I would like to posit an argument regarding atheism as a fellow atheist.
If we are to be truly scientifically rational, as the majority of atheists including myself aspire to be, then we must admit - we cannot really be atheists. We must be agnostics.
There is a completely lack of evidence in the existence of a god or gods of any kind. But any scientific mind knows that a lack of evidence is not the same as positive evidence in favor.
Right now there is a lack of evidence of any kind that we share this universe with other life. Therefor we cannot truly say either way: there is other life in the universe, there is not other life in the universe. We must merely admit that we do not know whether or not we share this universe - but we think it highly likely.
The same argument applies toward the existence of a god, gods, nature spirit, buddha, etc. There is no evidence in favor of their existence, but there isn't any evidence that would deny their existence either. Not really. So the most we can really say is, we do not know.
I personally feel that the lack of evidence for any sort of god strongly suggests that there is none. So I call myself an atheist. I am not wholly rational - as much as I try to be. And I do not feel that gods exist. But when pressed to be rational and scientific, I must admit. I don't know.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I think most atheists would agree with your conclusion, but would hesitate to say the existence of a god is analogous with the existence of extra-terrestrial life. There's plenty of empirical evidence for the latter, whereas evidence for the former is only theoretical.* There is also the fact that proof of alien life is at least possible, while proof of the existence of God by the most popular definition is not.
*Yes, I realize many theists will disagree with this.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
An atheist could also apply Occam's Razor and say that the addition of god, gods, nature spirit, etc, adds nothing to our understanding of the universe, and so is an unnecessary complication.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
There's no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. There's a ton of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility. And there is some that suggests a high likelihood.
I haven't really studied various religion's idea of god from a scientific viewpoint to comment on the amount of similar evidence.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: There's no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. There's a ton of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility. And there is some that suggests a high likelihood.
Uh... "empirical evidence pointing to the possibility"? What does that even mean?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Occam's Razor is a dangerous tool though, because it can be applied to a lot of things and potentially in ways where you would lose quite a bit.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Hmm, I'd love to talk to a scientist about that. We do have empirical evidence that intellifent life in this huge universe can arise. But I see your point that there is no empirical evidence that it has happened twice.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
"Lose"? Elaborate.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:we cannot really be atheists. We must be agnostics.
This implies that they are mutually exclusive.
As atheism is a reference to belief, and agnosticism is a reference to knowledge, I was under the impression that they were not mutually exclusive.
I've often referred to myself as an agnostic atheist.
Do I believe in a god or gods? Nope Does a god or gods exist? Speaking very generally, I honestly don't know.
The answer to the first question makes me an atheist, and the answer to the second makes me an agnostic.
Or am I mistaken?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: There's no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. There's a ton of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility. And there is some that suggests a high likelihood.
Uh... "empirical evidence pointing to the possibility"? What does that even mean?
Evidence such as the right environment being common in the Universe. Evidence such as the right chemicals and circumstances for life's creation being common. And evidence such as life's creation being likely given those circumstances and chemicals.
We have found an evidence to suggest that the mix of chemicals and environment necessary to create life is pretty common in the Universe. And we've done studies to suggest that given those circumstances, the event of the basic building blocks of life forming is pretty darn likely.
These things suggest that there is not just a possibility, but a high possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: I would like to posit an argument regarding atheism as a fellow atheist.
If we are to be truly scientifically rational, as the majority of atheists including myself aspire to be, then we must admit - we cannot really be atheists. We must be agnostics.
There is a completely lack of evidence in the existence of a god or gods of any kind. But any scientific mind knows that a lack of evidence is not the same as positive evidence in favor.
Right now there is a lack of evidence of any kind that we share this universe with other life. Therefor we cannot truly say either way: there is other life in the universe, there is not other life in the universe. We must merely admit that we do not know whether or not we share this universe - but we think it highly likely.
The same argument applies toward the existence of a god, gods, nature spirit, buddha, etc. There is no evidence in favor of their existence, but there isn't any evidence that would deny their existence either. Not really. So the most we can really say is, we do not know.
I personally feel that the lack of evidence for any sort of god strongly suggests that there is none. So I call myself an atheist. I am not wholly rational - as much as I try to be. And I do not feel that gods exist. But when pressed to be rational and scientific, I must admit. I don't know.
I don't like it when people say that one has to be agnostic rather than an atheist. Are you agnostic about unicorns?
Saying all atheists are agnostic is putting the burden of proof on the atheist. The lack of proof is not proof.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm actually uncomfortable using "agnostic" to refer to people who simply don't know whether God exists or not. Such people are basically atheists.
Agnosticism, as a philosophical position, best describes the belief that whether God exists or not is an unanswerable question, that any hypothetical God's actual traits are ultimately unknowable, and the question is in fact ultimately an irrelevant one. I'd be comfortable calling someone an "agnostic" if they held that belief, even if they were a Christian or an atheist.
(As an example: I think Kate Boots is an example of an agnostic Catholic.)
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:we cannot really be atheists. We must be agnostics.
This implies that they are mutually exclusive.
As atheism is a reference to belief, and agnosticism is a reference to knowledge, I was under the impression that they were not mutually exclusive.
I've often referred to myself as an agnostic atheist.
Do I believe in a god or gods? Nope Does a god or gods exist? Speaking very generally, I honestly don't know.
The answer to the first question makes me an atheist, and the answer to the second makes me an agnostic.
Or am I mistaken?
I do the same - atheistic agnostic or agnostic atheist, and when we're not talking about belief in the arena of strict scientific rationality then they are not mutually exclusive.
But I'm specifically positing this argument to KoM who attempts to exist in a universe of strict scientific rationality. In that universe, when you declare yourself an atheist you are saying "I know there is no god", which you cannot know. To say that is irrational. I guess, when you say you are agnostic atheist you are saying, even in that universe "I don't know, but I believe" in which case that's entirely rational Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon:
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:we cannot really be atheists. We must be agnostics.
This implies that they are mutually exclusive.
As atheism is a reference to belief, and agnosticism is a reference to knowledge, I was under the impression that they were not mutually exclusive.
I've often referred to myself as an agnostic atheist.
Do I believe in a god or gods? Nope Does a god or gods exist? Speaking very generally, I honestly don't know.
The answer to the first question makes me an atheist, and the answer to the second makes me an agnostic.
Or am I mistaken?
I do the same - atheistic agnostic or agnostic atheist, and when we're not talking about belief in the arena of strict scientific rationality then they are not mutually exclusive.
But I'm specifically positing this argument to KoM who attempts to exist in a universe of strict scientific rationality. In that universe, when you declare yourself an atheist you are saying "I know there is no god", which you cannot know. To say that is irrational. I guess, when you say you are agnostic atheist you are saying, even in that universe "I don't know, but I believe" in which case that's entirely rational
With that argument though, you can't truly know that anything doesn't exist. Does that mean Orthodox Jews are agnostic when it comes to the divinity of Jesus? Does that mean all Christians (I know some are anyways) are agnostic towards Muhammad being God's prophet?
What about the invisible giant purple elephant that only I can see? Or the old philosophy class discussion about the tiny three men that run my wrist watch?
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Are you agnostic about unicorns?
One of the problems comes down to people's definitions. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of horned equine-ish creature existing some where at some time in the entire universe. You could be referring a creature capable of magic only appearing on Earth during a full moon while I just mean a horse with a horn
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think of an agnostic as someone who doesn't care to answer the question. An atheist as someone who will say "no." I don't require that the "no" is invested with absolute certainty.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
There are so many uses of the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" that the terms are counterproductive to these discussions without everyone first defining how they are being used.
I myself think these "you don't really know!" discussions are a bit silly.
I don't really know there is no leprechaun living in my desk drawer either. But that's just a technicality that applies to all cases and doesn't seem very useful to me.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Well, I'm not sure about that, it depends if you consider the evidence based on observation (empirical) or theory. Anything outside our solar system (where we've seen squat), is too damn far away to go to.
Pluto ~10 years away from Earth with current technology
Nearest stars we know about ~ 10,000 times as far as that.
Quite simply, if an extra-solar planet similar to Earth in terms of size, star type, neighborhood and distance, then it is possible for life to exist, simply by the laws of physics and what worked for us. Whether life actually does exist will depend on the planet's geological (okay, not the right prefix) state.
Whether life exists in places that are not like Earth at all, we don't know, but we haven't found much anywhere else in the solar system.
As for how many groups just like us exist, there's the Drake Equation. You start with the number of stars in the galaxy, multiply that by the percentage of stars like the sun, stars which have planets, stars which have earth like planets, and odds of any life being at a communicable stage among other things. So sure, that's just theory, but we don't know any of the percentages to give us a real number, which is where observation (and empirical evidence) comes in.
We have not found habitable planets, because up until Kepler, we did not have something that could detect them. Detecting planets (by transits or radial velocity curves) is a matter of both instrument precision and the time we have to look (getting better and not that long so far). Also, the inclination of the planets orbits with respect to us (totally random) will determine if we can even see something exists at all with these two methods. Meanwhile, hot Jupiters are easy to detect and they justify making the instruments to probe deeper. Hot Jupiters have also defied scientists' notion that our system was typical.
If you run simulations with a gas giant at Jupiter's distance and a bunch of rocks inside, the planetesimals will collect and form bodies that are different from, but not so far off from what we have. (A large number of these simulations have not been made because a single simulation takes months to run).
So basically, right now, scientists are gathering evidence that other stars have planetary systems, something we couldn't really answer one way or another 25 years ago. Whether we will ever detect little green men is one thing.
Having something that scientists are working towards and a method to do it, makes extra-terrestrial life a concept that is quite different from the God question, in my opinion.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
There's a line being drawn here between complete scientific empirical rationality and what most of us operate by, which is a rough equation of what we feel is the lack of evidence for (subjective evidence included) being equivalent to evidence against.
This was specifically posited to KoM who professes a completely rational empirical world view, and also claims that includes (and can only include) atheism.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I actually think KoM's worldview holds up no matter which side of the line you are.
If you start with no belief one way on the subject of God/Faeries/Celestial Teapots, then whether you a) do a thoroughly complete scientific inquiry on the subject of b) look at some evidence until you get bored and decide to call it a day, then I think you are fairly likely to conclude that God/Faeries/Celestial Teapots do not exist, and if they do than they don't seem likely to impact your life in the near future. And until you discover some evidence to the contrary you can (and should) legitimately call yourself an atheist/afaeriest/ateapotist. (Well, afaeriest and ateapotist don't roll off the tongue quite as well).
Not having a done a full scientific inquiry I can't be sure what I'd decide if I did, but I've spent a lot more time thinking about it than the average person and read works by people on both sides who have thought about it more than I have. I think the more open-minded and rational research you do, the less likely you are to believe in God because (among other things) you are confronted with the fact that evidence for God is suspiciously easy to replicate with hypnosis and irrational interpretation of meaningless events.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: Evidence such as the right environment being common in the Universe. Evidence such as the right chemicals and circumstances for life's creation being common. And evidence such as life's creation being likely given those circumstances and chemicals.
With the possible exception of the last one, I don't think we have evidence -- actual evidence, as opposed to theorizing and educated guesses -- of any of the above.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: There's no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. There's a ton of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility. And there is some that suggests a high likelihood.
Uh... "empirical evidence pointing to the possibility"? What does that even mean?
It means we observe that there are other stars just like ours (old news). It means that we are starting to observe planets around other stars. We haven't found a planet just like Earth, but what we have strongly suggests there is something like it (we have stuff barely sensitive enough to detect an Earth). If there are aliens, they gotta live *somewhere*, so any Earth-like planet represents that possibility.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:This was specifically posited to KoM who professes a completely rational empirical world view, and also claims that includes (and can only include) atheism.
Not quite. Insofar as we have empirical evidence against the attributes of a hypothetical God, it is possible to rationally conclude, based on such evidence, that such a God as described cannot exist. It is not necessary, when concluding rationally that a blue china teapot is not orbiting a distant planet, to first observe at 1' resolution the orbits of dozens of planets to determine whether china teapots are likely to spontaneously arise around planets; rather, we know what makes up a "china teapot" and know what is normally required for one to exist. We know what is required to put something into orbit. We know where the planets being speculated are, and whether they are likely to have china teapot-producing civilizations on them.
It is entirely possible, therefore, for us to say that we are reasonably certain there is no blue china teapot in orbit around, say, Jupiter. If we were to find such a teapot, of course, the rational response at that point would be to question the assumptions that have gone into our conclusion. No doubt KoM stands ready to revisit the certain conclusion that God as commonly described does not exist once he is presented with evidence of that God.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Most of the people I know who say they are being scientific in their approach to the universe have no real background or expertise in any field of science. Many get all of their scientific knowledge from secondary sources and popular treatments. Heck, even most of the scientists I know have such a narrow range of specialization that their knowledge of the science behind any given set of conclusions for something outside their field is about the same -- drawn from secondary popular treatments.
Given this is generally the case I think we need more than just new terms, we need a whole slew of agnostic/atheistic categories ranging from apathy to true empiricism.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think the problem is not "scientific" vs. "unscientific." I think it's "rational" vs. "irrational."
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
You think zero? We are empirical evidence of the possibility of life arising under certain known conditions. Now, we have very little idea how broad those conditions actually need to be in order to allow for life, but we have one case study of the possibility of life from which to draw on. A case study obviously lacks a control subject, so our information is very limited, but that doesn't, to my mind, amount to zero. Or am I missing a point here? Are you arguing from a theistic perspective, or from a scientific one?
I suppose I see your point in as far as your statement goes: we know of no extraterrestrial life, nor see any signs of it, therefore we have zero evidence that it exists. However, we have empirical evidence showing that it is possible, and we have quite a lot of information that allows us to model the possibility of extraterrestrial life, like the mathematical probabilities of Sol-like planetary systems, and some idea of the minimum number of extant galaxies. Those mathematical models tell us that the circumstances of our creation are very likely to be repeated many, many times. Now, that is statistical evidence based on empirical evidence of other things, but why doesn't it count?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
The issue is the concept of certainty. Some people think that certainty is an either-or proposition, when it's most often a matter of degree. I'm 99% certain that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. I'm 85% certain that the Torah is true. I'm 51% certain that there's no intelligent extra-terrestrial life.
I made those percentages up, but they're roughly accurate. It's risk management, like everything else in life. Not Pascal's version, but the normal version. The chances (in my opinion) of the sun not rising tomorrow are so slim as to be irrelevant to me (for the most part). But while I doubt there's intelligent ET life, I wouldn't bet my life savings on the proposition.
It's all about what you're going to allow to affect your actions and decisions and thinking. If you're 95% convinced that God doesn't exist, then it's reasonable to say that you're an atheist, even though you may technically be agnostic in some way.
(Incidentally, if someone says that they're 100% convinced that God doesn't exist, I have to say that I'm 90% convinced that they're lying to themself.)
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think the problem is not "scientific" vs. "unscientific." I think it's "rational" vs. "irrational."
Possibly, but we're still going to have the problem of a range of definitions (or personal capacities/interest if you will) for what it means to be "rational" or live a rational life.
I think maybe empiricism is what most people mean when they think they are being rational, and even there there is the question of whether their personal empiricism is limited to the evidence of their own senses, or whether they will accept evidence from external sources (e.g., scientists they trust to have collected and interpreted the data properly -- whether or not they actually understand the work the scientist did).
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
You think zero? We are empirical evidence of the possibility of life arising under certain known conditions. Now, we have very little idea how broad those conditions actually need to be in order to allow for life, but we have one case study of the possibility of life from which to draw on. A case study obviously lacks a control subject, so our information is very limited, but that doesn't, to my mind, amount to zero. Or am I missing a point here? Are you arguing from a theistic perspective, or from a scientific one?
The latter. We don't actually know how life arose here. Even if you leave God out of it, it could have been a completely random freak occurance that has never happened since, and will never happen again. To say that "It happened; therefore it can happen again" doesn't follow. Typing monkeys doesn't really mean that everything that's possible will happen.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I suppose I see your point in as far as your statement goes: we know of no extraterrestrial life, nor see any signs of it, therefore we have zero evidence that it exists. However, we have empirical evidence showing that it is possible, and we have quite a lot of information that allows us to model the possibility of extraterrestrial life, like the mathematical probabilities of Sol-like planetary systems, and some idea of the minimum number of extant galaxies. Those mathematical models tell us that the circumstances of our creation are very likely to be repeated many, many times. Now, that is statistical evidence based on empirical evidence of other things, but why doesn't it count?
They only tell us that if you start from an assumption about how it happened here. And that's very different even from evolution. Evolution doesn't imply that you can extrapolate it back to a point source, and theories about how life first started are more science fiction than science.
Edit: also, while I granted your premise for the purposes of replying, I didn't say there's no empirical evidence that the existence of ET life is possible. I said there's no empirical evidence that ET life exists, which is a very different proposition.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: To say that "It happened; therefore it can happen again" doesn't follow. Typing monkeys doesn't really mean that everything that's possible will happen.
I agree with most of what you said there, except for the first sentence I have quoted. If its possible (which it is, because we are here), then it can happen again. To me what doesn't follow is that it did or will happen again.
Of course we don't know the probability. Say there is a 1 in a billion billion chance of it happening, that still leaves a couple of intelligent species somewhere in the cosmos.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Say there is a 1 in a billion billion chance of it happening, that still leaves a couple of intelligent species somewhere in the cosmos.
No it doesn't. If the chance is 1 in a billion billion, then there is a high likelihood that there are others out there. It doesn't mean there are.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:We don't actually know how life arose here.
Actually, we have a pretty good idea how life may have come to be here. We know what the conditions on Earth were like at the time life arose here. The atmosphere and oceans were composed of a mix of chemicals very different from what we seen now. We know there were also various shocks to the system - litterally - in the form of lightning.
When we put that mix of chemicals into a vat and hit it with simulated lightning the basic molecules of life begin forming. Okay, it's a little more controlled and complicated. But that's the gist of it.
So we have some evidence suggesting a certain beginning of life here on Earth.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
I'll give you that. Strictly speaking, there is none. My second point still stands.
Tom's understanding of "agnostic" is the original use of the word, I believe, but I don't have an issue with Javert's use of it, either. In fact, that's how I use it. I think there's legitimacy in both uses, and there shouldn't be any uneasiness involved either way. If you're discussing the topic, just be as specific as you want to be when defining what you believe.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Say there is a 1 in a billion billion chance of it happening, that still leaves a couple of intelligent species somewhere in the cosmos.
No it doesn't. If the chance is 1 in a billion billion, then there is a high likelihood that there are others out there. It doesn't mean there are.
Point taken, agreed.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Say there is a 1 in a billion billion chance of it happening, that still leaves a couple of intelligent species somewhere in the cosmos.
No it doesn't. If the chance is 1 in a billion billion, then there is a high likelihood that there are others out there. It doesn't mean there are.
Well, but the cosmos are infinite. So if you run the 1 in 10^18 an infinite number of times doesn't that mean there's a 99.9999...% chance of at least other spawning of life out there somewhere?
To put it differently the cosmos stretch infinitely. There are an infinite number of galaxies. In each galaxy there are several billion stars. That means there are an infinite number of starts in the Universe. We've found exoplanets around some percentage of the stars we've looked for them around. I think we've found a couple hundred so far. As long as there is a non-zero chance of a star having an exoplanet then there will be an infinite number of planets in the universe. Then, as long as there is a non-zero chance of life arising on any one of those planets, there are an infinite number of separate life arisings in the universe. They may be very sparsely populated. There may not be another one in this galaxy, or the near by galaxies, but they are out there.
