Well, correct, but I guess the religion aspect is a motivational compass with society so it's more of the reason to why they bestow the rights then where the rights come from. I probably could have worded that better.
Like i said, that discussion brings up topics such as ethics and morality, and i rather not go into that discussion on a forum such as slashdot.
You see, here is the funny thing. The age of the earth and everything about evolution, is just a way we understand things in order to use them to our benefit. Because we understand them this way doesn't mean they are right and any religion or god is wrong as it could very well be that both are right with the difference that science requires the possibility of being wrong.
I was talking more specifically about the people who attempt to make 'scientific' statements to prove these things to be according to their beliefs, they make specific, unfounded claims that might sound scientific, but they are either based on a complete misunderstanding of science, or a willful misrepresentation of science. And then you have the ones that are also purely moronic. You can disprove these claims with science.
Claims such as 'god guided evolution through the natural world' however, can not. You can however, debate the merits of such claims on other grounds.
The moon landing, I see as a different set of situations as it can actually be tested to some degree.
It's exactly the same thing, but even more crazy.
So the existence of that knowledge and the use of it does not mean the religion is wrong (unless you are going to make a religious argument to why the religion is wrong).
If that religion uses specific claims, you can prove those claims to be wrong. Now, most religious texts don't make such claims, but their followers do.
Religion can give us depth and meaning to questions of life and purpose and is mostly philosophical- even when it makes statements about something science has determined to be different. Just because we understand something to be a certain way in science does not mean it wasn't a different way or that it could never be a different way. Our understanding thought science does not show that something else is neccesarily wrong.
There are pretty much two types of approaches to religion. The philosophical one, that uses the religious texts more as a matter of metaphors, and the 'blind faith' approach. You won't have much problems with the first group, but the second one will sue schools to try and force them to teach for instance creationism. I have no issue with the first group.
Who are you expressing your opinion to?
To anyone who is willing to listen/read.
If it's people who don't believe as you, then you are making demands and claims.
Like i said, a discussion does not imply that someone is making demands, i'm not forcing them to participate in the discussion. the point of a discussion is to exchange knowledge and opinions, not to make demands. When conveying knowledge, you might make claims about said knowledge, but i don't see anything wrong with that, as long as you can back your claims up.
OR maybe I should ask why are you expression your opinions to people who do not believe as you if you are not attempting to get them to "believe the way you do about things claiming it's scientific"
Because it puzzles and amuses me. Someone who has faith will not be persuaded by me, unless that person already had serious doubts about his faith. Someone who approaches religion philosophically will adjust his beliefs to fit with the new knowledge gained, and the blind followers will stay perpetually blind.
Holes in a model, theory, or hypothesis does not make something impossible.
I guess what I'm am confused about is why science speaks about religion, more specifically, a being that doesn't even fall within the real of science at all.
Actually, science speaks very little of religion, the only exceptions are studies that revolve about that subject or human nature, but fields like physics and such ignore the subject altogether.
And why people attempt to make claims and connections about science and that being.
Human nature. You can't use science to prove or disprove a god, but a lot of people fail to grasp that. Some people see 'god' as the god of gaps, and when we make a new discovery that conflicts with a religious text, some will claim this proves that god doesn't exist. It's irrational and stems from a poor understanding of science & logic.
Now that brings us to an interesting situation, if you don't believe in a creator or anything like that, then your rights are bestowed by society.
Your rights are always bestowed by society, the reason why society gives you those rights might be rooted in religion and the belief in a creator, but in the end it is society as a whole who bestows the rights and duties of the members of said society. This discussion would involve morality and ethics, and that's a whole other game.
I'm just trying to understand why someone would claim to be all scientific and such, then resort to bringing unscientific entities and concepts into the same discussion for the express purpose of upsetting someone.
I'm not the one whom brought up religion in this thread, that was someone else, as to why i discuss these things? Because i find it oddly fascinating how some people can hold onto a belief even if presented with evidence that their belief is wrong, this applies to specific claims of course, such as evolution, or the age of the earth or heck, even the moon landing. The way some people react to that amuses and fascinates me.
Seriously, why is it that you need everyone to believe the way you do about things claiming it's scientific when they aren't even involved in a scientific discussion?
I make no such demands or claims, discussing things isn't the same as demanding things.
it was the idea and concept you are supporting.
Feel free to elaborate on this. My native tongue isn't english so maybe i did not word it properly.
My point is that you should refrain from making statements claiming this is the one and only way a star can be formed. You should refrain from saying, this other way isn't possible because we know this one way is fact based on indirect observations and mathematical models.
I make no such claims. If i claim a specific way is impossible, it will be because i can point at holes in the model/theory/hypothesis.
Absolute statements in science should be very rare if ever at all when dealing with a process outside a specific experiment.
They actually are very rare, blame the press for this one.
