One of the things the film does is associate the ToE with Nazism. It certainly seems to have frightened this gentleman - http://richarddawkins.net/article,2488,Open-Letter-to-a-victim-of-Ben-Steins-lying-propaganda,Richard-Dawkins
If you are trying to say (very badly) that all observations are theory-laden then I doubt that anybody will argue with you. Similarly if you want to argue that the Duhem-Quine thesis would allow multiple theories that explain the observed facts of evolution then you won't get any disagreement.
So its down to you. Produce another theory that explains the facts. Just make sure it has the same explanatory power as Darwin's theory and the neo-Darwinian synthesis. It also has to be predictive and the predictions have to be testable and falsifiable. Parsimony is another requirement - no de-occamisation to sneak a god in by the side door.
Creationists are extremely good at whining about the ToE. All they have managed to produce, as Behe had to admit at the Kitzmiller-Dover tria, is something with the same scientific standing as astrology - http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/ph29a/thagard.html
I think you would find that most atheists would accept that you can't prove that personal gods do not exist.
But that doesn't mean the odds are the same as a coin toss. If we take Christianity for example, each time we find an inconsistency in the Bible (no walls around Jericho, no reports of anyone outside the middle east reporting a global flood, no town of Nazareth at the time Jesus was supposed to be alive, no reports of graves opening and the dead walking in anything but the gospels) then it lowers the probability of a biblical god.
And people of faith take a much more extreme attitude than most atheists. They insist that the probability of their god existing is 100% exactly, while the probability of anyone else's god existing is 0% exactly.
They need to realise that if you can't disprove that Yahweh exists then you can't disprove that Zeus, Odin or Atum (at least he had fun creating the world) exist either.
Mind you if you come back in 10 minutes (or anything less than 2 weeks) we will know you haven't read it. Especially if you post a random link to "Answers in Genesis".
Unfortunately the Egyptians had calculated it as 4 * (8/9)**2 in about 1650BC (Rhind Papyrus), this comes to about 3.16. Archimedes (287-212 BC) estimated it to lie between 223/71 and 22/7. The Chinese and Indians had also got reasonable estimates at about the same period.
Just goes to show you can't believe everything put forward by a set of bronze/iron age goat herders.
"Religion was no more inherent to the Crusades than Nationalism was to the Holocaust." Here speaks someone who has never been to the Langue d'Oc in France. Have a look around for details of the Albigensian crusade and in particular the statement of Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury when the town of Beziers was sacked - "Kill them all, God will know his own!"
You are quick to take some of the goods that have come out of science but just as quick to reject the appalling things that have come out of religion.
My taste in music is probably a little different from most here, the last CD I bought (just before Christmas) was music from the court of Richard the Lionheart.
However, I bought it straight from the website of the people performing the music. This tends to be the only way I actually buy music any more.
"Since open source projects rely upon a community often hostile to Microsoft for their developement, what better way to kill an open source project than to buy it?"
Rather than just go for a single project why not buy Sourceforge? Move all the projects to a new revision control system based on.Net, require that project check in/out be done from a Windows client and Robert is your father's brother.
What they actually believe is that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humans because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree and thereby pissing off an invisible wizard who lives in the sky. Makes perfect sense really.
One of the things Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail, wanted to do was to give his readers a "daily hate". It hasn't changed in that aim, constantly raising topics that will infuriate Britain's "moral majority"
> One of linux's greatest weaknesses is the amount of duplication that happens.
It is also one of its great strengths. This one, along with things like the free desktop project are starting to address the next step along. How, once a good decision has been made, to converge multiple projects into the best solution.
> My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of....
> When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
It would be nice if people actually went and looked at the figures, rather than simply regurgitating baseless opinions. The French lost 212,000 military personnel during World Ward 2, they also lost 267,000 civilians.
In comparision the Americans lost 407,000 military personnel in total, some 130,000 of which were in Europe. Total civilians killed were 11,200.
And if you really think that they Americans came in (late) and saved the day, then look at the Russian casualties, 10,700,000 military personnel and 11,500,000 civilians. This was some 13% of their population. The USA lost under 1% of its population.
Utter bollocks. The Fabian society might be socialist, but it is nothing like Stalinism. Do have a look at their (awful) website to see where they are positioned.
How about "All capitalists really want a fascist society" or "libertarians are really anarchists", see anyone can just make stuff up without any evidence.
> were mostly not just Christians, they were ordained members of the Anglican church. Because in the 19th Century, when all this happened, you had to be in Holy Orders to hold down an academic job at Oxford or Cambridge.
Just because you were in holy orders didn't mean you were a Christian. I suspect a number of those that wanted to stay at the University might just have learnt the 39 articles to get tenure, it doesn't mean to say they actually believed them.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things the film does is associate the ToE with Nazism. It certainly seems to have frightened this gentleman - http://richarddawkins.net/article,2488,Open-Letter-to-a-victim-of-Ben-Steins-lying-propaganda,Richard-Dawkins
If you are trying to say (very badly) that all observations are theory-laden then I doubt that anybody will argue with you. Similarly if you want to argue that the Duhem-Quine thesis would allow multiple theories that explain the observed facts of evolution then you won't get any disagreement.
So its down to you. Produce another theory that explains the facts. Just make sure it has the same explanatory power as Darwin's theory and the neo-Darwinian synthesis. It also has to be predictive and the predictions have to be testable and falsifiable. Parsimony is another requirement - no de-occamisation to sneak a god in by the side door.
