RE: Evolution vs. Religion

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mnottertail -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:26:16 PM)
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. So, we find you considerably lacking in commonly accepted definitions as well.

Moonhead -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:27:31 PM)
Where do you think the mathematical models are derived from? Do you get put on a mailing list and receive them in the post when you declare yourself a scientist?

paulmcuk -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:28:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: thishereboi quote: He don't hand out no presents so he don't exist. Let me see if I understand what you're saying here. He do not hand out no presents (so he does hand out some) so he do not exist. How does he hand out some if he do not exist? And you expect me to take your word on this do you? [8\|] I expect nothing from someone unable to spot a comedic folksy accent presented in written form.

Mezrem -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:29:46 PM)
They are dropped off by the foreskin fairies

mnottertail -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:33:21 PM)
Do you have the maths on that? At least say the total square footage of missing foreskin? Otherwise, it ain't science, it is Sony.

paulmcuk -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:42:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Yes you did, and that's exactly the kind of concretistic thinking I'm objecting to. It is specious to argue that a symbol "doesn't exist" when what it represents clearly does. I'm sure we all grant that Santa Claus is not a real person who lives at the North Pole, but that's not what Santa Claus is; that is merely how something else is being represented. Does Superman exist because he represents people's belief in truth, justice and the American way? Since my challenge was for god to provide concrete proof of his/her/its existence, it was necessary to be concrete in my criteria for Santa. People claim god exists in the sense of actually doing things and not just as a representation.

Moonhead -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 12:47:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mezrem They are dropped off by the foreskin fairies Tattooed on trimmed prepuces?

thishereboi -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 1:13:31 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk quote: ORIGINAL: thishereboi quote: He don't hand out no presents so he don't exist. Let me see if I understand what you're saying here. He do not hand out no presents (so he does hand out some) so he do not exist. How does he hand out some if he do not exist? And you expect me to take your word on this do you? [8\|] I expect nothing from someone unable to spot a comedic folksy accent presented in written form. Accent had nothing to do with it, but nice try. Don't still means do not, no matter what accent you say it with.

Kirata -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 1:24:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk my challenge was for god to provide concrete proof of his/her/its existence... People claim god exists in the sense of actually doing things and not just as a representation. Your challenge has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not God exists. It might at best be viewed as pertaining to whether or not a particular concept of God is valid. But, only if we assume that such a God would be happy to service occasional requests for specified proofs. Personally, at least, I've never heard of anybody who believed in such a God. K.

tazzygirl -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 1:27:34 PM)
quote: Since my challenge was for god to provide concrete proof of his/her/its existence, it was necessary to be concrete in my criteria for Santa. People claim god exists in the sense of actually doing things and not just as a representation. Provide concrete proof... define such proof. By whose definition? Exists in the sense of actually doing things...Many people do claim such. Ever talked to a parent whose child went into spontaneous remission and there is no definitive scientific proof as to why? I have.

Rule -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 1:31:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk Depends on what triggered the inspiration. It may come after a long period of study on a subject - the result of endless calculations and experiments that lead to a certain conclusion. I am also allowing for a flash of brilliance that may seem to come out of nowhere but, in my admittedly incomplete knowledge of scientific discovery, such flashes rarely come from people who have not studied the field quite extensively beforehand. What is scientific about that flash of brilliance? Of course one needs to be knowledgeable in the field. Duh! That is a given. My point is that there used to be hundreds and even thousands and hundreds of thousands of scientists all quite accomplished in the scientific methods of their day who never discovered such things as calculus and the theory of evolution. Why is that if the scientific method is such a splendid algorithm? quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk That's exactly my point. People may have had the ideas, but the only ones you or I will know about are those who applied the scientific method and proved it to both themselves and others. Peter the Miller may have looked up in the sky in 1242 and thought, "Yeah, that's how celestial motion must work", but we've never heard of him because an idea is just an idea until proven. I bet you meet and recognize such people on every street corner. (Actually I somehow strongly doubt that you do so.) quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk In the case of Darwin, someone else famously DID come up with the same idea. Alfred Russel Wallace's theories were very close to Darwin's but Darwin put the work in to really back it up with evidence. Hm. And of course there was that gardener who fathomed the same algorithm and published it years before Darwin did in an obscure gardener's magazine. I know that because I read a reprint of Darwin's book one or two years ago and Darwin mentioned that guy in one of his notes to that edition. I wasn't particularly impressed by his book, by the way - it was quite boring - but then some of my background is in biology. quote: ORIGINAL: paulmcuk Of course they did. Study any of those men and you'll see a life filled with study, experiment and calculation to PROVE the ideas they had. Even if they were confident they were right, they knew that they had to prove it. Oh humbug. They simply absorbed the necessary information and subsequently solved the problem in about five seconds. A really tough problem may take twenty minutes. (And only very infrequently there is one that resists being solved.) It was only afterward that they had to package it in such a way that lesser people would accept their discovery.