Of course, I don't really know how sure we are that the universe is infinite and doesn't somehow loop back on itself. If there's a finite number of galaxies somehow, then this argument falls apart.
[ January 06, 2010, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Alcon ]
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
You're assuming the cosmos are infinite. We don't know that.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon:
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Say there is a 1 in a billion billion chance of it happening, that still leaves a couple of intelligent species somewhere in the cosmos.
No it doesn't. If the chance is 1 in a billion billion, then there is a high likelihood that there are others out there. It doesn't mean there are.
Well, but the cosmos are infinite. So if you run the 1 in 10^18 an infinite number of times doesn't that mean there's a 99.9999...% chance of at least other spawning of life out there somewhere?
Assuming the universe is infinte. Do we have proof of that yet? Or are you talking looking even beyond the universe?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Who says the cosmos are infinite? I thought it was consensus a long time ago that the universe was quite finite (and that if there are other universes, we don't know about them).
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I'm enjoying this probability of alien life thing even more than the agnostic vs atheist thing, someone should start a new thread.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Well, but the cosmos are infinite. So if you run the 1 in 10^18 an infinite number of times doesn't that mean there's a 99.9999...% chance of at least other spawning of life out there somewhere?
The number of stars/planets are not infinite, just absurdly large.
But I do think strains credulity that with the absurdly large number of stars out there, life didn't happen at least once elsewhere.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
So does the night sky being black really prove a finite universe? I forget who came up with that in the 1800s.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
You know, I wonder if it can be shown that the number of stars and planets is in fact finite. What does it even mean for it to be infinite? Infinity is a concept, not a number. I'm not sure it can even be applied in that way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I see I'm late to the party and my points are already made. Nonetheless, because I do love the sound of my own typing, I shall repeat what others have said. There is nothing that is completely certain; 100% is not a number you can assign as a probability or a degree of belief. That said, you can get so close to 100% that hedging is useless. If I am to take a 99.999% degree of belief as a reason to call myself an agnostic, then I must also state that I'm agnostic on gravity, whether the Sun will rise tomorrow, and the non-existence of unicorns. This may be technically true, but it does not add anything to discussion. At some point you have to say "Ok, I'm done estimating probabilities, time to act" - to borrow from OSC, "know, think, decide, do". You can't be forever thinking, or you end up like Indecisive Man.
Notice, in passing, that 99.999%, three nines after the decimal point, is a claim that I can make a hundred thousand statements with this degree of certainty and be wrong only once. It is not clear that this is meaningful; I don't know if I even have a hundred thousand separate beliefs that I could enumerate, much less ones where I'd be confident of being wrong only once. By the time you get to this level of certainty, then, degrees-of-belief calibration breaks down and it's just unproductive to try to set numbers to, or act on, the remaining tiny sliver of probability. Human brains aren't built that way.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
From wikipedia:
quote:The Universe is very large and possibly infinite in volume
I don't think we've gotten as far as trying to calculate the volume of the universe.
The observable universe is another matter. But that's just what we can see. 93 billion light years, according to wikipedia.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Agnosticism, as a philosophical position, best describes the belief that whether God exists or not is an unanswerable question, that any hypothetical God's actual traits are ultimately unknowable, and the question is in fact ultimately an irrelevant one. I'd be comfortable calling someone an "agnostic" if they held that belief, even if they were a Christian or an atheist.
I've never been clear on the difference between agnostics and atheists. This is an interesting way to define the terms, and one I never thought of before. By this definition, I would have to say that I am agnostic, though I don't normally think of myself that way.
My most recent definition of agnosticism was not as a philosophy, but rather as a true lack of religion...a truly secular position in which the existence of God has very little baring on their lives.
I've always thought that atheists care very much that there is not a God...truly embrace and believe it.
I think I may like your definition better, though, even if it might mean I have to rethink my own label. Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:I've always thought that atheists care very much that there is not a God. It's the caring that really distinguishes the two, in my mind.
There are atheists who care, but the majority do not. Atheism just means disbelief in God.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: So does the night sky being black really prove a finite universe? I forget who came up with that in the 1800s.
quote:I've always thought that atheists care very much that there is not a God. It's the caring that really distinguishes the two, in my mind.
There are atheists who care, but the majority do not. Atheism just means disbelief in God.
Yeah, but you see, if they don't care, I would tend to call them agnostics.
Or to put it another way, it is the difference between not believing in God and believing there is no God.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
For a long time that was the way I thought about it to (I called myself Agnostic for a while), but the argument that eventually persuaded me that was kinda silly was the whole unicorn thing. Is there a meaningful distinction between believing that unicorns are not real versus not believing unicorns are real? Is there a meaningful distinction between believing that gravity is real vs not believing that gravity is not real?
Seriously, no. If belief in God was not so ingrained in public consciousness and the word atheist didn't have any stigma attached to it you wouldn't be worrying about it. But the only way for the stigma to end is if people stop shying away from the word.
I think it's fair to call yourself agnostic if you are still genuinely unsure. Not just "I don't technically know for certain because nobody knows anything for certain" but "there does truly appear to be evidence that God exists, which is balanced by evidence that he does not, and I have yet to conclude which evidence is stronger." If you are "agnostic" about anything that you are only 99% sure of, then you are agnostic about everything, and then agnostic because a completely meaningless word.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Many have mentioned it, but there is a fundamental problem with this conversation, that being how muddled the definitions and usages are of these terms.
I agree with what Javert said above about the two. Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity. Agnosticism is defined as the view that the existence of a deity is unknowable. Under those definitions I am both an atheist AND an agnostic.
Then there's the point that has been made that it's unscientific to claim anything with 100% certainty. But that's really a technicality since we don't make that distinction in regards to any of our other beliefs, so why harp on it in this situation?
But that's not how those terms are used in practice today. In practice, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in god. And an agnostic is someone who doesn't know, or who is unsure. It's a soft version of atheism. I tell people I'm an atheist because calling myself an agnostic would give people a false impression of my beliefs.
As for the extraterrestrial life conversation. I'm not sure if this has been specifically mentioned, but it's worth pointing out the distinction between "intelligent" life, and any dorm of life.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by Strider: it's worth pointing out the distinction between "intelligent" life, and any dorm of life.
Hey! I'm sure some people who live in dorms are very intelligent.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: it's worth pointing out the distinction between "intelligent" life, and any dorm of life.
Hey! I'm sure some people who live in dorms are very intelligent.
Not in the United States.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I agree that the muddled definitions are a problem, but my argument is that there's a particular set of defintions that the world would benefit from widespread adoption of.
Strong Atheism (I believe there is no God)
Soft Atheism (There is no God that I know of)
Strong Agnosticism: I believe it is philosophically impossible to know whether God exists or not
Soft Agnosticism: I currently haven't examined all the evidence for or against God, and consequently I still believe there is a reasonable chance of both God's existence and non-existence.
There might be better ways to word the above, but I think the gist is there.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Russell spoke of the problem, and his solution seems reasonable to me:
quote:Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.
I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: For a long time that was the way I thought about it to (I called myself Agnostic for a while), but the argument that eventually persuaded me that was kinda silly was the whole unicorn thing. Is there a meaningful distinction between believing that unicorns are not real versus not believing unicorns are real? Is there a meaningful distinction between believing that gravity is real vs not believing that gravity is not real?
Seriously, no. If belief in God was not so ingrained in public consciousness and the word atheist didn't have any stigma attached to it you wouldn't be worrying about it. But the only way for the stigma to end is if people stop shying away from the word.
I'm not sure if it matters that the reason we're making the distinction is that belief in God is so ingrained. Context matters. We cannot escape it. God made or may not exist as a distinct supernatural entity, but he exists in the hearts and minds of people and culture. That is the context against which we define these words and apply the meanings.
I'm not sure where stigma came into the conversation, though. In my experience, both atheist and agnostic carry a stigma, or neither do, depending upon who you ask. The distinction between the two largely matters to those who use the labels.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:Originally posted by dkw:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: it's worth pointing out the distinction between "intelligent" life, and any dorm of life.
Hey! I'm sure some people who live in dorms are very intelligent.
Not in the United States.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
It is probably just our lack of understanding, but it is hard to imagine the universe not being infinite.
I mean, what would happen if you got to the "end" of the universe? Would you fall off?
Another theory I have heard (but don't give much credit to) is the whole "worlds within worlds" idea. Our solar system is actually an atom or our galaxy/universe are actually just cells and molecules in some other "bigger" object. Then again, this would have to eventually have a limit as well.
As for life on other planets, I fully believe that there it exists. Just from what we know right now, there are billions upon billions of stars and planets out there. It would be possible that some life forms are in different stages of evolution or progress than we are.
In terms of the progress of the way man understands the universe, in my opinion mankind went through a period of stagnation in the middle ages. There were a few technological discoveries but as a whole we stayed the same for over a thousand years.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Raymond, for the most part I think your definitions are useful, but I have a problem with your putting strong atheism in the language of belief. And only because I have heard too many arguments from religious folk that go something like, "well, to 'believe there is no god' is to have a belief, and a belief is based on faith, so therefore your atheism is a sort of faith".
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
the flaw in their argument is "belief is based on faith." Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
There are strong atheists who really haven't given it enough thought to have rationally come to their conclusions. That's not the same kind of faith as religion usually implies but it's there. There's also people who have done exhaustive research and are justified in saying so with no faith needed. (In this conversation I don't think I need to include the disclaimer "trust that academic papers were completely and peer reviewed honestly is not the same thing as faith").
I think that Dawkins is justified in having Strong Atheism regarding a God who is omnipotent, compassionate and omniscient (I share that opinion with him). I think he's less justified in Strong Atheism regarding other definitions of God, with the degree of not-justified-ness depending on which God we're talking about.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: Well, but the cosmos are infinite. So if you run the 1 in 10^18 an infinite number of times doesn't that mean there's a 99.9999...% chance of at least other spawning of life out there somewhere?
A misunderstanding of the meaning of statistics. If there's a 1/6 chance of rolling a 4 with a 6-sided die, does that mean that rolling it 6 times will guarantee a 4?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Lisa, see the definitions listed a few post above, paraphrased from fairly standard definitions used in philosophy. Also see the numerous arguments posted by various people as to why those definitions are more useful.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
What would constitute "evidence" for extraterrestrial life?
The reason I ask is that pretty much the simplest, low tech thing we've done to search for biologically significant compounds in space came back positive for glycine.
Granted, that's not the same as finding a critter, but it's pretty darned tantalizing. I'd call it preliminary evidence pointing toward "yes" rather than "no."
We'll have some interesting things to think about in the next few years as our probes and space-based telescopes seek out new life (if not actually new civilizations). If we find complex compounds in large numbers, how did they get there? Is there a non-cellular mechanism for self-replication? Or, are we going to have to propose that these compounds were "made" inside a living critter of at least the level of complexity of an organelle?
Are prions a model for the kind of "proto-life" that we'd detect passively in space? Maybe all that's required is primordial soup kitchens somewhere.
It's going to be an interesting decade.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
And agnostic is also used to refer to someone who believes that the question is fundamentally unknowable. It seems more of a stretch, then, to use that term to refer to someone lacking in belief than it does to apply a term that can also mean belief in the lack.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
On the intelligent life and/or statistics note: Rolling a six sided die 6 times does not guarantee a 4. But it is also reasonable to assume that a 4 will probably come up, and even more reasonable to assume that if I were to roll the die 10 or 20 or several billion times that it would come up eventually.
Given the evidence we currently have about how life occurs, it is mathematically likely that there is life out there. Somewhere. Even if that life is just algae. That is far more evidence than we have of God.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
That is why I try to never say, "I believe there is no God." That can be taken very differently from "I don't believe in God".
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
Given the evidence we currently have about how life occurs, it is mathematically likely that there is life out there. Somewhere. Even if that life is just algae. That is far more evidence than we have of God.
I am still sort of in the middle on this one. My issue is that we don't know the math. A lot of things happened to allow life here, the list goes on from the outer gas giants to possibly even having a moon. I keep hearing that if one little detail, out of hundreds, was off there would be no life, let alone intelligent life.
I used 1 in a billion billion arbitrarily. We could very easily be alone based on the same statistics. Say there is a 1 in whatever number of stars there are chance? We don't really know.
Its the main reason I can't stand the Drake equation. You can put in all the numbers you want, but most are just made up.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
That is why I try to never say, "I believe there is no God." That can be taken very differently from "I don't believe in God".
Why? "I believe there is no god" isn't the same as "I know there is no god," but I don't see how the distinction you're making really matters. "I believe I will live through tomorrow" and "I believe I will not die tomorrow" are pragmatically saying the same thing.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by rollainm:
quote:Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
That is why I try to never say, "I believe there is no God." That can be taken very differently from "I don't believe in God".
Why? "I believe there is no god" isn't the same as "I know there is no god," but I don't see how the distinction you're making really matters.
It doesn't to me, but some religious people like to latch on to it. Say you believe there is no god, and they will call it a belief, not knowing.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think it's "rational" vs. "irrational."
The rationality card is one I'm reluctant to play. Certainly I agree that it is 'locally irrational' to take the objective evidence for god (such as it is) and conclude that god exists. However, consider the following scenario: Mike was brought up in a devout, church-going family and feels a great sense of well-being practicing his religion. He also greatly values the church-going community and feels a deep sense of satisfaction in the performance of activities within this community. He has the very rational desire that his life go as well for him as possible. If he were to allow himself to be convinced by a wandering atheist of the non-existence of god, his life would be notably worse off: being honest he would feel like a fraud if he mislead his family and community as to his beliefs (or lack thereof); if he reveals his true feelings he would be ostracized. Ergo it is irrational for him to allow himself to be convinced by the atheist.
For myself, I have, a priori, no interest in deconverting believers; I would be content with the acknowledgment that there is a significant subjective component to their beliefs. Hopefully such an acknowledgment would engender restraint (or, better, the cessation) of the enforcement of religion-based limitations on others.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Its the main reason I can't stand the Drake equation. You can put in all the numbers you want, but most are just made up.
A number of them are pretty much made up if we try to plug them in now, but that doesn't make the equation itself faulty.
Personally I've always just viewed it as an attempt to pin down the factors involved. If there are people attempting to actually use it to arrive at an answer, then I agree that the attempt is flawed.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Its the main reason I can't stand the Drake equation. You can put in all the numbers you want, but most are just made up.
Completely agree.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: Well, but the cosmos are infinite. So if you run the 1 in 10^18 an infinite number of times doesn't that mean there's a 99.9999...% chance of at least other spawning of life out there somewhere?
A misunderstanding of the meaning of statistics. If there's a 1/6 chance of rolling a 4 with a 6-sided die, does that mean that rolling it 6 times will guarantee a 4?
Absolutely not. About 33% of the time you will never roll a four. This can be calculated using poisson statistics.
But Alcon isn't totally wrong, Lisa. The likelihood of an null result of a non-zero probability for an infinite number of trials is simply 0.
But we shouldn't be using infinity for our number of trials and one can't spit out a random number (like 1e-18) unless you have some thought behind it.
For one, there are about 10^11 stars in our galaxy. Dealing with other galaxies involves looking into the past too much for my taste.
When calculating these sorts of probabilities properly, scientists do consider the distribution of all possible outcomes and the likelihood of a null result. One in a million for a 100 billion stars? You can calculate the likelihood of 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 ... systems, but the odds of that are low because the mean of that distribution is 100,000.
Posted by Ace of Spades (Member # 2256) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
Not even denotatively. Merriam Webster defines atheism as "a disbelief in the existence of deity" or "the doctrine that there is no deity".
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:Originally posted by rollainm:
quote:Originally posted by Stephan:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
That is why I try to never say, "I believe there is no God." That can be taken very differently from "I don't believe in God".
Why? "I believe there is no god" isn't the same as "I know there is no god," but I don't see how the distinction you're making really matters.
It doesn't to me, but some religious people like to latch on to it. Say you believe there is no god, and they will call it a belief, not knowing.
but even in your preferred method, you still seem to set up the existence of god as the default truth statement, which you don't believe in. my original definition side steps that issue. Again, acknowledging that for all practical purposes I would never answer a question about whether i think god exists with "i lack a belief in the existence of a deity".
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:A misunderstanding of the meaning of statistics. If there's a 1/6 chance of rolling a 4 with a 6-sided die, does that mean that rolling it 6 times will guarantee a 4?
No it's not a misunderstanding of statistics. Infinity is it's own mathematical class of numbers with their own properties.
Rolling it 6 times does not by any means guarantee a 4. In fact, there is a definite probability of achieving a 4 any given number of times when rolling a 6 sided die 6 times.
However, in an infinite number of trials the probability that an event won't occur - no matter how small the probability of that event occurring - drops to zero.
It's like limits in calculus. The value of a broken function at a point might be 5, but the value of the limit of the function as you approach from the right could be 4. As you get infinitely close to the point when out hitting the point, you get infinitely close to 4.
That's partly why the argument falls apart if the universe isn't infinite. Because as soon as it becomes finite, it no longer applies and there's a very definite probability of other life existing in the universe.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon:
quote:A misunderstanding of the meaning of statistics. If there's a 1/6 chance of rolling a 4 with a 6-sided die, does that mean that rolling it 6 times will guarantee a 4?
No it's not a misunderstanding of statistics. Infinity is it's own mathematical class of numbers with their own properties.
Rolling it 6 times does not by any means guarantee a 4. In fact, there is a definite probability of achieving a 4 any given number of times when rolling a 6 sided die 6 times.
However, in an infinite number of trials the probability that an event won't occur - no matter how small the probability of that event occurring - drops to zero.
It's like limits in calculus. The value of a broken function at a point might be 5, but the value of the limit of the function as you approach from the right could be 4. As you get infinitely close to the point when out hitting the point, you get infinitely close to 4.
That's partly why the argument falls apart if the universe isn't infinite. Because as soon as it becomes finite, it no longer applies and there's a very definite probability of other life existing in the universe.
My understanding of Lisa's point is that the fact that something has probability 1/x of happening does not imply that it necessarily occurs after N>>x experiments (although I'm not sure why she used only 6 rolls instead of, say, 10 000 rolls to make this point).
Anyways, an event having probability one does not mean that it will occur. For example, the probability of randomly selecting an irrational number when picking a number from the interval (0,1) is 1. However, there are quite a few rationals in this interval.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Heh, this thread is proving a pretty good example of the point Bob posted on the first page. I mean, really, suppose the universe is infinite in reality. How would such a thing ever be proven? In fact how would something ever be measured infinite conclusively?
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
You would keep trying to measure or determine it's finiteness to the best of your ability, and continue to conclude that the universe might be infinite.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: My understanding of Lisa's point is that the fact that something has probability 1/x of happening does not imply that it necessarily occurs after N>>x experiments (although I'm not sure why she used only 6 rolls instead of, say, 10 000 rolls to make this point). [/QB]
It is true that it is always possible for x not to occur. But as N increases, the probability of getting a null result increases to something very very small.
Lisa's example is very bad because the very same formula that tells you that you have a 33% chance of not rolling a 4 after six rolls tells you that you have a 1.5 times 10^(-790) % chance of not rolling a 4 after 10,000 times (yes, I calculated it). Sure, it's still possible, but if you don't call that NEVER, then you are a very silly person. Most sane people will call a number 780 orders of magnitude larger never too. Lisa cherry picked her numbers to make her point work.
This very same formula ALSO gives the result that Alcon suggests.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:You would keep trying to measure or determine it's finiteness to the best of your ability, and continue to conclude that the universe might be infinite.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
My understanding is that space may be infinite, and is expanding, but that the actual things in space are finite. Some finite amount of matter/energy was generated at the big bang, and has gradually condensed into other finite things.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: You would keep trying to measure or determine it's finiteness to the best of your ability, and continue to conclude that the universe might be infinite.
