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Lawrence Krauss On the Pope's Encyclical: Not Even Close?
Lasrick writes: Lawrence Krauss muses on the hoopla surrounding Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change, and finds the document lacking: 'It is ironic that while the scientific community has long tried to raise warning signals and induce action to address human-induced climate change, an encyclical from the pope on this subject is being taken by many as an ultimate call to action on this urgent issue.'
said so. so there. this religion stuff is easy.
Comes to mind.
That is no more unreasonable than any of the other proposed ways of addressing climate change. "Global carbon tax and investment in the development of new energy technologies" are as self-serving, irrational, and unrealistic as what the Pope is proposing.
Notice how everybody who proposes ways of addressing climate change agrees that people need to be coerced to live differently, but that only their own approach is selfless and benign while everybody else acts out of greed and self-interest.
Three modes of persuasion/rhetoric identified by Aristotle are ethos, pathos, and logos.
ethos is an appeal to authority or credibility
pathos is an appeal to emotions
logos is an appeal to reason
Tthe pope's statement may have enough ethos with some audiences to make an impact.
I guarantee it will be filled with fact-free posts denouncing AGW as a pseudo scientific conspiracy fronting a socialist takeover of humanity.
Any time the topic is breached, within minutes the paid troll army swings into action, manufacturing a political consensus on the orders of their paymasters.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
I'm not Catholic, so I can't say I paid particular attention to the Pope's Encyclical. But I am also not particularly interested in what some atomic scientist has to say about the encyclical, or Catholicism, or climate change for that matter.
#DeleteChrome
The Pope holds a great deal of moral authority. Scientists not so much.
I've read Laudate Si'. It's not really about the science, or arguing that AGW is true, or that biodiversity is being lost, or that pollution is killing people. It takes these things for granted but it does not marshall evidence per se.
It's main point is that AGW, true or not, is evil and must be stopped, and it ties this into social teaching by associating the consumer culture of rich countries with the exploitation and immiseration of small, poor ones; mankind's moral obligation to protect the Earth, and it asserts baldly things like "man has no right" to push a species, any species, even the smallest plankton, to extinction (Francis actually mentions plankton).
I don't hear scientists talk like this, and that's fine, it's probably not their place. But evidence isn't enough to actually move people to action, you do actually have talk about right and wrong, and why this thing is wrong and must be stopped. And Francis specifically argues against the idea that technology will one day solve this problem for us, to him the problem with the planet is 100% between people's ears, it has to do with the way modern people see the world as a resource to be exploited. Don't ask me to defend this, I think he's a little too pessimistic here, but it just continues the idea that his argument isn't about science, or technology, or even the material world, to him it's fundamentally spiritual.
And he has a point; why should we care about climate change if the Earth if it's just a ball of dirt and we can just fly a rocket to another one? Science can tell us what the planet is and where it's going, but it can't tell us if that's a good thing or not. So does Krauss think scientists should hold more moral authority than a Pope? Is that the paradox here? Should scientists teach us right and wrong?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
There are People in this world Who simply feel better with the Pope's theological seal of approval. Unless You can show They are growing in number faster than the general population, accept the fact You've won and should take Your ball and your trophy and head home with swagger. I know I am.
Krauss brings up points that the pope doesn't _because_ of the pope's "moral authority". For example, Krauss makes the point that contraception is a must. A large world population is simply unsustainable without doing major environmental harm (and may simply be unsustainable, period). Needless to say, the pope couldn't really go there, although he has previously said that people should have fewer children -- never mind how.
So, while I think the pope is doing much good, he is dangerously restricted by the very moral authority you mention. It's a double-edged sword.
Mssr. Krauss fails to understand what an encyclical is; essentially, a theological/ethical/moral rationale for adopting a certain perspective/action/behavior/habit, not a scientific treatise.
It's a direct link; but God is the sort of important dude who deals with a lot of Sensitive Compartmentalized Information.
Unless God decides to read the Pope into a given program, it's purely need-to-know. In addition(as is likely in this case) God will sometimes 'preserve the integrity of privileged omniscience capabilities and/or techniques' by providing the data gathered by the non-public method through a 'parallel construction' that offers a plausible but fictitious origin for the information.
Here, investigative theologians and divine conspiracy theorists suggest that God's climate data are probably actually derived from his clandestine monitoring of the position and location of all particles in existence. Since this blatantly violates the reasonable expectations of privacy established for all particles by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this program does not officially exist. So far, none of the heavenly host have been willing to make any public statement on the matter, so it remains speculative.
Whoever thinks the pope is trying to pick sides in a political debate is either genuinely insane or has trouble forming simple logical concepts. Because on the scientific overall concept it's not even a debate. The best methods for combating climate change though, are still only scientific. Politics dosent even enter in until you try to implement those methods.
Go ahead and mod me down but I'm really sick and tired of people thinking what they believe makes a crap in a biscuits difference to reality. Even though the popes statement may be lacking its a great step to get hundreds of millions of stupid people to start acting responsibly and be aware of the issue. It's just so ironic that it is a belief in faith, with no foundation in factual reality, that brings awareness to the factual reality we as a species are facing.
"Furthermore, Krauss has formulated a model in which the universe could have potentially come from "nothing," Sounds Pope-ish to me.
The Catholic Church has been pro-science for a while now.
A church almost by definition cannot be truly pro-science. Their entire MO is based on faith in unproven/unprovable things and do not readily accept questioning of that faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The fact that the catholic church hasn't stood in the way of science isn't the same thing as being pro-science. I think science and faith of the sort espoused by organized religion are irreconcilable to one another.
And rightly so. Nobody in their right mind can be pro-science neglecting the moral and ethical dimensions. And this means that there is a limit in how we view science and its effect on the world.
Science is not a free for all, and I'll just point to National Socialism and Communism as examples of political systems driven almost exclusively by scientific considerations. They were reponsable for 2 genocides in the 20th century.
So spare me the "scientists know it all" mantra. Science without morals and ethics is just a path to destruction.
The fact that you cannot understand this encyclical is typical of those that look at science as the answer to all human action.
To use a mathematical terminology, science is a necessary but not sufficient condition of human action.
Scientists have eliminated smallpox from the world, and we're about 5 years shy of eliminating polio. I read about new strategies for malaria each year (making stronger mosquitos that resist the malaria infection, for instance).
Muhammad Yunus is a PhD scientist who started the Grameen Bank, in 1999 had reduced poverty by 40% worldwide(*). His TED talk is interesting.
Everybody is working towards new energy sources: wind and wave, solar (in various forms), and even nuclear. There's a Hackaday prize on the theme of "save the world, build something that matters" with over 500 entries.
We're putting up cell phone towers in Africa, giving clean water to the Bangladeshi, inventing pot-in-pot refrigerators, and helping people use propane instead of charcoal (with attendant improvements in health).
I don't hear scientists talk like this, and that's fine, it's probably not their place. But evidence isn't enough to actually move people to action, you do actually have talk about right and wrong, and why this thing is wrong and must be stopped.
What the heck are you talking about?
Scientists move the world.
Clinging to some outdated religion is what holds us back.
(*) According to a Scientific American article that I am citing from memory, and my memory of the article may be flawed, and it's really old information.
It certainly can be — faith operates in a different plane, so to speak. It neither contradicts nor supports science, nor is it contradicted nor supported by science in return.
The Lord's ways are neither known, nor even knowable — in the very principle, there can be no "evidence" supporting nor denying His existence and power. Unlike Science, Religion does not need to offer predictions nor make falsifiable statements. Some ancient bishop is on record with the famous "Credo quia absurdum" — whether the sentiment is beautiful or stupid in your opinion, it is decidedly not scientific, nor purports to be.
True that — in the way "yellow" is irreconcilable with "soft". The two are from completely orthogonal domains.
The interesting bit here — and what the down-modded OP was, probably, hinting at, is that "Climate Science" is, in fact, a religion now. Unable to come up with any materialized predictions, and all of their falsifiable statements ending up getting falsified indeed, the proponents of the idea, that humanity is guilty and must right its ways or be punished (with extinction) sound more and more like the preachers and less like scientists.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It certainly can be — faith operates in a different plane, so to speak.