Rule -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 1:51:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. So, we find you considerably lacking in commonly accepted definitions as well. quote: A scientific technique is any systematic method to obtain information of a scientific nature or to obtain a desired material or product. quote: A phenomenon (from Greek φαινόμενoν), plural phenomena or phenomenons, is any observable occurrence. quote: Knowledge is a collection of facts, information, and/or skills acquired through experience or education or (more generally) the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. I found relevant quotes in your links. They do not mention anything about a hypothesis or a discovery and testing that hypothesis or discovery. They smartly limit this 'scientific method' to establishing facts. So: 1. I do not agree with said concept of the "scientific method', as it ought to include testing a hypothesis, and 2. I do not agree that the formulation of a hypothesis or the making of a discovery is part of the scientific method. Everyone can formulate some hypothesis or do some discovery. There are plenty of people who have discovered that the street hurts when they fell down on it; most of them were no scientists.

mnottertail -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:04:46 PM)
Uh, if you want to know what the formalism of the scientific method is, perhaps someone will demonstrate it to you, do not remove the context and do not further elide the fact that you said : I gather that it is making up a mathematical description of a process and seeing whether it is correct. Frankly, I have never understood the scientific method. And you still don't and it is not dealing with a mathematical description, unless it is math related like physics or mathematics. Generally the PROOF is expressed in terms of mathematics. By example, the scientific method used by Faraday had nothing to do with mathematics when working with electro-magnetic fields since he was mathematically incompetent and I don't know the actual extent of his formal schooling but it was like 3rd grade or so. The math for this stuff came way later, it is a descriptive universal language, like latin is used by doctors universally, thats all. relativity can be (and has been) explained without the use of mathematics.

Rule -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:06:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata It might at best be viewed as pertaining to whether or not a particular concept of God is valid. But, only if we assume that such a God would be happy to service occasional requests for specified proofs. Personally, at least, I've never heard of anybody who believed in such a God. I have. I last year spent a weekend with someone who did ask the Divine for proof - and he got it to his own satisfaction. What we have here, though, appears to be an angry young man who does not ask, but tries to extort the Divine. "Show me, or I will hold my breath until I am blue in the face!" Apparently he is under the delusion that the Divine owes him some explanation. And he has all these other delusional notions about the Divine and the pagan gods too. Hey, paulmcuk, you will get better results by sitting on the stairs and finding peace and subsequently asking the Divine for a sign or to come to you. (And do not bother looking for avatars of pagan gods: you wouldn't recognize one if he sat next to you in the subway.)

mnottertail -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:08:21 PM)
Well, if he is making the blue in the face statement, (which I doubt) and he does it, then god loses a great deal of his omnipotency, innit?

tazzygirl -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:10:09 PM)
quote: omnipotency Im curious about why people believe having the power means it should be used.

Kirata -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:11:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Rule There are plenty of people who have discovered that the street hurts when they fell down on it; most of them were no scientists. Doubtless most, yes. Only the few who decided to fall down again, deliberately, a few times to verify the effect, who formed a tentative hypothesis therefrom, and who confirmed it in controlled experiments involving a statistically significant number of subjects in two matched study groups whose pain centers were electronically monitored while subjects in the test group fell down and those in the control group lowered themselves to a prone position in a way that did not incur impact stress, were scientists. K.

mnottertail -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:14:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl quote: omnipotency Im curious about why people believe having the power means it should be used. Long subject; you believe, I don't. I am content for us not to go into a tooth and nail over it. I shall leave it lie there, Taz.

Rule -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:27:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl quote: omnipotency Im curious about why people believe having the power means it should be used. Omnipotency has it limits. I know of two examples in all of history in which the Divine nearly instantly healed two people - if my interpretation of these events is correct. Now I am fairly omnipotent myself. For example, though I live in The Netherlands, I am able to make a stone drop down in New York city. My fair amount of omnipotency, though, has its limits. For me to make drop down a stone in New York I must first travel to New York, there lift up a stone and subsequently drop it, or phone someone in New York and have him do it. The omnipotency of the Divine is subject to similar limits: it cannot do what is impossible, and it will not do what is not wished for in the proper way.

tazzygirl -> RE: Evolution vs. Religion (5/9/2011 2:52:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl quote: omnipotency Im curious about why people believe having the power means it should be used. Long subject; you believe, I don't. I am content for us not to go into a tooth and nail over it. I shall leave it lie there, Taz. Ah, Master Ron, I am not a believer, though I am open a bit to the possibility, if only in theory. Nor am I looking for a tooth and nail argument over this matter, it just isnt that important. However, I have heard other people make the same comment, and it always seemd to me that IF there is an omnipotent god, and he/she has the ability to heal all the ails in the world, seems to me that would be no better than a parent bubble-wrapping their home to prevent an injury. What does the child learn? Just musings on my part, and definitely not worth discussion.

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