You know what? I can can conclude the same thing without having to do any tests or measuring! Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ace of Spades:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
Not even denotatively. Merriam Webster defines atheism as "a disbelief in the existence of deity" or "the doctrine that there is no deity".
Hmm. Never thought I'd say this to you, but thanks for the correction.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Anyways, an event having probability one does not mean that it will occur. For example, the probability of randomly selecting an irrational number when picking a number from the interval (0,1) is 1. However, there are quite a few rationals in this interval.
Hmm, I'm not sure, actually. The probability of choosing an irrational is definitely 1, and the probability of choosing a rational is definitely zero, but I'm not sure how it would work out. After all, the probability zero that something will occur does not mean it will not occur. Take the aforementioned space between 0 and 1 and consider the probability that any given number will be chosen. But I suspect the irrationals so dominate the space that the probability a rational number will be chosen truly is zero (and will never occur).
Alcon is also incorrect, of course. An event with probably > 0 is not guaranteed to occur in an infinite number of trials. For an easy proof, consider this: If we look at the result of the first coin flip (say), of an infinite number (that we did in advance), and it is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Answer: no). Now, if the N'th one is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Again, no). Therefore (by induction) it is not necessary for any of an infinite number to not be heads -- that is, they could all be heads.
Now, some infinite things have additional properties which guarantee inclusion. For instance, the infinite digits of pi contain every possible finite subsequence of digits, if I recall correctly. This isn't just because they're infinite, but because they're infinite and have certain other properties.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Alcon is also incorrect, of course. An event with probably > 0 is not guaranteed to occur in an infinite number of trials. For an easy proof, consider this: If we look at the result of the first coin flip (say), of an infinite number (that we did in advance), and it is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Answer: no). Now, if the N'th one is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Again, no). Therefore (by induction) it is not necessary for any of an infinite number to not be heads -- that is, they could all be heads.
Nope. Infinity trumps this.
Besides, it's impossible to have done an infinity of coin flips in advance. Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
quote:Now, some infinite things have additional properties which guarantee inclusion. For instance, the infinite digits of pi contain every possible finite subsequence of digits, if I recall correctly. This isn't just because they're infinite, but because they're infinite and have certain other properties.
quote:Actually, as it turns out there is a theorem which almost guarantees that Sagan's "fiction" about Pi is true. In particular, I have been referred to Theorem 146 in the book "An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers" by Hardy and Wright which proves that the set of numbers that do not contain every arbitrary finite sequence in their decimal expansion has measure zero. (In other words, if you "randomly" pick a number, you can expect its decimal expansion to contain every finite sequence including the Gettysberg Address and the next e-mail message that you will write written out in ASCII.) There is no guarantee that this will be true for the number Pi...but there is also no reason to doubt that it is true.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ace of Spades:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Atheism is defined as lack of belief in a deity.
Denotatively, yes, but it's used as a presence of belief that there is no deity. Which is a very different thing. Someone who simply lacks theistic belief might as well be called an agnostic.
Not even denotatively. Merriam Webster defines atheism as "a disbelief in the existence of deity" or "the doctrine that there is no deity".
Yes, but look at their definition for "disbelief":
"to hold not worthy of belief : not believe" or "to withhold or reject belief"
That seems to include a mere lack of belief ("not believe").
Aside form dictionary definitions it seems that atheists largely go with the "don't believe in God" definition while theists largely seem to go with the "believe there's no God" definition. It seems like it's probably best to defer to those who self-identify with the term unless there is substantial disagreement within that group about the correct definition.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
m_p_h: no, it doesn't. Inductive proofs work just fine on infinities.
And, if we can do an infinite number of coin flips (or anything else) at all, we can certainly do it in advance of some later time. Otherwise it would only be the "finite number of things we have done on our way to an infinite number of things".
So, for infinity to "trump" that, you have to grant the possibility of having done an infinite number of things before checking the test
(Not that its actually necessary to have done them in advance; that just makes the language simpler).
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Heh, this thread is proving a pretty good example of the point Bob posted on the first page. I mean, really, suppose the universe is infinite in reality. How would such a thing ever be proven? In fact how would something ever be measured infinite conclusively?
You can't prove anything conclusively in science. You can make hypotheses and then gather evidence which will allow you to either support that hypothesis or reject it. But you still don't prove it. You just didn't find anything to suggest it's wrong, which means it's okay still okay to use that theory.
It's the reason why many atheists will admit they are agnostic about God's existence, but they don't believe in God. An atheist may not know that there is no God, but he or she operates under the assumption that God does not exist in daily life.
But back to what you said.
Astronomers see the universe as expanding because the redshifts of basically every galaxy besides Andromeda indicate that they are moving away from Earth. Much ::ahem:: smaller models can show that Earth does not need to be at unique place in the universe for this to occur. From any vantage point, everything will appear to recede in an expanding universe.
As for infinite, cosmologists talk about the universe being open closed, or flat. These are tricky to explain, but a closed universe is the one that will stop expanding and turn around and collapse back where it came from once it runs out of whatever kinetic energy is driving that expansion. Flat means that the universe will stop expanding, and open means expansion will not stop.
The way the universe expands is currently defined by something called the Friedman equation. Basically if you know how much stuff, light, curvature and "lambda" there is, then you know what the universe did and is going to do in terms of expansion. One big goal of cosmology is to figure out what those constants are using a whole host of different techniques (one is looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background) . Right now, things are pointing toward flat. But most of this stuff makes my head hurt, so I am not a cosmologist.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: m_p_h: no, it doesn't. Inductive proofs work just fine on infinities.
And, if we can do an infinite number of coin flips (or anything else) at all, we can certainly do it in advance of some later time. Otherwise it would only be the "finite number of things we have done on our way to an infinite number of things".
So, for infinity to "trump" that, you have to grant the possibility of having done an infinite number of things before checking the test
(Not that its actually necessary to have done them in advance; that just makes the language simpler).
Right. If you look at the space of all infinite sequences of coin flips, you have probability zero of instantiating that sequence containing only heads. However such a sequence still exists.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13:
quote:Anyways, an event having probability one does not mean that it will occur. For example, the probability of randomly selecting an irrational number when picking a number from the interval (0,1) is 1. However, there are quite a few rationals in this interval.
Hmm, I'm not sure, actually. The probability of choosing an irrational is definitely 1, and the probability of choosing a rational is definitely zero, but I'm not sure how it would work out. After all, the probability zero that something will occur does not mean it will not occur. Take the aforementioned space between 0 and 1 and consider the probability that any given number will be chosen. But I suspect the irrationals so dominate the space that the probability a rational number will be chosen truly is zero (and will never occur).
I would love to be able to truly randomly sample (0,1) to test this, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible given basic problems with irrational numbers. My point was just that having a set of outcomes having probability one does not preclude the existence of other (very unlikely) outcomes.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: [QUOTE] Alcon is also incorrect, of course. An event with probably > 0 is not guaranteed to occur in an infinite number of trials. For an easy proof, consider this: If we look at the result of the first coin flip (say), of an infinite number (that we did in advance), and it is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Answer: no). Now, if the N'th one is heads, does this mean the next one must not be heads? (Again, no). Therefore (by induction) it is not necessary for any of an infinite number to not be heads -- that is, they could all be heads.
The issue here is that getting N heads in the first place is unlikely and that unlikelihood is calculable. At some point statisticians and scientists draw a line about what is reasonable and what is not.
The point of flipping any coin an ungodly number of times is to see if the coin is fair. 10 heads? Could happen, but still unlikely 1 in 1024 chance. 10000 heads? Someone in Vegas needs to be held for questioning.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Ergo it is irrational for him to allow himself to be convinced by the atheist.
mystic, it's worth noting that here you're actually discussing a sort of meta-belief: the idea that a person, when choosing to believe something is true, might choose not necessarily the option with the highest personally-demonstrated truth value but rather the option with the highest observable personal benefit. While I personally believe that many people do have this kind of (conscious and subconscious) control over many of their own beliefs, I'm a little surprised that you agree.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Hmm, I'm not sure, actually. The probability of choosing an irrational is definitely 1, and the probability of choosing a rational is definitely zero, but I'm not sure how it would work out. After all, the probability zero that something will occur does not mean it will not occur.
I think it does, actually. The rationals are a set of measure zero; if you throw a Euclidean point randomly at a circle, what's the probability you'll hit its center? Zero. It just can't be done. This is counterintuitive to brains whose math modules evolved to count bananas, but still true.
However, once we're discussing numbers less than 10^-10, it's easier just to say "never", even though it's not strictly true. To do otherwise is fooling yourself; human brains cannot distinguish that finely, and so we end up calling 1% and 0.0000001% both "A small chance"; worse, we consider 0.0001% about as likely as 0.00001%. The mistake you make by calling all these numbers zero is much smaller than the mistake of trying to plug them into the intuitive machinery that deals with things like "My chance of sleeping with the alpha female". You can fool yourself very badly that way, as witness the profits from casinos and lotteries.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
KoM:
If you had a perfect number spinner (from 0 to 1), what would be the probability of choosing any one number? Yet you can 'spin' it (notionally) and get a number.
If you propose any non-zero infinitesimal to me, I'll just note that then the probabilities sum up to more than 1.
Note: this trick doesn't even require anything beyond the rationals.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes, but the numbers from zero to one are not a set of measure zero; the rationals are. You cannot fire one Euclidean point at another and hit; that doesn't stop you hitting a circle with the point.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
I think fugu's points is the following. Suppose you spin the wheel and get, say, pi/4. Prior to spinning the wheel, had I told you that you would get pi/4 (or pi/4 union the rational subset of (0,1)) you would have said, no, impossible, this set has measure zero.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well yes, and in fact you will never get pi/4. Spin the wheel as many times as you like. You can come arbitrarily close, but you won't get pi/4 exactly. And I am willing to make the identical prediction for any number you like. And nonetheless you will certainly get some number between 0 and 1, and you will get a number between 0 and 0.1 with 10% probability, and so on. I do not claim that this is intuitive, but it's still true.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Ergo it is irrational for him to allow himself to be convinced by the atheist.
mystic, it's worth noting that here you're actually discussing a sort of meta-belief: the idea that a person, when choosing to believe something is true, might choose not necessarily the option with the highest personally-demonstrated truth value but rather the option with the highest observable personal benefit.
This is how it plays out. I thought the tension between competing rational actions interesting.
quote: While I personally believe that many people do have this kind of (conscious and subconscious) control over many of their own beliefs, I'm a little surprised that you agree.
Why?
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Aside form dictionary definitions it seems that atheists largely go with the "don't believe in God" definition while theists largely seem to go with the "believe there's no God" definition. It seems like it's probably best to defer to those who self-identify with the term unless there is substantial disagreement within that group about the correct definition.
This.
I'd go a step further and say it's not "probably best" but definitely best. I've seen dictionary definitions such as: "one who denies the existence of God." Which assumes that there is a God to deny the existence of.
BTW, at alt.atheism and infidels.org, the definitions are generally:
Strong atheism = I believe there is no God
Weak atheism = I lack belief in God
This second one is somewhat problematic to gnostic theists because it is implies that weak atheism is the default position, therefore, babies are weak atheists.
quote:God made or may not exist as a distinct supernatural entity, but he exists in the hearts and minds of people and culture.
Which was my justification for signing the Declaration of Religious Principles when I was a scout leader. I DO believe in that God.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Speaking of extraterrestrial life--
It is becoming more clear as telescopes get better that rocky planets like earth/Mars/Venus etc. are actually quite common. Most suns appear to have planets, and quite a few of those planets do appear to be rocky ones.
Water and carbon, two very important elements for life, are very, very common in this galaxy at least, and quite possibly in others.
The fact of the matter is that our Sun is a very common type of star. The only thing that distinguishes it is that it, as well as the rest of the Solar System, is higher in metals than the average Sun and solar system.
Given these facts, I'd be less than shocked if there are some other planets with intelligent life around, probably even in this galaxy, maybe even relatively close by.
I'm not sure I feel much real pleasure at the thought of proving the fundamentalists wrong about this. The way I see it, they're making guesses, just like me. Wrong ones, I assume, but still guesses. I can't pretend to be doing anything other than guessing.
If anyone wants links for any of this, I'd be happy to provide them. I will win this argument, though...that's just fair warning.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: It is becoming more clear as telescopes get better that rocky planets like earth/Mars/Venus etc. are actually quite common. Most suns appear to have planets, and quite a few of those planets do appear to be rocky ones.
As of yet, this is mostly supposition. Educated supposition (and I suspect, correct supposition), but nonetheless.
Our telescopes (and other methods of detecting planets, like solar wobbles) are simply not yet as advanced as you seem to think. And I've seen the links -- this is an issue I follow closely.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by steven: It is becoming more clear as telescopes get better that rocky planets like earth/Mars/Venus etc. are actually quite common. Most suns appear to have planets, and quite a few of those planets do appear to be rocky ones.
As of yet, this is mostly supposition. Educated supposition (and I suspect, correct supposition), but nonetheless.
Our telescopes (and other methods of detecting planets, like solar wobbles) are simply not yet as advanced as you seem to think. And I've seen the links -- this is an issue I follow closely.
Are you arguing because Orthodox Judaism would look insignificant, irrelevant, and unimportant if intelligent aliens were discovered? Or are you just so addicted to the position of Devil's advocate that it's just become a reflex?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
That's a false dichotomy, steven. For one thing, it's possible that she's arguing because, technically, we don't know for sure that Earth-like planets are particularly common.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Rivka is correct.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yeah, we only know about planets that are much larger than earth, and most of the ones that aren't huge (and almost certainly gas giants) are only observed very indirectly.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Yes, but the numbers from zero to one are not a set of measure zero; the rationals are. You cannot fire one Euclidean point at another and hit; that doesn't stop you hitting a circle with the point.
So? I'm arguing against this quotation of yours, which has no such qualifications:
quote:
quote: After all, the probability zero that something will occur does not mean it will not occur.
I think it does, actually.
There is a probability zero for every exact number that can come up in a spin of a perfect wheel (or a sample from a gaussian, or whatever). Yet, every time, a number does come up.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: That's a false dichotomy, steven. For one thing, it's possible that she's arguing because, technically, we don't know for sure that Earth-like planets are particularly common.
Right, just like we don't know for sure that OSC likes cookies. LOL
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Granted, we don't know for sure...but for Lisa's assertion to go unchallenged is a little silly.
We know this is an average Sun. We know about the existence of rocky planets in several nearby solar systems. We know that there are trillions of other GALAXIES, and hundreds of millions of suns in each of them.
It's more of a stretch to say that there is no other intelligent life, than the reverse. In my view.
But whatever. Clearly none of you find the issue that compelling, or you'd have already challenged Lisa's statement, and that's fine.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:There is a probability zero for every exact number that can come up in a spin of a perfect wheel (or a sample from a gaussian, or whatever). Yet, every time, a number does come up.
Pick a number; it will never come up. You can't assign a probability to an event that has already happened.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Are you being intentionally obtuse? I can make that statement about every single possible number at once (just note that the probability is the same, per my distribution, for every number between 0 and 1). Yet at least one of them comes up, despite my having described the probability in advance.
Heck, if you really want, I'll define my distribution as being only over the rationals, since I can even enumerate them (infinitely, but enumerate even so).
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
Atheism is not a belief. It is only a lack of belief.
I used to call myself an agnostic because I thought the distinction was that an atheist is certain there's not a god while an agnostic simply claims not to know.
But one can be reasonably certain without knowing absolutely. I readily acknowledge that there may be a god. But I don't think there's much chance of it; I can't give you a number, but I assign an extremely low probability to the prospect. So low, in fact, that I rate it around the same level as fairies and unicorns and celestial teapots. But I don't need to go around saying, "I don't know if there are fairies or not, so I won't say one way or the other," or, "Since I can't prove there's not a celestial teapot, I'd better be safe and not try to make a claim." I am pretty reasonably certain there are no fairies or celestial teapots, just as I am pretty reasonably certain there is no god.
The burden of proof, simply put, is not on our team. There are billions of theists who have been telling us for thousands of years that there are such things as deities, but in all that time, not one of them has ever come up with any evidence for it that has not since been overturned by a better understanding of science. The certainty with which I claim there isn't a god cannot be absolute, but it is high enough that there's no point in pretending that I assign much of a probability to his/her/its/their existence.
If a stranger on a bus tells you, "My houseplants talk to me in English when I'm all alone with them, but they're very shy, so they won't do it if there are recording devices around," what do you think? Do you think, "I'd better come up with a way to prove that isn't true, or I'll be forced to conclude that it probably is"? Or do you think, "This person is either a crackpot or a liar, and either way, I'm free to dismiss his claim and think no more about it"?
In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." So I don't need to say, "I know there's no god." I can simply say, "There is no reason to believe there is a god, so I don't." And that is enough to make me an atheist, a "non[a]-god[the]-person[ist]".
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Are you arguing because Orthodox Judaism would look insignificant, irrelevant, and unimportant if intelligent aliens were discovered? Or are you just so addicted to the position of Devil's advocate that it's just become a reflex?
Boy, this is a pretty silly statement, steven. Of all the religions on Earth, Orthodox Judaism would have to be one of the best at dealing with being a very small minority and being comfortable with that status while not also thinking they were insignificant, irrelevant, and unimportant. Orthodox Judaism would have to go high on any list of religions able to successfully weather the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Oh, and not only was your post silly, it also came off as very insulting (that is, intended to be very insulting), and unprovoked as well. If you don't like being corrected when you're wrong, the appropriate response is to not be wrong so much, not to lash out at people correcting you.
Or at least lash out effectively. Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Are you arguing because Orthodox Judaism would look insignificant, irrelevant, and unimportant if intelligent aliens were discovered? Or are you just so addicted to the position of Devil's advocate that it's just become a reflex?
Boy, this is a pretty silly statement, steven. Of all the religions on Earth, Orthodox Judaism would have to be one of the best at dealing with being a very small minority and being comfortable with that status while not also thinking they were insignificant, irrelevant, and unimportant. Orthodox Judaism would have to go high on any list of religions able to successfully weather the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Not to mention the fact that the question has been addressed before.
quote:One of the first to discuss the question of extraterrestrial life in general was Rabbi Chasdai Crescas (Or Hashem 4:2). After a lengthy discussion, he comes to the conclusion that there is nothing in Jewish theology to preclude the existence of life on other worlds. As possible evidence for extraterrestrial life, he quotes the Talmudic teaching (Avoda Zara 3b) that "God flies through 18,000 worlds." Since they require His providence, we may assume that they are inhabited.
I might add that Rabbi Crescas lived c.1340 – 1410/1411.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Yeah, I was thinking of that man when I replied-I didn't remember his name or anything and I would have needed a multiple choice question to have a shot at remembering what century he lived in, but I've heard of that before.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Question for those that call atheists truly agnostic, because they claim you can't know for sure 100%
Wouldn't that mean that theists are truly agnostic as well?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Question for those that call atheists truly agnostic, because they claim you can't know for sure 100%
Wouldn't that mean that theists are truly agnostic as well?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Question for those that call atheists truly agnostic, because they claim you can't know for sure 100%
Wouldn't that mean that theists are truly agnostic as well?
Theists nearly never claim to be rational empiricists. So it isn't inconsistent for them to be 100% sure of something.