No it does not. Unless you have such a vague notion of faith as to make it effectively meaningless it HAS to intrude on the material plane. Furthermore religions have very detailed books and laws and traditions built around their faith and how it should dictate behavior. If there was no impact on the material world (the domain of science) then there would be no need for organized religion. Everyone would have a vague notion of something "beyond" and it would end there. But it doesn't.
It neither contradicts nor supports science, nor is it contradicted nor supported by science in return.
There is HUGE amounts of evidence that it doesn't really work like that in the real world. Organized religions cannot help but get involved in claiming all sorts of things that science can and does dispute.
The Lord's ways are neither known, nor even knowable
And yet the church claims to understand them in great detail except when it is convenient for them to claim to not know. Cannot work both ways.
Unlike Science, Religion does not need to offer predictions nor make falsifiable statements.
And yet religion regularly does make claims about things that clearly are falsifiable.
There is precisely nothing, apart from ignorance, that isolates a church from science. It is worth nothing that the ignorance to which I refer is both yours and the church's.
The point of a faith is to reconcile the human desire for knowledge with the understanding of the unknowable. Humans are smart enough to grasp that there is a limit to our observations. Common limits are the experience after biological death, the spacial boundaries of the universe, and the historical events prior to the Big Bang. These are things that currently we do not know about, and cannot know about, beyond vague guesses. Those guesses are a mix of the very-limited theories we have (like assuming that the rules of our universe extended before our universe had formed) and pure faith. It is just as reasonable to say that a God created our universe as it is to say that another universe deformed and spawned our dimensions.
Between the extremes of "known" and "cannot be known", however, there is a wide gap of "we don't know yet", and that is the domain of science. Science gives us the ability to know more, and push the unknowable limits out further. We may be able to invalidate a few religions with our discoveries, but there will always be certain limits to our knowledge, and beyond those limits, faith will still hold sway.
There are a few churches that have not only accepted the role of science, but embraced it. Now the pope is saying that climate change is not a matter of faith, but of science. He's acknowledging that we know enough about our planet to know that we can affect it, despite previous assertions by more-ignorant church members that only God could affect a planet's climate. This does not invalidate the religion, but merely declares that science is still something for humans to deal with, not deities.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
>It's just so ironic that it is a belief in faith, with no foundation in factual reality, that brings awareness to the factual reality we as a species are facing.
It didn't bring anything to the table except a call to take this issue more seriously, rather than pretending it's irrelevant because your faith doesn't consider it important. Awareness was already there, but people didn't care because some pop star/religious leader wasn't making it cool.
A church almost by definition cannot be truly pro-science. Their entire MO is based on faith in unproven/unprovable things and do not readily accept questioning of that faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
You speak of one type of religion -- one that is anti-science. You are also invoking the so-called conflict thesis, which was basically made up by a distortion of history in the 1800s and which actual historians now recognize is largely bogus.
There are plenty of religions in the world (including the Catholic Church) that have been pioneers in scientific research. Why? Because they believe there is a moral responsibility to understand God's creation, to appreciate it, to protect it.
The pope's recent message is more of this.
The fact that the catholic church hasn't stood in the way of science isn't the same thing as being pro-science.
Can you seriously look at this list of Roman Catholic clergy who were scientists throughout history, including many of people who FOUNDED entire modern scientific disciplines, and tell us that there's a fundamental conflict there?
Read about the relationship between the Catholic Church and science over the past millennium. Aside from the Galileo affair (where the actions of the church should be condemned), you'd be hard-pressed to find many other examples where the church has impeded scientific progress... and MANY periods where they have explicitly promoted and funded it.
Yes, there are plenty examples of anti-science religious wackos out there. By all means, condemn their ignorance. But religion can also be an inspiration to cause people to look harder at the world around them. That's what the Catholic Church has promoted for the past thousand years or so. The belief in "unproven" things generally does not come into conflict in the Catholic Church -- they aren't biblical literalists (unlike some evangelical movements) and pretty much never have been. St. Augustine and other early writers were already talking about the allegorical nature of scripture 1500+ years ago, so they aren't the wacko "young-earth creationists" who insist that evolution can't occur or that the earth was created in 6 days a few thousand years ago.
It's one thing to believe in something that is against empirical evidence -- some religions do that. But others mostly believe in supernatural phenomena when it CAN'T be proved nor disproved. (This is the true original meaning of agnosticism, developed by a SCIENTIST to classify a belief that some statements about religion cannot be proved nor disproved from empirical evidence and are thus beyond adjudication by science.)
If such beliefs do not conflict with empirical evidence, then what is your SCIENTIFIC basis for discounting them or declaring them antithetical to science? At worst, they show wishful thinking. Any scientist who has ever bought a lottery ticket should be drummed out of the profession if wishful thinking should be banned. At best, they might inspire some moral or ethical thinking about "bigger questions" that science doesn't usually address.
The Catholic Church not only was pro-science for much of the past 1000 years -- in many cases it was a PIONEER in science. To not admit that fact either shows ignorance or unsupported anti-religious bigotry.
(P.S. I'm NOT a Catholic. I don't care what the pope says. But I do care about ignorance of history. The Catholic Church has been responsible for many bad things throughout history, but so has every other nation or organization which has existed for centuries. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another such organization, nation, or other corporate body that's at least a couple centuries old and has been so consistently pro-science.)
Nazi's were religious, supported by pope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Pope . Communists invented their own religion with Stalin as god. And nobody says "scientists know it all", only ignoramuses such as yourself.
Science can tell us what the planet is and where it's going, but it can't tell us if that's a good thing or not.
I disagree. You have to assume that people interested in their (and their offspring's) physical well being, and scientists darn well can tell us if something is good or not. (I'm not saying that's the only assumption you have to or should make, but those other assumptions can be factored in too.)
However, the scientific answer is a much more complicated calculus. The pope can just tell people to stop destroying the environment. Science gives more nuanced answers like: this amount of environmental alteration will give you a better diet/lower infant mortality rate/more material wealth/etc., but go beyond that and the opposite will happen. E.g., catching this many fish is sustainable, but catching more that that will lead to population collapse and you not catching anything -- i.e. that's a bad decision.
Is that math somehow morally empty? That's an individual's decision. Then again, the majority of humanity doesn't take their cues from the pope, so some will see his proclamations as morally empty too (although non-catholics may see logic in the pope's writing, in which case we're back to judging the morality of math).
....we'd have religious leaders making pronouncements on scientific issues..... And they were right!
The Catholic Church has been pro-science for a while now.
A church almost by definition cannot be truly pro-science. Their entire MO is based on faith in unproven/unprovable things and do not readily accept questioning of that faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The fact that the catholic church hasn't stood in the way of science isn't the same thing as being pro-science. I think science and faith of the sort espoused by organized religion are irreconcilable to one another.
You have evidently never heard of the Jesuits. It's entirely possible to believe in religion and still be a grounded person - and it's entirely possible to be completely devoted to science and still be crazy (see Nazi Germany as an example). Religion when taught as a form of philosophy (which is what it really should be) can make for a great moral compass. Religion when taught in the form of governmental law is what's harmful.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
It says it all through the bible, starting in genesis and running all the way through the ascension of the zombi christ to heaven Here's a start: 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. Genesis 28:12-13
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Nazi's were religious, ...
The Nazis were in fact anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, etc. The Nazis were creating their own religion to displace these traditional ones. They had their own religious tenets, mythology, articles of faith, saints, priestly class, etc.
The fact that the Nazis worked with a church on some issues is not evidence to the contrary, no more than a treaty with the Soviet Union and a joint invasion of Poland is evidence that the Nazis were pro Communist.
How many who whine about global warming and oil companies are willing to take a bus to work or ride a bike 4 hours each way? No hands I see ...
You don't see any hands because those are ridiculous solutions. I do know people who have, for sustainability reasons, moved to densely-populated areas and sold their car -- instead choosing to use public transportation, bike, walk, etc. (They rent cars/trucks when necessary, which isn't often.) Many young people are also making this choice, although I can't vouch for all of their motives.
Yes, the suburbs and many American cities are designed so that anything except a car is an impractical way to get around (with limited exceptions). However, that doesn't mean that cars are the only solution to transportation. It simply reflects where you chose to live.
