I don't see how it's possible to tell one way or the other - there are no overt signs that he's being ironic, I certainly didn't detect any and rereading it after your suggestion, i still can't spot any signs of irony. In the absence of such a sign occam's razor favours assuming he's not being ironic.
So what the article should say is that 81% of consumers CAN tell the difference between HD and SD. I wonder what percentage of those surveyed had bad eyesight? I'm pretty sure it's more than 18% of them. This is a non story.
I find it hard to accept the idea that some lone guy on slashdot has found a problem in the maths used by all the astronomers in the world who describe galaxy rotation, or indeed that even if you had, it seems galaxy rotation is not the sole piece of evidence for dark matter.
The bilious tone of your post seems to betray a racist motivation of your own for "justice" against the "scourge" of positive discrimination.
For the record, I agree that everyone should be judged on their own merits irrespective of any circumstantial and irrelevant personal attributes, and that positive discrimination is not a constructive solution to negative discrimination, rather that solution is pertinent discrimination, ie, selecting a candidate based on attributes they exhibit that are relevant to the post they are being selected for.
But all this talk of justice and scourges and elimination seems to betray the fact that you hate some minority or other and can't contain your rage when one of them gets a job that someone from your ethnic group also applied for.
Apart from where it says fruit bearing plants existed before fish. and all the other things it says that disagree with established science. So you have a choice of dismissing the science, or accepting that the bible is either fallible or allegorical. But you can't say the bible is literal and infallible, and the science is sound, since they contradict one another.
although with the number of articles that are tagged "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense" on slashdot, the "suddenoutbreak" part has started to sound a bit daft. more like "constantreportsofcommonsense". Or "weshouldallprobablystopbeingsonihilisticandcynical"
1. You have to be specific about what you mean by transitional - evolutionary theory regards all individuals are intermediate. Perhaps you mean species that have developed into other species? here are some examples of still existing species that have given rise to other species that are alive today. But perhaps species is too close as in "a brown bear and a polar bear are still bears", perhaps you'd like something more intuitively striking - how about a fish that can breath air and crawl on land? Or perhaps a platypus which is half way between between mammals and reptiles. There are so many ways to define transitional that you have to be specific in order for me to address your question specifically
2. The evolution of the eye is explained adequately elsewhere. What aspect of this is incompatible with the timeframe within which teeth are thought to have evolved?
4. Again you have to be specific about what you mean by transitional. Archaeopteryx is descended from reptiles, and has some bird features and some reptile features, but does not have any living descendants. Modern birds share a common ancestor with Archaeopteryx. The article you link (from the mid 90's) to is talking about Alan Feduccia's theory that birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but instead developed from ancient reptiles that predate dinosaurs. Up till the mid 90's it was thought that Archaeopteryx was a direct descendant of modern birds. Fossil evidence around this time of feathered reptiles found in china established that Archaeopteryx was not a direct ancestor of modern birds, but instead was a cousin of the lineage that did eventually become modern birds.
This revision has no impact on the validity of evolutionary theory. There are a large number of well documented evolutionary progressions that apply to current living populations, such as land mammal to whale evolution, and there are other intermediate forms such as tiktaalik which are more obviously intuitive "half-way" examples that are useful as intuitive examples, which was the primary advantage of Archaeopteryx.
If by "throws it's arms up" you mean "is intellectually honest enough to be clear about areas where there is more to be learned" then yes. Conventionally "throwing your arms up" is intended to convey as sense of premature futility - just giving up out of frustration. Science absolutely does not do this.
As you point out, the theory of evolution is not formulated to explain cosmology or abiogenesis. You seem to regard this as somehow weakening the theory of evolution - that because doesn't attempt to explain everything that it is no good at explaining the phenomena that it is attempting to.
Will science have a more complete understanding of the universe once a theory is composed that unites gravity with quantum effects? Absolutely. Is the current theory of gravity dubious because it doesn't explain quantum effects? Absolutely not - it doesn't need to explain quantum effects in order to highly accurately describe gravity.