I will make a statement about the talk origins site. The examples there are plausibly on the way to showing speciation or methods of it happening naturally, but they have been developed and presented it in a way to push the concept of speciation to meet with a goal and agenda outside the realm of science. A lot of the examples even distort the meaning of the information presented in that endeavor.
I actually brought that link up because of the excellent part about the definition 'species', not for the examples listed there. Examples are useless without a proper framework to use them in. Since the definition of species is something of a rather hot subject i'd rather not go there.
You seem to be more informed about this specific regulation then i am, do you happen to have a link to the text? I've got no clue where to even start looking for it
Somehow i doubt that. You see, google doesn't really need to use cookies to track you, all they need is a HTTP GET from your browser in order to do some pretty decent tracking based on your browser, OS & IP combination.
What I want to know is what I have to do explicitly to comply with this thing, apparently it's been in the pipeline for over 3 years, and it's the first I hear from it. Some practical info would've been nice. Guess I'll have to dig up the regulation itself on one of the EU sites... Wish me luck!
You may be able to separate bad science from good science, but the elimination of people simply can't be done.
All very nice and all, but in the end, this is just semantics. Like i said earlier, i differentiate between science, as a methodology, and scientists. I do not conflate both. All the things you are focusing on are failures by the scientists, not science. It might be a silly distinction for you, but for me it makes all the difference.
It's interesting. I was speaking about science in general and how it's presented to the public, and you are concentrating on yourself specifically.
I can only express my own opinions and perceptions. I tend to avoid generalizing my personal opinion.
Anyways, have you ever found yourself ignoring claims because they didn't match what you thought was right? Have you ignored claimed or rejected them simply because the source is connected to Big Oil or some industry pundit or somehow has something to gain from the claim? Even if you haven't, there are tons of people who do. Just pay attention on slashdot where the easiest way to win the argument seems to be attacking the messenger and not the message. And yes, they will claim it's science too.
No, i don't ignore claims or reject them. I however, do ignore topics that are of no interest to me. For me, the most exciting thing that can happen is that some discovery throws my understanding of a topic into disarray, i love learning new stuff. As for people claiming that what they're doing is science, well, claiming so doesn't make it true. I can claim to be a Martian, that won't turn me into one nether.
lol.. I don't see how it's threatening science at all?
It's not science that is threatened by the god of gaps, but the god of gaps that is threatened by science. And yes, scientists have been threatened by religious people in the past, in the present and probably in the future. Like i said, i don't care if you believe or not, i have my opinion about it, and i'll voice it from time to time, but i'd never try & take away your right to believe.
When will they ever need to know the answers?
If you are raised to think something is true without examining the evidence (or the absence of evidence), and you base your world view on that, then yes, you really should know the answers (or lack there-of). In the end however, it's your life, and you can spend it how you like, as long as you don't encroach on my own rights. It's just my personal opinion that it's stupid.
So why are you trying to make them live the way you want?
I'm not trying to make them live the way 'i want it', i'm expressing my personal opinion and exercising my right to freedom of speech. And yes, that includes the right to say blasphemous things (eat that Ireland!). Why are you trying to suppress my freedom of speech? (See what i did there?)
As for indirect observations about said evolution, genetics being a key element in that. Yes, but keep in mind that it's interpreted.
Everything is interpreted, and can therefor be wrong. Comes with the territory.
And here I thought you were going to remain rational about this..
I told you it was complete and utter bullshit in a rational way.
The point is, two separate approaches were use to create the same objectives. When compared with your observations of E.coli evolving, claiming that it's the same mechanism that might have happened with human evolution is a pretty good guess. But it's still more or less that- a guess. comparing genetic markets, might get you close enough to make our current understanding work, but having that work does not mean it's right. And before you say it is right, remember, if our understanding cannot ever change, it's not science anymore.
No, I am saying they are combined indistinguishably within science and with those claiming to be doing science. It's like the unbiased reporter only reporting the facts that support their positions- it isn't a slant in the wording, but it's a slant none the less.
The scientific method is only going to be as good as those practicing it.
Science, the discipline or method is unbiased. The scientists however, are not. If someone tells me that science is biased or something, for me, that implies it's the method they are discussing. The distinction for me is as clear as night & day. No True Scotsman does not apply.
When it's pointed out that something is lacking, or wrong, or doesn't make sense, and the human fallibility takes over, you cannot tell the difference from an outside perspective in the modern climate.
In short, it's really where our perception of science has gone to.
We must have different perception then, because frankly, even the suggestion that i'd restrict myself to press releases to get my science news sounds ludicrous to me. If i encounter a press release that tickles my fancy, i will go & read the papers and investigate. If it something that hardly or doesn't interest me, i'm inclined to accept the press release as is, but i will not base my world view (or even an opinion) based on that.
Now, if you mean something else completely, you might want to rephrase that;)
It's not irrelevant. The entire concept of an all powerful omnipotent being forcing it's will onto people and the planet is directly based around the concept of not being able to understand or comprehend the the underlying principles behind some happenings. People who believe in a god in today's times, are simply people who are content with the answers.