Science can tell us what the planet is and where it's going, but it can't tell us if that's a good thing or not.
This is a very insightful comment, and I hope you don't get modded down by anti-religious morons.
Umm, religions can't tell us if it's a good thing or not either. Not in any objective sense of the word that we can all agree upon. Science can tell us the effects of our actions. Religion cannot. So science CAN tell us if what is happening is a good thing at least for any non-moral sense of the term good.
God called. He said "Clean up your mess."
Somewhere in Chicago a community is missing its organizer.
I was going to post a complaint about you being modded as troll, but then I got to your sig. With a sig like that, pretty much everything you say on this site ends with a troll.
"Their entire MO is based on faith in unproven/unprovable things and do not readily accept questioning of that faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence."
Science has faith in the scientific method, in the reproducibility of experiments. By definition, that faith cannot be challenged by science, because you would have to reproduce the evidence that is not reproducible. Thus science is based in faith. It's the problem of infinite regress. All logic and therefore science is circular.
we need a science pope.
Unlike Science, Religion does not need to offer predictions nor make falsifiable statements.
Nothing needs to do anything, but it's pretty clear that all significant religions do make falsifiable statements. Practically, any religion that doesn't have an effect on this world isn't worth much.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Read about the relationship between the Catholic Church and science over the past millennium. Aside from the Galileo affair (where the actions of the church should be condemned), you'd be hard-pressed to find many other examples where the
The vilification of the "Galileo affair" is generally just more anti-Catholic propaganda from the Enlightenment era:
* https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-historical-event/answer/Tim-ONeill-1
* http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
It's not as black and white as most people think.
The vilification of the "Galileo affair" is generally just more anti-Catholic propaganda from the Enlightenment era:
Agreed, but I didn't want to get into that whole mess. I've already explained what's screwed up with our perception of the Galileo affair a number of times here, like in posts here and here.
The "faith" is that the universe behaves in predictably. If that isn't so, every world view in the world is rendered moot.
But really, calling science faith is like calling two column accounting faith.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's main point is that AGW, true or not, is evil and must be stopped
Since millions will suffer in some way needlessly if it is not true (due to terrible misallocation of resources), why MUST it be stopped regardless?
If that's the main point, then the whole paper means nothing in reality. It is simply the clearest sign yet that the "something must be done" cry around AGW is ONLY a religious matter, rather than scientific.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
taught at MIT-
The author of the article makes a whole bucket of inferences which are taken out of context, or are just-plain-wrong. Anyone with a 12th grade education can read the front matter and establish the foolish gerrymandering on the part of the author. Perhaps he should stick to "Theoretical Physics."
And people do in fact need to CARE about the earth and the future of humanity if this is to be solved.
I have done more real good for the Earth than most posters here will in a lifetime.
I am also strongly against the AGW madness to "do something", because I can see how none of it is based on science, only the "truthiness" flavor or science.
I can see the direction it is heading with terrible ideas that basically end in terraforming our own perfectly working Earth ecosystem.
I can also see everyone ignoring the only real danger there is to humanity, and that is an ice age - not a mild warming that improves agriculture and does little else.
I can see people distort natural changes in climate over time into terrible dangers for personal and political gain. In the end I suppose that matters little, it's just a slightly different monkey on the top of the hill at the end of the day, but the part of me that dislikes con men is unhappy to see such a large con fool so many rubes until they loose much before catching on.
If people actually cared, they would wake up and call out the charlatans. If the Pope's paper has that effect truly, it will be good though not the direction he intended.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The world is filled with religious people. You had better learn to live with them, and perhaps not put so much energy producing ever more hyperbolic strawmen, or perhaps you should flee society.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Seeing as how science and religion deal with different things, there is no "irreconciliability" nor is it unreasonable for a church to be pro-science.
It's very easy to distinguish what makes religion and science incompatible: how they determine truth. Science is empirical, religion is a combination of rationalism and 'received wisdom'. That is to say, with science truth is determined by what can be repeatedly measured, and with religion truth is determined either by rational argument building on chosen axioms, which are generally received from textual sources or from religious leaders.
It is not to say that either one is "correct"; both have their limitations. Empirical truth always has a degree of error, and with anything unmeasurable it is arguable whether it can be assigned a truth value at all -- although I will note that with any truth-finding method, it is a valid philosophy to regard the unprovable as false. Rational truth is independent of our possibly-erroneous senses, it can describe things which cannot be measured (e.g. morality), and things can be true in an absolute, provable sense. Its limitation is that you can make logically true statements which do not correspond to observable reality, especially with badly chosen axioms.
Religion, especially Catholicism, is not empirical. That does not mean that everything it considers true is automatically contradicted by empirical truth, it means that what is true from the standpoint of Catholicism is ultimately decided by faith and not by experiment. There absolutely is a conflict between these philosophies. I'm not going to make a value judgement about any of this; my choice of empiricism does not invalidate or lessen anyone else's choices, although if your choice of truth conflicts with empirical reality you're probably gonna have a bad time. I just wish that the discussion of all of this on Slashdot wasn't so sophomoric: I don't think most peoples' educations has prepared them to have a very elevated discussion on the matter. That as well is not intended to denigrate; I have no college education to speak of and my ignorance is unbounded. I think you make a wonderful, lucid, intelligent, passionate argument, which would be improved by a slightly different conceptual framework. I also agree very much with your motivation; I determined very early on that Catholicism was not for me, but I try very hard to give them their proper respect because we disagree at such a fundamental level, and even if I wanted to disrespect religion, there is never any cause to misrepresent history.
Thank you for writing, as well: whether or not we agree on all matters, I think you do credit to the community here.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
And here is a link to the encyclical in question: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
I'm an atheist, but I agree with the pope about what's in there. No need to dismiss his opinions because he doesn't talk about contraceptives or whatever, this is not what it is all about.
Like rain on your wedding day.
It's entirely possible to believe in religion and still be a grounded person...
That is actually not in dispute. However, if you believe that truth is determined by experiment and observation, this conflicts with the ideas that truth is determined by logic and axioms, or e.g. what is written in the Bible. For Catholics, truth is determined by revelation and received wisdom: no amount of experimentation will have any effect on matters of faith. The set of truths provable by each system do not have to conflict, and each is more or less equally valid as a philosophy. For a further discussion touching on this matter, you might see the article 'Rationalism vs Empiricism' in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
> It certainly can be — faith operates in a different plane, so to speak. It neither contradicts nor supports science, nor is it contradicted nor supported by science in return.
Nope, wrong. First of all, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people choosing to believe a certain thing and I'm not some asshole who will yell at the clergyman in a funeral that his beliefs are stupid. But it's simply wrong to say that science and religion operate in different domains. All religions come with a package of beliefs concerning things such as how the world and humanity were created (things that are very much in the realm of science) and laws concerning justice and punishment (within the realm of sociology, philosophy, psychology, and yes, science). This is almost by definition, as an ideology without these things would be mainly just a vague belief in the possible existence of God e.g. agnosticism.
Your faith might say that Mankind was created from the armpit sweat of a giant and that the world rests on a giant turtle. Well, paleontology seems to indicate that there are no giants nor were there probably ever any. It's unlikely - based on our knowledge of biology - for humanity to have emerged from skin excretions; the chemical composition doesn't add up. DNA analysis reveals a far better explanation in terms of evolution from ape-like ancestors. And about the world, well we've been to space and looked at the Earth from a distance - it's quite definitely ball-shaped and there are no turtles to be seen anywhere. Faith refuted by science. What a concept!
All of this - including your viewpoint on climate science - is based on an incorrect view of the philosophy of science. Are some proponents of the idea of anthropogenic global warming fanatic doomsayers? Certainly. But that's 100% irrelevant to the facts. The facts indicate that the Earth is warming, the warming is caused by human activity, and that there is the _possibility_ - the likelihood of which is unknown with certainty at this point - for this warming to have disastrous consequences. You can whine and make snide remarks all you want but reality has a stubborn habit of not caring what you think.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Yeah, accounting is faith in conservation of money, which is disproved by the empirical observation that the money supply increases.
