The whole concept of saving the "human race" is ridiculous. On the scale of millions of years, life will evolve in ways we can't imagine. Shipping humans to some far flung, potentially carcinogenic world is useless, most likely the people would die quicker than virginia colonists. Better to just pollute the world with base seeds of life, and hope we can jump start evolution. There's plenty of people who think that's where we came from anyhow...
Garbage disposal in transit is a problem, stuff you throw out the airlock follows you to your destination.
How so? Assuming you throw it at greater than the escape velocity of your craft (how big is this craft?) surely it will continue to diverge from your path at the same velocity?
It might indicate that the number of non-uber-geek users -- users who wouldn't necessarily see beyond the repositories. I have to count myself in that class; I'm mainly a Windows user but I'm a casual Linux user, and I'll venture beyond the Ubuntu package manager as far as apt-get, but any further and I'm likely to figure the installation is going to be more trouble than the application is worth.
It's not the "lightest substance". It might be the least dense (important distinction). And it might not be, because I would have thought that gaseous helium would be less dense. Perhaps they mean "least dense solid"?
What's the issue? If the insurers lose then they will just put it on Music Canada's premiums for next year. And if Music Canada try to hop to another insurance company, I think it's a fair assumption that all the other companies will be aware of this case.
Is this really true? In the UK, you can return it with the original packaging as not suitable for the purpose for which sold, and they are obliged to give you a refund. If they don't, then you can take them to the small claims court as long as you do so within a few (5, I think) years of the purchase.
I think they would point to the fine print on the box, visible before you opened it, that specified it was for a 32-bit operating system and made no claims about its suitability for a 64-bit OS, and your claim would collapse.
Even assuming you only use the 3000 most common words in the English language, 4 words gives you close the the same number of possibilities as an alphanumeric password of 9 characters.
And of course, one of the words in the XKCD example is not one of the 3000 most common English words.
I don't understand - yeah, 420k is like nothing to facebook, but why would they ever pay? I.e., what can germany do to facebook?
Confiscate assets held in Germany? Including everything in their German offices and all their income going through German bank accounts (such as the fees they charge German advertisers for serving up German advertisements -- sorry, sponsored links -- to German customers)?
Then what was the significance of introducing the idea of mental illness? If it wasn't a logical fallacy then it was a violation of Grice's maxim of relation.
No, all you have shown is that mysticism is not science. Unless you are claiming that scientific truth is the only truth there is, which is not a scientific claim.
Me: crazy people who hear voices.
You: blah blah blah, affirming the consequent.
By dismissing the very concept, you're denying the existence of mental illness. Either rethink your reply, or just stop while you're not too far behind.
Who dismissed the very concept?
Since you are clearly unable to Google it, I'll try to explain it in simple terms. "Affirming the consequent" is an argument along the lines of
- All witches have black cats
- Alice has a black cat
- Therefore Alice is a witch.
Spotting the basic blunder in that argument does not involve dismissing the very concept of black cats.
My point about Argumentum ad consequentiam is that the desirability of the consequences is no indication of truth. I agree completely that "empiricism leads to knowledge that allows us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Mysticism does not." But mysticism doesn't aim to allow us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Your argument is like criticising your computer because it doesn't heat up your room enough.
Who denied the existence of mental illness? Look up "affirming the consequent", like I suggested. Learn the basic rules of logic if you're going to claim to be on the side of rationality.
So... what you agree with then is that you cannot both be a scientist and religious at the same time, because being religious requires you to hold an idea that can't be proved either way, while being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way.
No, because I don't agree that being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way. Doing science requires you to need to be able to prove something (but not "either way" -- Popper demolished that). Somebody remains a scientist when they are not doing science. And humans can multitask: there's no inherent reason why somebody can't chant "Hare Krishna" whilst doing the calculations on a scientific experiment. The chanting has no effect on the correctness of the calculations (it might affect the achievement of correctness), and the correctness of the calculations has no effect on the chanting.
So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.
I can't see even the vaguest hint of a God of the Gaps in what I wrote.
Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?
Well, as a militant agnostic I'm bound to be in favour of that, aren't I? But the fact that I prefer admitting ignorance doesn't mean that religion is irrational or anti-scientific. It's all very well admitting ignorance but sometimes everyone is forced to make life-decisions based on incomplete evidence, and that's what I see religious people doing.
Empiricism has lead to technologies that have saved and improved billions of lives.
Which is why most religious people are fully in favour of empiricism. Of course, it has also lead to technologies that have killed billions.
Mysticism has not.