The same goes for evolution and abiogenesis - a more complete picture will be uncovered once science has a rigorous theory of abiogenesis, which would obviously need to integrate well with evolutionary theory to form a coherent picture. But that has no bearing on the accuracy of evolutionary theory with regards to the subject it actually attempts to explain, which is the way life has developed from the first primitive organisms. This topic can be modelled, investigated and described without needing to know about abiogenesis.
..Gaps in the Fossil records that we just have faith in our assumption that our theories are correct because it validate the other theories and evolution in it's entirety to some degree. There are more problems but we don't need to focus on that.
I think you do need to focus on that, because the two examples you just gave and the entire gamut of evolution denialist "problems" with evolution are demonstrably false. Unless you know of some new ones, but as far as I've seen the evolution denial movement hasn't come up with anything new for a long time. I don't say this to be arbitrarily dismissive, If you think you have some genuine counter-evidence to the theory of evolution i'd happy to argue it on its merits.
To the average person, and I'm talking about 99 percent of the world's population, it comes down to who or which authority is more convincing to them.
This is true, and it's a problem that science is designed specifically to tackle. The way science obviates this problem is by only accepting data and conclusions that are reproducible by others, and that have been tested using formal methods to such a large extent and by so many independent people that it precludes objective bias to a reliable extent. Of course this process can never establish anything to 100% certainty, but the more it is applied to a particular question, the higher the percentage of certainty is pushed. Evolutionary theory has undergone this process for 150 years. Ironically, a large enough percentage of the population do not realise this, and write the scientific consensus off as carrying no more weight than the opinions of the small group of people all of whom have an undisguised (most of the time) agenda to defend the inerrancy of one particular religious text.
Which group of people do you think has the higher probability of being an objective and unbiased source? Honestly? The scientific community, which consists of millions of people of all races and beliefs, who independently and openly are free to question and disprove any of these claims over and over again at any time? Or the tiny minority of evolution denialists (the people who actually come up with these arguments, not the people who merely accept them) who almost universally admit to an agenda?
Of course, the argument from authority is not a valid logical approach, but accepting scientfic consensus is not the same thing as bowing to an authority. The scientific consensus is the culmination
We need some definitions for this conversation to be meaningful - can you define what you mean by "non-material"? There's a difference between something that is (1)imaginary or a concept("non-material") (2)a property or state ("non-material"), and something that is (3) supernatural ("non-material").
I would say things like logic and beauty fall into category 1, laws of physics, energy, velocity fall in to category 2 and god falls in to category 3. Perhaps there are other categories i have missed.
Category 1 have things like the "i think therefore i am" way of knowing something exists. 2 relies on the scientific way of being surer than not that something exists. 3 is far less knowable than either of the 1st two categories, since you have no way of testing it.
In category 1, self awareness is self evident. That's how you know you are real and it's the only thing you can know for sure. Logic itself is just a pattern of thought that is capable of being followed by the human mind in order to extract information about things it hasn't experienced yet by extrapolating the information that is has experienced. Logic relies on causality which is a fundamental property of the universe - thus causality falls in to category 2.
My position is that Category 3 is impossible to gain any reliable information about, which means it gives no useful explanations for anything material or anything (cat. 1 and 2) non-material.
As far as is apparent to me, Logic is just a product of the pattern recognition abilities of the brain combined with the effects of causality in the physical laws of the universe. These are both category 1 and 2 "non-material" phenomena, and no appeal to category 3 is required
So in answer to your question "does there exists anything that is non-material?" i would say "which category do you mean?". Category 1 for certain, since i am self aware. Category 2 i am prepared to accept as existing since the alternative is that the universe is incomprehensible or nonexistant, and i don't think it's possible for the human brain to accept that. What would you do? Kill your self? How can you even think? The human brain relies on causality to build its internal models (logic), since it is the product of a causal universe. Category 3 on the other hand as far as i can see is completely optional.
Now that i've laid out my position clearer can you be more precise about where you think my logic doesn't work?