As for the universe behaving predictably, science laws are probabilistic at best. So in the specific case of a photon being measured, you cannot predict which state it will collapse to: you can only say there's a probability. There is an inherent self-contradiction in quantum mechanics between Shroedinger's equation and the final measured state.
See Penrose:
"quantum theory itself, quite apart from its need to be unified with general relativity theory, is basically self-inconsistent"
He goes on, at length (please see the pdf to read the strange characters in the quotation below, I started correcting them then realized it would take more time than I want to spend on this):
The point is that the law we use to predict a particle's state is inconsistent with the observation of that state, when it occurs. The law is continuous, the observation is discrete.
You remind me of those people who claim that atheism is a faith, yet completely fail to understand the obvious: atheism isn't faith, it's a lack of faith.
You're right that the Church has in some ways contributed to science. And in terms of holding back science, Catholicism is by no means the worst offender. It is in fact quite pro-science compared to other faiths. But still, by holding people hostage to authority (the Pope) and an ancient book, it has also hindered genuine scientific enquiry in many respects. This is undeniable. It took the Church a century to admit that Darwin was right. This does not give me much confidence that truth is what they are really after.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Atheism is a lack of a certain type of faith. To lack that type of faith, you have to have faith that there's a difference between your beliefs and that type of faith.
A drawing, by John Holbo, from his Reason and Persuasion Coursera MOOC, depicts what I'm trying to get at. It's gossip all the way down!
It took science a few decades to admit Mendel was right, too. Science has lots of authority problems. See Feynman in Cargo Cult Science, where he describes how researchers subsequent to Millikan found ways to fudge their more correct observations about the charge on an electron, because they wanted to agree with the great authority whose experiment they were replicating. Or Feynman's account of how an important finding about rats is ignored by science.
We have learned to live with them.
The trick is to _not_ give their religious beliefs any legal power and humor them beyond that. Before we found that, the world was a truly fucked place.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Thank you for making my point - blind adherence to authority is detrimental to the progress of science, no matter if the authority is the pope or a scientist.
The difference is that scientists acknowledge this fact and take steps to prevent it from occurring (we're all biased and irrational beings so it's impossible to completely eliminate), whereas religions celebrate this blind authoritarianism and take steps to preserve it as much as they can.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
If you read past the flowery language, you'll see that the Catholic Church's position is based on misogyny and the denial of women's rights to control their bodies. Mind you, so are most religions so don't think I'm bashing Catholicism particularly.
Specifically in the Catholic case, it's also highly hypocritical. We have this "divine gift" from God, yet priests are not allowed to enjoy it --- all so the Church will inherit their property, of course, rather than natural living heirs. How conveeeenient.
Science has faith in the scientific method, in the reproducibility of experiments.
Yeah, true. I'll take that faith over religious faith any day of the week. How about this: I'll book a ticket on a commercial airliner that has been designed by competent engineers using sound scientific principles. You strap a couple of wings to your arms, have them blessed by your favourite priests/pastor/rabbi/imam/whatever and leap off a cliff.
Let's see whose faith is misplaced.
"Probabilistic" does not mean "unpredictable". We can confidently make statements about probabilistic things that we know will happen. For example, it's possible for all the air molecules in this room to spontaneously congregate in one half of the room, leaving the other half in a vacuum, but I confidently predict this will not happen in the lifetime of the human species.
Sidetracking a bit, "deterministic" doesn't necessarily mean "predictable". The entire field of Chaos Theory arose from this realization.
Nonsense; you don't need any kind of "faith" to be an atheist. All you have to do is say "I reject the notion of God as unprovable and unnecessary."
I don't know, it's taken on faith that conservation laws are obeyed because we can't measure everything, so we assume because some authority told us to. I'd say slashdot discussions are a great example of how conservation laws are celebrated based on the great authorities Noether and Kelvin and steps are taken (in peer review and grant funding and such) to preserve these faith-based laws as much as possible.
I am not a Catholic. I find its central tenets nonsensical. As an organization, I find the way it has systematically protected pedophiles within its ranks disgusting. I hope that, over time, it attracts fewer followers.
However, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. The church has existed for longer than essentially any other human institution, and it will outlive all of us. Hundreds of millions of people take what its leader says seriously, for good and ill. Therefore, I don't think it's particularly important what the basis of the Pope's reasoning in his encyclical is except as that reasoning is persuasive amongst those who take Catholicism seriously.
What is important is that the Pope is saying "act on climate change", which might help to push some Catholics to do so.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Probability doesn't help when you predict a particular from your sampling of the universal, but the particular doesn't follow your prediction. Yet you still have faith in the law, despite it's failure to predict in a specific case. And you have faith in the law of noncontradiction, despite problems with inconsistency as Penrose, quoted in my post above, points out. Godel also points out that the axioms of math sacrifice completeness for consistency, so science (because it relies on math to express laws) loses expressivity. Science takes the consistency of nature on faith, assuming that all the problems that are observed empirically can be resolved eventually someday.
Authority is not _completely_ worthless - it's a quite useful indicator of truth sometimes! But it carries far less weight than actual evidence. If an authority and the evidence disagree then you should probably side with the evidence.
You're making the fatal mistake of confusing these concepts. Sometimes scientists stubbornly stick with an idea because so far all the evidence has supported that idea. This is a perfectly rational course of action. To do anything else would be irrational. If centuries of evidence support a theory, and I am willing to discard the theory based on a single observation (which may or may not be just an observation error) then I am being extremely irrational and biased. However, a single observation can indeed invalidate centuries of _authority_, because authority simply does not carry the same weight as actual evidence.
Sadly there are many people who can't seem to make this distinction at all between these concepts. They look at a scientist and a preacher and they think what they say has equal weight, even though the scientist has mountains of evidence behind him and the preacher just has an old book and some other religious people behind him. The levels of truth of these two viewpoints are completely different. I hope you're not in the group that thinks they are the same.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
It is just as reasonable to say that a God created our universe as it is to say that another universe deformed and spawned our dimensions.
Just out of curiosity, what sort of premises lead you to assign an equal estimated probability for a universe to be created by an otherwise hidden powerful sentient being, as a law of nature? And more importantly, how would you make verifiable predictions concerning how the world would look like if it were created by a powerful sentient being as compared to by a law of nature? Finally, if you can make verifiable predictions of the actions of a mysterious sentient being, why bother including the sentient being in the theory since you could just include the rules on how it would act instead?
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If such beliefs do not conflict with empirical evidence, then what is your SCIENTIFIC basis for discounting them or declaring them antithetical to science? At worst, they show wishful thinking.
Faith and wishful thinking are the opposite of the scientific method. Try using faith instead of an independently verifiable double-blind study, and see if your paper gets published. Religion asks you to suspend the usual scientific skepticism for a certain set of beliefs. Fortunately, people are very good at compartmentalizing so this doesn't result in the horrors some people would expect.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
And curiously, the first of the two Genesis stories is a remarkably close approximation of the way an advanced, spacefaring race would explain the creation of the world to a primitive culture.
It isn't quite a detailed treatise on evolution, but I think that creation story is remarkably accurate for a science paper written 3,400 years ago, thousands of years before anyone knew what a dinosaur even was.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The reality is that most science is determined by revelation as well. Although it is possible to prove various scientific constants, equations, etc., most people never do that. Most people learn what they were taught and then grow from there. Thus, scientific understanding is very much built upon the shoulders of giants just as religious beliefs are.
And when a scientist discovers something by experimentation and observation, is it any less truth if that scientist believes that God chose that moment to reveal that truth through his or her experiment?
IMO, the only conflict between those two philosophies lies in the minds and hearts of those who reject religion. The fact that scientists are only slightly less religious (statistically) than the general population is, IMO, strong empirical evidence that treatises on such conflicts are grounded more in atheists' need for self-jusitification than in actual facts.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I really enjoy Lawrence Krauss, and Richard Dawkins, and, alas, Christopher Hitchens etc. I am an "anti-theist" and someone who has absolutely no belief in god. That being said, I have spoken at my wfe's church, cooked for their dinners, and was friends with the last pastor. He and I accepted that we had no common ground in the spiritual world, but we both agreed that community is good, and that creating friends and being good friends and neighbours is good. How could that not be? I stood up in front of the church and said I was an Atheist and that I enjoyed the community. I got applause. This is a true story.
