posted
Here's a question: How do you test it? How do you discern between the universe having been made by some lab God made, and through some natural process?
And, heck, there's the bigger problem to begin with: Assuming something else created our universe, how did that thing come into being?
If the answer, and it's not a bad one, is that it (say, God or some other extra-universal thing) didn't need a cause, that it's the first cause, or since time is an aspect of the universe itself then thinking of things from the perspective of "first" doesn't make sense, then... why couldn't that same answer be used for the universe in the first place? You skip a step that doesn't actually add anything, because either way things start "just because".
This, of course, isn't even strong enough to be considered a hypothesis. My suggestion falls under the purview of "bald and unsubstantiated speculation." There's nothing there but a use of Occam's Razor to other speculation. I certainly put no real weight on it, because, well, I have no clue!
Are there other universes? I don't know enough to know! Is there a trigger that started our universe? I dunno. Does our universe begin, end, and begin again? Dunno. Is the universe actually some series of interconnected golden "braids"? Actually, that one I doubt, but... maybe? (ten cents to anyone who can guess which book's introduction I paraphrased that scornful misunderstanding from.) Was our universe started by some other being? I can't say. There's no evidence that I've seen for any of these, other than the fact that the universe exists in the first place. And that could mean any number of things, and I certainly don't know a way to test it out.
Maybe the astrophysicists have some ideas. I've heard vague things about a few hypotheses being tested, or waiting to be tested. But I certainly don't know.
And that's the thing. I don't know the source of our universe. However, nobody else does either. Even if you use a religious text as the solution, there are so many contradictory ones out there that you're bound to find someone who'd burn you at the stake because you disagree with theirs. Passion, thus, doesn't make something more or less true.
Rambling aside, how do we test this thing, the origin of the universe?
posted
Megabyte, science does not require your comfort. Science has its own requirements. That is why it is science. Everything else you've said, well, it doesn't mean much.
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quote: But it is implicit in the whole mechanistic viewpoint. In the beginning there was nothing--no time, no space, no matter, no energy. Then suddenly nothing exploded, all by itself with no divine intervention, and nothing became everything.
Ron, the only interest of science is finding out how the process works. If you can't observe something or get any kind of evidence of it happening, then you can't find out how it works. For years and years you have not been able to grasp the idea that the universe has (at least) 4 dimensions, and that the beginning of time, is as far as we can observe that universe in 4 dimensions. Because "before" the beginning of time is not a time, in the same way that "beyond" the north pole is not a destination. Your conception of a lot of stuff filling a lot of empty space is wrong. There was no space. There was no "moment" before the moment. What causes that, if anything, is probably outside our purview. Leastwise, should we ever figure out that it isn't, the thing that we do discover will be another mechanism. Because that's all we as humans can actually understand. That's the only way we can actually rationally explain things. That's why "divine intervention" is not a part of science, because nothing fundamentally irrational can be effectively used as part of a rational discussion of cause and effect. Ever. Never ever.
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posted
Orincoro, are you really objecting to the observation that scientists are not creatures of absolute certainty?
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What the heck is this?! Orin, what exactly do you imagine I was saying here?
Science doesn't require my comfort? Excuse my language, but no shit. Where, exactly, and please quote my exact words, did I ever say otherwise? Where did I imply anything about my comfort?
I'm sorry, is me pointing out I don't know a certain thing for certain, and neither does anyone else, somehow suggest that I'm looking for comfort? I'd say the opposite, actually.
What, exactly, am I hand-waving? Do you imagine my tone was one of defeatism, as though "oh, how could we ever figure this out?! Woe is us, with our eternal limits to knowledge!" Please.
Is it the earlier use of Occam's Razor, in response to Geraine's statements?
kmboots: I don't have any hypotheses about it, that's the thing. Mostly, my point was that wild speculation isn't helpful at all. I don't know, I don't pretend to know, how the universe began. I certainly can't think of any tests to figure it out. The question was mostly rhetorical, in response to the sorts of speculation Geraine was giving.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Ron, what we have no scientific evidence for - divine intervention, what came "before" and so forth - does not belong in a science class.