Arguable. Maybe not saved, but certainly improved (in the UK, the abolition of slavery and provision of universal education were both religiously motivated, for instance). Of course, it has wrecked lots of lives too.
It's not as clear-cut as you suggested, is it? But it doesn't matter, because argumentum ad consequentiam is a logical fallacy anyway.
Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.
And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".
Ever heard of "affirming the consequent"? It's a fundamental logical fallacy. Look it up.
It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong.
Thing is, I think you are wrong. Can we decide this with science? No. You're just saying that your metaphysics is better than anybody else's metaphysics.
There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.
No, it can't be used to "prove" anything, but it can provide an arguably rational basis for decision making.
religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.
Most of the militant atheists I have read don't understand what constitutes valid evidence either. Not least because it's not an issue that can be decided scientifically, but they think it is. How could it be? Science is based on evidence, and if you feed in different definitions of what counts as evidence (foundationalism, coherentism, reformed epistemology, infinitism...) then you get different versions of science (that agree on almost everything), not information on whether your definition was "right" or not.
I agreed that it can't be unified with science, but that's not the same as being antithetical to science (unless you hold to some decidedly unscientific dogmas about the scope of science), it means it's orthogonal to science [1].
[1] Give or take a bit. I don't completely accept Stephen J Gould's view of non-overlapping magisteria, but where they do overlap religion and science both have issues.
If there is evidence and ignore it they are rejecting the empirical. If there is no evidence then there is no "empirical" to reject. Even science has to accept some things without evidence (science can't prove itself as that would be a circular argument; it has to make assumptions in order to get started). Science has been trying for centuries to get rid of its metaphysical underpinnings and so far has failed completely. The current scientific consensus seems to be to accept that, and to accept Popper's argument that the boundary between science and metaphysics is actually just a social convention. Unfortunately, most of the militant atheists are still using a logical positivist view of science which most of us were taught at school and university, unaware that that approach is now "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes". It's surely unfair to criticise religion for doing something that science does too (and that every worldview other than extreme solipsism) has to do.
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The whole concept of saving the "human race" is ridiculous. On the scale of millions of years, life will evolve in ways we can't imagine. Shipping humans to some far flung, potentially carcinogenic world is useless, most likely the people would die quicker than virginia colonists. Better to just pollute the world with base seeds of life, and hope we can jump start evolution. There's plenty of people who think that's where we came from anyhow...
James Blish: The Seedling Stars.
Garbage disposal in transit is a problem, stuff you throw out the airlock follows you to your destination.
How so? Assuming you throw it at greater than the escape velocity of your craft (how big is this craft?) surely it will continue to diverge from your path at the same velocity?
It might indicate that the number of non-uber-geek users -- users who wouldn't necessarily see beyond the repositories. I have to count myself in that class; I'm mainly a Windows user but I'm a casual Linux user, and I'll venture beyond the Ubuntu package manager as far as apt-get, but any further and I'm likely to figure the installation is going to be more trouble than the application is worth.
It's not the "lightest substance". It might be the least dense (important distinction). And it might not be, because I would have thought that gaseous helium would be less dense. Perhaps they mean "least dense solid"?
What's the issue? If the insurers lose then they will just put it on Music Canada's premiums for next year. And if Music Canada try to hop to another insurance company, I think it's a fair assumption that all the other companies will be aware of this case.
Is this really true? In the UK, you can return it with the original packaging as not suitable for the purpose for which sold, and they are obliged to give you a refund. If they don't, then you can take them to the small claims court as long as you do so within a few (5, I think) years of the purchase.
I think they would point to the fine print on the box, visible before you opened it, that specified it was for a 32-bit operating system and made no claims about its suitability for a 64-bit OS, and your claim would collapse.
Some did, some didn't. But the key point is that none of them did mid-encounter.
Even assuming you only use the 3000 most common words in the English language, 4 words gives you close the the same number of possibilities as an alphanumeric password of 9 characters.
And of course, one of the words in the XKCD example is not one of the 3000 most common English words.
I don't understand - yeah, 420k is like nothing to facebook, but why would they ever pay? I.e., what can germany do to facebook?
Confiscate assets held in Germany? Including everything in their German offices and all their income going through German bank accounts (such as the fees they charge German advertisers for serving up German advertisements -- sorry, sponsored links -- to German customers)?
Really? Getting rid of Ghadafi at very minimal cost and with 0 US lives lost didn't impress you?
Actually it was the French who did that, but I won't tell if you don't.
Who says it's not a verb? The Oxford English Dictionary lists it as having been a verb since at least 1818, and as being more specific than "design".
