then they must be very careful not to traverse certain taboos of the culture. He must pay respect to past theory and avoid certain research or he may find himself unemployed. In the face of real skepticism, this is outrageous.
Your argument only holds weight with believers. I am an unbeliever.
I am neither a religionist nor a "skeptic" in the new sense of the word.
Look how my post brought you out? Clearly a member of the clergy here to defend his belief. That is what you are and what you are doing! You can claim anything you like but the evidence is in. If I mad claims like this about Jesus I would get a similar response and no doubt from someone with 30 years experience in the church.
What happened to "science really deals in probability?" Oh, that's right - I blasphemed!
"We must respect the other fellows religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." - H.L. Mencken
Anything is possible - absolutely anything (including that evolution is a nice explanation of an illusion) but the only way to see them is to leave silly dogmas and emotional attachments behind.
Please remember that I am not arguing for religion (I surely am not) but I dislike religion enough that when I see a new one starting I will call it out. Religion does not need a god because it relies on the beliefs of others. If you believe so strongly in evolution, instead of it being just another theory, it will give rise to science zealots who feed off your belief - they will believe because you do. We see examples of that even in this forum. While I understand it makes you feel good it also makes you clergy, and it takes the subject off the table. It draws lines where there should only be inquiry. People shouldn't think evolution is right because you do, they should examine the evidence themselves, if they don't, they are being religious.
"Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him." - Steven Weinberg
Science has become a god and skeptics it's clergy.
Quoting Dexter Sinister
The reality is no one can be sure what a bat does and doesn't see but the information for its sound and sight are processed in the same part of its brain. There has been speculation be the scientific community that both are indeed combined. There is nothing empirical about sensory perception; it is an adapted method of receiving data from the world around us. There is no colour blue only the interpretation that a certain wave length is blue. For example dogs can't see red and there are all kinds of colours we can't see too; like ultraviolet.
No Scott, talloolla's right, that long argument simply doesn't fly. You've misunderstood and misrepresented too many things. For instance, "...a bat combines sound and sight in its brain for a single interpretation - it literally sees sound..." No it can't, it hears sound just like we do, it's just much better at it than we are.
Quote:
Sight is detecting light waves and birds can detect magnetic fields. I really did mean in my first post that people should try showing earth magnets to their bird, it's a lot of fun. Again, your training is betraying you: If we were having a conversation and I said "I see your point" would I be mistaken only because I heard and understood you? Anyway, a birds eyes is where the sensory reception takes place, and it seems odd that you would deny that as sight, what definition of sight do you use?
And " likewise a bird can see magnetic fields..." No it can't, it can detect them with sense organs we don't have, but it doesn't see them.
Quote:
I agree with you, it was a stupid thing to do - arrogant, Still, somehow, I can't help but suspect it was a Freudian slip.
I've read all that stuff too, that's not what the word means, and there's still a serious ongoing debate among people who'd call themselves brights the way it was originally defined, which I've been part of, simply because it can create that erroneous impression. I will not call myself a bright because of that, though I subscribe to the original definition of the word as the most accurate way to view the world, simply because it falsely implies that brights think everyone else is dim.
Quote:
What evidence of these claims do you have? Scientific discovery has slowed to a trickle. New advances are made almost exclusively in technology, silly theories abound (that don't advance understanding), and why? Because it is loaded down in dogma.
That's hardly a surprise, because that argument is completely false, and anyone who really understands how science works would instantly recognize it. I've had a 30+ year career in science, and I know that science is first and foremost a human enterprise, so of course mistakes and frauds and arguments from authority will happen, but the process is eventually self-correcting simply because ultimately it does rely on evidence and logic, not dogma and authority, and false claims and ideas are eventually discovered and tossed out.
Quote:
The cornerstones of our civilization were created in a society without science and have endured centuries. Yes, I agree, in the area of inoculations science has done some wonderful work odd though that the entire science started from an accident ( Penicillin by Fleming ) not scientific speculation - in fact most "discoveries" are by accident?.
The methods of science are the only reliable means we've ever discovered for testing the truth content of ideas, and the quality of our lives, from the medical science that prolongs them to the electronic devices like the computers we use to entertain and inform ourselves, is a testament to the fact that the methods are spectacularly successful. They work, and they work consistently and reliably no matter what you believe. We can prevent smallpox and diptheria and polio with a simple vaccination, and that works whether you believe it will or not. That is good science.
Now you will no doubt refute that claim, but then I will ask you what vaccines did we have prior to that accidental discovery?
My argument isn't against science though, because it has brought us some great breakthroughs, but rather my argument is that skepticism is a religion. Skepticism and science are two different things and this conversation won't be well served by confusing the two. Skepticism, not in it's technical definition, but rather, in its practice and practical application has trance formed science, so though they are not one and the same, the culture of skepticism plays a key role in science.
Quote:
That was his primary argument but he used that argument to uncover all kinds of problems in science - problems that are easily explained if skepticism's culture is explained in religious terms: "What makes theoretical physics as much an art as a science is that the best theorists have a sixth sense about what results can be ignored." This is clearly religiosity at its worst and I am sure what Smolin suggests is true.
Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics is completely unrelated to this argument, and if you think it is you've completely misunderstood it. Smolin is not challenging science in any fundamental sense, he's challenging the politics of science as a human enterprise. His essential point is that string theory is sexy and popular and has produced some very creative and interesting mathematics, and engaged some of the brightest minds among physicists for a generation, but it hasn't produced any testable results or predictions or useful insights that quantum theory and relativity don't also make, and that's the ultimate test of any theory of physics. It must be consistent with previous theories, it must predict something so far unseen, and it must be testable; string theory has so far achieved only the first of those, and Smolin's argument is essentially that it's probably a false trail.
"There have been few leaps forward, and none as definitive or important as those of the previous two hundred years. When something like this happens in sports or business, it's called hitting the wall."
Many sciences are "sexy" and subject to the economic forces he describes as holding physics back. The piety that science students must show to already existing clergy in the church of skepticism. If a young scientist wishes to work then they must be very careful not to traverse certain taboos of the culture. He must pay respect to past theory and avoid certain research or he may find himself unemployed. In the face of real skepticism, this is outrageous.
Quote:
You have a lot of faith in that. I don't. I think there are examples of where science has gone desperately wrong and, in the face of evidence, didn't "change their minds."
No, false again. In principle there is no dogma in science. Because it's a human enterprise and thus subject to human frailties, dogma does sometimes impede progress, and one of the best recent examples of that is the debate over plate tectonics, but ultimately evidence and logic will trump dogma and science and scientists will change their minds.
Your argument only holds weight with believers. I am an unbeliever.
I am neither a religionist nor a "skeptic" in the new sense of the word.
Quote:
I agree. I like the theory too but if I question it, if I try and get a grant to disprove it, if I argue with my professor about this dogma, then I won't graduate or find work.
That's hardly a surprise either. Evolution is one of the best attested, most wide ranging, and most successful scientific theories we have. Evolution is not a matter of belief, it's an incontrovertible fact, on about the same scale as the fact that the sun will rise in the morning. It's real, it happens, it's been observed to happen, even to the point of speciation. It's simply wrong to suggest evolution is a belief; it's an observed fact.
Look how my post brought you out? Clearly a member of the clergy here to defend his belief. That is what you are and what you are doing! You can claim anything you like but the evidence is in. If I mad claims like this about Jesus I would get a similar response and no doubt from someone with 30 years experience in the church.
What happened to "science really deals in probability?" Oh, that's right - I blasphemed!
"We must respect the other fellows religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." - H.L. Mencken
Quote:
This is false. Though this is how it should be, like a typical religionists, you are ignoring how it actually is.
No, wrong again. The essence of the skeptical position is, "prove your claim with evidence and reason, otherwise I will withhold belief.." Semantics, dogma, and belief don't enter into it, it's about how nature actually behaves when probed and tested.
Quote:
"The greatest mystery is that there is anything at all," Einstein.
Well, yes, you're mostly right about that, but science really deals in probabilities. There's plenty of evidence and argument that strongly suggests there isn't one, and not much good evidence that suggests there is, but even so truculent an atheist as Richard Dawkins doesn't go so far as to claim there cannot be one. The relevant chapter in his The God Delusion is titled, 'Why there is almost certainly no god," not "Why there certainly isn't a god."
Hey, if it's interesting and provocative as this one was, that justifies any length.
Hey, if it's interesting and provocative as this one was, that justifies any length.
Anything is possible - absolutely anything (including that evolution is a nice explanation of an illusion) but the only way to see them is to leave silly dogmas and emotional attachments behind.
Please remember that I am not arguing for religion (I surely am not) but I dislike religion enough that when I see a new one starting I will call it out. Religion does not need a god because it relies on the beliefs of others. If you believe so strongly in evolution, instead of it being just another theory, it will give rise to science zealots who feed off your belief - they will believe because you do. We see examples of that even in this forum. While I understand it makes you feel good it also makes you clergy, and it takes the subject off the table. It draws lines where there should only be inquiry. People shouldn't think evolution is right because you do, they should examine the evidence themselves, if they don't, they are being religious.
"Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him." - Steven Weinberg
Science has become a god and skeptics it's clergy.
Genius
Posts: 959
Location: BC
Location: BC
February 2nd, 2008, 02:00 PM
Quoting Pangloss
It's nice isn't? When someone affirms your faith?
Thank you Dexter - I had grown weary, and longed for your voice to carry the day.
Pangloss
Pangloss
Genius
Posts: 959
Location: BC
Location: BC
February 2nd, 2008, 02:12 PM
It is human nature that confines us. We have a tendency to organize, believe and follow, which makes us prone to religion of all kinds. It is also our senses too which we tend to think of as evidence when all evidence is to the contrary.
I agree that we need to do more than replace religion with another kind. Religion needs to be viewed with the same skepticism as science. Both are creations of man.
Quoting darkbeaver
Than you.