Frankly, if someone believes or not, i couldn't care less. The problem is, they care that others believe differently or not at all.
The god you just described is the god of gaps, that's the one who's being threatened by science.
It's not about being true as much as it's about being true enough that they are content with the answers.
They are content with the answers because they are either not properly educated or have been brainwashed since childhood to reject observable reality.
If it was about verifiability, then a lot of scientific theory can be claimed to be false crap at the same time. For instance, I already referenced the fact that you cannot evolve molecules into a cell and then into a mammal to verify current evolutionary theory.
You just mixed abiogenesis with evolution and skipped over the generational divide. Evolution theory doesn't describe how life came to be, only how life evolves. We can not observe it on a macro level directly due to the massive amount of time required to do so, but we have indirect observations about said evolution, genetics being a key element in that.
But we can take observations and draw conclusions based on them with somewhat of an acceptable degree of confidence. It's really no different other then some people are content in a magical being willing something into our existence while others are more pressed about how that was accomplished.
Oh but it's very different, evolutionary science itself has evolved a great deal since Darwin, while the bible for instance, is still the same as it was 1000 years ago.
The mechanisms for belief are stunningly the same here. The mechanisms for accepting one or the other or rejecting it altogether are too. That was the point, not that any one person is right or wrong, true or false.
Your point is flawed as pointed out above. If you think it is the same, then your education was flawed. When it comes to science, we accept statements while being very well aware that science is not stat
That is indeed what the insanity boils down to, for some reason they are convinced their book is written under 'godly influence' or sacred or what have you, while dismissing other texts that claim the same thing. No matter what they answer to question 2 is equally applicable to their own text, and they are unable to grasp that idea.
Well, that's the claim. However, it seems completely different in real life. Take the CRU emails for instance.
You are conflating scientific method with human fallibility. Two different things.
Most tales are the result of things observed. The boogerman was developed to stop young kids from wondering off in the night where animals would think they were food. Not eating shell fish because God would punish you was developed at a time when refrigeration wasn't around and it was actually dangerous to eat shellfish. Isolating women on their period or after childbirth and making sure things were cleansed properly that they came into contact was because you guessed, it, it could cause people to get sick and die.
These parts are irrelevant, the part i refer to as folk lore & fairy tales are the parts that deal with god, the devil and the whole load of other unverifiable and unfounded bs in that book. Look, it's not because parts of a story are based (however loosely) on truth that all is based on truth. Take the Koran for instance, it also contains things based loosely on truth, and so do other religious texts, that doesn't mean it is all true (in fact, it's impossible that they are all true since they contradict each other). And since the truth is unverifiable, like all fairy tales the only reasonable & logical position is to regard such claims as such.
Really, You have done this in the past? I mean grab a single cell organism and evolve it into a mammal of some existing species or new species altogether?
This is what i refer to as 'moving the goalpost'. You were talking about 'biological evolutionary theory', which is observable. By not making specific claims i do not need to resort to specific rebuttals.
No, parts of it is "verifiable observation" that leads us to strongly believe the rest is true too. It's not however a proven fact from point A to point B.
It might not be observable in your lifespan, or mine, but the discovery of genetics have proven this as a scientific fact.
Even the claims of Speciation (species evolving into distinctly different species) is largely a excursive in schematics coached with a little redefining of terms that seem to fail basic tests of existing taxonomies when extrapolated outside the confined example.
Speciation has been observed. Scientific fact.
Stupidity, given time, will show itself as obvious.
You need to observe people a bit more, stupidity is the natural state. How many people actually have an inquisitive mind? And quite a few people seem to be unable to accept any knowledge that might conflict with their belief, no matter the volume of proof you present them. These tend to be either religious people or conspiracy nuts.
The treatment is as I described,. This is mostly because Science has become political in recent years, and with politics, you have to deal with ideology which is indistinguishable from religion. In fact, they are the same for the most extent.
Sorry, but i don't let politics interfere with science here. I'll look at the papers and judge them based on their merits, politics be damned. As for your statement that ideology is indistinguishable from religion, i disagree. You don't require ideology for religion or religion of ideology. If anything, ideology is linked to morality, which is as far away from religion as you can get.
The point was to why it exists in the first place. "Can be true" is still true when it's "not likely to be true". To say it is true is no more a lie or mental failing when you read it in some book, verses misinterpreting empirical evidence presented to you.
The tooth fairy can be true, Odin can be true, Osiris can be true, and i can tell you quite a few more. It is not because it is impossible to prove something does not exi
What I'm saying is that it's all the same process. Eventually, people become content with what they are told and leave it at that. Even if it's wrong and they do not care to challenge it themselves.
Congratulations, you just described the fact that people are lazy. Most people strike me as unwilling to gather knowledge, a sad observation:(
In the end, both seem to think something is a fact until something shows them that they were/are wrong. Or in other words, it's the same mental process dealing the different conclusions and beliefs.
