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Steven Hawking Considering Move To Canada
thepacketmaster learned of "...the possibility of Steven Hawking moving to Waterloo in Canada: 'A report out of Britain suggests Stephen Hawking is considering an invitation to come work at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics....But he's also being encouraged to move to Ontario by his University of Cambridge colleague Neil Turok, the mathematical physicist who will take over as Perimeter's executive director on Oct. 1. Perimeter confirmed last night that it has made a standing offer to Hawking...Turok is leaving Cambridge after failing to persuade university authorities, research councils and sponsors to spend $40 million...By comparison, Waterloo's Perimeter Institute has about $600 million in funding...The addition of Hawking to Perimeter's staff of top physicists would be a major coup for the research institute, founded in 1999 by Mike Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry.'"
all the top phycisits start leaving Germany when things started going downhill?
Just think of the tax savings!
cat sig >
He's moving there to be closer to the headquarters of the Vice Presidential Action Rangers.
Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
how long it will take his little chair to get him there. Does that thing have snow treads?
Canada also has better wheelchair access.
Its our national healthcare system.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Mr. Turok, mathematical physicist and dinosaur hunter, to you, pal.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Can we get the computerized voice with a Canadian accent, eh?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Don't you get it? If you die in Canada you die in real life!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Probability states the worlds brightest people are probably in China or India. However due to political structure it may be harder to find these people in those countries. (less so in India)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I never realized Stephen Hawking was British. He doesn't sound it....
I mean, really, the university isn't even the best in Ontario, let alone the country
For math and physics it sure is the best, especially with the perimeter institute there now. Sounds like they sent you a nice rejection letter :)
I doubt Stephen Hawking gets out and about very much. And not just because of his disability. Many brilliant people are so eccentric they never need to leave their place of research, so it doesn't worry them too much whether their community is a happening place or not.
The difference is that the US' corrupt regime don't give a rats ass of your religion.
You'll all be wearing DHS shock bracelets soon enough.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
In our case, some are Muslim and others don't want to work for a corrupt regime.
Ok, so we're not committing genocide and are several orders of magnitude less evil. But the basic point still stands.
They hatin Patrolling they tryin to catch me theorizing dirty Tryin to catch me theorizing dirty
No more traffic jams on Silver Street.
Stephen Hawking changed his mind about what he wanted to eat for lunch.
"At first I thought I wanted fish," said Mr. Hawkings, "but then I decided I did not want fish. I eventually went with spaghetti."
There is much debate in science-related blogs as well as in academia about the significance of this change.
I guess you don't know where Cambridge is. Must be an American.
Hawking will have his venerable voicebox replaced by one of Canadian manufacture, based on an amalgamation of Geddy Lee and Alex Trebek's voice, which automatically interjects "eh" every 8th word.
The difference is that the US' corrupt regime don't give a rats ass of your religion.
Two words: Intelligent Design.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Waterloo is alright ... though the local Mennonite community lends a somewhat strange vibe.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
That sounds like a front organization for Aperture Science.
WAR Flying Spaghetti Monster
One of the coolest things about the Perimeter Institute is that they have a public lecture series. The lecturers are a mix of eminent scientists from inside and outside the Institute. The topics are mostly drawn from the edges of physics and cosmology. Some are more accessible to lay people than other.
The Institute has most of them available for offline viewing and reading. Maybe they could get Stephen Hawking one day.
... at least the 'A' key, eh?
Anybody want a peanut?
Britain isn't in the the US, dumbass. It's in England.
Actually, I refused to apply there because they pay female grad students in physics and astronomy $2000 more than their male peers and I don't think it's fair that I should get paid more for doing the same work, nor do I support an institution that would do such a thing. Also, they didn't have any profs with research that particularly interested me.
what's that now?
Perhaps Balmer might be able to make a modified version
Computerized voice: "Steve, get your dirty hands off my chair."
"World's leading physicist moves to the university in the middle of nowhere"
I wonder...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Waterloo has the best or at least second best computer science, mathematics and engineering programs in Ontario. I'm not sure where you gathered your information. Maybe if you are talking about arts degrees, but that is not what Waterloo is known for. I also don't think that Hawkings is hankering to get a fine arts degree, either.
I love waterloo, I decided to stay here after I got my university degree there. It's really nice to have an office with trees outside. It's only an hour away from Toronto, and it has a very large Asian community so the food here is great and varied. And despite what you think we are one of the premier Math and Computer science school in North America, we compete with MIT for contests.
This may be true, but man, I was stuck in Waterloo for a day and it was the most boring day I've ever had.
Side note: I somewhat forgot that the perimeter institute is based there (I'm not in theory so I don't pay much attention to where their institutions are actually located).
what's that now?
Your ideas are shaped not just by your capabilities, but the ideas and interactions you came up with when you were growing up.
I believe that there is a significant percentage of population (probably around 10%) that could be just as bright as the top people in sciences, but they just took a different path. They didn't get the encouragements, or maybe they just didn't meet a friend in the 5th grade that had the same interest as them.
There is more to whom we become than some political structure. The ultimate you is shaped MUCH closer to your personal life than even the city hall.
As a Computer Science major at the University of Waterloo, I'm proud to hear that the Waterloo region and it's research and higher education institutes are attracting top minds to the area. Arguably, the university is already the top undergrad tech school in Canada and competitive with the top in the U.S. as well, but currently only on the undergraduate level. However, huge amounts of funding have been recently pouring into UW's graduate programs, and associated research institutes. Some Waterloo folks like to label the university "MIT of the north" but unfortunately, I'd argue that's currently only true on the undergraduate level. Its co-op program makes Waterloo grads among the most employable new grads in the world. With this kind of exposure I'm sure Waterloo will reach its goal of being competitive with the top U.S. tech schools in all areas within the next 5 to 10 years. Maybe they'll start making movies with references to Waterloo as well.:P Then again, most movies are made/produced in the U.S...
You laugh... but I've known people who live in Maine that couldn't find Canada on a map. I could understand from the deep south, where Canada is a mythical land of igloos and Eskimos, but Maine?!? There's parts of Canada that are further south than Maine, and there was a time when that state was part of Canada, for crying out loud....
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
That appeal to statistics assumes that the population of brilliant people (both inherently brilliant and the learned) is uniformly distributed among the rest of the population of the world. This is demonstrably not the case. Some cities have higher concentrations of inventors, entrepeneurs, PhDs, etc., than other cities of equal size. Perhaps one city has a university to draw these people in, while the other one doesn't. Perhaps one area, way back when, had a guy or group of people that made some major discovery, started a new industry, which set that region on the path to continued discovery (e.g., Silicon Valley).
The same could be said for countries as a whole. One would expect to find a greater proportion of scientists in an industrialized country over an agrarian one, or over a nation that has only recently industrialized.
I am not trying to make a nationalistic or xenophobic argument against India or China, because I know for a fact that they have lots of brilliant people, I am just trying to delve deeper into the notion that a larger national population equals a larger population of [whatever else].
I mean, really, the university isn't even the best in Ontario, let alone the country and Waterloo itself is in the middle of nowhere.
Depending on what you're studying, Waterloo actually is the best University in the country.
Is anyone else irked by the apparent misspelling? Steven != Stephen
I guess that gig he has with the Cable Weather Satellite channel was just a temporary gig. I heard him on there the other day:
Tomorrow's weather, partly cloudy with little temperature change.
On an unrelated note... Anyone know how Canada got its name?
They placed a bunch of letters in a hat and drew them out. The one doing the drawing picked out the first letter, "C, Eh". then "N, Eh" and finally "D, Eh." (if you didn't get it, say it out loud).