The word "science" means knowledge, not some magical super-logic that can only be appreciated by those initiated into the inner mysteries of Denial--as practiced by mechanistic materialists. If you do not know, and claim that you CANNOT know, how the universe began, then you have no starting point for your science. You have no way of explaining WHY experimental results should be repeatable, thus there is no foundation for the basic premise of the scientific method. You cannot be sure it is not all just coincidence. You have no way of being assured that all natural laws may clease operating tomorrow. You have no science. None at all. So you have no science to teach.
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Sciencia means "knowledge." In the same way, religare means "to tie together."
Neither definition is the one used in the modern world.
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quote:You have no way of explaining WHY experimental results should be repeatable...
Science doesn't say that they should. It notes, however, that the ones which are repeatable tend to lead to more accurate predictions, and modern science is after all about creating models that produce accurate predictions.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Orincoro, are you really objecting to the observation that scientists are not creatures of absolute certainty?
No. I am objecting to the implication that this means that supernatural or "divine" intervention are valid explanations of anything. Typically these two observations are presented together, and form a rather foul piece of slovenly logic.
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posted
What?! Orin, you completely misunderstood me.
The implication was absolutely not that the supernatural was a valid explanation. It was kind of exactly the opposite of that. I was trying to point out that without something that can be tested, at least theoretically, there is only baseless conjecture.
I wasn't being mean about it, maybe, but it doesn't take away that that was what I was saying, in response to the whole "god made it in a lab" speculation.
kmboots:
Sorry about that. My fault too, really.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: If you do not know, and claim that you CANNOT know, how the universe began, then you have no starting point for your science.
the starting point for science has no absurd requirement to be based on the timeline of the physical universe. It could, in fact, be the simplest and most basic of certifiably testable effects.
quote:You have no way of being assured that all natural laws may clease operating tomorrow. You have no science. None at all. So you have no science to teach.
This is like saying 'you have no way of being assured that the sun will rise tomorrow, so you can't go to work.'
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posted
Is there some reason you believe this, Ron? Because 'scientists cannot prove how the universe began, therefore their system of viewing the world is without merit' doesn't seem very valid on its own basis, much less as a statement of their own beliefs.
Please explain where in any element of science there is a requirement that, 'How the universe ultimately began' is a necessity for that particular field to be valid. Because it sounds suspiciously like you're making sure you have only one answer, the one you want.
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That's not what science even is. Science never, ever states something is absolutely true without question. Even though theory does not mean the same thing as the word does in common parlance (and yes, words can have more than one meaning) the fact remains that these things, including relativity, are called theories, not absolute, immutable facts that can and will never be challenged.
Let's look at relativity, one of the strongest theories out there, the thing we use every day for sending ships out into space, and for utilizing the communication satellites which transfer the signals you watch whenever you turn on your television. Planes have clocks that take relativity into account for gauging time, as that's the only way to be as accurate as we want those clocks to be. These things use a theory that is, at best, incomplete. It doesn't quite work as is at the atomic level, though that's certainly just a necessary simplification.
Heck, why do you think people still use Netwonian physics in everyday settings? We know it isn't accurate at large scales, and relativity is obviously more accurate, if still imperfect. It's because it describes things on the scale we're used to well enough for our purposes, and the math is much faster than the math involved with relativity. (Someone stop me if I'm inaccurate here!)
Because Newtonian physics doesn't describe the beginning of the universe, should we just throw it out and stop using it? Should we throw away relativity? I mean, we could do that. For relativity, we could let all the satellites in orbit fall back to earth, give up on sending probes to other worlds, etc. For Newtonian physics, which explains even less, we could throw away all the technology we get from utilizing that, too.
Because, after all, if we don't teach that science because it doesn't explain the beginning of the universe, nobody will be able to use any of those things within a generation, so we might as well.
Here's the thing: Science works. Science is testing theories to see if they predict the future accurately. If something falls, and keeps falling, we look to see if it falls the same rate every time. If it does, that tells us something.
If it suddenly stops, that doesn't mean science throws its hands up and gives up. It tries to figure out why the object refused to fall in that particular case, and does experiments to see if those ideas work out.
If we find something that explains it, an idea that, when tested, has all the ramifications the conclusion says it would have, even if that means something really bizarre, such as little creatures too small for us to see are making us sick, or that when you go really, really fast time slows down, or that when they aren't being watched subatomic particles shot towards two slits go through both at the same time somehow, well we go with that. Naturally, we test other things related to that, to see if the conclusion really does mean those things are true, but if they do, then our belief in it is strengthened. And when tens of thousands of different tests which all would only be true if that first conclusion was true -but wouldn't be true if another conclusion was- all agree, then we have a pretty good idea that it's true. And if it has no bearing on the beginning of the universe, well too bad! Nowhere was that necessary.