Nice long read Scott. I agree with your conclusion about skeptic. The god discussion will rage on for a while yet I guess. I think it's very important to the future of mankind that religion be leashed, god can take care of itself. I think somewhat like you do about science, I don't think the physical science can fully address the spiritual man and I know organized religion is a curse.
It is human nature that confines us. We have a tendency to organize, believe and follow, which makes us prone to religion of all kinds. It is also our senses too which we tend to think of as evidence when all evidence is to the contrary.
I agree that we need to do more than replace religion with another kind. Religion needs to be viewed with the same skepticism as science. Both are creations of man.
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,394
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
February 2nd, 2008, 10:14 PM
That's science at its worst. There's an idealized view of science, which is more or less what I was trying to lay out in my previous post, and there's the reality, which isn't nearly as nice. Lots of scientists have written popular books, like Lee Smolin and Steven Weinberg and Nick Herbert and Paul Davies and Steven Hawking and Roger Penrose and Brian Greene, but Sagan went too far for the scientific fraternity, and got into history and philosophy and human psychology and similar things, stepped outside the supposed boundaries of his expertise. The only other person I can think of who's done that very successfully is Isaac Asimov. Asimov got away with it because he wasn't actually a practicing scientist, though he had the academic credentials with a Ph.D in chemistry, he was primarily a writer, and scientists for the most part didn't consider him a member of the fraternity. Sagan didn't get away with it in some sense, because he *was* a practicing scientist but broke some of the unwritten rules.
There's much more to be said about this, and I'm sure we'd agree on a lot of things, though perhaps a thread titled "Who is Jesus" isn't the appropriate place to discuss them at length. I'm glad you're here though, you're obviously a bright and thoughtful person and I hope to have many useful and interesting exchanges with you.
Quoting Scott Free
You raise a lot of complex issues in that post Scott, I just cited that concluding bit of it so you'd know that's what I'm responding to. Many of your criticisms are well-founded, and in the main I'm inclined to agree with much of what you wrote, and in particular there is much truth in that conclusion. It's really just a reflection of the fact that, as I said before, science is first and foremost a human enterprise, and thus suffers from all the same weaknesses any human enterprise does: ego, authority, popularity, fashion, stuff like that. You're quite right that there are taboo subjects and ideas, and one of the best examples of that that I know of is what happened, or more precisely didn't happen, to Carl Sagan. He was never elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, though he richly deserved it in my opinion, because he broke some of the taboos. He promoted the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and he was a popularizer, made tv shows and wrote books and went on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson many times. He went outside the boundaries and became wealthy and very well known to the public because of it, but scientists in some sense aren't supposed to do that, they're supposed to stay in the fraternity and talk only to other members. There was some envy and jealousy among his scientific peers, and they never forgave him for it, despite the fact that his scientific credentials and the science he did were as good as anyone's.
Science has become a god and skeptics it's clergy.
That's science at its worst. There's an idealized view of science, which is more or less what I was trying to lay out in my previous post, and there's the reality, which isn't nearly as nice. Lots of scientists have written popular books, like Lee Smolin and Steven Weinberg and Nick Herbert and Paul Davies and Steven Hawking and Roger Penrose and Brian Greene, but Sagan went too far for the scientific fraternity, and got into history and philosophy and human psychology and similar things, stepped outside the supposed boundaries of his expertise. The only other person I can think of who's done that very successfully is Isaac Asimov. Asimov got away with it because he wasn't actually a practicing scientist, though he had the academic credentials with a Ph.D in chemistry, he was primarily a writer, and scientists for the most part didn't consider him a member of the fraternity. Sagan didn't get away with it in some sense, because he *was* a practicing scientist but broke some of the unwritten rules.
There's much more to be said about this, and I'm sure we'd agree on a lot of things, though perhaps a thread titled "Who is Jesus" isn't the appropriate place to discuss them at length. I'm glad you're here though, you're obviously a bright and thoughtful person and I hope to have many useful and interesting exchanges with you.
Genius
Posts: 959
Location: BC
Location: BC
February 2nd, 2008, 10:29 PM
I look forward to talking to you in the future too.
I re-read my post and noticed it came across as a little harsh - I did not mean it so. I did not mean for my accusations to be personal, I think you realize that (I hope so) - it is how I write, how I argue.
Anyway, I have a lot of respect for you and recognize you are indeed a fellow truth seeker, whatever that may mean and wherever it may lead.
I look forward to talking to you in the future too.
I re-read my post and noticed it came across as a little harsh - I did not mean it so. I did not mean for my accusations to be personal, I think you realize that (I hope so) - it is how I write, how I argue.
Anyway, I have a lot of respect for you and recognize you are indeed a fellow truth seeker, whatever that may mean and wherever it may lead.
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,394
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
February 2nd, 2008, 10:34 PM
Quoting Scott Free
Thank you, and the same to you my friend. It cannot lead anywhere but to some very interesting places that are worth visiting.
I have a lot of respect for you and recognize you are indeed a fellow truth seeker, whatever that may mean and wherever it may lead.