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
...that the submitter was under the influence of a central inverse-square force.
I got that wrong once...
I was talking about Cambridge in the context of text adventure games... You know, 'cause Cambridge, MA is where Infocom started out and all... And someone said if I wasn't talking about England then I should be clear about it... And I was all like, well, we are talking text adventures here, right? So maybe it's reasonable to assume Cambridge, MA?
As it turns out, one of the original text adventures ("Adventure", IIRC) was written in Cambridge, England, so I got to be wrong twice in one discussion. :D Live and learn, eh?
Bow-ties are cool.
Maybe.
But the problem is whether these people have opportunity (or reward) to work in the field in which they are talented.
Also a problem in the US - If you're in science in most cases you need to either truly love the field or otherwise be motivated in some manner for other than monetary gains (or otherwise go into law/business and contribute brilliance there).
example:
Disparity of salaries between University Professors and Football Coaches - overall, who provides more long term gain to society and who are rewarded more in terms of salary (almost an order of magnitude difference)?
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/86/i28/html/8628education.html
Only Northern Ireland is in the UK. It's also not in Great Britain. The UK is short for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (and dependent territories)"
Intelligent Design encompasses all religions except atheism.
I think gnuman was referring to aptitude more than intelligence.
I am a grad student in physics at waterloo (phd) and my female counterparts do not get paid anymore than me from the uni. Where the heck did you hear this?
Are you sure that you aren't just talking about 3rd party scholarships that are only available to women? The amount from you get from the actual university is the same for men and women.
Perhaps the Perimeter Institute can find the singularity where all those Blackberry messages went
To be fair, we have a Cambridge on this side of the pond, in Massachusetts, and it's home to a rather prestigious institution of higher learning. If one were unfamiliar with the work or background Stephen Hawking, it would be an innocent mistake to confuse our Cambridge (town) with your Cambridge (university).
There isn't any corruption? Or racism? And scientists aren't willing to leave for greener pastures because of this? I'd like to know where you're getting your information.
He's going to start the Deputy Prime Minister's Action Rangers, a secretive, shadowy organization including such diverse Canadians as Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, the clone of Frederick Banting and Alex Trebeck.
A press release from the newly-minted organization stated:
"As there is currently no deputy prime minister in Canada, we welcome Dr. Hawking to the position and are together looking forward to the great things he can do for our country, which is large and mostly empty, like our prime minister's head."
And his synthesized voice tool should really be outfitted with an English accent :)
No, it was on their website. They posted their grad student salaries online. Although they seem to have redone their website for this since I last checked and taken this information down (i.e. it looks very different).
what's that now?
Well, on the point of providing value to society, that will rathole into a debate about what is "good for society", assuming that there's an objective or even subjective-with-high-consensus notion of such a thing. It's not clear that people want to live longer, healthier, more intellectually stimulating lives. Many people live too long and are bored. It's certainly clear that more US residents place a higher value on the entertainment offered to them by sporting events than whatever research and progress have done for them.
But like I said -- let's not rathole on that point :)
The second point is about rewards. I think it is worthwhile to point out that college sports are often _highly_ profitable to their host universities. I'm in general no fan of the typical games popular in the US, and especially so at the collegiate level. Even so, these programs tend to bring in a lot of money which is then diverted towards more academic purposes. Presumably, you see the (perhaps unfortuneate) utility in subsidizing higher-order activities with populist bread and circuses :)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I have to use spy's to steal great thinkers, either that or conquer the city they are based in. Is there even an option to just bribe them to move like this? That would be too easy.
Please excuse me as I only submit wikipedia as a citation: "The United Kingdom is a union[7][8] of four constituent countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
I'm a Physics Undergrad student at the University of Waterloo, and I am definitely excited. This will add a lot of value to my degree, and reputation for the physics department in general.
He'll have too much trouble adjusting here, he'll never get used to driving his wheelchair on the right side of the road.
Never mind Maine - there are parts of Canada are further south than parts of Northern California. Look on a map for Point Pelee sometime .....
Mr. President, we must not allow a foreign scientist gap !
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Ah, the "perimeter" institute. eh?
Is that where mathematical geniuses figured out that the perimeter of a circle is 2*PI*r?
Have they made any headway on finding a formula for the perimeter of a Mandelbrot fractal?
The original text adventure was written by Will Crowther, while working at BBN in Cambridge, MA, USA.
need to speak French first then English to be legal over there? Or is that only in Quebec?
Technically you get paid more, but I heard that the extra incentive for females really offsets the sausage-fest that is astronomy grad work.
This is what entropy is for.
To be fair, we have a Cambridge on this side of the pond, in Massachusetts, and it's home to a rather prestigious institution of higher learning. If one were unfamiliar with the work or background Stephen Hawking, it would be an innocent mistake to confuse our Cambridge (town) with your Cambridge (university).
And due to some weirdness involving Cambridge University statues and a Cambridge-MIT exchange program, the University has decreed the entirety of Cambridge and Boston, MA to fall within 3 miles of the University Church.
And this has what to do with Hawking moving from England to Canada?
"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby"
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
When scientists compete results are usually better. Think of Manhattan Project and Cold War advances.
I believe that there is a significant percentage of population (probably around 10%) that could be just as bright as the top people in sciences, but they just took a different path. They didn't get the encouragements, or maybe they just didn't meet a friend in the 5th grade that had the same interest as them.
In India, I'd bet the caste system has a bit to do with that as well...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
While this poster might not have expressed him/herself well, the point is valid.
The assumption that brilliant people (especially when it comes to "nerdy" fields like mathematics and physics) do not have a social life or are usually highly eccentric is still a stereotype. And it's not a matter of going out to bars and socializing (which I'm sure one could do in Waterloo anyways), what if Dr Hawking likes the theatre or visiting art galleries and museums. You can't just assume that because someone is brilliant in one field, they don't have other interests because it's very rare that someone only has one interest in life, even if they are very good at that one thing.
That being said, I don't know whether he actually does have any other interests or what they are.
what's that now?
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/24/75-threatening-to-move-to-canada/
I gues tis shoves uz tat te dhing too doe iz zhoot gramaar nazii's on te spoot.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Am I the only one who noticed his name spelled incorrectly in the headline? And again in the link, only to be spelled correctly 3 words later? Seems odd.
...and smell.
Waterloo is in the middle of nowhere... you really need to come here for a visit.
college sports are often _highly_ profitable to their host universities,.......subsidizing higher-order activities with populist bread and circuses :)
Hmmmm....I wonder if any Universities thought of producing "reality TV"?
{ thinking about what goes on in dorms...}
I enjoyed the consistency of the spelling of 'Stephen'.
I count at least two: MIT and Harvard.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I'm too lazy to look up actual research data, but I wonder how much of a factor, if anything, environmental factors like diet play. Possibly not enough vegetables or protein as a child could make you dumber as an adult. Therefore, a country with many of its citizens suffering from a poor diet could find their population's intelligence hampered.
Conversely, England has one of the worst diets of the developed world due to its population's predilection for fried foods, so one would have to take that into account too.
BTW I live just outside Waterloo, ON so if I see Mr. Hawking trundling along a sidewalk some day I'll make sure I say hi to him for you.
www.clarke.ca
Wow. Note to self: Failed attempt at humour = troll.
what's that now?
1. Buy dress for less than $2000.
2. ??
3. Profit!!
The funny thing is there is a Cambridge Ontario which just happens to border on Kitchener-Waterloo which is where Perimeter is. Wouldn't it be funny if he ends up moving from Cambridge to Cambridge? :)
Don't confuse the Marshall Plan with martial law.