The difference is, science is actively looking to falsify models, it is constantly challenging current models, religion does not do this.
Ok. but why is that? Folk lore and tradition has established things mostly through a scientific process. People observed things, took actions to correct it or lessen it's impact, and then created folk lore about it with real world results.
Maybe it's because English isn't my native tongue, but for me, folk lore are fairy tales.
I'm willing to be that the logic you seem so keen on isn't quite as logical as you think it is.
I'm willing to accept that bet.
For instance, even here on slashdot, I see people claim that biological evolutionary theory is a proven fact. Can you believe that crap?
A scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, so yes, i can accept that statement, because i can actually validate it myself.
I've seem people here on slashdot claim that Science proves a god doesn't exist.
God is irelevant to science, since science only concerns itself with the natural, a god is supernatural. There is, however, no reason to assume there is a god, there are no observations that indicate there is one, there is no way to test for one, and we can't even define what a god is.
They are putting what they want to believe above the science and still calling it science.
Or they have no clue what science is.
Then there are the holier then though crowed who claim there is no god, all religion sucks donkey balls
Well, basically that's because religion does indeed suck donkey balls. There is as much reason to assume god is real as there is reason to assume the flying spaghetti monster is real. That was the whole point of the FSM movement.
and if you say anything bad about science, it's blasphemy.
Or plain stupidity, something that's even more annoying then blasphemy.
Here is the real problem. When someone says god did something, 99% of the time, they are not saying it couldn't happen naturally. In fact, if it could happen naturally, then it's probably because that god mad it possible when it did something. But what they are really saying is that they are content with knowing only that a god did it. You might not be. If you are both wrong, you are both wrong because of the same thought mechanics and processes. There is less then 1% of either that seems to be insurmountable.
Assuming that an unprovable unobservable unneeded entity is required to explain the provable & observable reality is illogical.
Re:Yeah but how much is the ink cartridge?
on
Kidney Printer
·
· Score: 1
And wrong again. Science is the search of understanding how things work, truth has nothing to do with it, truth is a human concept. Science is basically this:
You observe phenomenon A, you create a model (hypotheses/theory) that explains phenomenon A, you apply your hypothesis to other phenomena and see where/when your model breaks. If the model breaks, you go back to the drawing board. If you (and others!) are unable to break your model, you assume the model is correct, but you never state that it is 100% correct, there are no certainties in science.
Science doesn't claim to have "the truth", science is about data and creating models based on that data. Take the piltdown man you love so much, in the eyes of science, that was data, observable facts. The fact that the data (the skull) was a forgery only came to light as more examinations of the data were executed. Of course, the better your forgery, the longer it'll take to debunk it, and since the data seemed to correspond to some of the theories/hypotheses of that day, they did not scrutinize it as thoroughly as they could have (and probably do since that day on).
Piltdown man however, was not passed around as science, piltdown man was data, and passed around as such. The science was the theories/hypotheses that explained it's existence, and they have been debunked.
Bottom line, you *ARE* ignorant of what science is supposed to be, you mistake data for scientific theorems.
It *WAS* a measurement error, from the summary: "she noticed that the star's brightness was listed incorrectly in a reference catalog" See the words 'reference catalog' there? Do you know what that means? Shall i draw a picture?
What you describe is human bias, yes, people WANT to find that Earth like planet (for fame and glory, or to shut up the folks who say they'll never find one), it's called being human. The cool thing about science is that everyone who is so inclined can falsify findings, something that is unheard of in religious circles.
As for piltdown man, yes, that turned out to be a hoax, but unlike some hoaxes that have been going on for millenia, scientist figured out it was a hoax by applying SCIENCE. Regarding those degrees you seem to claim should be revoked, you are a blathering idiot. Seriously. Doctorates are not a matter of rounding up some random data, doctorates are about applied methods, methodology, analytical skills and far less about looking up data from wikipedia.
As for claiming science is flawed, that's complete & utter bullshit. The principles behind science are solid, the only thing that is flawed is mankind. If science gets something wrong, the problems that cause are either directly visible (your probe just smacked into the moon), or subtle, the visible ones are caught pretty easily, the subtle ones are captured over time as more knowledge is gained. Remember that in science, the goal is not to prove something is right, it is the goal to prove something is wrong.
Ask the following questions to a christian (or adjust for other faiths):
1) Why do you belief the bible is right? Most likely answer: It was written under godly influence
2) If you believe the bible is right, where do you think the older religious texts, such as those from the ancient egyptians and romans come from? It was made up by people to manipulate/control/seize power
3) Couldn't the bible have the same origins? Head explodes, goto infinite loop
Slashdot Mirror
Stripped naked and tied down above an ants-hill, and a guard next to the hill with a poking stick.... It'll take forever to die
And that matters.... how? Seriously? Of all the places to start an atheisttheist fight, you pick this?!
Well, correct, but I guess the religion aspect is a motivational compass with society so it's more of the reason to why they bestow the rights then where the rights come from. I probably could have worded that better.