By the way, I see you are using laws of logic. How do you account for them within your worldview?
in what way do i need to account for them? and if it isn't possible to account for them in the way you require, how does that affect the validity of my worldview? and what aspect of my worldview is it that is in question? Presumably it's that i am not a theist? To be explicit, i accept that scientifically we know nothing about what exists outside the universe, or what caused the big bang. At the same time i see no reason to assume any intelligent agent had or has any part in it. we simply have no verifiable information one way or the other, and in the light of no information occam's razor favours the null hypothesis.
Faith and reason do not need to contradict each other.
Very true. I wouldn't assert otherwise.
to deny His existence is to embrace irrationality because you then cannot account for immaterial absolutes-like laws of logic.
why can't you? what specifically do you mean? this seems like a non-sequiter to me.
that's why they just stand there and wait for someone to come up and proposition them. standing in the street isn't the same as asking someone if they'll give you money for sex.
For someone that bangs on about logic, you sure do commit a lot of logical fallacies.
The Christian Theistic Worldview is the only worldview I've found that is consistent with human experience....You can't escape the Christian Theistic Worldview. You have to assume it to make sense of the world.
That's the argument from ignorance. You've made the incorrect leap that because you personally cannot imagine or understand any way that the world can make sense outside of your particular viewpoint, that it therefore is universally impossible for the the world to make sense outside that viewpoint. This kind of logic entails omniscience on your part in order to be to be valid.
My worldview allows for abstract, universal absolute like laws of logic. The Christian Theistic Worldview is the only worldview I've found that is consistent with human experience.
So because your worldview allows for logic to be abstract, absolute and apply universally, it must be true, since logic is abstract, absolute and universally applicable? That only follows if no other worldviews allow for abstract, absolute and universally applicable logic. I'm finding it hard to think of any that DON'T. Certainly there aren't any differences in this regard between christianity, judaisim and islam so that right there invalidates your logic.
it's being inserted by the editors? jesus i thought it was just some stupid obnoxious meme that was going on way after it was funny, even though it never was, like that time every single story was tagged "itsatrap" for five days.
A story about an American newspaper, dealing with American politics, and an American scale of liberal/conservative bias has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
i only wish that were true. the fact that you think it is only goes to highlight how ignorant some americans are about the ramifications of the behaviour of their government with regards to everyone else in the world. I'll clue you in. THEY'REMASSIVE. And the behaviour of your government can only be influenced by the will of the american populace - so your attitudes as reflected through your media are of great interest to everyone else in the world.
i bet if you rang up PRS or PPL and told them what you were doing they would demand money from you for licences. I've had a PRS licence for over a year and it hasn't been till recently that PPL rang me up and demanded their protection money. I wasn't even aware they existed till that point.
I'm a member of the Federation of Small Businesses, and there have been rumblings going in the direction of allowing "micro-businesses" (less than 10 employees or some such figure) relief or exemption from these extortions.
If I weren't so busy I'd be rather active in this area as it is massively obstructive and unnecessary
I sell CDs in a bricks and mortar store in the UK , and TWO separate extortion agencies charge me over £100 a year each for the privilege of playing music in a shop that is making them money anyway. One licence is to pay tribute the owner of the copyright on the lyrics/composition, the other is to pay tribute the owner of the copyright of the performance. It's a fucking joke, but these assholes have the blessing of the establishment, so i have no choice. I don't for one minute think the people greedily gobbling the hard earned money of my small business are the people who wrote or performed this music.
how about, authors get paid, results get sold AS WELL AS being given away for free. Enough copies are sold to make profit, and the free copies act as viral advertising for the physical copies.
the question is, does giving it away for free harm profit margins, or increase them? Human intuition ("common sense") is about as much use as a gauge in this equation as it is in just about everything else (almost none), so until there's been some kind of empirical comparison conducted over a meaningful time scale, your take on it is on a level footing with the people you are calling stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see how it's possible to tell one way or the other - there are no overt signs that he's being ironic, I certainly didn't detect any and rereading it after your suggestion, i still can't spot any signs of irony. In the absence of such a sign occam's razor favours assuming he's not being ironic.