Kinda takes away from the rest of your post.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
So this isn't a total shock. I'm so glad I saw Prof. Hawking lecture before he decided to leave this decaying and stagnant country, though. To be frank, opportunities to see him speak are getting fewer.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Atheism is a religion like making fun of people for collecting stamps is a hobby.
There, I fixed that for you.
The typical response to that I see these days is that:
"Atheists have faith that there is no God since they have no proof that God does not exist.
Since they have faith then atheists are religious."
It would seem that all the reasons atheists may have for stating that do not count as "proof".
If you ignore the fallacy of proving a negative existence.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
It does? Well, my god doesn't give a rat's ass about the world and he just sits there and watches, amused how we mill about with our petty goals, but refuses to get involved at all.
How is my religion represented by ID?
ID is mainly a christian thing. Read any publication about it, you'll find that the way life came into existance reads almost like the first few chapters of the Genesis. How is a religion represented that doesn't follow the same "rules" the Bible laid out? How about a religion that claims man was created first, before any animals? How about a religion that, like my example, worships a God that didn't create at all but only "supervises"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Historically, Muslim regimes have been very favorable to the science. That's no so much the case today, but blaming current Muslim regimes on the Koran is like blaming the industrial revolution on Christianity. It's a stretch, at best.
Not collecting stamps gives you time for a real hobby, just like atheism gives you time to do real science.
Now, I don't say you can't be religious as a scientist. Actually I know quite a few very good scientists that believe in God. Usually, though, they take the Bible as a guideline for being a "good person", not a book telling you how the scientific parts of the world work. They understand the Bible as a guideline to live a good life, and quite frankly, it is a good book as such. Don't kill, don't steal, take a day off per week so you don't run into a burnout, and generally don't do what you wouldn't want others to do to you. That's a pretty good guideline to work with, if you ask me.
Frankly, I wonder how many of those that want to take the Bible all literally and insist in it being the all encompassing truth really want to use it to live a better life (for themselves, but even more for those around them), and how many just want to use it as a tool to wield power over others. It's been used for that purpose far too often. I'd say, more often than for the "better person" goals...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Godwin right in the first post! Bravo I say, Bravo! A true and shining accomplishment in the field of utterly irrelevant comparisons.
Thank you! I truly appreciate the resounding compliment. As you can tell it was a near thing and required forgoing spellcheck...but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my adoring fans...fans like you.
In all seriousness, I do think scientists are an excellent canary for the local political/cultural environment. They rely on public funding while demanding the right to teach/work as they see best. When the scientists start leaving I sit up and take notice.
I think you may be describing a mischaracterization of at least some atheists. The position of at least some atheists is that, skeptically, one believes on the basis of proof and evidence, and lacking either, the default is 'do not believe.' In such a paradigm, the opinion of an atheist is not an affirmative belief in nonexistence based on some concept of faith, but the result of having looked and found neither proof nor evidence.
If I say "I believe 1 + 1 = 2" that is actually shorthand for a more complex "If one accepts the following axioms, then..." which is a very different point of view than saying "Based on faith alone I believe..."
Have you ever gone to a dance club on "Ladies Night" and got in for free? You can bet that none of the men there were complaining that a lot of women were getting in for free.
This is the same idea applied to female physicists.
Whooosh!
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Society seems to have no tolerance for philatelists.
I find it particularly stupid for a scientist to be an atheist. On the other hand, I also find it stupid for a true scientist to be religious.
From a purely scientific point of view, saying that god exists, or saying god doesn't exist, are both wrong statements. There isn't anything to prove one way or another. Thus, from my point of view, scientist should be agnostics.
morcego
Only if you ignore the parts that say you should stone people, and eradicate whole villages if one of the members doesn't believe in the Bible's god, retain slaves, and that giving up your virgin daughter to a rape gang is preferable to turning over a foreign man to them. Those are just a few examples...
Question everything
I hear the BC bud is one of the best around. Hope he enjoys.
Next installment of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is going to be set in Switzerland
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Stop jumping to conclusions! User 243324 is correct: Hawking's potential move from the UK to Canada is clearly based upon US policy. It's the Republicans' fault, but the Democrats are no better, so he's going to pack his bags regardless of what happens in November. Plus, it proves astrology is correct. Take your nay-saying to Digg.com where it belongs!
but the Farmer's markets are awesome.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
there won't be any snow in Waterloo in October. Rain, yes and lots of it. No snow.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Additionally, Silicon Valley, as an example of "it's not the government!", is interesting, given that recent research suggests that Boston, Mass. could have been what Silicon Valley became... if it weren't for Massachusett's laws enforcing non-compete aggreements. (See: these articles.) In other words, sometimes it /is/ the government.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
From now on, Poirot will eat spaghetti!
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
That's ridicoulus. You have no proof that this isn't just a couple of random bits forming a post arguing against you, yet you consider that to be false even though logically it should be possible it isn't.
As a matter of fact nothing may be true,gravity might just be a fluke, maybee we've been falling in random direction changing every day that just happened to have been towards where one would expect it whenever we tried to observe it.
Yet you don't see scientists going around saying maybee to gravity do you? Just because there are several explanations doesn't mean they're all equally valid, it's called occams razor. Deal with it.
The funny thing is there is a Cambridge Ontario which just happens to border on Kitchener-Waterloo which is where Perimeter is. Wouldn't it be funny if he ends up moving from Cambridge to Cambridge? :)
Today class I have question for you: what is the distance between Cambridge and Cambridge. Does not compute is not an answer :)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I'm a Canadian, but I'm honestly more concerned than proud of this disparity between funding. This is Steven Hawking himself, so is this situation truly indicative of falling interest in science in the US? I mean, wouldn't Harvard or Yale or MIT be willing to shell out monster bucks to say they have him in their institution? He's gotta be a trophy of contemporary science right now, right? RIGHT?
What gives, US? Does it have something to do with the right-wing fundies somehow creating long-term political traction? I really wanna know...
True enough, but be honest with yourself. If there's are books about not collecting stamps, organizations dedicated to not collecting stamps, and websites all about how to not collect stamps, and movements to preach the greatness of not collecting stamps, guess what not collecting stamps has become?
Who in their right mind would want to move to Waterloo? I mean, really, the university isn't even the best in Ontario, let alone the country and Waterloo itself is in the middle of nowhere.
UWaterloo is one of the top universities in the world for Math and CS. Besides the Perimeter Institute, it also has the Institute for Quantum Computing which is pretty major in the field. Also, the Fields Institute was originally founded at UWaterloo before moving to the University of Toronto (the only other university in Canada that's comparable in Math). UWaterloo also has strong ties with industry. Research in Motion is right next door and has hundreds of Waterloo graduates in CS working for them. Microsoft has a good number of UWaterloo graduates as well. It's really exciting that he's thinking about going there (not only for Waterloo but also it's very great for Canada as a whole).
So, you don't have a system of beliefs as to which gods do and don't exist? Perhaps one that you hold with ardor, and seek to convert unbelievers to? Perhaps even a belief system that tackles topics like the origin of the universe, or what happens to one's consciousness after death?
He's moving to get as far away as possible from the Large Hadron Collider. Genius.
Faith itself is the acceptance of an axiom (that is, the existence of a deity).
But he's also being encouraged to move to Ontario by his University of Cambridge colleague Neil Turok.
So he's shifting his career to focus on a joint effort to fight dinosaurs?
The original text
adventure was written by Will Crowther, while working at BBN in Cambridge, MA, USA.
<shrug> well, I can't remember what bit of adventure game transpired in Cambridge, England, then...
Bow-ties are cool.
Is there an American equivalent to the Perimeter Institute, in terms of funding and prestige, that doesn't over-emphasize String Hypothesis at the expense of competing ideas?