Like i said, that discussion brings up topics such as ethics and morality, and i rather not go into that discussion on a forum such as slashdot.
You see, here is the funny thing. The age of the earth and everything about evolution, is just a way we understand things in order to use them to our benefit. Because we understand them this way doesn't mean they are right and any religion or god is wrong as it could very well be that both are right with the difference that science requires the possibility of being wrong.
I was talking more specifically about the people who attempt to make 'scientific' statements to prove these things to be according to their beliefs, they make specific, unfounded claims that might sound scientific, but they are either based on a complete misunderstanding of science, or a willful misrepresentation of science. And then you have the ones that are also purely moronic. You can disprove these claims with science. Claims such as 'god guided evolution through the natural world' however, can not. You can however, debate the merits of such claims on other grounds.
The moon landing, I see as a different set of situations as it can actually be tested to some degree.
It's exactly the same thing, but even more crazy.
So the existence of that knowledge and the use of it does not mean the religion is wrong (unless you are going to make a religious argument to why the religion is wrong).
If that religion uses specific claims, you can prove those claims to be wrong. Now, most religious texts don't make such claims, but their followers do.
Religion can give us depth and meaning to questions of life and purpose and is mostly philosophical- even when it makes statements about something science has determined to be different. Just because we understand something to be a certain way in science does not mean it wasn't a different way or that it could never be a different way. Our understanding thought science does not show that something else is neccesarily wrong.
There are pretty much two types of approaches to religion. The philosophical one, that uses the religious texts more as a matter of metaphors, and the 'blind faith' approach. You won't have much problems with the first group, but the second one will sue schools to try and force them to teach for instance creationism. I have no issue with the first group.
Who are you expressing your opinion to?
To anyone who is willing to listen/read.
If it's people who don't believe as you, then you are making demands and claims.
Like i said, a discussion does not imply that someone is making demands, i'm not forcing them to participate in the discussion. the point of a discussion is to exchange knowledge and opinions, not to make demands. When conveying knowledge, you might make claims about said knowledge, but i don't see anything wrong with that, as long as you can back your claims up.
OR maybe I should ask why are you expression your opinions to people who do not believe as you if you are not attempting to get them to "believe the way you do about things claiming it's scientific"
Because it puzzles and amuses me. Someone who has faith will not be persuaded by me, unless that person already had serious doubts about his faith. Someone who approaches religion philosophically will adjust his beliefs to fit with the new knowledge gained, and the blind followers will stay perpetually blind.
Holes in a model, theory, or hypothesis does not make something impossible.
Actually, they do. They make that model
I guess what I'm am confused about is why science speaks about religion, more specifically, a being that doesn't even fall within the real of science at all.
Actually, science speaks very little of religion, the only exceptions are studies that revolve about that subject or human nature, but fields like physics and such ignore the subject altogether.
And why people attempt to make claims and connections about science and that being.
Human nature. You can't use science to prove or disprove a god, but a lot of people fail to grasp that. Some people see 'god' as the god of gaps, and when we make a new discovery that conflicts with a religious text, some will claim this proves that god doesn't exist. It's irrational and stems from a poor understanding of science & logic.
Now that brings us to an interesting situation, if you don't believe in a creator or anything like that, then your rights are bestowed by society.
Your rights are always bestowed by society, the reason why society gives you those rights might be rooted in religion and the belief in a creator, but in the end it is society as a whole who bestows the rights and duties of the members of said society. This discussion would involve morality and ethics, and that's a whole other game.
I'm just trying to understand why someone would claim to be all scientific and such, then resort to bringing unscientific entities and concepts into the same discussion for the express purpose of upsetting someone.
I'm not the one whom brought up religion in this thread, that was someone else, as to why i discuss these things? Because i find it oddly fascinating how some people can hold onto a belief even if presented with evidence that their belief is wrong, this applies to specific claims of course, such as evolution, or the age of the earth or heck, even the moon landing. The way some people react to that amuses and fascinates me.
Seriously, why is it that you need everyone to believe the way you do about things claiming it's scientific when they aren't even involved in a scientific discussion?
I make no such demands or claims, discussing things isn't the same as demanding things.
it was the idea and concept you are supporting.
Feel free to elaborate on this. My native tongue isn't english so maybe i did not word it properly.
My point is that you should refrain from making statements claiming this is the one and only way a star can be formed. You should refrain from saying, this other way isn't possible because we know this one way is fact based on indirect observations and mathematical models.
I make no such claims. If i claim a specific way is impossible, it will be because i can point at holes in the model/theory/hypothesis.
Absolute statements in science should be very rare if ever at all when dealing with a process outside a specific experiment.
They actually are very rare, blame the press for this one.
I will make a statement about the talk origins site. The examples there are plausibly on the way to showing speciation or methods of it happening naturally, but they have been developed and presented it in a way to push the concept of speciation to meet with a goal and agenda outside the realm of science. A lot of the examples even distort the meaning of the information presented in that endeavor.