Perhaps it's an example of Poe's Law.
oops! 82% :D
So what the article should say is that 81% of consumers CAN tell the difference between HD and SD. I wonder what percentage of those surveyed had bad eyesight? I'm pretty sure it's more than 18% of them. This is a non story.
Does this temper your skepticism any?
I find it hard to accept the idea that some lone guy on slashdot has found a problem in the maths used by all the astronomers in the world who describe galaxy rotation, or indeed that even if you had, it seems galaxy rotation is not the sole piece of evidence for dark matter.
The bilious tone of your post seems to betray a racist motivation of your own for "justice" against the "scourge" of positive discrimination.
For the record, I agree that everyone should be judged on their own merits irrespective of any circumstantial and irrelevant personal attributes, and that positive discrimination is not a constructive solution to negative discrimination, rather that solution is pertinent discrimination, ie, selecting a candidate based on attributes they exhibit that are relevant to the post they are being selected for.
But all this talk of justice and scourges and elimination seems to betray the fact that you hate some minority or other and can't contain your rage when one of them gets a job that someone from your ethnic group also applied for.
Apart from where it says fruit bearing plants existed before fish. and all the other things it says that disagree with established science. So you have a choice of dismissing the science, or accepting that the bible is either fallible or allegorical. But you can't say the bible is literal and infallible, and the science is sound, since they contradict one another.
that's wierd i was listening to closer to the heart as i read your sig.
although with the number of articles that are tagged "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense" on slashdot, the "suddenoutbreak" part has started to sound a bit daft. more like "constantreportsofcommonsense". Or "weshouldallprobablystopbeingsonihilisticandcynical"
1. You have to be specific about what you mean by transitional - evolutionary theory regards all individuals are intermediate. Perhaps you mean species that have developed into other species? here are some examples of still existing species that have given rise to other species that are alive today. But perhaps species is too close as in "a brown bear and a polar bear are still bears", perhaps you'd like something more intuitively striking - how about a fish that can breath air and crawl on land? Or perhaps a platypus which is half way between between mammals and reptiles. There are so many ways to define transitional that you have to be specific in order for me to address your question specifically
2. The evolution of the eye is explained adequately elsewhere. What aspect of this is incompatible with the timeframe within which teeth are thought to have evolved?
3 . The evolution of the whale ear is outlined here If you google whale ear evolution there is a wealth of explanations of how whale ears evolved.
4. Again you have to be specific about what you mean by transitional. Archaeopteryx is descended from reptiles, and has some bird features and some reptile features, but does not have any living descendants. Modern birds share a common ancestor with Archaeopteryx. The article you link (from the mid 90's) to is talking about Alan Feduccia's theory that birds did not develop from dinosaurs, but instead developed from ancient reptiles that predate dinosaurs. Up till the mid 90's it was thought that Archaeopteryx was a direct descendant of modern birds. Fossil evidence around this time of feathered reptiles found in china established that Archaeopteryx was not a direct ancestor of modern birds, but instead was a cousin of the lineage that did eventually become modern birds.
This revision has no impact on the validity of evolutionary theory. There are a large number of well documented evolutionary progressions that apply to current living populations, such as land mammal to whale evolution, and there are other intermediate forms such as tiktaalik which are more obviously intuitive "half-way" examples that are useful as intuitive examples, which was the primary advantage of Archaeopteryx.
scientific theory eventually throw's it's arms up
If by "throws it's arms up" you mean "is intellectually honest enough to be clear about areas where there is more to be learned" then yes. Conventionally "throwing your arms up" is intended to convey as sense of premature futility - just giving up out of frustration. Science absolutely does not do this.
As you point out, the theory of evolution is not formulated to explain cosmology or abiogenesis. You seem to regard this as somehow weakening the theory of evolution - that because doesn't attempt to explain everything that it is no good at explaining the phenomena that it is attempting to.
Will science have a more complete understanding of the universe once a theory is composed that unites gravity with quantum effects? Absolutely. Is the current theory of gravity dubious because it doesn't explain quantum effects? Absolutely not - it doesn't need to explain quantum effects in order to highly accurately describe gravity.