(Yes, I've read Lee Smolin's: The Trouble With Physics and I recommend it)
But presumably they (or the majority thereof) go to church/temple, and at this location they presumably "pray" to some sky-fairy. Is this also part of the guideline for living a rational life?
More seriously, the popularity of religion even among the intelligent suggests to me, that rationality and kindness are truly immiscible (since the Christians I have met even in academia have had little trouble with cheating and lying for their own benefit).
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
So basically, since you cannot prove a positive or a negative in this case, saying "we do not know" (agnosticism) is the only correct stance.
Thanks for reaffirming my view on God!
or maybe they just didn't meet a friend in the 5th grade that had the same interest as them
Does that still apply, now that you can find a discussion forum for maths or physics at the click of a mouse?
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
Right, and since I don't avoid black cats and don't fear walking under ladders or breaking mirrors I'm just otherly-superstitious. Oh the joys of abusing the language.
I don't see Occam's Razor as being applyable here, which seem to be your point. First of all, your post is far from stupid, which is always a novelty for a reply on this particular subject.
The reason I don't think Occam's applies is because we don't have 2 possible facts. We have to unverifiable facts, my any scientific methodology. We don't even have any empirical evidences, just interpretation of fact (and yes, I understand interpretation is a part of scientific analysis, but it alone doesn't make science).
One particularly interesting type of agnosticism (Ignotiscism) states that "a coherent definition of God must be put forward before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed". And yes, this is somewhat difference than the traditional agnostic point of view.
Your point about "randomness" is entirely correct. Given enough sample data, anything is possible within a randomized universe. Even for our entirely scientific concepts to be wrong. However, for any kind of analysis, we do need a frame of reference. So if you propose a scientific analysis, we have to accept that at least some of the basic scientific facts (1+1=2, gravity etc) are correct. Otherwise, no analysis is possible.
From my point of view, there simply isn't enough data to do an analysis on the existence of god. So making any kind of statement on that existence (true or false) is faulty science (at best).
Even more, there is no coherent definition of god. So you have no data to discuss a subject that lacks a definition, making any kind of argument moot.
There is nothing wrong for a scientist to pursue an answer, as long as he doesn't start from any fixed assumption.
morcego
I'm sorry, but who cares?
I completely understand that not having a research area you are interested being a deciding factor; and you're while, as a grad student, you are obviously very intelligent your other deciding factor does not seem very wise.
First off - to clear up a possible misunderstanding before it arises- women aren't accepted to the grad program because they are women, but because of their previous academic efforts.
Some schools offer extra money to particular female grad students because they are trying to attract and/or retain more young women in certain undergrad programs. A university having female TA's and RA's in grad level programs is one of many tools used to increase female undergrad science/engineering retention.
It's fairly simple, the younger women see you as an accomplished (in their eyes) grad student and, often unconsciously, think "I can do it too"
Don't like being an example/positive role model/ideal --- to bad, you're a grad student you just became one! That's true of almost all grad students by the way.
As I have advised other young women - consider the extra money as payment for having to put up with the, hopefully occasional, old boys network and it's assorted stupidity.
If that doesn't work for you; then please realize that women often work for less than men in similar positions - why not try the reverse occasionally, earn more for similar work.
In fact, MIT and the University of Cambridge have a strong partnership. There are exchange programs, joint research, etc. If you're an MIT graduate then it's not that hard to be accepted to the Uni. of Cambridge provided you weren't a failure.
I like basketball!!1!
I find the argument that lack of proof on either side means we can't draw a conclusion particularly facetious. Consider the claim "there's an invisible, intangible, silent, odourless, rabbit living inside your computer"
You can't demonstrate this to be false, I can't demonstrate it to be true, so I guess to be logical we'll have to both be agnostic about the rabbit.
Sound like a heap of bullshit to you? Yeah, that's what you sound like.
There is no sensible way to differentiate a world in which the rabbit I described exists from one where it does not, this renders the claim meaningless. By analogy, "There is a God" becomes a meaningless claim at around the point when you realise there is no possible evidence that would convince a theist that they are wrong.
Yes, you omitted "Northern" in front of "Ireland" in the post I replied to.
Don't forget to have a child stoned if they swear at their parents.
And for God's sakes, don't even think about wearing clothes made from mixed fibres.
An atheistic view of topics like the origins of the universe or of what happens at death is not the same thing as Atheism.
Atheism means you don't believe there to be a God, that's all. Whatever else you believe is up to you.
In reality the argument is asinine. "Look, you Atheists are just a religious as us!" is what seems to be the point. The reality is a bit deeper than that. As another post pointed out, an overwhelming lack of evidence of the positive existence of something requires that you default to "that thing does not exist".
The requirement that it *might* exist derives completely from the person making the positive proposition. You say that you believe a "God" exists. You have no proof of course, or at least none that would stand up as scientific proof that would truly establish the positive existence. You have defined the physical and/or metaphysical aspects of that "God" yourself or have accepted what you have been taught they are. Now you are expecting people to prove that an idea you came up with or chose to believe doesn't exist?
Sorry, the world doesn't work that way.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Depends on the kind of atheist they are: "strong atheist" - what you say is correct; "weak atheist" - no. Weak atheist is really agnostic, which no one seems to call themselves anymore.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
No, not really. My belief system (if you want to call it that) is to believe in things for which there is empirical evidence. I claim no particular knowledge of the existence or lack thereof of gods, mostly because there doesn't seem to be any meaningful way to prove or disprove the existence of supernatural beings. To prove that Gods do exist, I could create a God-o-meter and point it at the heavens, but an all powerful God could certainly put his invisible finger on the needle and make it not move. I also have no idea how to prove that gods don't exist. "Seek to convert unbelievers" - No, I have no great desire to make other people believe what I believe, and besides, converting people is possibly morally wrong. "Origin of the universe" - Well, the evidence seems to point to the big bang as the current best explanation. Before t=0, we have no evidence, so we can only conjecture.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
And that's a prime example why you shouldn't take the book literally. For Pete's sake, could it be, just in theory, that some things changed in those millenia since it was written? That some things simply don't make any sense anymore?
That's why laws can be changed and that's why they change over time. Certain things simply ain't valid anymore. You have to test and challenge laws, as much as you have to test and challenge your set of morals. It's not so much as "read the bible every day" as it is to put it to the test every single day.
200 years ago it was fine and accepted to have humans of different skin color as slaves. 2000 years ago it was fine no matter what color their skin had. But we developed, people. We are changing, and so do our moral standards. What worked some millenia ago doesn't necessarily work today anymore. We could not feed everyone anymore with millenia old technology, we could not build enough houses for everyone anymore with millenia old technology, why the heck do some people think that millenia old moral standards would still work?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, believe it or not there are parts of Canada that are further south than parts of California, even. I know it blew my mind when I checked it out on Google Earth.
Science makes one assumption: The simple explanation is more likely to be true. The idea that fundamental rules don't change might seem like and assumption but let's look at our options:
In a random universe the fundamental rule it is: This is a random universe.
In a universe with an all powerful god then it is: God decides how things operate.
In a non random universe without god it is: Some set of rules define how all interactions take place.
Now it might not seem obvious how science could differentiate between the above situations but what's a simpler answer you randomly roll heads 100 billion times in a row or it is a non random dice? As to God, if some set of rules define all observed behavior then adding a god to such a universe is a more complex situation.
...Which proves a point that most atheists like to make - that your morality and ethics are innate, and not given to us by some religious book. The book is in effect telling us what our minds already know, and we ignore the parts of the book that don't agree with out conscience.