The only thing that's necessary is that the things work. If they do stop working, science tries to understand why.
It's not like you don't use this every day, Ron. When driving down the street, you tend to expect that street to not suddenly become intangible, do you? When you sit down in a chair, you don't expect it to disappear into thin air, do you?
And if, after looking away and sitting down, the chair isn't there, you don't just go "oh noes, everything I believed is a lie!" No, you look around to see what happened! Because you know it generally means there was a factor you didn't take into account, perhaps even something you couldn't have, but which now you've seen. Such as the fact that your friend, sitting in the next chair, is a practical joker. Or that you misjudged the distance while not paying attention.
There is no way of assuring that every single natural "law" stops working tomorrow. That's true enough. But they're working today, they worked yesterday, and when they stop working we look to why they stopped working in this case. If the "laws" of the natural world really do just change arbitrarily, we'll probably figure something out something important about the universe from that.
But it certainly seems less likely than your car failing to start, if experience is anything to judge by.
And that's the thing: Science goes by experiences alone. That's how you figure things out. I agree, if experience is useless in understanding the universe, or making things work, we'd be pretty screwed. Good thing, in reality, that doesn't appear to be the case, huh?
Tl;DR: Science works. Talk to me when the principles that make radios work start failing because the laws of physics decided to change, and then we'll talk about hypotheticals.
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posted
The more Ron expands on his misinterpretation of science, the more fascinating it becomes to watch how it is justified?
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posted
None of you are able to explain, within the limits of your materialistic philosophy, how you can have a science that can predict anything, when you have no way of knowing that all the "laws" of physics as we know them will not abruptly change tomorrow. You can talk about the "laws" of physics, but this implies the laws were ordained by Someone, and that Someone enforces them. If you deny this, and claim it is not a part of science to recognize the validity of this fundamental inquiry into the nature of reality, then you have competely demolished science as a viable enterprise for finding out anything. All you are left with is being arbitrary, and hoping that the traditions of the majority will not be exposed as vain falsehoods too soon.
The existence of highly ordered design should be admitted by any honest mind to be evidence of Intelligent Design, which in turn demonstrates that an Intelligent Designer must exist.
What the Bible said long ago is still true: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good." (Psalms 14:1)
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quote: You can talk about the "laws" of physics, but this implies the laws were ordained by Someone, and that Someone enforces them.
Oh, come now. Don't be this degree of ridiculous. Do you know what the scientific definition of law and theory is?
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posted
Better than you, twit. Your problem is that you do not understand wisdom. You cannot, because you deny the beginning of wisdom.
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quote:None of you are able to explain, within the limits of your materialistic philosophy, how you can have a science that can predict anything, when you have no way of knowing that all the "laws" of physics as we know them will not abruptly change tomorrow.
At least two members of this forum have written fairly lengthy papers on what it means to "know" something. Did you know that? The nature of knowledge, and the distinction between truly knowing that gravity will still "work" tomorrow and simply being reasonably certain that gravity will continue to work, is actually a fairly interesting -- if somewhat pointless -- philosophical discussion.
But science doesn't really speak to the sort of philosophical "knowledge" that is meant by "total certainty." In fact, science generally speaks in terms of known probabilities, if anything. It is highly improbable, based on what we currently observe, that the laws of physics will be noticeably different tomorrow. This level of extreme improbability is enough that, for all intents and purposes, it is dismissed; until there is some reason to think that these laws are suddenly going to change, or make a habit of regularly changing, it is generally presumed that they do not (with, of course, some minor exceptions, but we'll save those for another topic.)
quote:it is not a part of science to recognize the validity of this fundamental inquiry into the nature of reality, then you have competely demolished science as a viable enterprise for finding out anything
No, see, here's where you're most wrong. Science is all about using observations about the behavior of the observable universe to predict future behavior of the observable universe. It does not and cannot speak to something outside of that realm, except insofar as those things might affect the observable universe in an observable way.
Consider the classic "brain in a jar" or "Matrix" argument, in which you're just a brain in a jar who's experiencing a very detailed hallucinatory simulation of reality. You can form all kinds of observations of how that simulation works, and those observations will be accurate within the simulation. If someone outside the simulation changes a parameter -- or cuts out a chunk of your brain, causing things to dramatically change -- you will have no explanation for that behavior.