The same goes for evolution and abiogenesis - a more complete picture will be uncovered once science has a rigorous theory of abiogenesis, which would obviously need to integrate well with evolutionary theory to form a coherent picture. But that has no bearing on the accuracy of evolutionary theory with regards to the subject it actually attempts to explain, which is the way life has developed from the first primitive organisms. This topic can be modelled, investigated and described without needing to know about abiogenesis.
I think you do need to focus on that, because the two examples you just gave and the entire gamut of evolution denialist "problems" with evolution are demonstrably false. Unless you know of some new ones, but as far as I've seen the evolution denial movement hasn't come up with anything new for a long time. I don't say this to be arbitrarily dismissive, If you think you have some genuine counter-evidence to the theory of evolution i'd happy to argue it on its merits.
To the average person, and I'm talking about 99 percent of the world's population, it comes down to who or which authority is more convincing to them.
This is true, and it's a problem that science is designed specifically to tackle. The way science obviates this problem is by only accepting data and conclusions that are reproducible by others, and that have been tested using formal methods to such a large extent and by so many independent people that it precludes objective bias to a reliable extent. Of course this process can never establish anything to 100% certainty, but the more it is applied to a particular question, the higher the percentage of certainty is pushed. Evolutionary theory has undergone this process for 150 years. Ironically, a large enough percentage of the population do not realise this, and write the scientific consensus off as carrying no more weight than the opinions of the small group of people all of whom have an undisguised (most of the time) agenda to defend the inerrancy of one particular religious text.
Which group of people do you think has the higher probability of being an objective and unbiased source? Honestly? The scientific community, which consists of millions of people of all races and beliefs, who independently and openly are free to question and disprove any of these claims over and over again at any time? Or the tiny minority of evolution denialists (the people who actually come up with these arguments, not the people who merely accept them) who almost universally admit to an agenda?
Of course, the argument from authority is not a valid logical approach, but accepting scientfic consensus is not the same thing as bowing to an authority. The scientific consensus is the culmination
We need some definitions for this conversation to be meaningful - can you define what you mean by "non-material"? There's a difference between something that is (1)imaginary or a concept("non-material") (2)a property or state ("non-material"), and something that is (3) supernatural ("non-material").
I would say things like logic and beauty fall into category 1, laws of physics, energy, velocity fall in to category 2 and god falls in to category 3. Perhaps there are other categories i have missed.
Category 1 have things like the "i think therefore i am" way of knowing something exists. 2 relies on the scientific way of being surer than not that something exists. 3 is far less knowable than either of the 1st two categories, since you have no way of testing it.
In category 1, self awareness is self evident. That's how you know you are real and it's the only thing you can know for sure. Logic itself is just a pattern of thought that is capable of being followed by the human mind in order to extract information about things it hasn't experienced yet by extrapolating the information that is has experienced. Logic relies on causality which is a fundamental property of the universe - thus causality falls in to category 2.
My position is that Category 3 is impossible to gain any reliable information about, which means it gives no useful explanations for anything material or anything (cat. 1 and 2) non-material.
As far as is apparent to me, Logic is just a product of the pattern recognition abilities of the brain combined with the effects of causality in the physical laws of the universe. These are both category 1 and 2 "non-material" phenomena, and no appeal to category 3 is required
So in answer to your question "does there exists anything that is non-material?" i would say "which category do you mean?". Category 1 for certain, since i am self aware. Category 2 i am prepared to accept as existing since the alternative is that the universe is incomprehensible or nonexistant, and i don't think it's possible for the human brain to accept that. What would you do? Kill your self? How can you even think? The human brain relies on causality to build its internal models (logic), since it is the product of a causal universe. Category 3 on the other hand as far as i can see is completely optional.
Now that i've laid out my position clearer can you be more precise about where you think my logic doesn't work?