You are trying to simplify a claim that is anything but simple. Yes, there is no empirical evidence of god just as there isn't one of your rabbit. If the issue were as simple as that, I would agree with you.
I also agree with you that, as a rule of thumb, there is no possible evidence to convince a theist. If you use science to prove that something they believe to be a miracle actually isn't, they will just say that, well, god created everything, so it is still god.
However, it is possible to test for the existence of your rabbit. You can still try to measure energy, field distortions and so on. If you rule out the "randomized universe" (as described on a previous post), and take for valid the basic scientific facts (1+1=2, gravity etc), there are ways to test for its existence. Specially since for something to real, it has to interact with reality (word games aside).
But more important, in your own post you gave a coherent definition of your rabbit. Well, somewhat anyway. Whenever any other person "meets" your rabbit, the definition will still be valid. Of course, we can add more facts to that definition with further tests, up to a point where we will either prove its existence (or the plausibility of such), or prove that, within the realm of reality, it can't exist.
Now take the "god premise". Something that, according to the theists, lack definition (or defies definition, which amounts to the same). It is impossible to test for something that lacks definition. Thus, there is no way to prove either way. Actually, it is more than that, it is pointless to try. For me at least. Other people might thing it is worth, but I doubt it will be for any scientific reason.
morcego
On first glance, I thought it said Steven Hawking Considering Moving Canada. Was wondering where he would end up leaving it.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Cambridge insists Hawkings is Staying
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008071603
Usually, though, they take the Bible as a guideline for being a "good person", not a book telling you how the scientific parts of the world work. They understand the Bible as a guideline to live a good life, and quite frankly, it is a good book as such. Don't kill, don't steal, take a day off per week so you don't run into a burnout, and generally don't do what you wouldn't want others to do to you. That's a pretty good guideline to work with, if you ask me.
I disagree with this statement. There really are some seriously messed up things in the bible and it is not a good guide for how you should live your life. There are many examples, but here are some from the old testament (you can find examples in the new testament as well). This is from This site
I'd like to give you a list, a litany, of the deeds that God committed somewhere in the Old Testament. Now remember, God, the Perfect Being, did all of folowing in what is supposedly His book. He created evil (Lam. 3:38, Jer. 26:3, 36:3, Ezek. 20.:25-26, Judges 9:3, 1 Sam. 16:23, 18:10); He decieved (Jer. 4:10, 15:18, 20:7, 2 Chron. 18:22, Ezek. 14:9, 2 Thess. 2:9-12); He told people to lie(Ex. 3:18, 1 Sam. 16:2); He lied (Gen 2:17, 2 Sam. 7:13); He rewarded liars (Ex. 1:15-20); He ordered men to become drunken (Jer. 25:27); He rewarded the fool and the transgressor (Prov.26:10); He delivered a man, Job, into Satan's hands (Job 2:6); He mingled a perverse spirit (Isa. 19:14); He spread dung on people's faces (Mal. 2:3)); He ordered stealing (Ezek. 39:10, Ex. 3:22); He made false prophecies (Jonah 3:4. Gen. 5:10); He Changed his mind (Jonah 3:10); He caused adultery (2 Sam. 12:11-12); He ordered the taking of a harlot (Hosea 1:2, 3:1-2); He killed (Num. 16:35, 21:6, Deut. 32:39, 1 Sam. 2:26, Psalm 135:10); He ordered killing (Lev. 26:7-8, Num. 25:4-5); He had a temper (Deut. 13:17, Judges 3:8); He was often jealous (Deut. 5:9, 6:15); He wasn't omnipresent (Gen4:16, 11:5, 1 Kings 19:11-12); He wasn't omniscient (Deut. 8:2, 13:3, 2 Chron. 32:31); He often repented (Ex. 32:14, 1 Sam. 15:35); He practiced injustice (Ex. 4:22-23, Joshua 22:20, Rom. 5:12); He played favorites (Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 1 Sam. 12:22); He sanctioned slavery (Ex. 21:20-21, Deut. 15:17); He degraded deformed people (Lev. 21:16-23); He punished a baster for being illegitimate (Deut. 23:2); He punished many for the acts of one (Gen. 3:16, 20:18); He punished children for the sins of their fathers (Ex. 12:29, 20:5, Deut. 5:9); He prevented people from hearing his word (Isa. 6:10, John 12:39-40); He supported human sacrifice (Ex. 22:29-30, Ezek. 20:26); He ordered cannabalism (Lev. 26: 29, Jer. 19:9); He demanded virgins as a part of war plunder(Num. 31:31-36); He ordered gambling (Joshua 14. 2, Num. 26:52, 55-56); He ordered horses to be hamstrung (Joshua 11:6); He sanctioned violation of the enimies women (Deut. 21:10-14); He excused the beating of slaves to death (Ex. 21:20-21); He required a woman to marry her rapist (Deut. 22:28:29); He taught war (Psalm 144:1); He ordered the burning of human feces to cook food (Ezek. 21:3-5); He intentionally issued bad laws (Ezek. 20:25); He excused the sins of prostitutes and adulerers (Hosea 4:14); He excused a murderer and promised his protection (Gen. 4:8-15); He killed a man who refused to impregnate his widowed sister-in-law (Gen. 38:9-10); and He is indecisive (Gen. 18:17).
Now, you could argue that these are examples of how not to life your life, but the bible does not make this distinction. If you are seeking the bible to learn how to live your life, then by this very action you are admitting that you are incapable of making these moral decisions on your own. So by this token you would be just as likely to rape, murder, commit incest, objectify women etc as you would any of the other good deeds in the bible. However, any person (religious or not) who is 'morally good' by today's standards does not go around committing these acts, and as such I would argue that you do not need the bible at all as a guideline to live a good life.
-Xoltri
I will admit to believing the cummuative, associative and distibutive axia re addition, but I also know consistent systems can be constructed with different assumptions.
Neil Turok... wasn't he a Romulan senate procounsul?
You left off one of my favorites: Having God call in a bear to maul children making fun of baldness.
I've always wondered how biblical scholars would explain that (I haven't asked yet).
igloos and Eskimos - that's alaska. hockey, bacon and beer is canada.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
I think there may be a distinction to make. Someone who with certainty affirms that there is no god (in a very broad sense) is making an assertion for which he has no evidence nor proof. As such, it is a leap of faith.
Most people who call themselves atheist should really call themselves agnostic instead.
This being said, I think it is possible to be atheist with respect to specific religions (as opposed to a broad and vague idea of god). There are enough inconsistencies in many religions to make them logically flawed and through simple proof by contradiction assert that the specific God described by that religion cannot exist.
The other problem with being agnostic comes when arguing with strongly religious people. Your agnosticism (with respect to a broad idea of god) may be driven by a very rational and logical train of thought. You may have made the decision to be agnostic because anything else would be - according to you - intellectually dishonest (as you have no evidence for or against this broad notion of god). Nevertheless, most people assume that if you are agnostic, you either haven't thought about it enough, you can't make up your mind, or you simply don't know. More importantly, they assume that you "accept" that they may be right, when really you don't find it right at all to believe in something without any rational evidence. In that situation, it's easier to just say you're an atheist, and avoid that entire confusion.
Disclaimer: You (whoever reads this comment) may have completely different views on religion than I have. I'm not trying to express my personal views on religion, so don't try to convince me to join your sect.
This space up for sale.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/16/hawking-perimeter.html
The University of Cambridge has poured cold water on reports its most famous physicist might be coming to Canada to work, saying Wednesday Stephen Hawking "has no plans" to leave.
A report in the Daily Telegraph in the U.K. said Hawking was contemplating joining his colleague Neil Turok at Waterloo, Ont.'s Perimeter Institute. The South African-born cosmologist Turok, 49, is leaving Cambridge to take over the role of executive director at the institute, which was founded in 2000 by Research in Motion co-founder Mike Lazaridis and is devoted to the study of theoretical physics.