This is a limitation, of course, of only being able to work with observable reality. If we're all so many brains in jars, science as we know it is limited to describing the boundaries of the simulation in which we're trapped.
But religion, in claiming that it can somehow describe the world outside the simulation -- without even providing any kind of proof that there is a simulation, mind you -- is arrogating to itself an authority it does not have. You may as well say that purple koalas have hooked a bunch of butterflies up to milking stations, and that we're just the dreams of the cells of the milk as it's being consumed by the hungry crocodiles that populate the infinities of "real" space; it's just as provable, and you can just as easily say that the science we've developed to explain what we see is as incapable of answering the hard questions about those crocodiles.
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quote:None of you are able to explain, within the limits of your materialistic philosophy, how you can have a science that can predict anything, when you have no way of knowing that all the "laws" of physics as we know them will not abruptly change tomorrow.
So your response to 'science works' is, "You don't know it works, God could choose to overturn all known laws of science now should He choose!" Very persuasive, Ron. You certainly have a lock on knowledge of the beginning of wisdom. And no, the existence of a law of physics doesn't necessarily imply that someone ordained them just because you cannot imagine a reality in which such a thing couldn't happen. That's simply a fact, Ron, however uncomfortable and distasteful you find it. You don't get to will facts into existence.
The superiority of science over your outlook is that it doesn't try: it doesn't make claims about what went before its own tried-and-tested knowledge. When scientists do so, they're either simply theorizing, or aren't speaking scientifically. When you do it, well, you're calling people twits and speaking about 'wisdom' and missing the irony.
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posted
"None of you are able to explain, within the limits of your materialistic philosophy, how you can have a science that can predict anything, when you have no way of knowing that all the "laws" of physics as we know them will not abruptly change tomorrow."
By testing it to see if the idea works? Duh. If it stops working, we try to figure out why by doing more tests. It's not really that hard a concept to understand.
"You can talk about the "laws" of physics, but this implies the laws were ordained by Someone, and that Someone enforces them."
Not really. Oh, and here's an important point: The term "law", which I used in quotes as well and which I presume you're using for that reason, doesn't mean -in any way, shape or form- some kind of universal absolute truth. Something like Netwon's law of universal gravitation isn't some barometer of the absolute. It's merely a statement of what's been observed, nothing more. I put it in quotes because I'm aware it isn't a law in any sense but analogy. It certainly isn't used to imply it's been ordained, like something in the law books. Words have meaning. In fact, words can have more than one. Hence a little something called equivocation.
Let me give an example:
"All heavy things have great mass. This is heavy fog. Therefore, this fog has a great mass."
Or, and you might find this more relevant, "laws are ordained by people. Newton's law of universal gravitation is a law. Therefore, gravitation was ordained by someone."
"If you deny this, and claim it is not a part of science to recognize the validity of this fundamental inquiry into the nature of reality, then you have completely demolished science as a viable enterprise for finding out anything."
Once again, no it doesn't. Science is about testing things. If we don't know the answer to something yet, that doesn't diminish science in the least. Doing science is only possible when there are things we don't understand. Because, after all, the point of science is finding things out.
You have your hypothesis, (that the existence of the universe means an intelligent designer) but the only evidence you've submitted is that the universe exists. As I pointed out in a previous post, that could mean many things. How are we to decide between your specific narrative of the creation of the universe, and all the other contradictory ones?
Oh, I know! See if there's a way to do a test, the way I described in my previous post. In other words, see if there's a way to use science to figure it out.
If we can't test it, then science won't be able to say anything about it. Of course, the things we can test keep growing in number as we build on our knowledge.
However, and let me be clear here, your hypothesis (the existence of the universe means someone designed it) being true is in no way, shape or form a prerequisite for the validity of the scientific method. (To reiterate a highly basic version: suggest an explanation for a phenomenon that would have effects we can measure, [that's a hypothesis, btw] testing those effects, and seeing what the results are, and then either adjusting the hypothesis if it's wrong, or doing further tests if it succeeds, generally a huge number of times, and then testing other hypotheses if you need to.)
Whether it's true or not has no bearing on it. It's in fact completely irrelevant. After all, an ordering God can interfere just as much as an unordered universe. There's more than just the two possibilities, after all.