It is a little inconsistent for a rational empiricist. Especially when there's very little evidence either way. And there are a lot of atheists who claim to be rational empiricists. Of course, it's entirely possible to be atheist with out being a rational empiricists. And in that case, it isn't inconsistent to be 100% sure.
PS: Trying to change my terminology to be more accurate. Think this terminology works?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Theists nearly never claim to be rational empiricists. So it isn't inconsistent for them to be 100% sure of something.
I am a theist but I am not 100% sure of theism, and I suspect a majority of theists would not claim to be 100% sure. Most theists experience doubt, including for sure the pastor of my church who has said exactly that.
So the question remains... are we actually agnostics?
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Granted, we don't know for sure...but for Lisa's assertion to go unchallenged is a little silly.
We know this is an average Sun. We know about the existence of rocky planets in several nearby solar systems. We know that there are trillions of other GALAXIES, and hundreds of millions of suns in each of them.
It's more of a stretch to say that there is no other intelligent life, than the reverse. In my view.
But whatever. Clearly none of you find the issue that compelling, or you'd have already challenged Lisa's statement, and that's fine.
I did on the first previous page. Geez.
quote:quote: There's zero empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. Well, I'm not sure about that, it depends if you consider the evidence based on observation (empirical) or theory. Anything outside our solar system (where we've seen squat), is too damn far away to go to.
Pluto ~10 years away from Earth with current technology
Nearest stars we know about ~ 10,000 times as far as that.
Quite simply, if an extra-solar planet similar to Earth in terms of size, star type, neighborhood and distance, then it is possible for life to exist, simply by the laws of physics and what worked for us. Whether life actually does exist will depend on the planet's geological (okay, not the right prefix) state.
Whether life exists in places that are not like Earth at all, we don't know, but we haven't found much anywhere else in the solar system.
As for how many groups just like us exist, there's the Drake Equation. You start with the number of stars in the galaxy, multiply that by the percentage of stars like the sun, stars which have planets, stars which have earth like planets, and odds of any life being at a communicable stage among other things. So sure, that's just theory, but we don't know any of the percentages to give us a real number, which is where observation (and empirical evidence) comes in.
We have not found habitable planets, because up until Kepler, we did not have something that could detect them. Detecting planets (by transits or radial velocity curves) is a matter of both instrument precision and the time we have to look (getting better and not that long so far). Also, the inclination of the planets orbits with respect to us (totally random) will determine if we can even see something exists at all with these two methods. Meanwhile, hot Jupiters are easy to detect and they justify making the instruments to probe deeper. Hot Jupiters have also defied scientists' notion that our system was typical.
If you run simulations with a gas giant at Jupiter's distance and a bunch of rocks inside, the planetesimals will collect and form bodies that are different from, but not so far off from what we have. (A large number of these simulations have not been made because a single simulation takes months to run).
So basically, right now, scientists are gathering evidence that other stars have planetary systems, something we couldn't really answer one way or another 25 years ago. Whether we will ever detect little green men is one thing.
Having something that scientists are working towards and a method to do it, makes extra-terrestrial life a concept that is quite different from the God question, in my opinion.
quote: quote: Originally posted by Lisa: quote: Originally posted by Alcon: There's no empirical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life. There's a ton of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility. And there is some that suggests a high likelihood. Uh... "empirical evidence pointing to the possibility"? What does that even mean? It means we observe that there are other stars just like ours (old news). It means that we are starting to observe planets around other stars. We haven't found a planet just like Earth, but what we have strongly suggests there is something like it (we have stuff barely sensitive enough to detect an Earth). If there are aliens, they gotta live *somewhere*, so any Earth-like planet represents that possibility.
[ January 07, 2010, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: theamazeeaz ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:So the question remains... are we actually agnostics?
Like I said, I think Kate's a good example of an agnostic Catholic. So if you think you're like Kate, then yes. Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13:
quote:Yes, but the numbers from zero to one are not a set of measure zero; the rationals are. You cannot fire one Euclidean point at another and hit; that doesn't stop you hitting a circle with the point.
So? I'm arguing against this quotation of yours, which has no such qualifications:
quote:
quote: After all, the probability zero that something will occur does not mean it will not occur.
I think it does, actually.
There is a probability zero for every exact number that can come up in a spin of a perfect wheel (or a sample from a gaussian, or whatever). Yet, every time, a number does come up.
The problem with this argument is that is that a wheel of numbers IS a discrete probability distribution while a gaussian represents a continuous distribution.
The probability zero for a particular number coming up only occurs if there is an infinitely large set of numbers, which means you no longer have a discrete system. Therefore, this perfect wheel cannot give you exact numbers. You can, however, get a probability within a RANGE of numbers by integrating the distribution, which is how continuous distributions are used in practice.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
theamazeeaz:
not a wheel of numbers, a number wheel. Each point on the wheel represents the number found by interpolating it between the "ends" of the wheel.
This may have been the source of some of the confusion, and is why I've been careful about specifying "every number between zero and one" and things of the sort in more recent posts.
Also, I'm quite sure that my "perfect wheel" always does give me an exact number, just an exact irrational number. Much like (perfect) sampling from the gaussian always gives an exact number.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
Wow, so many points to respond to. OK. To Verily the Younger. I used to be in love with the idea of Burden of Proof, until I realized that it applies only in legal and strict scientific settings. The burden of proof is on whomever wants to convince their opposite. Always. You say that religious people have made assertions with no proof, well and good. But if a theist (to use your term) doesn't care if you believe or not, then he is under no obligation to prove anything. Same with your talking plant man (BTW, you gave me an idea for a short story, mind if I run with it?)
To all you people talking about the perfect spinner, I believe the conversation is missing a key point. Your perfect spinner can point to any number, rational or irrational, between 0 and 1 with equal ease and likelihood, no? However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I seem to remember that it is a mathematical impossibility to point to irrational numbers that don't equate to some known relationship, such as pi and e and their dependents. If I'm right about that, then the spinner is not just a practical impossibility, but a theoretical one as well, so the laws of probability wouldn't really apply.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I seem to remember that it is a mathematical impossibility to point to irrational numbers that don't equate to some known relationship, such as pi and e and their dependents.
You're wrong
We can't define the values of the numbers, but we can assign them properties (and do so all the time). Assigning them probabilities (and then sampling from them) is entirely legitimate.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: An atheist could also apply Occam's Razor and say that the addition of god, gods, nature spirit, etc, adds nothing to our understanding of the universe, and so is an unnecessary complication.
I would merely point out that the order and constancy of the universe constitute a design that implies an Intelligent Designer. The only alternative is to suppose that the universe somehow created and organized and continually maintains its physical laws and constants itself. How does that fare when it meets Occam's Razor?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
False dichotomy
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
@Ron Lambert
The universe having consistent laws only points to an intelligent designer if you insist on assuming it was designed and are not comfortable with saying simply "It is."
And when we say it has laws, we are merely trying to describe what is. We are not saying that the universe has these laws embedded in it. We are building a system of laws trying to describe the way the universe works. And we constantly have to revise them.
However, intelligent designer or no intelligent designer is one of those questions for which there is little evidence either way.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The only alternative is to suppose that the universe somehow created and organized and continually maintains its physical laws and constants itself.
Do physical laws and constants require maintenance? I suppose you do believe that the speed of light may have changed in the recent past, but.... Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:I can make that statement about every single possible number at once (just note that the probability is the same, per my distribution, for every number between 0 and 1). Yet at least one of them comes up, despite my having described the probability in advance.
No, actually, you can't. There is a very marked conceptual difference between "This particular number" and "Every number in this range", and statements that you can apply to the first do not apply to the second, and vice-versa.
quote:Heck, if you really want, I'll define my distribution as being only over the rationals, since I can even enumerate them (infinitely, but enumerate even so).
For all I care you can go to the integers and expand the range to [0, \infty>. I stand by my statement: You will never get any particular integer; in fact, in this case you will also never get an integer that's part of any given finite range.
The basic problem is that probability is not well defined for these kinds of ranges. Infinity is not a number. Perhaps we could agree that, rather than assigning probability zero, we should say "the probability doesn't exist"? Or "isn't well defined" or "exists only as a limit" or however you prefer to state this sort of thing.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: An atheist could also apply Occam's Razor and say that the addition of god, gods, nature spirit, etc, adds nothing to our understanding of the universe, and so is an unnecessary complication.
I would merely point out that the order and constancy of the universe constitute a design that implies an Intelligent Designer. The only alternative is to suppose that the universe somehow created and organized and continually maintains its physical laws and constants itself. How does that fare when it meets Occam's Razor?
I don't buy Occam's Razor for the creation of the universe. Even when I believed in God, I didn't buy it. Its to easy. Occam's Razor doesn't fit everything we don't understand yet. Just saying you don't understand it, so God did it, is very medieval.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: An atheist could also apply Occam's Razor and say that the addition of god, gods, nature spirit, etc, adds nothing to our understanding of the universe, and so is an unnecessary complication.
I would merely point out that the order and constancy of the universe constitute a design that implies an Intelligent Designer. The only alternative is to suppose that the universe somehow created and organized and continually maintains its physical laws and constants itself. How does that fare when it meets Occam's Razor?
Art implies artist. However it has yet to be proved that the universe constitutes art. We (people) find symmetry, order, beauty, (in other words, art) in what we perceive to be naturally occurring phenomena, such as sunsets, mountains, dew drops, snowflakes, etc. It's possible that there is an ultimate artist we don't see (god) or that things we see as art may be nothing more than happenstance.
Fugu, not rejecting what you said, but talking about something, or even using it, isn't the same as pointing to it (just ask any programmer). I was under the impression that irrational numbers can't be described or pointed to specifically, which makes the spinner, well, not work.
Now, a different way of accomplishing this task might be to say our spinner will point to any rational number between 0 and 1. There are still an infinite number of possibilities, so there's still a 1 over infinity (aka 0) probability of choosing any particular one.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
It took hundreds of years before even mathematical models could predict planetary movements better than the Earth-centric one. Galileo's theory of a sun centered universe couldn't match the theoretical models and mathematical predictions of movement of the earlier scientific models of an Earth-Centric universe. They made the false assumption that orbits were perfect spheres. Science is based upon observation. Observing and predicting something does not bring anyone closer to the truth of the observed phenomenon. Observing a phenomenon and being able to describe every state of its development does not make you understand the reality of the object. Science is an attempt to describe God's mystery. It shouldn't be a surprise that there is order in it. I majored in mathematics. I thought in math was unbiased truth. One English teacher might give you a C while another an A but in math, the answer is all that matters. I felt that truth could be found in mathematics. I followed that path until I realized that the only reason we count to 10 then roll over to 11 or 20 and 21 is because we have 10 fingers. An eight fingered creature's math would work just the same. 10 is no magic number, only the number of our fingers. Our math only works because it quantifies what we observe. Quantifying is not understanding. In college, I realized math is nonsense, because even mathematics breaks down when taken to it's limits. Truth can withstand the limits. Science is only observation.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You are mistaken on points of fact regarding the history of science surrounding heliocentrism; you are also a very bad philosopher.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
Malanthrop, just because our math is based on our biology doesn't mean that it's conditional. An eight fingered species might use a base-8 math system instead of our base-10 system, but our answers would be the same. 8+8 equals 16 in base-10 and 20 in base-8, but it's the same number. Mathematics are universal truths, only the language is different.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Raventhief: of course we can't physically point to them, with a pointer, but we can't with physical precision point absolutely at any number. I can, however, point to a class of numbers (and by virtue of pointing to a class point to the things in it). I can do calculations with them (for instance, when I integrate, I am summing up very large numbers of unpointable irrationals, in a sense).
But just like a Gaussian distribution samples perfectly from irrationals, a uniform distribution over an interval (a 'spinner') samples from them, too.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
Are you suggesting people couldn't predict platenetary movements prior to the acceptance of a sun centered universe? Perhaps rhetorical, they did...with functional models of a universe with the Earth in the center and the sun and planets revolving around the Earth while making funny figure 8's during their orbit. The observations and predictions worked just fine. The ancient Earth centered model could predict the movements of Mars 1000 times better than our current climate scientists can predict hurricanes. I know my homeowners insurance premium reflects their "science" but the hurricanes never came. My bird bath was an ice cube and I live in Florida. The entire norther hemesphere of the world is experiencing a 100 year cold...funny. Climate "scientists" predicted unprecedented hurricanes two years ago and uprecedented heat right now. The Earth center model was very accurate....a million times more accurate that the science of these global warming scientists. When they said star A would be in position B in the sky, they were right but the unprecedented hurricanes that jacked up my insurance never came.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
Wow. Malanthrop. Wow. I'm speechless.
ETA: Concerning your 2PM post.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
Fugu, I know not physically, I'm not a moron. I'm referring to, well, referrants. Pointers, in programming. An item which designates a single, particular number without specifying what the number is. I know you can work with aggregates and totals, but that doesn't mean you can deal with individual numbers. If you can't point to a specific irrational number, doesn't that negate the possibility of using a single irrational number in probability?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Are you suggesting people couldn't predict planetary movements prior to the acceptance of a sun centered universe?
No. I'm suggesting that they did so to the limit of accuracy of the naked eye, and that when telescopes came along, their system broke down in the face of more accurate measurements. You are just plain mistaken as to facts when you argue that heliocentrism, which incidentally was a theory of Copernicus and not Galileo, was initially less accurate, in this sentence:
quote:Galileo's theory of a sun centered universe couldn't match the theoretical models and mathematical predictions of movement of the earlier scientific models of an Earth-Centric universe.
As for insurance premiums, they are based on science but they are formulated by extremely hard-headed businessmen, who do not plan for a decade but for a century. I suspect that you do not understand probability, which is not uncommon in theists; it's the black-and-white view that does it. Your insurance premium, and everyone else's, is paying for new housing for those that got hit in Katrina, plus some profit for the insurance company. If everyone who bought insurance got hit, there would be no insurance company; if you think you know the probabilities of hurricanes better than they do, you should not buy insurance at their price. Better still, you should start your own insurance company. I suggest, however, that you never try any gambling sites.
Better still, do try some gambling sites. There's no better way of learning probability than having it bite you in the ass a few times, and I'm all in favour of learning.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Mal, that's...amazing? I can't find the right word. Maybe jaw-dropping.
You are comparing planetary motion, which can be explained by fairly simply equations (simple, once you've observed and hypothesized and disproven and rehypothesized and finalized), with climate and meteorology, an incredibly complicated system with chaotic elements and hundreds (if not thousands) of variables.
You try to make the world fit to your views, but in cases like this, you oversimplify to the point of absurdity.
Not to mention you reject mathematics and science because you can't find the impossible perfection you are looking for.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: Fugu, I know not physically, I'm not a moron. I'm referring to, well, referrants. Pointers, in programming. An item which designates a single, particular number without specifying what the number is. I know you can work with aggregates and totals, but that doesn't mean you can deal with individual numbers. If you can't point to a specific irrational number, doesn't that negate the possibility of using a single irrational number in probability?
Nu, but we are taking the number wheel as a postulate, and then we can refer to an arbitrary transcendent simply by "This number on the wheel", whether or not it can be expressed in terms of pi and e, and sqrt(2), and all the other known irrationals. You can't draw a Euclidean line either, but you can reason about it!
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I suspect that you do not understand probability, which is not uncommon in theists...
In this very thread, it's not uncommon in people, really.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Yeah, we only know about planets that are much larger than earth, and most of the ones that aren't huge (and almost certainly gas giants) are only observed very indirectly.
This, exactly. (Also, three posts in a row agreeing with me, and two from Tom and KoM! I should print that out and frame it. )
Personally, I suspect that there are many earth-like planets out there, and I consider the likelihood of not only life but intelligent life somewhere else in the universe to be quite high. But that is NOT based solely on the empirical evidence we have, simply because we have precious little.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Raventhief: no, it doesn't.
My confusion is that your argument seems to be that, if you sample from a probability distribution, the only possible numbers you can get are either rational, or a very tiny set (indeed, one as small as the rationals) of "pointable" irrationals.
That does not make sense. The definitions of probability distributions preclude that possibility. In particular, a probability distribution could not have a density if it had measure zero -- yet many continuous probability distributions do. Just as I can have a function f(x) = x^2 that's defined over the irrationals, despite never being able to directly give it an x, I can have a probability distribution that samples from them, even if I can't look at any of the results, because usually when I'm using the results, I'm using them in aggregate, and summing over irrationals I can't point at is entirely permissible (see point about integration).
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Right, just like we don't know for sure that OSC likes cookies. LOL
Having personally see him purchase and eat a Mrs. Fields cookie, I feel comfortable debating that point.
Although it has been almost 20 years. So I guess it could be that he doesn't like cookies any more.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:As for insurance premiums, they are based on science but they are formulated by extremely hard-headed businessmen, who do not plan for a decade but for a century. I suspect that you do not understand probability, which is not uncommon in theists; it's the black-and-white view that does it. Your insurance premium, and everyone else's, is paying for new housing for those that got hit in Katrina, plus some profit for the insurance company. If everyone who bought insurance got hit, there would be no insurance company; if you think you know the probabilities of hurricanes better than they do, you should not buy insurance at their price. Better still, you should start your own insurance company. I suggest, however, that you never try any gambling sites.
[/QB]
For the most part you are right. They really can't plan 100 years in the future though. If they start taking in too much premium, and they are not paying out claims, they pretty much have to lower premiums to remain competitive.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
malanthrop, you're comparing two completely incompatible things. Linear systems, like gravitation and astronomy, have been studied and developed for about 3000 years. Nonlinear systems (like meteorology) were considered completely unpredictable until about 100 years ago.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: malanthrop, you're comparing two completely incompatible things. Linear systems, like gravitation and astronomy, have been studied and developed for about 3000 years. Nonlinear systems (like meteorology) were considered completely unpredictable until about 100 years ago.
You're giving pre-Keplerian astronomy a bit too much credit, here. They did not study gravitation in the sense of having a mathematical model - linear or otherwise - that they could manipulate. It was basically stamp collecting.
Besides that, gravity isn't linear anyway, it's inverse-quadratic, and we do not know of analytic solutions for problems with more than two bodies, except a few special cases. Planetary movements are just as chaotic as weather, it's just that the timescale on which predictions are useless is much longer.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Planetary movements are just as chaotic as weather, it's just that the timescale on which predictions are useless is much longer.
Maybe they are similarly chaotic when you ignore timescales like that, but tracking planetary movement is done with (relatively) small objects in a big space over large timeframes, while weather is a gas made up of trillions of small objects 'stuck' to a large spinning object over short timeframes. Astrolabs and other fairly simple computers (as in, machines that compute) can accurately predict planetary motion for human lifetimes. There is nothing comparable for weather calculations.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
Fugu, I'm apparently just missing something about the nature of irrational numbers. My math topped off at number theory and linear algebra. And it's been a few years.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: malanthrop, you're comparing two completely incompatible things. Linear systems, like gravitation and astronomy, have been studied and developed for about 3000 years. Nonlinear systems (like meteorology) were considered completely unpredictable until about 100 years ago.
You're giving pre-Keplerian astronomy a bit too much credit, here. They did not study gravitation in the sense of having a mathematical model - linear or otherwise - that they could manipulate. It was basically stamp collecting.
Besides that, gravity isn't linear anyway, it's inverse-quadratic, and we do not know of analytic solutions for problems with more than two bodies, except a few special cases. Planetary movements are just as chaotic as weather, it's just that the timescale on which predictions are useless is much longer.