I actually brought that link up because of the excellent part about the definition 'species', not for the examples listed there. Examples are useless without a proper framework to use them in. Since the definition of species is something of a rather hot subject i'd rather not go there.
You seem to be more informed about this specific regulation then i am, do you happen to have a link to the text? I've got no clue where to even start looking for it
Somehow i doubt that. You see, google doesn't really need to use cookies to track you, all they need is a HTTP GET from your browser in order to do some pretty decent tracking based on your browser, OS & IP combination.
What I want to know is what I have to do explicitly to comply with this thing, apparently it's been in the pipeline for over 3 years, and it's the first I hear from it. Some practical info would've been nice. Guess I'll have to dig up the regulation itself on one of the EU sites... Wish me luck!
I guess it depends on the games. Some games are more suited for a joypad/stick then others.
You may be able to separate bad science from good science, but the elimination of people simply can't be done.
All very nice and all, but in the end, this is just semantics. Like i said earlier, i differentiate between science, as a methodology, and scientists. I do not conflate both. All the things you are focusing on are failures by the scientists, not science. It might be a silly distinction for you, but for me it makes all the difference.
It's interesting. I was speaking about science in general and how it's presented to the public, and you are concentrating on yourself specifically.
I can only express my own opinions and perceptions. I tend to avoid generalizing my personal opinion.
Anyways, have you ever found yourself ignoring claims because they didn't match what you thought was right? Have you ignored claimed or rejected them simply because the source is connected to Big Oil or some industry pundit or somehow has something to gain from the claim? Even if you haven't, there are tons of people who do. Just pay attention on slashdot where the easiest way to win the argument seems to be attacking the messenger and not the message. And yes, they will claim it's science too.
No, i don't ignore claims or reject them. I however, do ignore topics that are of no interest to me. For me, the most exciting thing that can happen is that some discovery throws my understanding of a topic into disarray, i love learning new stuff. As for people claiming that what they're doing is science, well, claiming so doesn't make it true. I can claim to be a Martian, that won't turn me into one nether.
lol.. I don't see how it's threatening science at all?
It's not science that is threatened by the god of gaps, but the god of gaps that is threatened by science. And yes, scientists have been threatened by religious people in the past, in the present and probably in the future. Like i said, i don't care if you believe or not, i have my opinion about it, and i'll voice it from time to time, but i'd never try & take away your right to believe.
When will they ever need to know the answers?
If you are raised to think something is true without examining the evidence (or the absence of evidence), and you base your world view on that, then yes, you really should know the answers (or lack there-of). In the end however, it's your life, and you can spend it how you like, as long as you don't encroach on my own rights. It's just my personal opinion that it's stupid.
So why are you trying to make them live the way you want?
I'm not trying to make them live the way 'i want it', i'm expressing my personal opinion and exercising my right to freedom of speech. And yes, that includes the right to say blasphemous things (eat that Ireland!). Why are you trying to suppress my freedom of speech? (See what i did there?)
As for indirect observations about said evolution, genetics being a key element in that. Yes, but keep in mind that it's interpreted.
Everything is interpreted, and can therefor be wrong. Comes with the territory.
And here I thought you were going to remain rational about this..
I told you it was complete and utter bullshit in a rational way.
The point is, two separate approaches were use to create the same objectives. When compared with your observations of E.coli evolving, claiming that it's the same mechanism that might have happened with human evolution is a pretty good guess. But it's still more or less that- a guess. comparing genetic markets, might get you close enough to make our current understanding work, but having that work does not mean it's right. And before you say it is right, remember, if our understanding cannot ever change, it's not science anymore.
You misinterpret my state
No, I am saying they are combined indistinguishably within science and with those claiming to be doing science. It's like the unbiased reporter only reporting the facts that support their positions- it isn't a slant in the wording, but it's a slant none the less.
The scientific method is only going to be as good as those practicing it.
Science, the discipline or method is unbiased. The scientists however, are not. If someone tells me that science is biased or something, for me, that implies it's the method they are discussing. The distinction for me is as clear as night & day. No True Scotsman does not apply.
When it's pointed out that something is lacking, or wrong, or doesn't make sense, and the human fallibility takes over, you cannot tell the difference from an outside perspective in the modern climate.
In short, it's really where our perception of science has gone to.
We must have different perception then, because frankly, even the suggestion that i'd restrict myself to press releases to get my science news sounds ludicrous to me. If i encounter a press release that tickles my fancy, i will go & read the papers and investigate. If it something that hardly or doesn't interest me, i'm inclined to accept the press release as is, but i will not base my world view (or even an opinion) based on that. Now, if you mean something else completely, you might want to rephrase that ;)
It's not irrelevant. The entire concept of an all powerful omnipotent being forcing it's will onto people and the planet is directly based around the concept of not being able to understand or comprehend the the underlying principles behind some happenings. People who believe in a god in today's times, are simply people who are content with the answers.