Lawrence, Richard, an others obviously need to continue the Atheism work that they do, but they also need to understand that this was a HUGE movement by the catholic church. HUGE. The pope is a chemist. A scientist. If you judge this pope by his words and his actions, he may be the sort of man that can lead a sizeable portion of the world population in a better direction.
I think "Atheism" and "Climate Change" are separate. If this pope did not do enough, reach out. He isn't the nazi-youth that was there previously, this is a man trained in chemistry and seems earnest. I think this is the best chance science and a major religion have ever had to work together to address a real problem facing human kind. Rather than snipe at the pope for not going far enough, holy shit guys, 1 billion people claim to listen to this guy, convince him to do better.
Problem is scientific laws couldn't even predict dark energy or dark matter which together make up 96% of the universe, so it might as well be that someone created it. Quantum predictions are just probabilistic, and could also be explained by particles making conscious choices. Back to the macro scale: events keep occurring that require far more energy than current models can supply. So scientific predictions, well maybe for a fraction of the 4% of the universe we can see. But huge gaping holes exist in scientific explanations and it is only an act of the purest faith to assume that there are scientific explanations for them.
We are already a long way down this slope. The day that the notion of consensus was picked up was the day a knife was stuck into the heart of climate science and the religion of climate science was birthed. The state of things today leaves almost no possible future I can imagine that doesn't leave this entire timeframe and 'debate' as a huge black mark on science. The number of conditions, uncertainties, and qualifiers that have been left out of statements now, not only by the press but by journal authors themselves on blogs and other media, leaves almost no future were the public can't point backwards and cry that the 'consensus' from today didn't cause extinction of corals or polar bears or wipe miles off the Floride coastline by 2050...
Why not let the pope in on it all too at this point.
What you have expressed is a truth claim. If someone believes that claim without having specific evidence, that is a perfect example of "faith" as it is used pejoratively.
I'm no member of an advanced spacefaring race but if I were I might find that insulting.
The actual order of events in genesis is:
1. 'Let there be light'
2. Separation of sea and sky.
3. Creation of dry land.
4. Creation of day and night.
5. Creation of water-based animals.
6. Creation of land-based animals and humans.
Days 1, 5, and 6 might be a 'fair' approximation of the actual way the world formed. But days 2-4 are totally bogus and seem to be out of order. The way the Earth actually formed, it congealed from a ball of dust and was initially molten; it gradually solidified (forming dry land), had a day & night cycle, and then over millions of years got cool enough for seas to form.
Why would an 'advanced spacefaring race' mangle the order of events in this way? Do they just like $@#$ing with us? :) Actually that WOULD explain a lot of things.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
The Catholic Church has been pro-science for a while now.
A church almost by definition cannot be truly pro-science. Their entire MO is based on faith in unproven/unprovable things and do not readily accept questioning of that faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The fact that the catholic church hasn't stood in the way of science isn't the same thing as being pro-science. I think science and faith of the sort espoused by organized religion are irreconcilable to one another.
I'm not sure what you have taken "pro-science" to mean. But Sir Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists of all time. Of all time! Though no Catholic, he had as much faith in unprovable things as anyone could ask for. Your propositions mean that he could not be pro-science. But this would be absurd.
The journal-entry you linked to purports to list such falsifiable statements, but fails. The examples boil down to "if you do this well and sincerely, your life will improve". That's not falsifiable, because the "well and sincerely" part is too vague — you must not have followed the eight-fold path properly or your faith was not sufficiently deep causing you to die from poison, etc.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"So spare me the "scientists know it all" mantra. Science without morals and ethics is just a path to destruction."
Strawman much?
"National Socialism and Communism as examples of political systems driven almost exclusively by scientific considerations"
Quite the contrary. Like most political leaders, they were enthusiastic about scientific concepts that fit their world view, but Nazis and Communists were extremely antagonistic to any science which might threaten it.
The most scientific oriented government, both in policy and origin, is undoubtedly the modern democracies, created by men who were careful to study the flaws of the powerful, to account for them, and to allow for change should future generations gain more wisdom on the subject.
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I did not say both were equally probable. I said they're equally reasonable, which is to say that believing either requires no more of a leap of faith than the other, and neither has more evidence than the other.
Perhaps we should apply the same examination to this "law of nature" as you have to the idea of a supernatural being?
The theories which underlie the idea of a spawned universe are conjecture, based on the idea that our universe exists in an unobservable space adjacent to another universe, and that given the right set of circumstances, our universe could have been created, with the initial collapsing quantum effects being manifest in now-our dimensions as the Big Bang.
Unfortunately, we have no proof of this. We can invent mathematical theories that come close to describing a multiverse where such an event is possible, but we have no proof that those theories are actually correct. There is no surviving evidence of their use in the Big Bang, and currently no means to travel beyond our universe to observe those "laws of nature" directly. To note your final concern, those theories also have not produced any testable predictions, as far as I know.
In short, such a "law of nature" is as much a human invention as a story of an extradimensional intelligence that likes to create sentient creatures in his spare time. For the purpose of satisfying the human desire to know everything, both are sufficient tales.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You are wrong, the words "well and sincerely" are never mentioned anywhere in that blog post. Try again.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think the Buddha's Kalama Sutta, called his "charter of free inquiry" , is relevant here. The current Dalai Lama has said "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."
That's not what revelation means.
"Most people learn what they were taught and then grow from there. "
Most people learn how major discoveries in science were reached. This is above and beyond learning of just the results of the discovery.
"Thus, scientific understanding is very much built upon the shoulders of giants just as religious beliefs are."
Giants aren't necessary for religion and are unwanted anyway, since there isn't anywhere for them to stand.
"IMO, the only conflict between those two philosophies lies in the minds and hearts of those who reject religion. "
The history of science is a centuries long displacement of religion as the dominant mode of thought. The conflict, such as it is, is an utter rout. It's just slower moving than anything you can follow, apparently. It's also still on-going. How many people still believe in a soul? Almost everyone, I expect. Probably about the same fraction of people who believed humans were created and not evolved in 1850.
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Yeah but the cool thing is, we can build simulations of both and make a personal, individual choice which we'd rather live in. So the two (and other) theories can be implemented by computer science, making them true even if they weren't before. And they can all be true at the same time, in parallel.
The evidence itself most often is based on what an authority told us. Authorities exclude evidence, throwing out data they don't like. Then the "evidence" comes to us, pre-packaged and prepped for us to come to the exact same conclusions as the authorities who doctored it (unconsciously, most often).
Authorities rely on the same tricks as preachers when presenting their evidence. They use emotion to underscore their points. They hand-wave a lot in their equations, setting variables arbitrarily, changing terminology, redefining terms, idiosyncratically using accepted symbols. In conclusion no, I don't trust authorities in science. I think science holds on to inherently flawed models way longer than it should, using the excuse about "rational thought" that you made in your post. I think science authorities should be more humble and admit that their model is flawed and not immediately dismiss other theories.
I think scientists have huge priors, in Bayesian terms, and the more entrenched a theory becomes socially the closer those priors get to 1. Then no amount of conflicting data will change their minds. So geologists attacked Wegener's continental drift theory for decades, using all sorts of disingenuous arguments to discount his reasoning. Was that rational? You define it as such. I see it as emotional gossip.
I think the evidence used to support current models is shaky. So in engineering you use a safety factor of 2 or more, which can cover up a lot of contrary evidence, for example.
Ahhhh yes of course. It's totally grounded to hold one thing to be true even though you know it's not.
We can invent mathematical theories that come close to describing a multiverse where such an event is possible, but we have no proof that those theories are actually correct.
Science doesn't care one bit about proof that something is actually correct. Science is about prediction, not proof.
In short, such a "law of nature" is as much a human invention as a story of an extradimensional intelligence that likes to create sentient creatures in his spare time. For the purpose of satisfying the human desire to know everything, both are sufficient tales.
Science doesn't deal in tales for satisfying the human desire to know everything. It deals in prediction, which is what makes science better at making motors and computers than religion.