Not mathematically linear, a linear system. Input a yields output b. Input almost a yields output almost b. Weather is not such a system. And I'm giving no credit to preKeplerian astronomy. I'm just saying that linear systems have been well understood for a long time.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: Not mathematically linear, a linear system. Input a yields output b. Input almost a yields output almost b. Weather is not such a system. And I'm giving no credit to preKeplerian astronomy. I'm just saying that linear systems have been well understood for a long time.
You're forgetting (among other things) F(alpha a)=alpha F(a). KoM's point was that gravitation ~1/r^2 i.e. (as a function of r) F(alpha a)=(1/alpha ^2) F(a).
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Are you suggesting people couldn't predict planetary movements prior to the acceptance of a sun centered universe?
No. I'm suggesting that they did so to the limit of accuracy of the naked eye, and that when telescopes came along, their system broke down in the face of more accurate measurements. You are just plain mistaken as to facts when you argue that heliocentrism, which incidentally was a theory of Copernicus and not Galileo, was initially less accurate, in this sentence:
quote:Galileo's theory of a sun centered universe couldn't match the theoretical models and mathematical predictions of movement of the earlier scientific models of an Earth-Centric universe.
Needless to say, Mal is wrong about virtually everything. However, in spirit he might deserve more credit than you are giving him. In particular, my recollection (and a few minutes of searching) suggests that Copernicus predates telescopes and I'm not sure that the tables he was responsible for are actually better than the tables that were replaced. Certainly Brahe and Kepler's tables were vastly better than Ptolemy's.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Raventhief: I think the closest concept to what you're looking for (when you say linear) is continuously differentiable.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Not mathematically linear, a linear system. Input a yields output b. Input almost a yields output almost b. Weather is not such a system. And I'm giving no credit to preKeplerian astronomy. I'm just saying that linear systems have been well understood for a long time.
Well, you're mistaken then, because the movements of planets are not linear in this sense. Move the initial conditions a wee bit and, in a hundred thousand years, you have no idea where Venus ends up.
quote:Maybe they are similarly chaotic when you ignore timescales like that, but tracking planetary movement is done with (relatively) small objects in a big space over large timeframes, while weather is a gas made up of trillions of small objects 'stuck' to a large spinning object over short timeframes. Astrolabs and other fairly simple computers (as in, machines that compute) can accurately predict planetary motion for human lifetimes. There is nothing comparable for weather calculations.
Nu, I don't want to claim that human lifetimes are irrelevant; but the point is that both are chaotic systems, and all chaotic systems have a "horizon of predictability"; there exists some time t beyond which no amount of computer power will make accurate predictions. As you add more computers you can get arbitrarily close to t, but you cannot go beyond it. The number of elements just means the horizon is closer for weather than it is for planets.
quote:In particular, my recollection (and a few minutes of searching) suggests that Copernicus predates telescopes and I'm not sure that the tables he was responsible for are actually better than the tables that were replaced. Certainly Brahe and Kepler's tables were vastly better than Ptolemy's.
Yeah, fair enough, I overstated that slightly. Copernicus, however, could produce an equally-good prediction of, say, the position of Mars in much less time than could be done with epicycles, because the math was so much simpler; then, as observations improved, it turned out that the Copernican method was more accurate as well as faster. When your observations are, let's say, 10+-5 it doesn't matter whether your theory gives 10 or 11, it's good enough; speed of calculation does matter, though. But when your observations get so much better that you're seeing 10.8+-0.2, then the difference between 10 and 11 is important.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic:
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: Not mathematically linear, a linear system. Input a yields output b. Input almost a yields output almost b. Weather is not such a system. And I'm giving no credit to preKeplerian astronomy. I'm just saying that linear systems have been well understood for a long time.
You're forgetting (among other things) F(alpha a)=alpha F(a). KoM's point was that gravitation ~1/r^2 i.e. (as a function of r) F(alpha a)=(1/alpha ^2) F(a).
No no, that's a mathematically linear system. I'm using linear system in a non mathematical sense (possibly wrongly, but I've definitely heard it used this way before). Weather is a chaotic system in which minor changes of inputs such as temperature, pressure, etc, can (but don't always) create major changes in outputs.
Edit: Fugu, continuous is probably close to what I'm thinking. I need to get back in the math game.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Continuous is a little weaker than continuously differentiable, but yeah.
KoM's characterization of the overall systems is better, but in the short term (anything less than decades), the orbital systems are much easier to approximate than the weather.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Weather is a chaotic system in which minor changes of inputs such as temperature, pressure, etc, can (but don't always) create major changes in outputs.
Planetary movements are also such a system, it's just not obvious on a human timescale.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Weather is a chaotic system in which minor changes of inputs such as temperature, pressure, etc, can (but don't always) create major changes in outputs.
Planetary movements are also such a system, it's just not obvious on a human timescale.
But it is very obvious in the case of some of Uranus's moons. It's also the reason why we don't know if that asteroid that's supposed to come by in a couple of decades will hit us (Apopsis).
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I had the impression that last is because asteroids are so small that their orbits are quite difficult to measure accurately, rather than the perturbative effects of planetary gravities. I didn't know the Uranian moons were visibly chaotic; do you have a link, by any chance?
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: @Ron Lambert
The universe having consistent laws only points to an intelligent designer if you insist on assuming it was designed and are not comfortable with saying simply "It is."
Are you denying that there is apparent order in the universe? Are you claiming that order is more to be expected than chaos?
How highly ordered does anything have to be before you will automatically assume without any serious question that it was put there deliberately by someone with a mind? Like seven stones arranged as an arrow in the woods? How about billions of proteins in a DNA strand that produce an organism with definite characteristics, and that is able to reproduce itself? How about whirlpools of millions of stars that all seem to conform to the laws of gravitation, with consistent classifications of stars, where the blue stars are always hotter than the red stars, and with the spectrums we see in light from distant stars which show the same patterns as the spectrums we produce on earth which indicate specific elements?
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
I think it's better not to automatically assume anything.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: I think it's better not to automatically assume anything.
There comes a point where common sense has to intervene. Otherwise how can we function in the real universe?
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I had the impression that last is because asteroids are so small that their orbits are quite difficult to measure accurately, rather than the perturbative effects of planetary gravities. I didn't know the Uranian moons were visibly chaotic; do you have a link, by any chance?
From what little I know about dynamics, orbit determination is most imprecise when you haven't seen an object for many orbits or even a very large portion of one orbit in the case of KBOs. KBOs have some of the worst known orbits, and many of the ones discovered by surveys are considered "lost".
Really dim objects are a general pain, astrometrically speaking, but physical size as a constraint separate from flux received doesn't really matter, because very few objects are actually resolved in telescopes to begin with. Certainly not most stars, and the exceptions have involved HST! Honestly, you just need enough light, and a very stable telescope to get a decent centroid on the asteroid image with other nearby, non-saturated stars as a reference.
Chaotic simulations are very much used to determine how the other planets (mostly Jupiter) interact with asteroids. There are places where asteroids can't survive for very long before they are ejected out of the solar system or into the sun called the Kirkwood gaps.
As for Uranus, one of my friends worked on the Uranian moons as part of an REU, so I looked her up. Here's a link for a study showing the Uranian moons are chaotic. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008DPS....40.2407S Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: @Ron Lambert
The universe having consistent laws only points to an intelligent designer if you insist on assuming it was designed and are not comfortable with saying simply "It is."
Are you denying that there is apparent order in the universe? Are you claiming that order is more to be expected than chaos?
How highly ordered does anything have to be before you will automatically assume without any serious question that it was put there deliberately by someone with a mind? Like seven stones arranged as an arrow in the woods? How about billions of proteins in a DNA strand that produce an organism with definite characteristics, and that is able to reproduce itself? How about whirlpools of millions of stars that all seem to conform to the laws of gravitation, with consistent classifications of stars, where the blue stars are always hotter than the red stars, and with the spectrums we see in light from distant stars which show the same patterns as the spectrums we produce on earth which indicate specific elements?
If you can come close to comprehending an observable size of 93 billion light years and an age of 14 billion years, then yeah I have no problem with higher order creation evolving over such an immense stretch of time. But, I know, you belive the universe is what? 10,000 years old?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:There comes a point where common sense has to intervene. Otherwise how can we function in the real universe?
It seems that atheists function just fine in the universe without making assumptions about its design. So, given that the assumption isn't needed to function, why make it?
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: @Ron Lambert
The universe having consistent laws only points to an intelligent designer if you insist on assuming it was designed and are not comfortable with saying simply "It is."
Are you denying that there is apparent order in the universe? Are you claiming that order is more to be expected than chaos?
How highly ordered does anything have to be before you will automatically assume without any serious question that it was put there deliberately by someone with a mind? Like seven stones arranged as an arrow in the woods? How about billions of proteins in a DNA strand that produce an organism with definite characteristics, and that is able to reproduce itself? How about whirlpools of millions of stars that all seem to conform to the laws of gravitation, with consistent classifications of stars, where the blue stars are always hotter than the red stars, and with the spectrums we see in light from distant stars which show the same patterns as the spectrums we produce on earth which indicate specific elements?
With regard to anything Astronomical, I would see the fact that stars agree with the theories astronomers have made, regardless of the direction you look, evidence of a lack of a higher power.
Also, astronomers use the color of a star to determine its temperature, which works up until about 30000 K. The fact that blue stars are hot and red stars are cold is because we see a blue star, and we say that it must hot because Wien's law states that temperature determines color, not because someone went out there with a thermometer.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: How about billions of proteins in a DNA strand that produce an organism with definite characteristics, and that is able to reproduce itself?
Billions?
Can you show us an organism with billions of proteins?
Ensembl's latest assembly shows that humans have only 23,000 genes, with a total of 140,000 transcripts. According to you, this is a fraction of a percent of all the proteins in an organisms. Where are the rest?
If you mean "billions of bases", well, humans only have about 3 billion bases. The vast majority of life gets on with a fraction of a percent of that.
This is not the first time I have asked you for the sources for your figures, or corrected you when you were off by magnitudes in your facts about genetics.
Honest people don't do such things after they have been repeaedlty corrected.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: I think it's better not to automatically assume anything.
There comes a point where common sense has to intervene. Otherwise how can we function in the real universe?
quote:The most important contribution of an ethic based on ignorance*, or, more precisely, on a frank admission of ignorance, is to provide grounds for hope and a spur to action, which are vanishingly hard to find in these cynical and pessimistic times. It might seem paradoxical to suggest that embracing the permanent inadequacy of our knowledge can provide hope, but I think it can. The acknowledgment that we can never be sure about what we know or what will happen next frees us from the cost-benefit calculation that dominates so many styles of moral decision-making.
*Ignorance dos not mean the rejection of all knowledge. Rather, it entails an acknowledgment of how much we do not know, coupled with an awareness that anything we claim to know, perhaps especially about human and non-human nature, we know only partially and tentatively, and this is always subject to revision.
And from my experience, my common sense has never allowed me to automatically assume anything. I assume a lot, but it's always up for revision or retraction. And I function quite wonderfully in this universe, thank you very much.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:How about whirlpools of millions of stars that all seem to conform to the laws of gravitation, with consistent classifications of stars, where the blue stars are always hotter than the red stars, and with the spectrums we see in light from distant stars which show the same patterns as the spectrums we produce on earth which indicate specific elements?
I think you perhaps misunderstand how these things work.
We have written the "laws" of gravitation the way we have because they appear able to explain the phenomena we observe, including celestial whirlpools of millions of stars. (For the most part. Where we cannot yet figure out what consistent "law" explains everything we see, we have a mystery -- like, say, the whole Dark Matter thing.)
We know that light at certain wavelengths has certain colors, and is produced by certain plasmas at certain temperatures. For this reason, we assume that stars which appear red are cooler than stars which appear blue. This may not in fact be true; there may well be a blue star that is blue for some other reason, but we won't know -- or even suspect -- otherwise until more data about that exception is available.
The natural "laws" you believe have been written into the universe are, in practice, really just the lowest common denominators scientists are able to come up with that are capable of semi-reliably predicting physical outcomes.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
It's funny, because the fact that we continue to find stars that conform to the "laws" of gravitation is, once again, further support for the scientific approach that Ron so deplores.
If theory A predicts outcome X, and we observe outcome X, then we have empirical support for theory A. And yet in RonWorld, that apparently proves that the methodology used to produce theory A is wrong. Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: I used to be in love with the idea of Burden of Proof, until I realized that it applies only in legal and strict scientific settings.
This is a scientific question. Either there are deities that exist or there are not. If there are, it would be possible, in theory, to prove it.
quote:The burden of proof is on whomever wants to convince their opposite. Always. You say that religious people have made assertions with no proof, well and good. But if a theist (to use your term) doesn't care if you believe or not, then he is under no obligation to prove anything. Same with your talking plant man
"Theist" isn't my term. It's the word for someone who believes in a personal, intervening god.
And the theists who don't care if I believe don't have anything to prove to me. I have theist friends, and we just hang out and discuss video games and such, and don't worry about convincing each other.
But when the discussion of "does god exist" does come up, I'm sorry, but it is those who say he does that have the burden of proof. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and theists make the most extraordinary claim of them all without even the slightest bit of evidence. The only claim I make is that since they can't give me any evidence that makes sense, I have no reason to accept their claim. If they can claim it without evidence, I can dismiss it without evidence. It's that simple. They are the ones that have the extraordinary claim, not me. So they are the ones with all their work still ahead of them.
quote:(BTW, you gave me an idea for a short story, mind if I run with it?)
Knock yourself out.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: This is a scientific question. Either there are deities that exist or there are not. If there are, it would be possible, in theory, to prove it.
It's a scientific question to you. And to me, for that matter. However, there are those who claim that the question transcends science. I may (and do) disagree with them, but if they are correct, then there's no way to prove or disprove the existence of a deity within a scientific framework.
quote: But when the discussion of "does god exist" does come up, I'm sorry, but it is those who say he does that have the burden of proof. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and theists make the most extraordinary claim of them all without even the slightest bit of evidence. The only claim I make is that since they can't give me any evidence that makes sense, I have no reason to accept their claim. If they can claim it without evidence, I can dismiss it without evidence. It's that simple. They are the ones that have the extraordinary claim, not me. So they are the ones with all their work still ahead of them.
Ah, I see. I was under the impression that your claim was that god doesn't exist. If your claim is merely that you don't have to believe, then I agree, you have no burden of proof. However, if your claim is that they are mistaken and there is no god, then the burden of proof is equal upon you both. Calling the existence of god an extraordinary claim (as much as I agree with you) doesn't change anything. One could equally claim that the human animal being a natural descendant of non-living, discrete, organic molecules is similarly extraordinary.
quote: Knock yourself out.
*thunk* OW! I'm not good at rendering myself unconscious. Help me out?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger:
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: I used to be in love with the idea of Burden of Proof, until I realized that it applies only in legal and strict scientific settings.
This is a scientific question. Either there are deities that exist or there are not. If there are, it would be possible, in theory, to prove it.
In theory, yes. But it might depend upon suitable techniques being available. For example, if you had no microscopes, how would you go about settling the question of whether germs exist?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:One could equally claim that the human animal being a natural descendant of non-living, discrete, organic molecules is similarly extraordinary.
Do you believe there is an equal amount of empirical evidence for these two hypotheses?
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:One could equally claim that the human animal being a natural descendant of non-living, discrete, organic molecules is similarly extraordinary.
Do you believe there is an equal amount of empirical evidence for these two hypotheses?
No no, I believe firmly in evolution, but I was talking strictly about the idea of burden of proof. You can frame evidence and restate theories in different ways so that it seems that one idea or the other is "extraordinary." Except for legal issues, burden of proof is either equal to both sides of an argument, or solely on the shoulders of the one who wants to convince the other.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I really find it a little difficult to buy the notion that an intelligent species that has the ability to fly between the stars, stop all disease and aging, etc. would bother putting much energy into religion. (and yes, I do think we or our descendants will be doing those things eventually, given some luck re: terrorists, pandemics, and natural disasters like meteors/volcanoes) I'm not saying such a species wouldn't believe in God (although I'd guess they wouldn't if I had to guess at all). I'm saying they wouldn't spend much time/energy on worshipping, going to church, etc., maybe.
I'm not trying to denigrate anyone's religious practices here, merely pointing out what's obvious, or at least obvious to me. Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: @Ron Lambert
The universe having consistent laws only points to an intelligent designer if you insist on assuming it was designed and are not comfortable with saying simply "It is."
Are you denying that there is apparent order in the universe? Are you claiming that order is more to be expected than chaos?
How highly ordered does anything have to be before you will automatically assume without any serious question that it was put there deliberately by someone with a mind? Like seven stones arranged as an arrow in the woods? How about billions of proteins in a DNA strand that produce an organism with definite characteristics, and that is able to reproduce itself? How about whirlpools of millions of stars that all seem to conform to the laws of gravitation, with consistent classifications of stars, where the blue stars are always hotter than the red stars, and with the spectrums we see in light from distant stars which show the same patterns as the spectrums we produce on earth which indicate specific elements?
Ron, if I came across an arrow point in the woods, I may guess it had been put there by someone with a mind but I wouldn't assume it had. The two are different. I've encountered many natural phenomena that suggest they were made by human hands, but were decidedly not. Beautiful statues that appear to be figures carved by nothing more than wind and rain. Organizations of sticks and leaves that suggest they had been put there intentionally, but merely fell that way or were blown that way. Sometimes while I watched. The human mind loves to find patterns. It's part of what makes us so successful. And we will find patterns where ever we may.
It is entirely possible for order to simply be and not have an intelligent creator.
Only the physical laws that the universe operates by and the matter that makes it up were there at the beginning. Everything else evolved from those two things over billions of years following nothing more than those laws. And we don't really know enough about the beginning to say much about it either way with regard to an intelligent creator. It is entirely possible that that matter and those laws simply are. They are just the way things work. And it's no more complicated than that. It is also possible that there was some sort of intelligent design that went into their creation. But given the complexity that has evolved given nothing more than billions of years to play and that set of rules, I consider it entirely possible that there was some other set of rules that governed the creation of the universe. And perhaps some other set that governed those. It is entirely possible that all these rules simply are.
And by the way. Those rules aren't ordered. Not on the most basic level. On the most basic level, the quantum level, they appear to be chaotic. Ordered chaos, but chaos none the less. The universe does not appear to be deterministic. And if it was, there would be no free will.
[ January 08, 2010, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Alcon ]
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: Ah, I see. I was under the impression that your claim was that god doesn't exist.
I think I was more than adequately careful not to make such a claim. I defer to the judgment of the other posters; if anyone can find any statement I've made that said that it is my assertion that god definitively does not exist, then it means I have not expressed myself clearly enough and will be happy to re-state.
quote:One could equally claim that the human animal being a natural descendant of non-living, discrete, organic molecules is similarly extraordinary.
For which there is extraordinary evidence. A great deal of work has already been done by our team toward demonstrating that our claims are accurate. It is the people who claim that our claims are false that still have all their work still ahead of them.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: The certainty with which I claim there isn't a god cannot be absolute, but it is high enough that there's no point in pretending that I assign much of a probability to his/her/its/their existence.
This line was the source of my confusion. I just misunderstood. Your most recent post seems to indicate that both sides have the burden of proof, but the atheist side has found its proof while the theists have not. Does that accurately sum up your thoughts?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: This is a scientific question. Either there are deities that exist or there are not. If there are, it would be possible, in theory, to prove it.
Why? I don't agree with this assumption.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:This line was the source of my confusion. I just misunderstood. Your most recent post seems to indicate that both sides have the burden of proof, but the atheist side has found its proof while the theists have not. Does that accurately sum up your thoughts?