Frankly, if someone believes or not, i couldn't care less. The problem is, they care that others believe differently or not at all.
The god you just described is the god of gaps, that's the one who's being threatened by science.
It's not about being true as much as it's about being true enough that they are content with the answers.
They are content with the answers because they are either not properly educated or have been brainwashed since childhood to reject observable reality.
If it was about verifiability, then a lot of scientific theory can be claimed to be false crap at the same time. For instance, I already referenced the fact that you cannot evolve molecules into a cell and then into a mammal to verify current evolutionary theory.
You just mixed abiogenesis with evolution and skipped over the generational divide. Evolution theory doesn't describe how life came to be, only how life evolves. We can not observe it on a macro level directly due to the massive amount of time required to do so, but we have indirect observations about said evolution, genetics being a key element in that.
But we can take observations and draw conclusions based on them with somewhat of an acceptable degree of confidence. It's really no different other then some people are content in a magical being willing something into our existence while others are more pressed about how that was accomplished.
Oh but it's very different, evolutionary science itself has evolved a great deal since Darwin, while the bible for instance, is still the same as it was 1000 years ago.
The mechanisms for belief are stunningly the same here. The mechanisms for accepting one or the other or rejecting it altogether are too. That was the point, not that any one person is right or wrong, true or false.
Your point is flawed as pointed out above. If you think it is the same, then your education was flawed. When it comes to science, we accept statements while being very well aware that science is not stat
Good point, i misread lawmakers for lawyers, sorry :)
Forgive him, he only has 64KB of RAM
You guys live in a strange place.... You have to sue the state for accurate education?!
That is indeed what the insanity boils down to, for some reason they are convinced their book is written under 'godly influence' or sacred or what have you, while dismissing other texts that claim the same thing. No matter what they answer to question 2 is equally applicable to their own text, and they are unable to grasp that idea.
Well, that's the claim. However, it seems completely different in real life. Take the CRU emails for instance.
You are conflating scientific method with human fallibility. Two different things.
Most tales are the result of things observed. The boogerman was developed to stop young kids from wondering off in the night where animals would think they were food. Not eating shell fish because God would punish you was developed at a time when refrigeration wasn't around and it was actually dangerous to eat shellfish. Isolating women on their period or after childbirth and making sure things were cleansed properly that they came into contact was because you guessed, it, it could cause people to get sick and die.
These parts are irrelevant, the part i refer to as folk lore & fairy tales are the parts that deal with god, the devil and the whole load of other unverifiable and unfounded bs in that book. Look, it's not because parts of a story are based (however loosely) on truth that all is based on truth. Take the Koran for instance, it also contains things based loosely on truth, and so do other religious texts, that doesn't mean it is all true (in fact, it's impossible that they are all true since they contradict each other). And since the truth is unverifiable, like all fairy tales the only reasonable & logical position is to regard such claims as such.
Really, You have done this in the past? I mean grab a single cell organism and evolve it into a mammal of some existing species or new species altogether?
This is what i refer to as 'moving the goalpost'. You were talking about 'biological evolutionary theory', which is observable. By not making specific claims i do not need to resort to specific rebuttals.
No, parts of it is "verifiable observation" that leads us to strongly believe the rest is true too. It's not however a proven fact from point A to point B.
It might not be observable in your lifespan, or mine, but the discovery of genetics have proven this as a scientific fact.
Even the claims of Speciation (species evolving into distinctly different species) is largely a excursive in schematics coached with a little redefining of terms that seem to fail basic tests of existing taxonomies when extrapolated outside the confined example.
Speciation has been observed. Scientific fact.
Stupidity, given time, will show itself as obvious.
You need to observe people a bit more, stupidity is the natural state. How many people actually have an inquisitive mind? And quite a few people seem to be unable to accept any knowledge that might conflict with their belief, no matter the volume of proof you present them. These tend to be either religious people or conspiracy nuts.
The treatment is as I described,. This is mostly because Science has become political in recent years, and with politics, you have to deal with ideology which is indistinguishable from religion. In fact, they are the same for the most extent.
Sorry, but i don't let politics interfere with science here. I'll look at the papers and judge them based on their merits, politics be damned. As for your statement that ideology is indistinguishable from religion, i disagree. You don't require ideology for religion or religion of ideology. If anything, ideology is linked to morality, which is as far away from religion as you can get.
The point was to why it exists in the first place. "Can be true" is still true when it's "not likely to be true". To say it is true is no more a lie or mental failing when you read it in some book, verses misinterpreting empirical evidence presented to you.
The tooth fairy can be true, Odin can be true, Osiris can be true, and i can tell you quite a few more. It is not because it is impossible to prove something does not exi
What I'm saying is that it's all the same process. Eventually, people become content with what they are told and leave it at that. Even if it's wrong and they do not care to challenge it themselves.