Cambridge's statement called the report "unfounded speculation."
It is possible to synthesize British accents. Hawking has had many opportunities to upgrade his speech software. He chooses to continue to use DECtalk even though it is outdated because it is "his voice" now.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
Everyone accepts an axiom or two to build their world view; we're certainly no strangers to axioms. To give science any meaning at all, we must accept a form of the principle of uniformity of nature, for example. We put evidence on a pedestal (don't get me wrong, I believe we should), but the only way for evidence to be of any consequence to us, is for us to take positions on entirely unknowable matters first. The existence or non-existence of a deity is exactly this kind of a position.
Unfortunately, I wasn't quite able to make out what you are saying in your last sentence.
lol
Srsly u guys. U guys, srsly.
The truth is, Dr. Hawking has reached the retireable age of 66 and though he's still very lucid, it's customary for universities to shell out the big bucks for professors who are in their prime. Statistically, it's pretty unlikely that Dr. Hawking has a whole lot of great ideas left in him. The physics work for which he's famous was in the 60's and 70's. Plus, it's kind of in bad taste to think of him as a trophy - not that all US universities lack bad taste.
Anyway, I think this open speculation has more to do with trying to shake down the British government for a bit of extra research money, to avoid the UK's embarrassment of losing their most prominent homegrown talent, who occupies Newton's old chair. And that's probably the greatest thing that Dr. Hawking can do for physics now: Bring in money, increase awareness and generate press.
Like the Pilgrims who started out from Plymouth and ended up in Plymouth.
I thought it was all about black holes, not berries..
It's fundamentally scary that anyone living in the US couldn't locate Canada on a map. I'm a Canuck, and I've taken the "name the 50 US states in under 10 minutes" test and finish in under 5 minutes. And I haven't even stepped foot in the US, nor taken any course in US History / Geography. It's called reading books. Spread the word to your Yank friends: turn off the TV. But I suspect this is not an American only thing, but a general trend in Western society.
"People who live in Maine"... thats your problem. Very different from people *from* Maine. A lot of Maine is populated by New Yorkers that couldnt afford Long Island waterfront. They cant find Massachusetts on a map even though they drove through it to get to Maine, and they hit a few Starbucks there on the way.
Real Mainiacs can be identified by their large feet evolved for crossing snow drifts, know where they are relative to Canada just by sniffing the air, and can find the nearest unguarded border crossings using a mutated recessive gene. A Real Maniac, most importantly though, will pretend to look at the map you shove at them and give you a fiendishly crafted answer with the sole intended result of making you go back to New York and never returning. An answer like "What's Canada?" for instance...
Which begs the question: if you can determine which parts of the Bible to follow (i.e. golden rule), and which parts to ignore (i.e. slavery, rape, stoning), where does the ability to "sift" come from? It certainly can't come from the book that you have to be critical about. It's clearly something innate in (most) people that is a product of genetics and culture. More than that, some truths are universal, they go without saying, and do not require a book as a guideline. As for the grandparent, if these people NEED the book to live a good life, you need to look for more competent friends. I say anyone who reads the Bible as anything more than an interesting work of fiction is a fool.
that's awesome. I live in Waterloo and I'd be honored to have someone like Hawking live here as fellow citizen. University of Waterloo has one of the strongest math departments in North America as well, so Hawking would not be bored here :D.
I just hope he accepts the invitation.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Same thing for the Tooth Fairy, or the FSM. Nobody is going around demanding that scientists adopt an agnostic stance towards these imaginary entities.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The same could be said for countries as a whole. One would expect to find a greater proportion of scientists in an industrialized country over an agrarian one, or over a nation that has only recently industrialized.
Or that has over 50% people with a nonscientific worldview?
</flamebait> :)
thegodmovie.com - watch it
That example is simply an account of what happened; the act is not condoned in the text. Eradicating villages if one of the members doesn't believe in the Bible's god - you made that up yourself - it's not in the bible!
As for the bit about stoning - that doesn't apply after old testament times.
This mistake so many people make is they treat the bible as either a good life guide, or a scientific manual, or as fiction. All three are missing the point. See John 3v16 for a hint of what the point is. There is an essential message of the bible that most people miss - including most of the established Christian churches!
Sent from my Tianhe-2 (MilkyWay-2).
Cambridge is only 24km from Waterloo, eh?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I think I counted once, there are 12 states with territory of a higher latitude than the southernmost point in Canada. The strange part is that Vancouver has much milder winters than Pelee Island, despite having a more northern latitude by over 650mi.
And actually the southernmost territory in Canada is Middle Island, just south of Pelee Island (home to some nice wineries), which is south of Point Pelee, the southernmost point of the Canadian mainland.
And there are far more Canadians with residences in southern US than in Maine, aka Snowbirds.
I was worried about getting modded OT but the Cannuck posts are scoring better than the Hawking ones!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
it would be an innocent mistake to confuse our Cambridge (town) with your Cambridge (university)
You mean Wilfrid Laurier University in Cambridge Ontario, about 20mi east of Waterloo, where Hawking is considering moving?
That's right, Cannuck trivia that's on-topic!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Atheism is a spectrum that spans from agnosticism to absolute faith. Personally, I am a "soft" atheist. This means that I reject the belief in the existence of (your) God as being lunacy and say that He *almost* certainly does not exist. A "hard" atheist removes the '*almost*' and is making an absolute assertion without knowledge, which is what the grandparent was complaining about. Now, the "hard" atheist is *almost* certainly right, but he is still overstating his case.
To me, an agnostic doesn't take a position, but a "soft" atheist does. Some people think that there is no evidence to be examined, but this isn't true. If we examine the evolution and history of the various religions and the individuals behind them and combine this with our knowledge of psychology and human failings, we conclude that all existing religions are horsecrap. Now, there is a 1/infinity chance that your religion is correct purely by random chance, but I don't have much faith in that.
There are at least 24 Cambridges in North America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_%28disambiguation%29
Talk about those creative pioneers.
"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby"
But you can't mail yourself to heaven.
But seriously, an atheist is someone who subscribes to a belief that there are no gods. There are religions, Wicca for example, that do not worship any god. Atheism is also practiced in organized groups much like congregations with "intelligent design". I would argue the only reason atheism is not considered a religion is that atheists don't want us to.
Granted, someone who rejects religion and does not engage in organized atheist practices would also be called an atheist. But you'd have to be pretty serious about not collecting stamps to be compared to actively organized atheists.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
You'll find lots of books, lectures, and web sites about physics and social psychology. I guess you believe that physics and social psychology are religions.
Knowledge is a separate issue to belief.
"We do not know" is correct, but it is also a statement of the obvious - of course we don't know if God exists. And note that almost all atheists fall into this category. We do not know if invisible unicorns exist, but I still might ask you if you believed in them.
Agnosticism primarily means someone who believes we cannot know about god, so "(weak) atheist" is less ambiguous.
If someone mentions any American town I could probably name the state it is in.
Springfield. :)
Most people who call themselves atheist should really call themselves agnostic instead. ... Nevertheless, most people assume that if you are agnostic, you either haven't thought about it enough, you can't make up your mind, or you simply don't know.
You are correct that agnosticism is ambiguous - and in fact "simply don't know" is the primary definition of the word, along with meaning that we can't know if God exists (which just as much a "leap of faith").
Not only is it easier to call oneself an atheist, there is nothing incorrect about it either. I reject belief in God (without asserting that there certainly is no God), so I'm an atheist. That's a definition backed up by many dictionaries and other references.