Creationists are extremely good at whining about the ToE. All they have managed to produce, as Behe had to admit at the Kitzmiller-Dover tria, is something with the same scientific standing as astrology - http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/ph29a/thagard.html
I think you would find that most atheists would accept that you can't prove that personal gods do not exist.
But that doesn't mean the odds are the same as a coin toss. If we take Christianity for example, each time we find an inconsistency in the Bible (no walls around Jericho, no reports of anyone outside the middle east reporting a global flood, no town of Nazareth at the time Jesus was supposed to be alive, no reports of graves opening and the dead walking in anything but the gospels) then it lowers the probability of a biblical god.
And people of faith take a much more extreme attitude than most atheists. They insist that the probability of their god existing is 100% exactly, while the probability of anyone else's god existing is 0% exactly.
They need to realise that if you can't disprove that Yahweh exists then you can't disprove that Zeus, Odin or Atum (at least he had fun creating the world) exist either.
> Only real diffrence is that evolutionary theory suggests that everything is completely random
It is probably better if you actually know something about the topic before you put down your comments in (virtual) print.
Mutation is random, selection is not.
> No one has witnessed Macro-Evolution (changes from one species to another).
Perhaps you ought to have a glance at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Mind you if you come back in 10 minutes (or anything less than 2 weeks) we will know you haven't read it. Especially if you post a random link to "Answers in Genesis".
Unfortunately the Egyptians had calculated it as 4 * (8/9)**2 in about 1650BC (Rhind Papyrus), this comes to about 3.16. Archimedes (287-212 BC) estimated it to lie between 223/71 and 22/7. The Chinese and Indians had also got reasonable estimates at about the same period.
Just goes to show you can't believe everything put forward by a set of bronze/iron age goat herders.
"Religion was no more inherent to the Crusades than Nationalism was to the Holocaust." Here speaks someone who has never been to the Langue d'Oc in France. Have a look around for details of the Albigensian crusade and in particular the statement of Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury when the town of Beziers was sacked - "Kill them all, God will know his own!"
You are quick to take some of the goods that have come out of science but just as quick to reject the appalling things that have come out of religion.
My taste in music is probably a little different from most here, the last CD I bought (just before Christmas) was music from the court of Richard the Lionheart.
However, I bought it straight from the website of the people performing the music. This tends to be the only way I actually buy music any more.
"Since open source projects rely upon a community often hostile to Microsoft for their developement, what better way to kill an open source project than to buy it?"
.Net, require that project check in/out be done from a Windows client and Robert is your father's brother.
Rather than just go for a single project why not buy Sourceforge? Move all the projects to a new revision control system based on
What they actually believe is that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humans because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree and thereby pissing off an invisible wizard
who lives in the sky. Makes perfect sense really.
Might be a little too hot for you if was created 6000 years ago - http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/adam.htm
Looks like the ideal job for Miguel ;-)
I found these in a book called "Understanding Fencing" by Zbigniew Czajkowski:
"It is easier to completely destroy a thousand cities than to abolish a myth" - Ignacy Paderewski
"What a strange century in which it is easier to split an atom than to abolish a myth" - Albert Einstein
One of the things Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail, wanted to do was to give his readers a "daily hate". It hasn't changed in that aim, constantly raising topics that will infuriate Britain's "moral majority"
There was rioting in Paris, Toulouse and Lille last night...
> One of linux's greatest weaknesses is the amount of duplication that happens.
It is also one of its great strengths. This one, along with things like the free desktop project are starting to address the next step along. How, once a good decision has been made, to converge multiple projects into the best solution.
Think of it as evolution in action.
> My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of. ...
> When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
How very christian of you.
See yourself as the intellectual type with sports being beneath you?
9 14238877457&q=sabre to see how it is done at the top level.
Choose a sport that exercises both body and mind. You could try *cough* fencing for instance.
Have a glance at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1478623
It would be nice if people actually went and looked at the figures, rather than simply regurgitating baseless opinions. The French lost 212,000 military personnel during World Ward 2, they also lost 267,000 civilians.
In comparision the Americans lost 407,000 military personnel in total, some 130,000 of which were in Europe. Total civilians killed were 11,200.
And if you really think that they Americans came in (late) and saved the day, then look at the Russian casualties, 10,700,000 military personnel and 11,500,000 civilians. This was some 13% of their population. The USA lost under 1% of its population.
He should be writing for http//www.conservapedia.com
> Fabianism is like Stalinism but slower.
Utter bollocks. The Fabian society might be socialist, but it is nothing like Stalinism. Do have a look at their (awful) website to see where they are positioned.
How about "All capitalists really want a fascist society" or "libertarians are really anarchists", see anyone can just make stuff up without any evidence.
> were mostly not just Christians, they were ordained members of the Anglican church. Because in the 19th Century, when all this happened, you had to be in Holy Orders to hold down an academic job at Oxford or Cambridge.
Just because you were in holy orders didn't mean you were a Christian. I suspect a number of those that wanted to stay at the University might just have learnt the 39 articles to get tenure, it doesn't mean to say they actually believed them.
Shaun the sheep is apparently involved in the next production.
La propriété, c'est le vol! (Property is theft).
Show us the numbers.
Let's see your results for the same scenarios or, if you don't think his scenarios reflect usage, some other typical usage patterns.