It's kind of like this: http://ih0.redbubble.net/image...
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Mod parent down for misrepresenting what GP wrote by dishonestly converting "just as reasonable" to "equal estimated probability". There is no reasonable argument for assigning probability either way because extrapolating backwards beyond a singularity at creation is not possible. Any assertion to the contrary is falling for the Bayesian bullshit epistemology that Popper and then other critical rationalists discredited time and again throughout the 2nd half of the 20th century. Selecting one option is no more or less reasonable than choosing another and, in the cases of those showing a preference, just reveals their biases.
While GP would have preferably written that it's just as (un)reasonable to say any one thing created the universe vs. any other thing whatsoever, rather than just mention the two ideas that he did, it's quite clear he did not intend to imply it's a dichotomy.
Both parent and GP failed to note that a creation event isn't necessary, because there is no contradiction to or evidence against a model without an initial singularity that posits an eternal pre-inflatinonary universe: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... (note that in this case, the Big Bang is not a discontinuity as in, say multiverse models where a quantum fluctuation may spawn another universe).
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
But you cannot predict a Big Boom.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Unlike Science, Religion does not need to offer predictions nor make falsifiable statements.
Nothing needs to do anything, but it's pretty clear that all significant religions do make falsifiable statements. Practically, any religion that doesn't have an effect on this world isn't worth much.
Some versions of all significant religions are making falsifiable statements. But making a falsifiable statement does not necessarily result in a conflict with science. Many religions are making falsifiable statements that are mostly likely true, such as: Building your house on rocky ground makes it safer from floods than building it on sand.(Matthew 7:24) There is only a problem if a statement is proven false, but people will continue believing it, because their religion says so. If a statement is found to be false, many religions will declare that they must have made a mistake in the interpretation of their holy book and change their interpretation.
Practically, any religion that doesn't have an effect on this world isn't worth much.
I agree, but Religion do not need falsifiable statements to have a effect on this world. Falsifiable statements can be falsified because they describe the world and these descriptions can be wrong. Empirical measurements can be used to show that a certain description of the world must be wrong, because it disagrees with measurable facts. Religions change the world by making statements about how the world should be and believers acting on these guidelines. But it is only possible to measure how the world currently is, not how it should be. Statements about how the world should be are always not falsifiable, but can be extremely powerful in changing the world. Science describes the world as it is, philosophy and religions try to make statements about how the world should be.
Science can make a statement like if we do X, Y will happen. That is a falsifiable statement that can be tested. It does not tell you to do X, it only describes the consequences of doing X. People still need to decide that they do want Y to happen, only then they can derive the statement that X should be done or not done. Deciding if X should be done, depends if you believe that Y would be good or not. Sure, for some Y nearly everyone agrees that this Y should be avoided, and the hard question is not "do you want Y to happen?" but "if you you do X will Y really happen?" But on other questions of moral and ethics it is the other way around. Nearly everyone agrees that (Y=)millions of people dying should be prevented, but not everyone agrees that (X=) it is required to cut down CO2 emission to do so. On other hand everyone agrees that an embryos dies if you have an abortion, but people disagree on the Y question: Is it a bad thing if a embryo dies?
Jan
What about all the people they murdered in cold blood, in particularly painful ways, merely because they dared to think for themselves? What about all the people who made wonderful discoveries, but dared not record or speak about them? What about all the people whose blood, sweat and toil they extorted to enrich themselves? The church has blood on its hands and it won't wash off with a "sorry". They must take their own advice and seriously repent, use their vast wealth for science and the betterment of mankind, until there is none left. Only then will they have any moral standing to preach anything at all.
There's often confusion between science (testable observations) and science (reasoning, thinking, rationality).
They overlap in a very specific way: reason is the capacity to think about thinking. Ie. I have a thought, "the Gods like me" and then rather that just start behaving like the Gods like me, I actually then have another thought, "wait, how do I know the Gods like me, what am I basing that thought on?"
Most people gain the ability to think about thinking in their early teens. Until then, we just parrot what we're told.
Now, this enquiry, "how do I know if this is really true?" is the basis of science. Science is technically called a "3rd person perspective", ie. it is objective. It comes from like, 13th century or something, where who armies were about to charge each other on the battle field, both of them yelling "GOD IS ON OUR SIDE!!!" and a clever guy standing on a hill watching, said to himself, "well, they can't both be right". He was literally the 3rd person there, as the first two could not stand objectively and see the scene. He realised, they can't both be right, so at least one side is deluding themselves, is mistaken, yet they appear completely convinced. So how do I know if I ma right? I can't just rely on feeling certain of my view. It has to be..... TESTED!
That's science and reason. The ability to know that we can fool ourselves, so we need a way to TEST.
Ironically, climate change is one of those things where they say, oh we can't wait until it is really testable, we have to act, which you know, is a problem. It is such a problem that people resort to calling others immoral denialists, for pointing to it. And ironic that the Pope weighs in on it, too.
But if you read many of those paragraphs in the Pope's thing, you'll see that he is only using it to promote Christian values, like self sacrifice, helping the poor, etc. And he's very against postmodern values, where people try to think about alternatives. It would be nice if he said, please build some nuclear power stations, or improve the efficiency of cars, but no, he's all like, stop being selfish you sinners! Stop being materialistic! Stop being greedy!
And frankly, I'm of the opinion that climate change has been tuned in to a polarised, good guys v bad guys, "science" v "denialists", that it is no wonder that the Pope can come in and say, see I told you, you must respect the ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY OF GOD!
It is just a symptom of ecology having been dumbed down to such an extent that it has become religious an polarised.
The actual calculations and reasoning you have to make just to figure out the carbon footprint of an espresso are complex, full of assumptions, and difficult. Ecology is NOT a simple subject. The climate is NOT a simple subject. Should you build a coal station, to raise living standards faster, improve healthcare, and thus reduce child birth rates, or should you be "sustainable" and limit energy availability, so development takes longer, and people maybe continue with high birth rates for longer? That's just an example.
But no, denialists! And now with the Pope's blessing, evil selfish god-denying denialists!
But back to your point, someone would have to sit down with Hitler, and rationally explain to him Human Rights, and that he has no basis for thinking that his race was superior to other races, or if he does cite evidence, you critically examine it, and even then, ask, so what's the moral reasoning for him thinking that his place is to dominate others rather than help others? Most of this stuff can be reasoned out and doesn't require Gods.
And we actually know form developmental psychology that humans go through several stages of ethical and reasoning ability, so we know that what appears to be completely self evident to Hitler, is not reasonable to other people who have a higher and more reasonable capacity. It goes back to that ability to think about thinking, which is the start of being able to take the perspective of other people, and that's the basi
You bring up the theory of continental drift. I'll raise you aether, magnetic field lines, general relativity, quantum theory, and many, many others. All of these were met with vicious opposition at the start. Again, the process of science is designed to slowly lumber towards the truth. You can't get at the truth immediately or quickly. It doesn't work that way. Nor does it matter what a single person thinks - the only think that matters is the gradually-accumulating body of evidence and theory.
It is completely and 100% irrelevant whether a bunch of scientists behave rationally or not. Actually, scientists are expected to act irrationally! Scientists are human beings and asking them to be rational really is asking too much, and the process of science is designed to take this into account! Which is why continental drift was eventually accepted, yet most religions continue to insist that God created Adam and Eve out of mud.
You're drawing a ridiculous and unjustifiable parallel between the process of science - which is a continually-improving process to get at the truth - and faith-based dogma, which is essentially the opposite of that. I'd appreciate if you instead just said what you mean - that you hate science and think scientists are wrong and full of themselves (which is, by the way, completely OK! Even most scientists often think other scientists are wrong and full of themselves!)
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
In regards to your first point, it is ENTIRELY political.
As Lomborg observed years ago, you might go to a car mechanic to determine what's wrong with your car, and a roofer to determine why your roof leaks badly but consulting a car mechanic or roofer to determine WHICH of them you should spend your precious money on fixing first would be ridiculous.
Climatologists are the guys we should be listening to about what is happening and what, if anything, we can do about it but the decision about how we prioritize our resources to improve our collective world is *entirely* & *essentially* a POLITICAL problem.