"All you are left with is being arbitrary, and hoping that the traditions of the majority will not be exposed as vain falsehoods too soon."
Once again, no. We're left with testing things. If the tests turn out to not mean anything, we'd pretty quickly figure it out, and give up on it.
If we have two people doing the exact same test in different places, and come up with two wildly different answers, we'd try to see if there's any reason for this. If we ultimately end up finding it's because the result is completely arbitrary, well then, we'd just stop doing tests and go get wasted at the nearest bar or something.
Or at least, we'd hope we'd get wasted, because if the results of things really was arbitrary, we'd have an unknown chance of being turned into dragons when we drank it, or of getting less drunk, or something. Who knows? The universe would be arbitrary.
However, in our experiences, both mine and yours, the universe isn't arbitrary. We agree on that.
But the existence of a god is not, and let me repeat this, is not the only possible explanation of this fact.
And yet, the only evidence you give that your explanation, which is, and let me repeat this a third time, not the only explanation, is that the universe exists and that some book says it's what happened.
If you really can't see any other explanation, then that's a failure of your imagination, not a fault in science. To paraphrase something a cool guy once said, "take the beam out of your own eye before pointing out the splinter in another's." You may know him, he's apparently pretty popular.
"The existence of highly ordered design should be admitted by any honest mind to be evidence of Intelligent Design, which in turn demonstrates that an Intelligent Designer must exist."
..which in turn demonstrates, as the Intelligent Designer is obviously ordered, that it must have an Intelligent Design, which in turn demonstrates an Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer must exist. Which in turn...
But no, you're going to say that's ridiculous. Because, admittedly, it is. However, if your Intelligent Designer can come into existence on its own, whatever the reason you use, then why couldn't the universe? Seriously, why one and not the other? I'm not asking what the Bible says on the matter, I'm asking you.
But also, the things I said before also apply to this sentence, as you had the same message. So I refer to myself above, in response to your previous sentence, for more on my take of your statement.
"What the Bible said long ago is still true: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good." (Psalms 14:1) "
You are implying that those who disagree with you are fools. I see.
quote: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Matthew 5:22
FYI: This probably only means calling one a fool unreasonably. But then again, stating that anyone who disagrees with you is a fool is pretty damn unreasonable, so that works, too.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Better than you, twit. Your problem is that you do not understand wisdom. You cannot, because you deny the beginning of wisdom.
Hah
Really the only thing I'm denying here is your claim about what a 'law' constitutes, scientifically, in order to fit inside your latest Ron's Disproof of All Science™ — if you want to defend yourself from it, the best way is not with namecalling, but by telling me what your definition of a scientific law is.
It's guaranteed to be inaccurate. Just so you know.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Ron have you ever at any point come across a situation where any scientific law was ever completely proven to be incorrect and discarded and something completely new takes its place?*
As far as I understand it this has never happened, in fact it is pretty much the case that any new theory actually cannot really contradict a scientific law that has been mathmatically proven but in fact must explain it better and more precisely.
Thus there can never be a theory that throws out general relativity, only a theory that draws a new circle of understanding to encase and expand upon it.
*Since the beginning of the usage of the Scientific Method and scientific and methodological experimentation. Theories like there being an "aether" or only having 4 elements don't count as real scientific observations because they were just crude guesses with little to know evidence to back it up with essentially no tools to make any proper experiments to determine the fundamental composition of the universe.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Better than you, twit. Your problem is that you do not understand wisdom. You cannot, because you deny the beginning of wisdom.
posted
The part of me that is going to stand in front of a 140 students come Wednesday and lecture on the history of science really wants to jump into this discussion.
But then I come to my senses and remember that I am supposed to be relaxing this weekend. :-).
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More prosaically, only a few centuries ago, mainstream scientists asserted with utter self-assurance that rocks cannot fall out of the sky, and ridiculed venomously anyone who dared to suggest otherwise. Today there is no scientist who does not acknowledge the reality of meteorites. Some even make a study of the comparative number of micrometeorites found in various rock strata.