Congratulations, you just described the fact that people are lazy. Most people strike me as unwilling to gather knowledge, a sad observation :(
In the end, both seem to think something is a fact until something shows them that they were/are wrong. Or in other words, it's the same mental process dealing the different conclusions and beliefs.
The difference is, science is actively looking to falsify models, it is constantly challenging current models, religion does not do this.
Ok. but why is that? Folk lore and tradition has established things mostly through a scientific process. People observed things, took actions to correct it or lessen it's impact, and then created folk lore about it with real world results.
Maybe it's because English isn't my native tongue, but for me, folk lore are fairy tales.
I'm willing to be that the logic you seem so keen on isn't quite as logical as you think it is.
I'm willing to accept that bet.
For instance, even here on slashdot, I see people claim that biological evolutionary theory is a proven fact. Can you believe that crap?
A scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, so yes, i can accept that statement, because i can actually validate it myself.
I've seem people here on slashdot claim that Science proves a god doesn't exist.
God is irelevant to science, since science only concerns itself with the natural, a god is supernatural. There is, however, no reason to assume there is a god, there are no observations that indicate there is one, there is no way to test for one, and we can't even define what a god is.
They are putting what they want to believe above the science and still calling it science.
Or they have no clue what science is.
Then there are the holier then though crowed who claim there is no god, all religion sucks donkey balls
Well, basically that's because religion does indeed suck donkey balls. There is as much reason to assume god is real as there is reason to assume the flying spaghetti monster is real. That was the whole point of the FSM movement.
and if you say anything bad about science, it's blasphemy.
Or plain stupidity, something that's even more annoying then blasphemy.
Here is the real problem. When someone says god did something, 99% of the time, they are not saying it couldn't happen naturally. In fact, if it could happen naturally, then it's probably because that god mad it possible when it did something. But what they are really saying is that they are content with knowing only that a god did it. You might not be. If you are both wrong, you are both wrong because of the same thought mechanics and processes. There is less then 1% of either that seems to be insurmountable.
Assuming that an unprovable unobservable unneeded entity is required to explain the provable & observable reality is illogical.
Stop pirating movies!
j/k
Science is the search for truth.
And wrong again. Science is the search of understanding how things work, truth has nothing to do with it, truth is a human concept. Science is basically this:
You observe phenomenon A, you create a model (hypotheses/theory) that explains phenomenon A, you apply your hypothesis to other phenomena and see where/when your model breaks. If the model breaks, you go back to the drawing board. If you (and others!) are unable to break your model, you assume the model is correct, but you never state that it is 100% correct, there are no certainties in science.
It still applies
Science doesn't claim to have "the truth", science is about data and creating models based on that data. Take the piltdown man you love so much, in the eyes of science, that was data, observable facts. The fact that the data (the skull) was a forgery only came to light as more examinations of the data were executed. Of course, the better your forgery, the longer it'll take to debunk it, and since the data seemed to correspond to some of the theories/hypotheses of that day, they did not scrutinize it as thoroughly as they could have (and probably do since that day on).
Piltdown man however, was not passed around as science, piltdown man was data, and passed around as such. The science was the theories/hypotheses that explained it's existence, and they have been debunked.
Bottom line, you *ARE* ignorant of what science is supposed to be, you mistake data for scientific theorems.
Tell me, why should we trust anything capable of making such a mistake, even once. And yet we do, don't we?
Yet you trust the same creatures when it comes to writing that bible of yours....
It *WAS* a measurement error, from the summary: "she noticed that the star's brightness was listed incorrectly in a reference catalog" See the words 'reference catalog' there? Do you know what that means? Shall i draw a picture?
Another victim of Thomas Dolby?
What you describe is human bias, yes, people WANT to find that Earth like planet (for fame and glory, or to shut up the folks who say they'll never find one), it's called being human. The cool thing about science is that everyone who is so inclined can falsify findings, something that is unheard of in religious circles.
As for piltdown man, yes, that turned out to be a hoax, but unlike some hoaxes that have been going on for millenia, scientist figured out it was a hoax by applying SCIENCE. Regarding those degrees you seem to claim should be revoked, you are a blathering idiot. Seriously. Doctorates are not a matter of rounding up some random data, doctorates are about applied methods, methodology, analytical skills and far less about looking up data from wikipedia.
As for claiming science is flawed, that's complete & utter bullshit. The principles behind science are solid, the only thing that is flawed is mankind. If science gets something wrong, the problems that cause are either directly visible (your probe just smacked into the moon), or subtle, the visible ones are caught pretty easily, the subtle ones are captured over time as more knowledge is gained. Remember that in science, the goal is not to prove something is right, it is the goal to prove something is wrong.
Ask the following questions to a christian (or adjust for other faiths):
1) Why do you belief the bible is right?
Most likely answer: It was written under godly influence
2) If you believe the bible is right, where do you think the older religious texts, such as those from the ancient egyptians and romans come from?
It was made up by people to manipulate/control/seize power
3) Couldn't the bible have the same origins?
Head explodes, goto infinite loop