Atheist does not equal "evolutionist." An evolutionist has to deal with burden of proof (but fortunately there's plenty of evidence). Prior to existence of evolutionary theory, a reasonable atheist position would have been "I have no idea how the world got to be the way it is, and neither do creationists." If said "Strong" atheist wanted to go around proving to theists that their God couldn't exist then I think it falls on the atheist to find evidence that is logically incompatible with the theist in question's definition of God.
But a position of "there is no evidence for this, so I won't believe in it" doesn't require any burden of proof. Lack of understanding of a phenomena does not obligate us to make up solutions.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
swbarnes2
(1) You need to get over yourself.
(2) There you go again, accusing me of being dishonest without any valid cause.
(3) Each DNA step is formed of adenine, cytosine, thyamine, and guanine. (And uracil in RNA.) Those are what I was counting. Sorry if you feel it is somehow "dishonest" and "dishonorable" for me to call them proteins.
(4) Your complaint about me being off by orders of magnitude is untrue by your own calculation, and saying this has been true in the past is only your opinion--I have disputed logically and with cited evidence the common assumptions behind the "magnitudes" commonly assumed for the age of the universe. You cannot correct me on this, because I am not wrong. You only wish to claim that I am. Thus your argument is not a logical argument at all, it is only propaganda--based on personal attack.
[ January 08, 2010, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Alcon, thank you for attempting to put together logical arguments, instead of resorting to the personal attacks so many here seem to depend upon as their only way to express themselves.
If you find seven stones in the woods arranged in a perfect arrow, there may be one chance in a million that it "just happened." But if you are trying to follow the trail of someone who told you he would mark it for you, is it reasonable for you to dismiss it as something that "just is"? Is it sensible to use such reasoning to deny the obviously heavy weight of evidence that the universe was designed, and that such high level of design does demand an Intelligent Designer?
God has not removed every possible hook upon which you may choose to hang your doubts, if that is what you want to do. That is how much He respects your free will. But it is sensible, as most people would surely agree, to go with what the vast preponderance of the evidence indicates.
Evolutionists know that the idea of actually increasing the order of genetic code through the random operation of natural processes is highly improbable--that is why in order to make their theory seem credible to anyone, they need to invoke like a magic incantation the prospect of billions of years for it all to take place. They seem to suppose that if our brains are suffiently numbed by appeals to an incomprehensible billions of years, we will be willing to agree that anything is possible. The problem is that actual attempts to computer model the likelihood of evolution have always failed, even when all the parameters are increased by orders of magnitude over what evolutionists try to invoke. Evolutionists tend to avoid mathematicians, because the latter blow their cover.
Yes, maybe there is one chance in a quintillian that the universe just created itself, with no Intelligent Designer involved. That it "just is." But what kind of a gambler would bet on such odds? Let me clue you, the odds are in favor of "the House."
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Atheist does not equal "evolutionist."
Nor does theist equal non-evolutionist.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Atheist does not equal "evolutionist."
Nor does theist equal non-evolutionist.
This!
Ron, try thinking of your "arrow in the wood" scenario like this: Instead of finding an arrow, we find various piles of stones in various configurations and we, being who we are, assign meanings and names (like "arrow") to describe what we observe.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Nor does religionist equal lunatic, no matter how many times this may be claimed by those seizing upon non-respresentative examples.
Perhaps prejudice against the religious is a form of xenophobia on the part of unbelievers.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I was using your example.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Evolutionists know that the idea of actually increasing the order of genetic code through the random operation of natural processes is highly improbable
Strangely, this has been observed in the wild over and over again. We have numerous colonies of bacteria that we've verified have had beneficial mutations.
So, if by "highly improbable" you mean "virtually certain to happen over and over again, as shown by observing it happen over and over again", I suppose your statement would be correct.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Each DNA step is formed of adenine, cytosine, thyamine, and guanine. (And uracil in RNA.) Those are what I was counting. Sorry if you feel it is somehow "dishonest" and "dishonorable" for me to call them proteins.
I don't know about that, but it's just plain WRONG.
The bases you just named definitely are components of DNA (not the only ones, but let's leave that aside for the moment), but what they're not is proteins.
Note the differences between the first two (composition and shape), and note the large size difference between a single amino acid (or DNA base) and the average protein, which is made up of several HUNDRED amino acids.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:The universe does not appear to be deterministic. And if it was, there would be no free will.
Alcon, lets say I agree with you that if the universe was deterministic, there would be no free will. The universe not being deterministic does NOT then necessitate the existence of free will. A chaotic universe, particularly at the quantum level, tells us nothing about the existence, or lack there of, of free will. Or, more accurately, I don't think any definitive statements can be made about free will solely due to quantum indeterminacy.
And anyway, is that the kind of free will you'd want? What about the unpredictability of quantum measurements makes you free?
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: If you find seven stones in the woods arranged in a perfect arrow, there may be one chance in a million that it "just happened."
Yes, but Ron, walk by enough stones over enough time and the odds of seeing that perfect arrow aren't so staggeringly small. Added to what kmbboots just said about how it's only significant to us because of the meaning we assign to it, and I don't really see a need for assigning any mystical significance to finding a group of stones in the woods that I perceive as an arrow.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
kmboots, the problem is that in the scenario you describe, it would be unreasonable for an arrow to be used to indicate the path.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
What is "the path" supposed to be in your analogy? I was taking the arrow to be natural phenomena that we observe (DNA< stars and so forth) but I don't know what such phenomena "leads to".
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
rivka, OK, I stand corrected. The bases I named should not properly be called proteins. How about "structured molecules"?
fugu13, what constitutes a "beneficial mutation" is a relative and therefore slippery term. If a cosmic ray smashes an atom in a molecule and causes a mutation in the normal operating mechanism of the bacteria, and that happens to make the bacteria no longer susceptible to the way a certain common antibiotic acts, is that really evolution? Or just a kind of damage to the bacteria that accidently seems to benefit it in one kind of environment? Remove the antibiotic, and how long would the mutation persist, without eventually compromising the ability of the bacteria to prevail over its undamaged competition?
Computer models have been done of bacteria, and the changes needed to change one kind of bacteria into another are prohibitively great, mathematically.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: rivka, OK, I stand corrected. The bases I named should not properly be called proteins. How about "structured molecules"?
Each DNA strand is actually a single (very large) molecule. While the bases, when found individually, are molecules, once they join together they really don't have distinct separate-molecule status.
And all molecules are "structured". So I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
Since this thread is evolving into an evolution thread (haha), I will link this interesting article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/an-evolve-by-date/) on evolution. Were I to give a one-line synopsis I would say it is concerned with the limits of evolution as a survival mechanism; however I won't as it is a short read. The following paragraph is interesting with regard to the time-scale (measured in generations) it can take for an advantageous trait to evolve:
quote: Moreover — and this also has a bearing on the matter — where no previous capacity exists, evolving a brand new trait can be a slow and haphazard affair. Suppose you put bacteria into test tubes where their usual sugar source is in short supply, but an alternative one — which they can’t consume at all — is abundant. (If you put them with just this alternative source, they would all die of starvation at once.) Then, you can watch how long it takes for the bacteria to evolve so they can digest the alternative. The answer, in one famous case, was more than 31,000 generations! Which just goes to show: just because a particular trait would be useful does not mean that it will soon evolve.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Nor does religionist equal lunatic ...
This one doesn't quite fit in because unlike theist, atheist, non-evolutionist, and evolutionist, religionist is defined as being excessive.
e.g.
quote: 1. excessive or exaggerated religious zeal. 2. affected or pretended religious zeal.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... Evolutionists tend to avoid mathematicians, because the latter blow their cover.
Ummmmm, no. Mathematical models of evolution and algorithms analyzing genomic and proteomic data have produced the most convincing proof of evolution yet. There's a whole field of bioinformatics which is closely linked with mathematics.
For example at the University of Waterloo, the Bioinformatics Research Group is based out of the School of Computer Science which is IN the Faculty of Mathematics.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Each DNA strand is actually a single (very large) molecule. While the bases, when found individually, are molecules, once they join together they really don't have distinct separate-molecule status.
I had the impression that DNA is held together by van der Waals forces, rather than interatomic bonds; this would make it a crystal rather than a molecule. No? DNA does come apart in mitosis and in protein production; do biological processes really require energies on the electron-volt level of atomic bonds?
Thinking about it, do you perhaps mean that each of the two ribbons is a single molecule, and then the ribbons slot together by van der Waals attraction of the matching bases?
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: [QB] swbarnes2
(1) You need to get over yourself.
(2) There you go again, accusing me of being dishonest without any valid cause.
Being wrong doesn't make you dishonest. Repeating points which you have been informed are false is what makes you dishonest.
quote:(3) Each DNA step is formed of adenine, cytosine, thyamine, and guanine. (And uracil in RNA.) Those are what I was counting. Sorry if you feel it is somehow "dishonest" and "dishonorable" for me to call them proteins.
ACGT and U are not proteins. Middle schoolers know this.
And you are still wrong, because the vast majority of life on earth does not have "billions" of bases. The vast majority of life on earth has a few million. E. coli, for instance, has a genome of about 4.6 million bases. Most bacteria are within a few factors of this. You have made the same error before, and I have corrected you before. Repeating information you know to be false is dishonest. It's also rather stupid, but stupidity is sometimes entertaining. Dishonesty is not.
quote:(4) Your complaint about me being off by orders of magnitude is untrue by your own calculation,
Being off by a factor of 1000 is being off by 3 magnitudes.
quote:and saying this has been true in the past is only your opinion--I have disputed logically and with cited evidence the common assumptions behind the "magnitudes" commonly assumed for the age of the universe.
I have said nothing about the age of the universe. I was talking about how many proteins you claimed organisms possess, and how many we have evidence they actually possess. Humans have 140,000. You claimed billions. That's about 4 magnitudes. Most life has several thousand proteins. That's even more magnitudes.
I'll be happy to admit that I am wrong if you can cite a source demonstrating that some organism exists with a proteome of 1,000,000,000 proteins. The link I posted yesterday is one click away from Ensembl's count of 140,000 proteins for humans. Where's your evidence?
quote:You cannot correct me on this, because I am not wrong.
Ah yes, that humility and recognition of ignorance that you were touting in yourself only yesterday.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Thinking about it, do you perhaps mean that each of the two ribbons is a single molecule, and then the ribbons slot together by van der Waals attraction of the matching bases?
Yup. That's what I meant by strand.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Alcon, thank you for attempting to put together logical arguments, instead of resorting to the personal attacks so many here seem to depend upon as their only way to express themselves.
If you find seven stones in the woods arranged in a perfect arrow, there may be one chance in a million that it "just happened." But if you are trying to follow the trail of someone who told you he would mark it for you, is it reasonable for you to dismiss it as something that "just is"? Is it sensible to use such reasoning to deny the obviously heavy weight of evidence that the universe was designed, and that such high level of design does demand an Intelligent Designer?
You're saying that I'm ignoring the fact that God has told us through his prophet Jesus that it was he who placed the order in the universe. And that therefor to ignore this order is ignoring an overwhelming weight of evidence in his favor.
The problem with that argument is that the Jews (for, that's really who made the claim that the one true god placed the order in the Universe, Jesus and his followers simply built on and modified an existing framework) are not the only one to claim that their god, gods, goddess, etc are responsible for the universe's order. And certainly not the first. So who's right? Who's trail do we follow? There isn't really much evidence to support one over the other. And there's a whole ton of internal contradiction with in each faith. The internal contradiction and wide variety of faiths in and of itself is a fairly heavy weight of evidence against the truth of any particular faith. They can't all be right.
And Christianity is far from the biggest or oldest. Or even the most well thought out logically. Or the one that seems to truck best with the observable universe.
quote:God has not removed every possible hook upon which you may choose to hang your doubts, if that is what you want to do. That is how much He respects your free will. But it is sensible, as most people would surely agree, to go with what the vast preponderance of the evidence indicates.
But I would argue that the vast preponderance of evidence actually weighs against the Christian god of which you speak. Historical and observable. The evidence seems to suggest that, while there may be some sort of supernatural force or forces we haven't yet come to understand - and it may even be a single intelligent one, no human faith has exactly nailed down what it may or may not be.
quote:Evolutionists know that the idea of actually increasing the order of genetic code through the random operation of natural processes is highly improbable--that is why in order to make their theory seem credible to anyone, they need to invoke like a magic incantation the prospect of billions of years for it all to take place. They seem to suppose that if our brains are suffiently numbed by appeals to an incomprehensible billions of years, we will be willing to agree that anything is possible. The problem is that actual attempts to computer model the likelihood of evolution have always failed, even when all the parameters are increased by orders of magnitude over what evolutionists try to invoke. Evolutionists tend to avoid mathematicians, because the latter blow their cover.
Actually it's been shown to be highly probably. And to take place in a very short span of time.
And it's not that hard an idea to grasp. A different ordering of the genetic code - though created randomly - will be reproduced if it makes its bearer more successful. As it becomes reproduced more it becomes more common until the genetic sequence has a high level of ordering. And disorderings of the genetic code make their bearer less successful. Thus making reproducing unlikely. Those two simple rules make for a powerful force for order over any time period.
quote:Yes, maybe there is one chance in a quintillian that the universe just created itself, with no Intelligent Designer involved. That it "just is." But what kind of a gambler would bet on such odds? Let me clue you, the odds are in favor of "the House."
I don't know what the chances are for the universe to create itself with or with out order and structure. We know literally nothing about what came before the universe's creation. And at the moment we can't really know. We can make fairly wild guesses, but as far as I know there is no information to tell us about what came before. We can see (very nearly literally) back to the universes beginning. But anything before that is beyond the veil. And with out knowing the rules that governed the before, I can't tell you the likelihood of the event - with or with out an intelligent creator.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ah, ok. I usually think of the DNA strand as being made up of two ribbons, but that's just my habit.
Edit: In response to rivka.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Thinking about it, do you perhaps mean that each of the two ribbons is a single molecule, and then the ribbons slot together by van der Waals attraction of the matching bases?
Yes. Hydrogen bonds, to be specific.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Mucus, in computer modeling, everything depends upon how you set up your parameters, and what you are willing to call significant changes or supposed improvements. These are the same kind of tricks evolutionists have always played when trying to claim something demonstrates evolution.
I was thinking of a report by a mathematician I read about a couple of decades ago, of a computer model he had done of e. coli, where he assumed the entire surface of the earth was covered with it to a depth of four feet, and assumed all known causes of mutation and how much they can potentially accomplish. He found that even in a trillion years, e. coli would not give rise to another relatively simple related species that was clearly different. Had something to do with a Wisteria conference of mathematicians.
Regrettably, I cannot locate it now. I am sure it has all been explained away by the defenders of evolution dogma, or buried in the sort of recent cases of computer modelling where of course the results have been carefully limited. And yes, I know some of them claim to have successfully predicted evolution--but close analysis shows that it was not evolution, just some changes they were calling beneficial. E. coli, when taken through about 35,000 generations, is said to exhibit a certain kind of mutation or change that really only involves a breakdown in a previous method of utilization of a certain nutrient, not a real evolutionary increase in order and complexity. And that only occurs when it is exposed to a certain kind of environment.
OK, maybe the evolutionists have finally co-opted many of the mathematicians. That wasn't the case a couple of decades ago. Some people will do anything for grant money. But look at what they are really saying, look at the actual nature of the changes they are claiming constitute evolution.
I challenge you or anyone else to come up with a computer model that has been done of the actual likelihood of evolutionary change from one species to another distinctly different species. I maintain that evolutionists still avoid considering this, and never even speak of it, because no computer model has ever demonstrated that it is possible for one basic life form to evolve from another different basic species.
[ January 08, 2010, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
Ron, a genius scientist like you should have no problem giving the correct answer to this simple probability question.
I walked into a convenience store and hurriedly bought a new pack of cards. Then I played a bit of blackjack with a friend. We were both dealt two cards totalling 20. We shuffled, redealt two cards each, and again, the totaled 20.
What are the odds of this happening?
Or, to make a simpler question, what are the odds of me playing 10 games of Mah-jong with my grandmother-in-law and never drawing a single flower or season tile?
If you get this question unambiguously correct, we will have a great deal more respect for your ability to understand matters of probability. If you get it wrong, or refuse to answer, we'll know that you have absolutely no idea how to calculate any kind of real-life probability question.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Ron, what do you call the new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria appearing in places where the antibiotics are heavily used?
Are they evolved or is there something else to explain their appearance?
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I challenge you or anyone else to come up with a computer model that has been done of the actual likelihood of evolutionary change from one species to another distinctly different species. I maintain that evolutionists still avoid considering this, and never even speak of it, because no computer model has ever demonstrated that it is possible for one basic life form to evolve from another different basic species.
What definition of species are you working from?
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
swbarnes2, I am not familiar with card games. I have not studies probability and statistics, but I can understand as well as anyone what odds of one out of trillions imply in practical terms. Are you trying to pretend otherwise?
Alcon, I already referred to the case of certain bacteria having a mutation that may affect the specific site where a particular antibiotic utilizes, a mutation that actually damages an operational component of the bacteria so it less efficient, but can survive and persist as long as the antibiotic continues to be a part of the environment. (Remove the antibiotic, and the mutant will no longer have an advantage, and will not persist.) This is not evolution. Evolution means one life form turning into another. It means increasing complexity and order, not damaging the organism, which is what mutations almost always do.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I must say that I would have some difficulty with the Mah-jong question just on the grounds that I have no idea how that game works. I suggest you stick to card games commonly used in the West. But in any case, why are you arguing with someone you believe dishonest? Once honesty is at question, there can be no profit in discussion.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Alcon, I already referred to the case of certain bacteria having a mutation that may affect the specific site where a particular antibiotic utilizes, a mutation that actually damages an operational component of the bacteria so it less efficient, but can survive and persist as long as the antibiotic continues to be a part of the environment. This is not evolution. Evolution means one life form turning into another. It means increasing complexity and order, not damaging the organism, which is what mutations almost always do.
Actually Ron, that is evolution. It's microevolution. And if enough microevolutions build up over a long enough time they result in one form of life very gradually turning into another.
Also I'd love to hear your response to my post that preceded that.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Alcon, I realize it's a bit off topic, but any comments on my points regarding free will? Or did I make an assumption on what you were trying to say?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: [QB] swbarnes2, I am not familiar with card games. I have not studies probability and statistics, but I can understand as well as anyone what odds of one out of trillions imply in practical terms. Are you trying to pretend otherwise?
Just answer the simple question, please. I assume you, it's highly germaine.
Just lay out the first few steps, that'll be a start.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Alcon, the idea that something that absolutely is not evolution at all--coincidental mutation--can accummulate over time so that this so-called "microevolution" can eventually become "macroevolution" is completely invalid. I reject it utterly.
Of course mutation exists. That is all that has ever been proven. No one has proven that this can turn a turnip into a cabbage. Ever. No matter how many "microevolutionary" steps you allow.
As for your previous, previous post, I would maintain that:
(1) Intelligent Design is the most obviously likely explanation for the existence of the order we observe in the universe.
(2) One clearly reasonable expectation that goes with the idea of an Intelligent Designer is that he would care enough about us--His creatures--to tell us what He did; thus we should expect to find an account like we find in the book of Genesis.
(3) Perfectly fulfilled Bible prophecy, interpreted consistently so that all symbols are defined by the Bible text itself, testifies to the genuineness of the Bible as indeed being inspired by God. I have in the past provided a summary of some representative Bible prophecies in Daniel, and shown how every point is exactly fulfilled in later history.