By the way, I see you are using laws of logic. How do you account for them within your worldview?
in what way do i need to account for them? and if it isn't possible to account for them in the way you require, how does that affect the validity of my worldview? and what aspect of my worldview is it that is in question? Presumably it's that i am not a theist? To be explicit, i accept that scientifically we know nothing about what exists outside the universe, or what caused the big bang. At the same time i see no reason to assume any intelligent agent had or has any part in it. we simply have no verifiable information one way or the other, and in the light of no information occam's razor favours the null hypothesis.
Faith and reason do not need to contradict each other.
Very true. I wouldn't assert otherwise.
to deny His existence is to embrace irrationality because you then cannot account for immaterial absolutes-like laws of logic.
why can't you? what specifically do you mean? this seems like a non-sequiter to me.
that's why they just stand there and wait for someone to come up and proposition them. standing in the street isn't the same as asking someone if they'll give you money for sex.
For someone that bangs on about logic, you sure do commit a lot of logical fallacies.
The Christian Theistic Worldview is the only worldview I've found that is consistent with human experience....You can't escape the Christian Theistic Worldview. You have to assume it to make sense of the world.
That's the argument from ignorance. You've made the incorrect leap that because you personally cannot imagine or understand any way that the world can make sense outside of your particular viewpoint, that it therefore is universally impossible for the the world to make sense outside that viewpoint. This kind of logic entails omniscience on your part in order to be to be valid.
My worldview allows for abstract, universal absolute like laws of logic. The Christian Theistic Worldview is the only worldview I've found that is consistent with human experience.
So because your worldview allows for logic to be abstract, absolute and apply universally, it must be true, since logic is abstract, absolute and universally applicable? That only follows if no other worldviews allow for abstract, absolute and universally applicable logic. I'm finding it hard to think of any that DON'T. Certainly there aren't any differences in this regard between christianity, judaisim and islam so that right there invalidates your logic.
it's being inserted by the editors? jesus i thought it was just some stupid obnoxious meme that was going on way after it was funny, even though it never was, like that time every single story was tagged "itsatrap" for five days.
you're interpreting an aside as a non-sequitur
A story about an American newspaper, dealing with American politics, and an American scale of liberal/conservative bias has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
i only wish that were true. the fact that you think it is only goes to highlight how ignorant some americans are about the ramifications of the behaviour of their government with regards to everyone else in the world. I'll clue you in. THEY'RE MASSIVE. And the behaviour of your government can only be influenced by the will of the american populace - so your attitudes as reflected through your media are of great interest to everyone else in the world.
Rubber Host
is that some kind of dominatrix that holds swinger's parties or something?
you copied his sarcasm tag but took his comment as if it weren't sarcastic. WOOOOSH!
i bet if you rang up PRS or PPL and told them what you were doing they would demand money from you for licences. I've had a PRS licence for over a year and it hasn't been till recently that PPL rang me up and demanded their protection money. I wasn't even aware they existed till that point.
I'm a member of the Federation of Small Businesses, and there have been rumblings going in the direction of allowing "micro-businesses" (less than 10 employees or some such figure) relief or exemption from these extortions.
If I weren't so busy I'd be rather active in this area as it is massively obstructive and unnecessary
I sell CDs in a bricks and mortar store in the UK , and TWO separate extortion agencies charge me over £100 a year each for the privilege of playing music in a shop that is making them money anyway. One licence is to pay tribute the owner of the copyright on the lyrics/composition, the other is to pay tribute the owner of the copyright of the performance. It's a fucking joke, but these assholes have the blessing of the establishment, so i have no choice. I don't for one minute think the people greedily gobbling the hard earned money of my small business are the people who wrote or performed this music.
how about, authors get paid, results get sold AS WELL AS being given away for free. Enough copies are sold to make profit, and the free copies act as viral advertising for the physical copies.
the question is, does giving it away for free harm profit margins, or increase them? Human intuition ("common sense") is about as much use as a gauge in this equation as it is in just about everything else (almost none), so until there's been some kind of empirical comparison conducted over a meaningful time scale, your take on it is on a level footing with the people you are calling stupid.
The subject of your post is correct. It's not Goodwin, it's Godwin. You sir, have the spelling abilities of a National Socialist. ;p
You must both be twitter sock puppets then :p