What is "simpler" ?
Your are basing your assumption that #3 is simpler because it is simpler given your frame of reference. A lot of people will think #2 is simpler. You will even find some wakos that will think #1 is simpler.
What is it called when you try to adapt facts to your (mine, theirs) theory ? There is a word for it, but I forgot.
I find it interesting that you are trying to proof that god doesn't exist to an agnostic. How often have you tried doing that before ? (Trying to prove god doesn't exist to an atheist is much more common).
I also find it odd the way some people treat science like most theists treat religion. It is not necessarily your case, but you reminded me of it.
In any case, can you agree with me that there is no coherent definition of god ? Is your definition of god the same of ... lets say, the pope ? If the definition is not the same, how can you prove that god (as defined by the pope) doesn't exist, if your definition is different ?
The thing I admire the most about science is the willingness to admit it might be wrong. We know a lot of theorems, models and such. Even Newton's "laws" are not laws per se, they are theorems (and yes, I believe in them). Even Occam's Razor is a theorem (proved to be right in 99.9999% of the cases, or something like that). Using it is a good idea.
Is there a way to prove Newton's "laws" are the absolute truth ? Everywhere ? We know it doesn't hold true inside a black hole.
Working under the assumption that there is no god, and thus science must strive to explain things is very wise. God's non-existence is a good theorem as any. If science can't explain a fact, you probably got your facts wrong. Or is working under some other wrong assumption. I agree with all that.
What I don't agree is for a person to categorically state the God's non-existance is the absolute truth. I also don't agree with someone saying the oposite. Thus, I'm an agnostic.
morcego
Well he just mistyped a little and meant the states they are in ?
Hawking's voice is as identifiably his as the "T-Pain effect", though neither one is too hard to simulate. I can understand why he'd want to just let it be. Besides, like the T-Pain Effect, his voice has brought him critical acclaim for his rap career, and it just wouldn't be fitting to abandon it now.
(Yes I'm kidding -- but the fact that he CAN be impersonated proves that he has an identifiable "voice".)
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I'd say it was in spite of the Coran/Quran/whatever, not thanks to it - same as science in the West progressed in spite of the Bible and the Church - see Galileo, Giordano Bruno et al.
A quick googling of the subject will lead you to:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200703/rediscovering.arabic.science.htm
For most westerners, and indeed for many Arabs, the spectacular achievements of Arabic-language science from the eighth through the 16th centuries come as a startling discovery, as if an unknown continent had suddenly appeared on the horizon. In mathematics, astronomy, medicine, optics, cartography, evolutionary theory, physics and chemistry, medieval Arab and Muslim scientists, scholars, doctors and mapmakers were centuries ahead of Europe
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
... being a long time Waterloo resident and grateful both for what PI does for pure science and what it gives to the community (public lectures, etc)... I am thrilled Steven Hawking would consider coming here to be part of the PI. Welcome Steven our newest pure science overlord.
... the idea is shot down... Maybe ... Steven you can just visit anytime.
Most of Minnesota is considerably further north than Waterloo. In addition, Waterloo also gets a bit of "lake effect" where the air is heated as it comes across the great lakes.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
It is impossible to test for something that lacks definition.
For reasonable people it's not necessary to - the lack of coherent definition of the entity is sufficient to conclude its nonexistence.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Probability states the worlds brightest people are probably in China or India. However due to political structure it may be harder to find these people in those countries. (less so in India)
That seems to be a overly hasty generalization and in a way seems to belittle all the efforts european, american or intellects from other countries have contributed to science. Also the most cases of ip infringement have been reported on these economies so it looks it is not a just claim to make.
You're guilty of binary thinking. A theory doesn't have to be wholly true in order to be useful, as long as it's not wholly false. You rarely have clear choices between perfect black and perfect white; there is always some grey.
Scientists do go around saying "maybe" about gravity. The "maybe" is implied, and is rarely made explicit in scientific discourse, because everything in science is only provisionally accepted. You can overturn even the theory of gravity if your evidence is solid enough. But that counter-evidence had better be ironclad, because Newton's law of gravitation as modified by Einstein is very strongly supported by huge amounts of evidence; the theory is considered something like 99.999% likely to be true. The "maybe" is never totally gone, but it is probably less than 0.0001% in the case of gravity.
Computerised Voice: "Get your hands off my chair you damn dirty ape"
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Ah, it's the "I'm superior to both atheists and theists", as if it's somehow possible to exist in limbo-land between the two.
Since you cite Wikipedia, let's take a look:
Agnosticism (Greek: - a-, without + gnsis, knowledge; after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable.
Firstly, this is itself an assertion, and could be viewed as a statement of faith. Secondly, it is not mutually exclusive to atheism - many of those atheist scientists could be agnostics too, so your argument doesn't hold. Yes, scientists should be agnostics - but there is nothing wrong with being atheists too.
Thirdly, let's see what Wikipedia has to say about atheism:
Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods,[1] or the rejection of theism.[2] It is also[3] defined more broadly as synonymous with any form of nontheism, including the simple absence of belief in deities.[4][5][6][7]
So in fact, only some of those atheist scientists are stating god doesn't exist.
Agnosticism is not some "middle ground" between theism and atheist - and that's going by the source that you quoted.
However, it is possible to test for the existence of your rabbit. ... Specially since for something to real, it has to interact with reality (word games aside).
Just like it should be for God, right? If God can be mysteriously undetectable, then so is my invisible rabbit.
Now take the "god premise". Something that, according to the theists, lack definition (or defies definition, which amounts to the same).
There are many different definitions of "god", however any individual theist will often have a specific definition. The definition of the Christian God for example is far more well-defined that the definition given for this rabbit.
It is impossible to test for something that lacks definition. Thus, there is no way to prove either way.
If something lacks definition, then it is not a case of "no way to prove either way", but rather that the question is meaningless. I might as well ask if "fgdhjjt" exists. This is not an argument for agnosticism - it sounds more like Ignosticism.
>>the Bible as a guideline to live a good life, and quite frankly, it is a good book as such.
If you can pick out the 'good' parts of the bible, then you're already a good person. The bible is full of good (don't steal) and bad (stone your daughter for being impertinent) things and if you can cherry pick out the good stuff on your own, you don't need it in the first place. You could save time by just buying chicken soup for the skeptical scientist's soul or something.
I could say that the great gatsby is a good book for guiding your wholesome life if I only picked out certain verses.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
This comment expresses the view of an agnostic. So many people consider agnostic to be, 'A person that hasn't made their mind up/sitting on the fence', but this is a poor interpretation of the definition at best.
I consider myself agnostic in that I believe that a human trying to understand the nature of 'god', is like trying to teach an ant to solve mathematical equations. The answer to these kinds of questions are just as 'unknowable' as trying to determine what is currently happening in a place that is 1 billion light years away. In a billion years, we may have the answer, but until then it is inderminate, and therefore not worth worrying about.
We, as humans, have this arrogant perspective that the answers to any given question are *just* beyond our current understanding. The truth of the matter is, that despite our advances, we are biological organisms that have evolved to survive in and comprehend a *very* narrow subset of possible states. Hawking himself, in one his books (probably 'brief history'), states that some things simply cannot be comprehended by the human mind, I think he was talking about a model of the universe with more spacial dimensions that we can perceive. Since we are used to viewing the world in 3 spacial dimensions, it is not possible for us to picture a 'shape' with 4 spacial dimensions, we have not evolved with that capability because it is not required in our '3 spacial dimension' view of our environment. Since there is no real finite limit to complexity, how about trying to picture a universe with a hundred billion spacial dimensions....? That level of complexity could be what is required to understand 'god'.