-Styopa
The most scientific oriented government, both in policy and origin, is undoubtedly the modern democracies, created by men who were careful to study the flaws of the powerful, to account for them, and to allow for change should future generations gain more wisdom on the subject.
Which ones do you speak of? I think it could easily be argued that those modern democracies evolved in an environment that included religious value systems. Do you have any examples to the contrary?
Just another day in Paradise
then you think wrongly.
when science states there is no God, it is speaking inappropriately as it cannot prove or disprove God.
likewise when religion states that science is wrong or right ("God says 2+2=5, because God says so"), it is speaking inappropriately.
only in the minds of the ignorant are science and religion incompatible.
they seek to explain different things in a different manner.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
In regards to your first point, it is ENTIRELY political.
Climatologists are the guys we should be listening to about what is happening and what, if anything, we can do about it but the decision about how we prioritize our resources to improve our collective world is *entirely* & *essentially* a POLITICAL problem.
Scroll up that's exactly what I said. Perhaps you don't live in the USA but here the majority of people are nutters who deny basic science facts and instead believe wholeheartedly that their made up fantasy is what the world is. I need to suppress the urge to break the nose of people who say its hubris to think humans can change gods creation - these are the same nutjobs who don't believe in evolution (as if that affects the truth of it). At least this is a step in getting those extremely stupid people to change their tune, if only a little.
This is stupid — the blog post does not quote precisely from any Scripture either — it offers no verbatim quotations, but paraphrases them.
The depth and sincerity of one's faith is always implied by various religious teachings as a precondition for achieving whatever enlightenment/salvation/nirvana the religion is offering.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No, it's not as black and white. But the fact is that the the church banned books on Copernican theory in 1616, 16 years before "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" was published and the pope cast as Simplicio.
Not to mention the early Muslims, Mohammed tasked his people with learning about the world and they did amazing things (you may have heard of al-jebr, aka algebra, for instance) while Christians were mired in the Dark Ages.
If you need religion as a source of moral compass I feel sorry for you and especially for those around you.
The point of a faith is control. It's about keeping the poor people from eating the rich people.
The end.
I understand there is a general trend towards denigration of religion by empiricists; having a different idea about how truth is to be determined is a wonderful way to begin and sustain arguments. Frankly, I'm not all that well prepared to have such arguments, and consequently I avoid making value judgments about such things: I think we actually strongly agree on that point.
However, I must disagree with your underlying point: science is empirical by definition. We're a bit hampered in discussing scientific truth because to some degree there is no such animal: mostly science is concerned with disproving hypotheses. However, the point is that if some statement is contradicted by observation, it is considered false, and the scientists' logic, reason, or beliefs are neither here nor there.
Contradiction between the two sets of true statements is almost inevitable, but I'm not sure how much sense it makes to compare such things. Empiricism isn't going to have much to say about Christ's divinity, or much of anything else that doesn't lend itself to being expressed in SI units: morality, government, or number theory. Empiricism is flawed in many other ways, of course: our senses are imperfect, even when extended by tools. Proving statements is difficult and time-consuming, and proving something true in an absolute sense is more or less impossible. Other systems of truth-finding, however, have the ability to prove statements which may not agree with empirical evidence.
Humans need rationalism, empiricism, and (presumably) religion. They are all useful in their own sphere. They do not all share the same set of true statements, more or less by definition, and I trust that your statement to the contrary was a simple misapprehension.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
And the commitment to a model's axioms is always implied by scientists as a precondition to whatever explanation they are offering.
Your idea of religion sounds like something you picked up in high school from some kind of evangelical pastor who was out to make money. Never trust someone who preaches for money. None of the religions I mentioned (or the scriptures I referred to) say "well and sincerely." Tantric yoga doesn't even come close.
But lets assume that it did say sincerely......it is still wrong. You know if you are sincere or not. That is something you can discern and know. So it is falsifiable there too.......you are wrong on multiple levels.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ah, but now it sounds like you are trying to argue that religion is useful, even if god is not real.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
But this is not exclusive to science, nor absent from religion. Karma in Indian religions is the law of cause and effect. Hinduism abandoned the sacrifice because of karma, because the predicted results of sacrifice didn't materialize.
In science, prediction often applies within a narrow range of physical phenomena. But scientists faithfully extend that range. Conservation laws are one common example. We don't know that energy is conserved in every detail, but we assume it does because of the law of conservation. Thus, the law is circular.
I don't hate science. I pursue computer science. I also think there are religions such as Jainism which allow for modification to their philosophies. Mahavir added the Brahmacharya vow, for example. He changed the religion. That is part of the Jain philosophy, that the religion can evolve.
The Dalai Lama has also said that if science conclusively proves some aspect of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.
I think scientists like Krauss are basically ignorant about the full scope of religion. I think they have personal issues with Christianity and assume all religions are like that, with a creator god. But Jainism has no creator god.
Thus I think both science and religion are blundering towards the truth. I wish science would stop rejecting theories based on priors that basically become one though, which means no evidence will disprove them. So I wish scientists would be more humble and not automatically place themselves in opposition to religion.
Scientific skepticism is an assumption, a conclusion without proof, which is faith.
it's entirely possible to be completely devoted to science and still be crazy (see Nazi Germany as an example).
The Nazis are actually a bad example, since they used science to advance their goals, but at the same time used bad science (I'd inlude their race ideology, as well as such nonsense like phrenology) not only as a basis for the entire war, genocide etc., but also as a reason to counter and or ignore good science, just because it was discovered by Jews.
Yeah but those "sound scientific principles" include a lot of wiggle room. Engineers use safety factors which can cover up a lot of behavior that doesn't fit the model. The model is faith-based, ultimately. Any faith can guess right.
Thank you for making my point - blind adherence to authority is detrimental to the progress of science, no matter if the authority is the pope or a scientist.
The difference is that scientists acknowledge this fact and take steps to prevent it from occurring (we're all biased and irrational beings so it's impossible to completely eliminate), whereas religions celebrate this blind authoritarianism and take steps to preserve it as much as they can.
Well, the Catholic Church explicitly teaches that scientific progress is important and worthwhile, and furthermore that scientific knowledge and religious knowledge can never truly conflict - if they appear to do so, we should examine both to identify which one we've misunderstood. "Blindly adhering" to those doctrines doesn't seem like it would inhibit the progress of science much.
(AC to preserve mods)
Let's see. You claim that it's verifiable whether following the Eightfold Path of Buddhism will eliminate suffering. The Eightfold Path is a list of eight things to do right, and for this to be falsifiable you need to define all the terms in testable form. Note that Buddhists are not expected to go out and master the Eightfold Path immediately, and it's expected to take LOTS of lifetimes.
You quote one verse of the Bible and assume that all Christians believe it in the form you think they do. That's not actually true. Many Christians do not believe that the Bible is literally true in all respects. Since we're dealing with religion here, not a particular holy book, that doesn't show anything.
I haven't studied Taoism all that much, but the literature I've read doesn't seem to be all that concerned with behavior. (Confucianism is.) It discusses the nature of the Tao, and suggests that actions or inactions in accordance with the Tao will have great effect. What's falsifiable here?
You're looking at assorted religions, not really understanding them, and declaring that your misunderstandings show that they're wrong. Have you actually discussed your statements with a few Buddhists, Christians, or Taoists? (I'm not including tantric yoga here, since it isn't clear to me that it's really a religion, or Mormonism, which I don't intend to defend.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I can refer you to an atheist who believes that religion is useful, and has good effects. The devout Christians I know (which make no anti-scientific claims) do have stronger beliefs about its value.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You seem to think all Christians are biblical literalists. You're very, very wrong. Assuming a Christian doesn't believe in the Genesis creation story, what do they believe that conflicts with science? (And how many neopagans do you think there are who believe in that thing about Ymir's armpit?)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Scientific laws did predict dark matter, in a sense. The dark matter theory solved anomalies in quantum mechanics and astronomy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're getting the chain of reasoning at least partly wrong. If you already believe in something like God as described by Christians, then it makes sense that God created the Universe, right? If you don't believe in God, then it makes sense that the Universe just started, for no reason we know of?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
(No, instead you stalk/harass me instead!)