[ January 08, 2010, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Alcon, I realize it's a bit off topic, but any comments on my points regarding free will? Or did I make an assumption on what you were trying to say?
Sorry Strider, still processing your post and trying to compile and answer (and not get in trouble at work by posting too much).
quote:Originally posted by Strider:
quote:The universe does not appear to be deterministic. And if it was, there would be no free will.
Alcon, lets say I agree with you that if the universe was deterministic, there would be no free will. The universe not being deterministic does NOT then necessitate the existence of free will. A chaotic universe, particularly at the quantum level, tells us nothing about the existence, or lack there of, of free will. Or, more accurately, I don't think any definitive statements can be made about free will solely due to quantum indeterminacy.
And anyway, is that the kind of free will you'd want? What about the unpredictability of quantum measurements makes you free?
Actually I didn't mean to imply that a non-deterministic universe necesitated free will, merely that it allowed for it where a deterministic one does not. In a deterministic universe if we knew the exact state of the universe for any particular moment we could predict everything that would follow after that state exactly. In that universe, there is no free will because there is an exactly set sequence of events that will happen just so.
In a quantum universe if you know the exact state of the universe at any particular moment, the best you can do is predict what the probability is of any sequence of events following that moment is. You cannot predict anything with certainty. In such a universe, free will can exist. It doesn't have to, but it can.
I pointed that out because Ron believes (I think - correct me if I'm wrong Ron) God gave people free will while created the universe such that it was order. I felt it was relevant to point out free will can only exist in a universe that is, at its base chaotic and not ordered.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: But in any case, why are you arguing with someone you believe dishonest? Once honesty is at question, there can be no profit in discussion.
Extra evidence never hurts. I remain open to the possibilty that falsifying evidence will come to light. You don't need to know anything about how to play blackjack or Mahjong to see the point of the question.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Ron, how about turning cabbage into broccoli?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Mucus, in computer modeling, everything depends upon how you set up your parameters, and what you are willing to call significant changes or supposed improvements.
Bioinformatics != computer modelling From what I understand of your reasoning, "computer modelling" is only a small part of bioinformatics since much of it is already much more applied rather than theoretical as what you're describing.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... OK, maybe the evolutionists have finally co-opted many of the mathematicians.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: But in any case, why are you arguing with someone you believe dishonest? Once honesty is at question, there can be no profit in discussion.
Extra evidence never hurts. I remain open to the possibilty that falsifying evidence will come to light. You don't need to know anything about how to play blackjack or Mahjong to see the point of the question.
But you cannot get falsifying evidence from a source you believe to be untrustworthy!
As for Mah-jong, I don't have to know how to win, but I would need to know how many tiles of each kind are in a set and how many draws in a game. Perhaps Ron would find your question easier if you told him how many cards there are of each kind?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Sorry Strider, still processing your post and trying to compile and answer (and not get in trouble at work by posting too much).
Ha, no problem, there was just a flurry of posting and I thought it might have been missed!
okay, I got you. I wasn't sure if you were implying that indeterminism necessitated free will...which I would've had a problem with!
It's worth noting though that I'm not sure that a deterministic universe does in fact rule out free will. Our ability to predict or not predict events doesn't really address the issue of free will. Defining free will in the first place is probably important though too.
Mind you, this is all coming from someone that doesn't believe we have free will, though I think the idea is a useful fiction.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Alcon, cabbage and broccoli may be variations within the same basic species. At least, Brussels Sprouts and Cabbage would seem to be. Every basic species has a library of alternative characteristics that may be selected for. They were created this way. Every time selective breeders come up with a sweeter corn, or a different colored rose, or a tame doglike animal from a fox progenitor, they confirm the Creationist theory of speciation.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote: Every time selective breeders come up with a sweeter corn, or a different colored rose, or a tame doglike animal from a fox progenitor, they confirm the Creationist theory of speciation.
How?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
because it's an unfalsifiable theory!
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: [qb]
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: But in any case, why are you arguing with someone you believe dishonest? Once honesty is at question, there can be no profit in discussion.
Extra evidence never hurts. I remain open to the possibilty that falsifying evidence will come to light. You don't need to know anything about how to play blackjack or Mahjong to see the point of the question.
But you cannot get falsifying evidence from a source you believe to be untrustworthy!
No, evidence that he's not dishonest. Evidence like him saying "You are right, no organism has billions of proteins, I was wrong to claim that, and I will never do so again, now that I know better". Of course, even better would be "I'm going to rethink my reliance on sources that made such elementary mistakes, and eschew some altogether, so that in the future, I won't make such painfully wrong claims, because I don't want to belive, let alone publically claim, wrong things". But that's a pipe dream.
quote:Perhaps Ron would find your question easier if you told him how many cards there are of each kind?
When I was in sixth grade, I did just about what I described with the deck of cards. I bought a new pack of cards, shuffled them well, and started dealing pairs to myself and a friend. Almost every pair turned up totaling 19, 20, or 21. 20 most frequently. Mostly face cards. Would I have been correct to conclude from those observations that an intelligent agent had fixed the deck? This is exactly the same kind of conclusion Ron is drawing about the 'order' in the universe.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:No, evidence that he's not dishonest.
Oh, ok, that makes sense.
quote:When I was in sixth grade, I did just about what I described with the deck of cards. I bought a new pack of cards, shuffled them well, and started dealing pairs to myself and a friend. Almost every pair turned up totaling 19, 20, or 21. 20 most frequently. Mostly face cards. Would I have been correct to conclude from those observations that an intelligent agent had fixed the deck? This is exactly the same kind of conclusion Ron is drawing about the 'order' in the universe.
Dude! I understand this! Don't argue with me, argue with him! The point I'm making is that he claims not to know enough about cards to answer your question. That is at least within the realm of possibility for a member of a fundie Christian sect; they're often down on card games even without gambling. So, you should give him a chance to prove he's honest in this matter by explaining the parameters of the problem to him.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Every basic species has a library of alternative characteristics that may be selected for.
Okay, where is the library? Here's the mouse genome, where is the library?
You can't keep claiming it exists without showing it to us. If you don't know, and you can't cite a single person who has any idea, and you can't name a single Creationist scientist even trying to find one, then say so plainly. If you are capable of such honesty. I hypothesize that you are not, but I'd love to have that hypothesis falsified by evidence.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote: had the impression that DNA is held together by van der Waals forces, rather than interatomic bonds; this would make it a crystal rather than a molecule. No?
No! THe two strands of DNA in a double helix are held together by Van der Waals interactions but the bases within each strand are held together by covalent bonds. Each strand of DNA is a polymer. This is actually very important for preservation and replication of the of the genetic material.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: I pointed that out because Ron believes (I think - correct me if I'm wrong Ron) God gave people free will while created the universe such that it was order. I felt it was relevant to point out free will can only exist in a universe that is, at its base chaotic and not ordered.
This actually works for LDS theology. In the LDS church, it is believed that we had free will already before we came to the Earth, and it was Satan's plan to remove free will from everyone. You could argue that God's plan WAS chaos, and Satan's was order. It is also believed that everything is made of matter, including our "spirits." A matter more refined and not able to be seen by our eyes, but matter nonetheless. Matter is also seen to be eternal. Who knows? Maybe all of those noetic "scientists" are actually on to something. (Sorry, just read Dan Brown's last novel...It was horrible) What I am trying to get at is that in some religions, it is possible to believe in both evolution and creation. Who is to say God is not a being who has reached a state of evolution that allows him to create? A better question: Does anyone know the end result of human evolution? Have humans reached their evolutionary potential already?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: (3) Perfectly fulfilled Bible prophecy, interpreted consistently so that all symbols are defined by the Bible text itself, testifies to the genuineness of the Bible as indeed being inspired by God. I have in the past provided a summary of some representative Bible prophecies in Daniel, and shown how every point is exactly fulfilled in later history.
Ron, you do get that the folks who wrote the NT also were familiar with past prophecies. Right?
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine:
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: I pointed that out because Ron believes (I think - correct me if I'm wrong Ron) God gave people free will while created the universe such that it was order. I felt it was relevant to point out free will can only exist in a universe that is, at its base chaotic and not ordered.
This actually works for LDS theology. In the LDS church, it is believed that we had free will already before we came to the Earth, and it was Satan's plan to remove free will from everyone. You could argue that God's plan WAS chaos, and Satan's was order. It is also believed that everything is made of matter, including our "spirits." A matter more refined and not able to be seen by our eyes, but matter nonetheless. Matter is also seen to be eternal. Who knows? Maybe all of those noetic "scientists" are actually on to something. (Sorry, just read Dan Brown's last novel...It was horrible) What I am trying to get at is that in some religions, it is possible to believe in both evolution and creation. Who is to say God is not a being who has reached a state of evolution that allows him to create? A better question: Does anyone know the end result of human evolution? Have humans reached their evolutionary potential already?
Re: a better question:
Evolution isn't really goal oriented, as species evolve, not individuals.
If humans are going to be around in the next million years, and also be different (somewhat) from the the current crop, what will get passed on are the traits of people who breed early and/or often. So really evolution is the end path of who has the babies, and how these people's ancestors make up a larger portion of the population millions of years down the line.
So think about how many kids an individual is likely to have. When are they likely to start? What will cause someone to die before they have children? What will make it more difficult for someone to get laid today? In this society, what makes a woman and a man attractive? If people meet spouses on the intarwebs, will people who know the difference between you're and your get more dates? Will the population of humans be more education-focused or less because people who are innately smart like school lots more than people who are not? Or do people who work on computers all day forget to breed?
Usually such discussions degenerate into "stupid people have more kids, can we stop that?". Let's not go there.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I agree with you in that individuals do not evolve, but the species. That isn't what I was referring to. I do not believe God is the only one of his kind. I believe He may be our creator, but I believe that there are others like him.
I was asking whether or not one day the human species may evolve to the point where we have the knowledge and power to "create." Not in the strict sense of creating something out of nothing, but in the sense of organizing or molding unorganized matter into another form.
It begs the question: If there was a species that never died out, would evolution ever stop? If a being evolved to the point in which they became all knowing and all powerful, how would that being evolve or progress from that point?
Edit: I understand evolution requires conflict to occur, however at what point does a species surpass the point in which there is conflict? Is this even theoretically possible?
[ January 08, 2010, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: Geraine ]
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Both of you are pretty wrong about how evolution works, but since I'm on my phone I can't really post a refutation right now.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
swbarnes2, are you contending that the entire genome for human beings can be expressed in only 140,000 individual code parts? What I have heard virtually everyone who knows what they are talking about say, is that it would take shelves full of encyclopedias to convey all the information that the human genome contains. Has gene mapping suddenly become a lot easier than ever before?
Notice I am not impugning your honor or denouncing you as dishonest. I am merely pointing out some facts you seem to have wrong, or that perhaps we have not been communicating on the same level. What I have been saying, and have been from the beginning, as you should know from the context of my remarks, is that the human genome is extremely complicated, with such information density that had it been understood in the days of Charles Darwin, he never would have even preposed his preposterous theory.
quote:there are more than 10^84 possible alternative code tables if each of the 20 amino acids and the stop signal are assigned to at leasts one codon....
Ron, how does breeding support the creationist theory of speciation?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Notice that 3 billion base pairs is less than a single gigabyte's worth of information. And not all of them encode proteins.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Alcon, all variations we have ever seen in species have resulted from characteristics already present in the genome of the original progenitor being selected. This is why selective breeding works in only a few generations, so you can get a blue potato from a white one--rather than having to wait billions of years for the new traits to "evolve."
Creationists maintain that when the Creator designed each basic species, he placed in the genome of that species a whole library of alternate characterists that are "turned off," but can be turned on and thus selected for to enable the species to adapt to meet changing environments. This is what all selective breeders confirm. There is no micro-evolution. There is only selection of pre-programed alternative characteristics.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Creationists maintain that when the Creator designed each basic species,
What is your definition of species?
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
KoM, if each information digit in the human genome were represented by one letter in a book, how many books would be required to convey all the information in one human cell nucleus? It would be a lot more than a mere gigabyte! Otherwise computers would be sentient by now.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: [QB] swbarnes2, are you contending that the entire genome for human beings can be expressed in only 140,000 individual code parts?
What the heck is a "code part"? Use your big boy words, Ron. Do you mean genes? Proteins? transcripts? Exons? Conservons? Chromosomes? Bases?
I am pointing to a reputable source that at present, has identified about 140,000 gene transcripts, so that means not a whole lot more than 140,000 proteins, maybe a lot less (I don't think miRNAs and such are included in that transcript count). Obvously, I am not claiming that this is the exact number, but you claimed that this was about 4 magnitudes too small a figure, and organisms in fact had billions of proteins. So where do you claim the other billion proteins are in the human genome?
quote:What I have heard virtually everyone who knows what they are talking about say, is that it would take shelves full of encyclopedias to convey all the information that the human genome contains.
Are those the same people who told you that proteins and nucleotides are the same thing?
The human genome is about 3 billion bases. Add some mark-up info to represent epigenetic information, and that's several billion bits. Less, since lots of it is compressible.
Microbial genomes, of course, are a lot smaller. A few million bases, and I don't think they have much in the way of epigeneic mechanisms at work. E.coli zips down to about 1.2 kb, and there may be smarter algorithms than 7-zip that are more suited to genetic data. How many encyclopedia books is that?
This data was all out there. I know I've perosnally pointed you to it a dozen times. A person who cared about beleiving true things and claiming true things would have looked for himself. You have demonstrated over and over again that you are not such a person.
quote:Has gene mapping suddenly become a lot easier than ever before?
The short answer is, yes. As of this year, you can do a decent human genome in a few months. The baseline human genome has been done for 8 years, E.coli for longer. I've told you all this before too, so don't pretend that you didn't know.
quote:Notice I am not impugning your honor or denouncing you as dishonest.
I have not lied on this board, so it would be stupid of you to claim that I had. You have lied. You have repeated facts which you have been informed were false.
Frankly, you can impugn my honor all you like, if you deal with the empirical facts I present. But you will not do so, and I predict you never will.
quote:I am merely pointing out some facts you seem to have wrong
What fact have I presented which is wrong?
Quote me, then cite your proof that I am incorrect.
I have provided links to proof that my claims are accurate.
quote:What I have been saying, and have been from the beginning, as you should know from the context of my remarks, is that the human genome is extremely complicated, with such information density that had it been understood in the days of Charles Darwin, he never would have even preposed his preposterous theory.
No, you did not just say that the human genome is complicated. That is yet another outright lie, and rather stupid since we can all read what you wrote. You claimed that it had "billions of proteins". That claim is false. It is crazy false, outlandishly, magnitudes away from reality false. But you will not admit it. You will not admit that the source which lead you to believe such a stupid thing was brazenly lying to you. That is why I call you dishonest.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ron, if you wish to communicate with me, you may do so through seconds. You do not understand how to measure quantities of information; get someone to explain it to you.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Alcon, all variations we have ever seen in species have resulted from characteristics already present in the genome of the original progenitor being selected.
Ron, there are a number of cases in the human genome where a recent mutation randomly shows up out of nowhere. Some of the more recent ones are EXTREMELY easy to track, like lactose tolerance in adults. Here's an article about lactose tolerance in some human populations.
What's the story with cases like that, Ron? Are the scientists who study this liars?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Ron, aside from all the factual data that other posters have presented, the big problem I see with arguments that begin with "what are the chances" is that we know the end point*. What are the chances that whatever would turn out like x if it were left to chance. We know what x is. If it hadn't hit that bazillion to one chance to turn out x and instead turned out q, we would be asking what are the chances that whatever would have turned out like q. Again, bazillion to one, but it doesn't matter.
*Not so much the end as where we are now.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Alcon, all variations we have ever seen in species have resulted from characteristics already present in the genome of the original progenitor being selected.
False. There are numerous experiments in bacteria and plants that conclusively disprove this.
Ron: no, it is considerably less than that. How about you propose a translation mechanism between the genetic information in nucleic acids and information, and we'll calculate it for you (or you can do the basic multiplication yourself).
For instance, if you represent the base pairs minimally (00, 01, 10, or 11, for the different combinations), you can fit all the information in about 750 megabytes.
As for computers being sentient by now, I can only assume you aren't aware that many organisms have large genomes than we do, yet aren't sentient. Sentience seems to have very little to do with amount of information in a genome.
Btw, your quotation is about the number of possible ways to organize the amino acids among all the different possible codons. It isn't the size of the genome in a person (or anything else). To give an equivalent measurement, since a computer can store 2 values in each bit, even a mere 336 bits (42 bytes, or a small fraction of the bytes in this message board post) could organize themselves in more different ways than that (since 2^336 is greater than 10^84).
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Creationists maintain that when the Creator designed each basic species,
Seriously- you are saying that creationists make a specific claim regarding species. What do creationists mean when they make this claim? It need not match the most recent definitions used in the scientific literature, but you should be able to provide some criteria by which to partition the animal kingdom. Could you paraphrase the quoted sentence without using the term 'species'?
I hope you will answer as some might suspect the lack of rigor to reflect the desire to leave room so as to move the goal posts in light of new scientific evidence....
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:For instance, if you represent the base pairs minimally (00, 01, 10, or 11, for the different combinations), you can fit all the information in about 750 megabytes.
That's what I said!
In fact it looks like we did exactly the same calculation, but I feel that my "less than a gigabyte" is a much better presentation than the spurious accuracy of your two significant digits.
*Sulks*
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: It begs the question: If there was a species that never died out, would evolution ever stop? If a being evolved to the point in which they became all knowing and all powerful, how would that being evolve or progress from that point?
Edit: I understand evolution requires conflict to occur, however at what point does a species surpass the point in which there is conflict? Is this even theoretically possible?
You're thinking of evolution as though it has some far reaching goal it's trying to achieve (all powerful, all knowing); it doesn't. It only reacts to selection pressures. A species that is further advanced in intelligence, for example, is not "more evolved" than any other species that has been evolving for the same amount of time. In fact, evolution is not measured in years; it is measured in generations. So technically, the most "evolved" organism on the planet is bacteria.
As an analogy (which I admit is imperfect), I think of natural selection like a chess player that only looks one move ahead. He makes that particular move for a reason at that time (it is not random), but he has no long terms goals. (The analogy is imperfect because of course, even if he has no strategy, a chess player does have a long term goal - checkmating the enemy's king.)
It seems to me that a species would only stop evolving if it stopped experiencing selection pressure. And I don't see how that could happen.
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
I'm just pointing out that observations and predictions are the basis of science. Earth centered models of the universe were based upon observations and did provide testable predictions. We know the Earth isn't the center of the universe, but the Earth centered scientific model could and did predict stellar movements quite accurately. You don't have to go back very far to find examples of scientists being way off base. The true beauty of science is that in the real sciences, the science is never settled. The scientist that says, "the debate is over, the science is settled"...isn't a scientist. Good science is fed by doubt and absolutes are reserved for faiths.
[ January 09, 2010, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: malanthrop ]
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
swbarnes, I think you're being unfair with Ron. His original mistake was purely a matter of terminology, and he accepted the corrections he received. To claim that he was deliberately lying about the number of proteins expressed by the human genome is to assume that he can distinguish between a DNA base and a protein, that he knows how many books a gigabyte is, that he knows what an order of magnitude is, that he can intuit the difference between the number of bits in a sequence and the number of possible sequences with a given number of bits: namely, you are assuming too much.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mike: swbarnes, I think you're being unfair with Ron. His original mistake was purely a matter of terminology,
No, it's not. The vast majority of life doesn't have a billion bases in their genome, either. Even humans, whicn I bet Ron thinks of as the epitomy of Creation, only have about three billion. Ron knows this, because I have told him, and pointed him to references which show this.