Agnostics simply believe that trying to comprehend something that is almost certainly 'unprovable' (in that it exists outside the concept of 'cause and effect'), is the pursuit of fools :). I am not opposed to the idea that when I die, I might discover that there is more to my existance than I understand at the moment. Until that day, my only reason to speculate would be to provoke arguments with those who have chosen to speculate differently ;)
It really smells around here, especially in the summer months. -_-
What people dont know, is that he has found a girlfriend there, and has actually made a song about, check it out:
http://www.rektor.no/filarkiv/princess45sec.mp3
its a free downloadable too, with playable music video. Impressive Mr. Hawkins!
It's not scary, after all there are really only two countries in the world
The USA and 'not the USA'
Jeremy Clarkson (outspoken and quite infamous journalist/TV bod in the UK) once said the rarest book in the USA was an atlas.
I think he was probably right.
Real happiness lies in the completion of work using your own brains and skills.
along with meaning that we can't know if God exists (which just as much a "leap of faith").
I'm not sure what you mean in this case by a "leap of faith". Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but are you saying that claiming we can't know is in and of itself a leap of faith? Without certainty about how you define "know", I would disagree. I believe it was Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, who logically proved that the idea of god the way we usually define it is not within the realm of science, and can therefore not be proven or disproved in a scientific manner. I don't remember the exact argument he makes, but that's a very simplified summary of it. (if any other /.ers want to comment or correct me, be my guest)
I reject belief in God (without asserting that there certainly is no God), so I'm an atheist. That's a definition backed up by many dictionaries and other references.
Well, I think this is a question of semantics: the way I've most commonly seen it defined is that atheists not only "reject the belief in God", but actually "reject the existence of God". The two of very different, and I would say the first one is a closer description of agnosticism, whereas the second is the definition of atheism. Taken in this sense, I feel uncomfortable calling myself an atheist.
This being said, I think there is ambiguity in the meaning of atheism, and I've seen several different definitions, including the one from Wikipedia, which is very ambiguous as it describes atheism as being "either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of theism" (capturing both definitions above). In this sense, agnosticism could almost be described as a form of atheism.
I feel agnosticism is also ambiguous because it can mean you don't know because you can't tell or haven't thought about it, or you have decided you can't know as a result of a rational thought process. My literature professor in high school (he was very Catholic) always said "agnostics are the worst kind, because they can't make up their mind" - I would disagree with that.
This space up for sale.
I think both of you have a point. My main issue with the GP (Opportunist) - and I think I'd agree with parent on this - is that while there are good principles to live by (the ones you described) in the Bible, there is also a lot of less good and benevolent stuff.
My question is: why do you need the Bible to tell you these things? And why do they have to come as the "Word of God" (e.g. Ten Commandments) when there are perfectly logical reasons to do "good", even if you don't believe in God?
Honestly, that's one of the things I hear the most from religious people about atheists/agnostics when discussing God - "how do you distinguish good from bad if you don't believe in God?" (simplified question). Personally, I think it would be really sad if you couldn't distinguish good from bad without having it dictated to you.
This space up for sale.
For example, New York City has the highest percentage of people who live in New York City than any other city in the world!
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I think you can divide into three sets. 1. Religious or Theist - believes that yes, god does exist. 2. Atheist - believes that no, god does not exist. 3. Agnostic - claims no knowledge either way, or thinks the answer is not knowable. I would classify myself as Agnostic, and probably most people who aren't religious are in fact Agnostic. Problem is that religious types tend to mistakenly classify everyone as either believer or non-believer, and will consider Agnostics to be no different from Atheists.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Occam's Razor is an assumption not a theory. The problem with calling it a theory is you can't disprove it.
What is "simpler"?
Has fewer degrees of freedom. A random universe has infinite degrees of freedom as does one with a completely insane all powerfull god. But, saying something is more likely to be true is far from a proof. And we don't have a that perfect rule book I was talking about. Every single "Law of Nature" is wrong in some areas.
Finally we don't have that absolute rule book every law breaks down at some level, big, small, fast or cold.
PS: I am also agnostic.
Way to go.
Quite so. But nearly all Christians have no problem ignoring such parts of the Bible. The issue comes with those refuse to admit they are doing it.
Actually, I didn't really see this one as so bad. There is nothing in the story that instructs believers to behave that way, its just how Lot behaved.
For many ancient peoples how you shelter guests in your home was considered a core element of morality, and your women were meerly your most prized possesisons. This was a rather exteme situation, created by the author to show both how wicked the city had become, and how incredibly richeous and self sacrificing Lot was.
I think you missed the overall point of my statement. Of course it is obvious if you take it literally. I was pointing out how stupid the argument was in the first place, and the fact that someone always tries to hold a superior point of view to rub it in to others' faces. The entire thing is retarded.
You can't prove if anything exists by belief. That is why I mentioned knowledge, but that's beside the point I was making.
take for example the "no homos!" thing. not far away in the same old testament, it tells you to not where clothes of mixed fabric (wool and linen, for example) in very similar terms. and, it tells you to build a parapet around your roof, so people don't fall off. again, in no uncertain terms. yet, your average bible thumper reads the three, picks one, and decides god was just kidding about the others. now, you can't say that it's just too impractical; observant jews in fact take the mixed fabrics thing very seriously, and there are labs around which will test it for you/them. and you can't argue that the homosexuality thing makes obvious sense whereas the parapet around the roof doesn't. but, mostly, i think it's sacrilege to presume to pick and choose which parts of the bible are serious; that's basically setting your judgement above god's, and the folks who do so yet claim to be real bible believers are therefore dismissable, and have absolutely no right to advise anybody else, let alone claim the right to make laws.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
waterloo's been a hot school for physics for a loooong time.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
You are assuming that the distribution of bright people is uniform across populations of nations. In that case most populous nations would have highest number of bright people.
However, brightness is highly dependent on economy, except for a small number of scientific disciplines that do not require huge sums of money to fund research in (like pure math).
Even theoretical physicists like their particle accelerators, or expensive telescopes :D.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Ahh, a statutory wormhole -- a fine achievement that Mr. Hawking is no doubt very proud of.
It also says Lot is a good man for doing it what he did. Or did you skip that part too? I'm not trying to flame. Seriously, it's in there.
Question everything
Another problem I often have with biblethumpers. Don't take the bible literal. First of all, when you're reading it in English, you are at the very least reading the translation of the translation of the translation. How the heck can you dare to take anything like that literal? Hell, running something to Babelfish results in a closer representation of the original!
Next, especially the new testament is full of parables. You want to take that literal? Take the Sermon on the Mount and the infamous "you're the salt of the land". Salt of the land? Did you ever salt land? You know what happens when you do that? NOTHING grows there anymore! It's dead!
So we're supposed to ruin the land we're living on? If that's what Jesus said, we're doing a really good job.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It helps a lot if you plan to make people live a good life (according to your ideals) when they refuse to listen to anything but the Bible.
Let's say it makes my life a lot easier. I live in a fairly religious country.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Historically, this was only true up until the 13th century or so, and was associated with ijtihad, a more liberal attitude towards Islamic laws (in a sense that they were supposed to be rational, and that new laws in society could be developed from the basic concepts evident in the laws of the Qu'ran). Then, a wave of religious conservatism spread through the entire Islamic world, proclaiming the laws as they were perfect and immutable (reminds you of something) - and scientific development dwindled almost immediately. So, yes, the current Muslim regimes can be blamed on Qu'ran in a sense that they choose to take it as a final and literal truth, and refuse to develop the concepts further, like Christianity was eventually forced to do in its time.
That would be MIT.
Or he'll kill Hawking's pet Velociraptor.