Then what was the significance of introducing the idea of mental illness? If it wasn't a logical fallacy then it was a violation of Grice's maxim of relation.
No, all you have shown is that mysticism is not science. Unless you are claiming that scientific truth is the only truth there is, which is not a scientific claim.
Me: crazy people who hear voices. You: blah blah blah, affirming the consequent.
By dismissing the very concept, you're denying the existence of mental illness. Either rethink your reply, or just stop while you're not too far behind.
Who dismissed the very concept?
Since you are clearly unable to Google it, I'll try to explain it in simple terms. "Affirming the consequent" is an argument along the lines of
- All witches have black cats
- Alice has a black cat
- Therefore Alice is a witch.
Spotting the basic blunder in that argument does not involve dismissing the very concept of black cats.
My point about Argumentum ad consequentiam is that the desirability of the consequences is no indication of truth. I agree completely that "empiricism leads to knowledge that allows us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Mysticism does not." But mysticism doesn't aim to allow us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Your argument is like criticising your computer because it doesn't heat up your room enough.
Who denied the existence of mental illness? Look up "affirming the consequent", like I suggested. Learn the basic rules of logic if you're going to claim to be on the side of rationality.
So... what you agree with then is that you cannot both be a scientist and religious at the same time, because being religious requires you to hold an idea that can't be proved either way, while being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way.
No, because I don't agree that being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way. Doing science requires you to need to be able to prove something (but not "either way" -- Popper demolished that). Somebody remains a scientist when they are not doing science. And humans can multitask: there's no inherent reason why somebody can't chant "Hare Krishna" whilst doing the calculations on a scientific experiment. The chanting has no effect on the correctness of the calculations (it might affect the achievement of correctness), and the correctness of the calculations has no effect on the chanting.
So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.
I can't see even the vaguest hint of a God of the Gaps in what I wrote.
Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?
Well, as a militant agnostic I'm bound to be in favour of that, aren't I? But the fact that I prefer admitting ignorance doesn't mean that religion is irrational or anti-scientific. It's all very well admitting ignorance but sometimes everyone is forced to make life-decisions based on incomplete evidence, and that's what I see religious people doing.
Empiricism has lead to technologies that have saved and improved billions of lives.
Which is why most religious people are fully in favour of empiricism. Of course, it has also lead to technologies that have killed billions.
Mysticism has not.
Arguable. Maybe not saved, but certainly improved (in the UK, the abolition of slavery and provision of universal education were both religiously motivated, for instance). Of course, it has wrecked lots of lives too.
It's not as clear-cut as you suggested, is it? But it doesn't matter, because argumentum ad consequentiam is a logical fallacy anyway.
Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.
And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".
Ever heard of "affirming the consequent"? It's a fundamental logical fallacy. Look it up.
It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong.
Thing is, I think you are wrong. Can we decide this with science? No. You're just saying that your metaphysics is better than anybody else's metaphysics.
There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.
No, it can't be used to "prove" anything, but it can provide an arguably rational basis for decision making.
religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.
Most of the militant atheists I have read don't understand what constitutes valid evidence either. Not least because it's not an issue that can be decided scientifically, but they think it is. How could it be? Science is based on evidence, and if you feed in different definitions of what counts as evidence (foundationalism, coherentism, reformed epistemology, infinitism...) then you get different versions of science (that agree on almost everything), not information on whether your definition was "right" or not.
I agreed that it can't be unified with science, but that's not the same as being antithetical to science (unless you hold to some decidedly unscientific dogmas about the scope of science), it means it's orthogonal to science [1].
[1] Give or take a bit. I don't completely accept Stephen J Gould's view of non-overlapping magisteria, but where they do overlap religion and science both have issues.
However, if you're killed by a 5.x quake that wouldn't have released a 9.x until 100 years after your normal lifespan, Do you care?
Not any more.
That's because we consider sex a participant activity, not a spectator activity.
If there is evidence and ignore it they are rejecting the empirical. If there is no evidence then there is no "empirical" to reject. Even science has to accept some things without evidence (science can't prove itself as that would be a circular argument; it has to make assumptions in order to get started). Science has been trying for centuries to get rid of its metaphysical underpinnings and so far has failed completely. The current scientific consensus seems to be to accept that, and to accept Popper's argument that the boundary between science and metaphysics is actually just a social convention. Unfortunately, most of the militant atheists are still using a logical positivist view of science which most of us were taught at school and university, unaware that that approach is now "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes". It's surely unfair to criticise religion for doing something that science does too (and that every worldview other than extreme solipsism) has to do.
It's not ignoring of evidence, is it?