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
I was waiting for someone to come up with the "It's just figurative!" line. For all we know this viewpoint is probably heresy. Certainly nowhere in the bible does it say "You know, this stuff didn't actually happen. Take it easy, dude." If God sent down a REALLY LONG book intended to be the guide for billions of people on how to live their lives, it seems a single-line disclaimer might have clarified things a bit.
As for what they believe that contradicts science, most everything. The Noah's ark story, people living for centuries, direct contradictions to genetics (populations going from 10 to millions of healthy individuals), the exodus, ordinary people causing earthquakes with no assistance from God, stars being smaller than the Earth, existence of giants, unicorns (look it up!), dragons, nephilim, and many others.
Again, I'm not saying these things to irk religious people. I have no problem with people choosing to believe a certain set of things. But let's not confuse fictions with facts, especially not when facts are the subject of discussion.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
> I think scientists like Krauss are basically ignorant about the full scope of religion.
I actually agree with you. Same with Dawkins. But I'm not taking my lines from these people nor do I support them on every issue.
> The Dalai Lama has also said that if science conclusively proves some aspect of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.
So he's grounded in reality and is sane. Man, religions must be really crazy nowadays if a guy who's just exercising common sense is taken to be some kind of progressive.
> Thus I think both science and religion are blundering towards the truth.
Oh come on, man. Now you're just trolling me. What religious works introduced quantum theory or algebraic topology or plasma physics?
Science has always led the way towards the truth and religious thought has mostly just either lagged behind or firmly inserted its fingers in its ears. If the religion of today is any better than that of 1000 years ago it's because of external forces, not because of any change that happened within religion.
> So I wish scientists would be more humble and not automatically place themselves in opposition to religion.
That's weird because I don't wish scientists would be more humble at all. On the list of things I'd change about scientists, the top of my list would be: Productivity, fewer petty squabbles, refusal to do research funded by people with a political agenda, and refusal to do anti-humanitarian (weapons, poisons, etc.) research. I think scientists are mostly too humble as it is.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
The conservation of energy is a local symmetry of flat space and is violated enormously in our observable universe at the largest scales (the metric expansion of space, and the big bang are two clear examples; cosmic inflation models are also good examples).
The conservation of money is likewise a local symmetry of price theory, and again that is violated enormously in large (and supranational) scales by things such as inflation (a term Alan Guth knew when he proposed cosmic inflation initially).
The lesson here: local theories, valid in some limit as spacetime intervals go to zero, do not aggregate into globally complete theories in many cases. Why? Because there are more or different symmetries available when you change the degrees of freedom, which is easy enough to do when aggregating local systems with fixed degrees of freedom.
(You can substitute "invariants" for "symmetries" above if you want).
As to Penrose, sure, the standard model is incomplete. Indeed, in semiclassical gravity you can show that there is a mathematical inconsistency in fitting GR and QFT together in the limit where curvature is on the scale of fundamental particles' wavelengths (or alternatively where you have a particle whose wavelength is larger than that of the diameter of a horizon with which it is interacting). GR is mathematically complete but effectively impossible to use for some metrics, and offers few hints about which metrics should be be considered unphysical (and some pretty physical seeming metrics are riddled with artifacts like timelike singularites and CTCs). So both the particle side and the curvature side each have selection problems and those have tended worsen in general when trying to develop a unified theory. But the Standard Model has a lot more free parameters than any useful metric for GR does (and in the local limit GR has exactly one free parameter, c).
However that doesn't really matter since they both individually and together make excellent low-energy approximations of some not-yet-discovered fuller theory. In the case of semiclassical gravity, for example, it will be a while before humans even have access to tools (observational then experimental) which will probe beyond the limit in which semiclassical gravity has been a completely accurate model to date.
The illusion that humans can actually think is relative to the amount of energy we steal from the next generations, in order to pump up our fake ego's. When you break things down into their fundamental parts, they always fall into three pieces. This is common EVERYTHING from atoms to evolution. Politics, science and religion work as a three body system. The battles between the three gnorant entities ensure that we evolve at the proper speed, not to fast and not too slow. Evolution has a mechanical flow, we are not an intellegent species.
"I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it."
--George Carlin
In other words, you don't know what most Christians believe, but you're happy to criticize them anyway. I do know that the viewpoint is not considered heresy among many Christian denominations (I can't speak for all of them), including the Catholic Church.
The viewpoint is not that God sent the book down from on high, but that He inspired numerous people to write things, which they did as best they could. Since the Bible is a guide to faith and morals, those were the important parts. Whether Jesus walked on water, according to this viewpoint, is much less important than what he taught about the Kingdom of Heaven and how to treat other people.
I don't think nephilim are in the Bible, and IIRC "unicorn" was a translation error. Nor do I remember actual dragons.
In not confusing fiction with facts, it helps if we stick to the facts of what people believe.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
In Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5 Report The current status of tuning model performance notes the following, including a half dozen citations of peer-reviewed articles verifying the statement:
Model tuning aims to match observed climate system behaviour and so is connected to judgements as to what constitutes a skilful representation of the Earth’s climate. For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).
For reference, TOA energy imbalance is the entire driving force of long term climate change, and models still have to hand-tune cloud parameters to get TOA energy correct.
Without getting TOA energy correct, the only thing the models are telling us is how climate components respond to changing TOA energy. They do NOT tell us the much more important element of how TOA energy will respond in the future. The current state of climate models is a necessary step to getting there, and is step forwards from the past practice of directly inserting energy when needed, but let's not go claiming we already are there. The facts and evidence state that we aren't. Any actual modellers claiming that they can predict future TOA energy, and thus macro climate trends, is being dishonest and there's a reason you don't see any of them quoted as such. Instead you see their papers quoted as the IPCC did above, and other folks are the ones coming in and crowing about the importance of the climate model's prediction without grasping the underlying factors that are still being tooled.
but there will always be certain limits to our knowledge, and beyond those limits, faith will still hold sway.
Why? Why do I need faith for the things beyond the limit of my knowledge? I don't "need" anything, I just need to say "I don't know what happens when I die" and that's it.
Try it! Library of Babel
I know what Christians believe. Just because some denominations believe something doesn't mean it's not heresy (assuming there is a God). Most Christians consider Mormonism, for instance, to be heresy.
Anyway, the topic of discussion was about reconciling faith with science. Your position is that faith is compatible with science as long as faith retreats into the strategy of admitting that nothing in the faith is really known for certain (except maybe the existence of God). Isn't this then just an implicit an admission of my first point?
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
The most scientific oriented government, both in policy and origin, is undoubtedly the modern democracies, created by men who were careful to study the flaws of the powerful, to account for them, and to allow for change should future generations gain more wisdom on the subject.
Which ones do you speak of? I think it could easily be argued that those modern democracies evolved in an environment that included religious value systems. Do you have any examples to the contrary?
The USA - all attempts by the Christian Fundamentalist Right to rewrite history notwithstanding.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yes and no. Separation of sea and sky would be the final step if you interpret land forming to mean hardening. However, after the seas formed, there was a second period of dry land forming, in which it emerged from underneath the oceans. So depending on which dry land formation you're talking about, the order of those two could be correct.
The timing of the creation of day and night is, indeed, dubious, but... when did the moon actually collide with Earth and form what we know as the moon today, in terms of geological time?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You in no way countered the point that I made. The US was started on religious values. It certainly wasn't a scientifically oriented government..."In God We Trust".
Just another day in Paradise
You in no way countered the point that I made. The US was started on religious values. It certainly wasn't a scientifically oriented government..."In God We Trust".
IOW you are part of the Religious Right that wants to rewrite history - thanks for proving my point.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
You are so far off base, that you're making an ass out of yourself. First of all, I'm in no way religious. The only times I've been to a church in my adult life are for weddings and funerals. Politically, I'm only fiscally on the right, but not when it comes to social issues. So, not what I've corrected your ASSumptions, when it comes to rewriting history, WTF are you talking about?
Just another day in Paradise
You are so far off base, that you're making an ass out of yourself. First of all, I'm in no way religious.
The worse you fell for it. But that's fully your problem.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.