And to mix up proteins and bases is not just a mistake in terminology. Middle schoolers should know the difference, which means that grown-ups claiming to understand the science better than the world-wide comunity of experts must understand it too if they expect to be taken seriously. If he mistyped, he should say "Oops, I mistyped, I do know middle school science", and should trust that the contents of his other posts supports him.
quote:and he accepted the corrections he received.
Has he accepted the correction about his assessment of the number of proteins or bases in most of the genomes on the earth? How many times has he claimed that genomes contain "libraries" of alternate characteristics, and utrerly failed to demonstrate the existance of this library when asked?
quote:To claim that he was deliberately lying about the number of proteins expressed by the human genome is to assume that he can distinguish between a DNA base and a protein,
I expect that adults understand the words they use. You are telling me that I should not extend this basic courtesy to Ron. That I should not assume that he possesses a middle school education.
Well, I'll start acting that way when Ron tells me, and not before. For all I know, he does have some kind of link to a crackpot paper telling him that there are a billion different proteins in humans. If I ask him for his evidence, and he tells it to me, then we are all on the same page. If I assume that he doesn't mean what he says, and I substitute what I think he thinks, and wanted to say, that's a recipe for gross misunderstanding.
I believe it is the responbility of every poster, especially those making factual claims that they know are going to be disputed, to be prepared to back up their claims with links to evidence. And nearly every claim Ron makes about science falls in that category. If he can't stand the heat, he should stay out of the kitchen. If Ron is going to make quantitative statements, he needs to have his numbers and sources at the ready.
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raventhief: Your most recent post seems to indicate that both sides have the burden of proof, but the atheist side has found its proof while the theists have not. Does that accurately sum up your thoughts?
Not exactly. The only atheists who have anything to prove are the ones who say they know there is no god. Very few atheists, if pressed, will actually go that far. Even Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens don't go that far.
Now, evolutionists do have a burden of proof. The claim is that all modern forms of life developed gradually from earlier forms of life, stretching back billions of years. That is, as you say, an extraordinary claim. But we have been gathering evidence for it since the days of Charles Darwin, and every single bit of evidence gathered supports the claim, and not one scrap of evidence has ever contradicted it. There are vast mountains of evidence supporting evolution, to the point where it is as "proven" as anything in science ever gets. It is as proven as the theory of gravity and the germ theory of disease and the sex theory of reproduction.
But that's evolution, not atheism. There are quite a lot of theists who understand and accept evolution. Even the Catholic Church officially accepts evolution. So, Creationists aside, there isn't a conflict there.
But those who say there is a loving, caring, all-knowing, all-powerful God behind all this, who watches over His creation and guides its development, who cares what you eat, what you wear, which days you work and which days you rest, whom you go to bed with and in what way, well, they have quite a lot of explaining left to do. None of the evidence they have presented over the millennia has stood up to scrutiny. It takes faith to believe it, because the evidence, if not exactly against it, does not in any way support it, either. That fact by itself is evidence enough for the atheist position that there is no reason to believe it. It is those who want us to believe it who have the burden of proof, and good luck to them.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: And to mix up proteins and bases is not just a mistake in terminology.
You're right, it goes beyond a simple mistake in terminology; it's a more fundamental lack of understanding than that. I was oversimplifying things. However, to claim such a lack of understanding is an outright lie seems to me to be a stretch.
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: I expect that adults understand the words they use. You are telling me that I should not extend this basic courtesy to Ron. That I should not assume that he possesses a middle school education.
Well, I'll start acting that way when Ron tells me, and not before.
Let me ask you a question then: do you expect him to fess up? To say "You know, you're right, I don't understand any math or science at or beyond the middle school level, so please take that into account when I misuse big words or demonstrate a misunderstanding of the scientific method or complex theoretical ideas." Given your assessment of the likelihood of this happening, how much sense does it make to spend effort rebutting his arguments as though he understood the issues? Especially with the apparent (to me) vehemence and frustration you tend to fall into.
Then again, here we are falling into the trap of discussing another poster in the third person, which is, as was pointed out recently in Papa's thread, not a very good sign. Ron, I apologize, and feel free to jump in at any time.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mike: Let me ask you a question then: do you expect him to fess up?
I expect an honest person to fess up. I conclude from the evidence of previous posts that Ron will not do so, though I am open to having this hypothesis falsified by new evidence.
quote:Given your assessment of the likelihood of this happening, how much sense does it make to spend effort rebutting his arguments as though he understood the issues?
I don't intend to convince him at all. I don't think it's possible. Frankly, he's not presenting the argments that actually convinced him, so utterly demolishing these arguments won't change his mind. He believes for religious reasons, and reason can't touch them if the believer doesn't allow it. I hope to convince those who aren't familiar with the evidence that while Ron might speak as if he is in posession of all the facts, he's woefully ignorant of them, and that in fact, it only takes a proficient person moments to pull up the evidence that proves he has no idea what he is talking about.
More importantly, I don't think that repeating falsified claims is a behavior that should pass unnoticed. It should be objected to, and not feebly.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: It is those who want us to believe it who have the burden of proof, and good luck to them.
Assuming they care what you believe.
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
I believe I've said that. In fact, I said it in the excerpt you quoted. "It is those who want us to believe it who have the burden of proof," which is exactly what I meant to say. If you don't care if I believe it, you don't need to prove anything. But if you want me to believe it too, that's when you have a lot of explaining to do.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
The implication was that "those who say there is a loving, caring, all-knowing, all-powerful God behind all this, who watches over His creation and guides its development, who cares what you eat, what you wear, which days you work and which days you rest, whom you go to bed with and in what way" = "those who want us to believe".
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
In a debate, yes, those who make that assertion have the burden of proof. And around here, conversations often do turn into debates. I don't mind who believes in it, I really don't. In an ordinary day-to-day situation, I don't go around talking about it. I have a fairly good idea who among my friends believes it, though not a complete idea, and I don't have the slightest idea who among my coworkers believes it. It's not a subject that I bring up. And if someone happens to mention that they believe, I don't stand there and argue with them about it, either.
But if the current conversation is a debate about the issue, as it is here, then I am not out of line in saying that if you're going to assert that it is true, then you have the burden of proof. I'm not saying you are obligated to supply proof just because you believe it. If you want me to believe it, that's when I'll challenge you. If you don't care if I believe, then I don't care about challenging you.
I'm only discussing things like burden of proof in this thread because that's sort of what this thread is about. I know it's hard to predict what my behavior will be because I've been inactive on this board for a couple of years, and I was a lot less vocal about belief back then. So you may be worried that I'm going to pull a KoM and drop into every thread where God is even mentioned just to be snide or make challenges. I can't assure you that I won't, because you'd have no reason to believe me, but just watch and see what I do. I think you'll find that I don't bother about it most of the time. I don't have contempt for the faithful and I don't go around looking for theists to challenge. But that doesn't excuse any theists who may want to challenge me from the burden of proof that is inherent on those who are making a positive assertion.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: More importantly, I don't think that repeating falsified claims is a behavior that should pass unnoticed. It should be objected to, and not feebly.
Well if that's your battle, then good luck, but I suspect your efforts would be spent more effectively elsewhere.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
You know this is maybe the one great benefit to stardestroyer.net, Ron would have gotten himself banned after about 5 posts for repeating the same arguments without proof. (As it is a banable offense to not back up your arguments)
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Yes, many people would be banned if such a policy were enforced.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: You know this is maybe the one great benefit to stardestroyer.net, Ron would have gotten himself banned after about 5 posts for repeating the same arguments without proof. (As it is a banable offense to not back up your arguments)
I cannot fathom how this rule would be enforced. Whose job is it to determine whether an argument contains proof? The only fair way is using rigid, truly mathematical standards devised by the ancient Greeks, measuring nothing but logos, which would greatly diminish interest if such a standard were placed.
While it is a desirable ideal to argue relying on logic, reason, and facts, failing to do so shouldn't prompt punitive action. Rather, someone should just come out and point out the logical fallacy. If someone cares enough about rational discussions as to ban those who don't contribute rigid enough arguments, then that same person should be motivated enough to point out anything wrong with what someone is saying. Banning people for arguing with no support is counterproductive: de facto definitions of "proof" or "evidence" are shaky enough to be twisted into biased judgments, despite the fact that the actual denotations of "proof" and "evidence" are quite solid. The mediator to decide what constitutes evidence could, in theory, use an objective standard for sound arguments, but I am willing to wager that the temptation to fall back on intuition is too strong for this practice to be useful.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
swbarnes2--why are you ducking the real point I was making, that the information density of the human genome is so immensely great, it makes Intelligent Design the only possible explanation for the existence of life and the universe, and that evolution is impossible to anyone willing to be truly reasonable about it? Which you apparently do not wish to be. You appear to be too in love with being insulting for its own sake. Let me give you a clue: Such does NOT make you look smarter than the target of your venom.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:the information density of the human genome is so immensely great, it makes Intelligent Design the only possible explanation for the existence of life and the universe, and that evolution is impossible to anyone willing to be truly reasonable about it?
Some points: 1) The information density of the human genome is not as high as you think it is. 2) We do not know how informationally dense something has to be before it is impossible for that thing to arise without conscious intervention. To claim otherwise is to beg the question. 3) I think you would need to define "truly reasonable" in a way unrecognizable to anyone posting at Hatrack for this to be remotely true.
You complain that Barnes hasn't "addressed" these issues of yours. I would argue that he and others have not only addressed but demolished point #1. Point #2 does not particularly need to be addressed, as there is no actual science behind it. And Point #3, in the same way, is merely a statement of opinion -- which people are clearly entitled to disagree with without feeling compelled to rebut. Posted by just_me (Member # 3302) on :
Ron - I've noticed that you very often make statements like "it makes Intelligent Design the only possible explanation for the existence of life and the universe, and that evolution is impossible to anyone willing to be truly reasonable about it". You state these things like their obvious facts, and seem to think that you need NEVER provide any actual arguments to back them us since they're "obvious".
They may be obvious to one who believes exactly what you believe already but to the rest of us they are patently not obvious. In fact, to many of us it's obvious that you are just plain wrong.
So you really do need to either start backing up your statements *somehow* or you need to realize that the only people here who will ever believe you already do and the rest of us are just annoyed by your insistence on posting ridiculous statements over and over and over again like you are actually the one who is right.
The bottom line: I reject your above quoted statement completely (just like you have rejected so many others). Now it's your turn - everyone you have said this to has provided backup info to their position - it's your turn to do the same. Convince me that ID is the only possible explanation... I'll listen to any argument you want to make provided it has some facts behind it. Give me links to things to read, give me reasoning. PLEASE!
It's put-up or shut-up time, I think!
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
The complexity of the universe, especially of the genomes of living creatures, could not happen by chance through any kind of natural processes. This is self-evident to any reasonable person. It is only disputed by those determined to hold on to their belief in evolution against any contrary arguments or evidence, no matter what. The burden of proof is not on me, it is on my belligerent attackers, to prove that the complexity of the universe and of the genomes of living creatures could arise by chance. How can anyone possibly be so blind to the obvious, that complexity of design on this level can only be produced by Intelligence?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Because we have astonishingly good models, supported by extensive experiments, of ways it could have happened otherwise.
Also, you seem to neglect the possibility that some outside force could set up a complicated system that would lead everything to work. After all, aren't you of a religion that ascribes omnipotence to God? Who are you to reject the possibility that he set up a complicated universe that could proceed without his intervention? That view isn't even in conflict with any scientific theory (since it isn't a question science is capable of investigating).
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Wouldn't it be rather more productive to address the fact that Ron makes no new arguments, but merely re-asserts his old assertions? There comes a point when discussion is no longer productive and you just have to acknowledge that someone is dishonest.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, Ron, you have two basic options here.
One, your argument makes so much sense that it's impossible to disagree with it without some ulterior and likely nefarious motive. Or two, your argument is actually not nearly as persuasive as you're claiming it is, and those disagreeing with you aren't necessarily brainwashed idiots just by virtue of disagreeing.
Being such a big believer as you are in original sin and the fall of man, well, it's frankly a very prideful thing to believe that people disagreeing with your statements are by definition so staggeringly blind to the obvious.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Ron, you need more imagination. Or a better understanding of big numbers.
Either way, it feels like this has devolved into a do not feed the troll scenario.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The complexity of the universe, especially of the genomes of living creatures, could not happen by chance through any kind of natural processes.
Dawkins goes to great lengths in The God Delusion to explain that evolutionists don't believe this either (particularly, your use of the word "chance").
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: There comes a point when discussion is no longer productive ...
Don't you find this statement a bit ironic, KoM?
Hobbes Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
No, in fact, I do not. I have never been guilty of merely repeating assertions as a form of argument; nor of dishonestly presenting assertions of fact which others have effectively demolished (multiple times) as though they were new evidence; nor of ignoring arguments I cannot respond to.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
But you think others do, right? That's certainly been the impression I get anyways, my bigger point being: if no one's listening, why keep shouting? And here you seemed to agree. Anyways, I didn't mean to derail, though I have to agree with you in this case, I don't really see this going anywhere productive.
Hobbes Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The complexity of the universe, especially of the genomes of living creatures, could not happen by chance through any kind of natural processes. This is self-evident to any reasonable person. It is only disputed by those determined to hold on to their belief in evolution against any contrary arguments or evidence, no matter what. The burden of proof is not on me, it is on my belligerent attackers, to prove that the complexity of the universe and of the genomes of living creatures could arise by chance. How can anyone possibly be so blind to the obvious, that complexity of design on this level can only be produced by Intelligence?
I also might add, here is CreationWiki's own response to the claim that "Design is self-evident. You just need to open your eyes and see it.":
"This is pathetic. The source is from Talk Origins' feedback section and from someone who is clearly not coming from a scientific perspective. Just putting this on the list is scraping the bottom of the barrel."
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: The complexity of the universe, especially of the genomes of living creatures, could not happen by chance through any kind of natural processes. This is self-evident to any reasonable person. It is only disputed by those determined to hold on to their belief in evolution against any contrary arguments or evidence, no matter what. The burden of proof is not on me, it is on my belligerent attackers, to prove that the complexity of the universe and of the genomes of living creatures could arise by chance. How can anyone possibly be so blind to the obvious, that complexity of design on this level can only be produced by Intelligence?
Ron, if it's so blindly obvious why do people who accept or believe in evolution so vastly out number those who do not?
The number of people who reject Evolution outright once shown the evidence these days is pretty small.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Just stop arguing with him. You will never change his mind, ever. His bible is all the answer he needs. The man believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, you cannot argue with someone who believes that.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:you cannot argue with someone who believes that
I think we've conclusively and exhaustively proven that this is untrue.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:you cannot argue with someone who believes that
I think we've conclusively and exhaustively proven that this is untrue.
LOL, how about, you shouldn't waste your time arguing with someone who believes that.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: But you think others do, right? That's certainly been the impression I get anyways, my bigger point being: if no one's listening, why keep shouting? And here you seemed to agree. Anyways, I didn't mean to derail, though I have to agree with you in this case, I don't really see this going anywhere productive.
Hobbes
Well, there's such a thing as a difference of degree. Ron's dishonesty is utterly blatant and shameless. Most others here at least pay lip service to wanting actual discussion.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
King of Men, funny you should mention shamelessness, when no one has ever demolished any of my arguments as you claim, only disagreed with them and resorted to personal attacks. You are the one who lies repeatedly and ascribes to me the dishonesty which you are the one guilty of.
Swine are worse than trolls. Perhaps you are the swine Jesus spoke of, who are enraged when someone feeds them pearls. You can't help yourself. Your sinful nature, which you freely indulge rather than resist, makes you Satan's puppet, and he fills you with hateful rage, so all you can think of is finding ways to express this. This is why you cannot post anything without being insulting. You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
KoM can be harsh, but I don't recall him calling anyone swine. You might want to think about disparaging personal attacks in the same post that you make personal attacks.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
quote:Perhaps you are the swine Jesus spoke of, who are enraged when someone feeds them pearls.
To be fair, were I a pig, I'd be annoyed if someone fed me pearls.
But yes, Ron, your arguments have been demolished. That you don't recognize this -- that you simply don't know enough about science to understand that this is the case -- is no one's fault but yours.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: King of Men, funny you should mention shamelessness, when no one has ever demolished any of my arguments as you claim, only disagreed with them and resorted to personal attacks. You are the one who lies repeatedly and ascribes to me the dishonesty which you are the one guilty of.
Swine are worse than trolls. Perhaps you are the swine Jesus spoke of, who are enraged when someone feeds them pearls. You can't help yourself. Your sinful nature, which you freely indulge rather than resist, makes you Satan's puppet, and he fills you with hateful rage, so all you can think of is finding ways to express this. This is why you cannot post anything without being insulting. You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
Rolf has asked me to act as his friend in this matter, and inform you, firstly, that he will accept no communication from such as you; and secondly, that if you wish to prove yourself a man of honour, the time for words has passed. I await a suggestion from you, or your friends, as to where and when this might be settled.
Words can no longer settle this only action.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
If one of you doesn't mail the other one a glove, I will be sorely disappointed.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: King of Men, funny you should mention shamelessness, when no one has ever demolished any of my arguments as you claim, only disagreed with them and resorted to personal attacks. You are the one who lies repeatedly and ascribes to me the dishonesty which you are the one guilty of.
You have not made any arguments, only contentions. Stating something is not an argument. You need to back up a statement with evidence or logic (preferably both), something you have consistently failed to do.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Perhaps you are the swine Jesus spoke of, who are enraged when someone feeds them pearls.
To be fair, were I a pig, I'd be annoyed if someone fed me pearls.
Of course, the pigs in Jesus's story weren't angry. They just didn't value the pearls. Matthew 7:6
Ron is just flat out wrong, again. Really, it took seconds to get the original quote and determine that.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
As I recall, pigs only get really annoyed it you try to teach them to sing - or whistle - or engineering.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Nah, pigs are quite fond of whistling.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
I must be missing something in that screen shot...
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Nah, pigs are quite fond of whistling.
I stand corrected. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Swine are worse than trolls. Perhaps you are the swine Jesus spoke of, who are enraged when someone feeds them pearls. You can't help yourself. Your sinful nature, which you freely indulge rather than resist, makes you Satan's puppet, and he fills you with hateful rage, so all you can think of is finding ways to express this. This is why you cannot post anything without being insulting. You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
Not too long after the stop the personal attacks missive, here we have Ron Lambert dead seriously calling somebody "Satan's puppet."
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Alcon: Probably not. It is only a minor reference.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Nah, pigs are quite fond of whistling.
I stand corrected.
Since you are posting on the Internets, it is quite likely that you actually sit corrected. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Alcon:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... You have let yourself slip too far under Satan's power. Good, decent, honorable, and honest people do not speak the way you do.
I must be missing something in that screen shot...
"Irony Overwhelming" is a mementic mutation of "power overwhelming" which was a catchphrase of the archon protoss units from starcraft and also a cheat code.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Wow, I'm trying to decide whether Ron would be offended and stop watching or whether he'd miss the fact that it was a parody.
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
That would have been hysterical if it wasn't way too close to what lots of creationists have actually said in my hearing.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
This is exactly how Ron argues, although there isn't 'youll burn in hell your a pawn of satan' etc etc yet in the video.
edit: HA HA HA! It even includes the slander of equating 'Evolutionists' with Nazis.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I think my favorite part is when Creationist Guy says, "And whales don't live for millions of years, Dr. Finch!" and Dr. Finch makes a little shocked hurt noise, hehe.
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