Most of these responses you lot have given here are just double-talk, and avoid dealing with the real logical import of the points I have made. You seem to be wedded (enslaved) to your chosen fondly held traditions, and keep trying to convince yourselves that anyone who challenges your assumptions must be unintelligent or uninformed or blindly biased. The only ones who show themselves to be blindly biased are these characters who keep harping about materialist views being the only true views of reality. You actually have no rational reason for disregarding the tremendously likely paradigm of an Intelligent Designer being responsible for the highly ordered universe we observe, other than totally arbitrary rejection of the possibility. Claiming that it is unscientific, or that science need not concern itself with such things, is a plain lie. You need to quit lying to yourselves, and begin analyzing the world with more open-minded objectivity. What have you got to lose?
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I suggest you go to this thread and read JanitorBlades warning to Malanthrop. I'm surprised you haven't received a similar one yourself, but am hoping you will soon.
You are incredibly disrespectful to anyone who doesn't agree with you and apparently have such a lock on "the truth" that you don't have to actually listen to anyone. After all by disagreeing with you, they are, of course, wrong since you are, of course, all-knowingly right.
According to you everyone here is wrong/stupid/biased/going to hell etc and won't ever change. So why do you keep showing up? Are you simply trolling?
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posted
So you claim I am disrespectful, so biased that I can't or won't understand what anyone else is saying. But what I am actually doing is pointing out how that is exactly what my habitual detractors are doing. What they (and you) are doing is called projection. You are imputing to me what you and others are the ones truly guilty of.
I make clearly logical arguments, with supporting evidence and practical examples, and so far the only response has been to dismiss everything I say in any thread arbitarily, and with personal insults. Then you accuse me of being the one doing what you are actually the ones doing.
I am not trolling. I am simply refusing to let intolerant, arrogant blowhards drive me away. A number of people have communicated with me privately over the past few years, asking why I bother to put up with such outrageous treatment--they tell me they gave up and stopped frequenting this forum some time ago out of disgust for the one-sided, atheistic, materialistic bias, and the self-righteous derogatory discourtesy shown toward anyone who challenges them. My reply was that I did not want to leave the field to these bigoted, would-be manipulators of the forum unchallenged, and perhaps allow any innocent reader to come away with the impression that no one dared to stand up to this kind of thing. I do dare, and I can answer them, and have never been afraid to.
If my answers and arguments did not shake them up, then they would not be so obssessed with countering and ridiculing anything I say about anything in any thread. Look how they follow me around in any thread, just making silly insults. Every time they do this, they demonstrate the wrongness of their spirit, the weakness of their positions, and the rightness and strength of mine. It is not to those who will not hear--or read--fairly and with an open mind to whom I minister; it is to those other readers, the vast majority, who need to know that someone can and will speak up to these ill-mannered control freaks. In service to them I put up with it, and contend with the contentious.
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posted
Actually, this is my thread, about my point unrelated to you, and you came here of your own accord, but whatever.
I do welcome debate, but don't act high and mighty here. I didn't make this thread as some trap for you. The thread name is pretty clear on what the tread entails, and you came and read it yourself, and responded yourself. That was your choice, and the other readers of this thread, including me, decided to respond right back.
I'm sorry that you feel so persecuted, but the truth doesn't care what you feel, Ron. And the truth about science is that it works. I pointed out what we'd do if or when it suddenly stops working, like you posited.
We'd stop using it.
If that's not an honest response, then I don't know what is.
Science thrives on unanswered questions. As soon as the questions are all answered, science ends. The fact that we don't know something means science still has something to do.
Because it is a method. It is a tool. It is a way of trying to figure things out. It is not a dogma. It only goes by what the evidence says at the time.
And, one last thing, because I'm not going through everything you said in this post: You pointed out how in the past no scientists believed in rocks in space, but now they do.
That doesn't mean what you think it means.
What that means is that science works. Let me explain. If the science of today is the same as the science of a century ago? That means science failed.
Because science is about correcting your mistakes. Science is filled with humans, and humans are imperfect. Yet even so, these human scientists, using science, figure out that they were wrong. And they change their views to fit the evidence.
What you said about the meteorites, in full truth, shows science's strength, not its weakness. Its ability to correct its many errors is the strongest thing about it, and above all the reason I trust the method, even when I know that some things believed now are at best incomplete, and sometimes completely wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: So you claim I am disrespectful, so biased that I can't or won't understand what anyone else is saying. But what I am actually doing is pointing out how that is exactly what my habitual detractors are doing. What they (and you) are doing is called projection. You are imputing to me what you and others are the ones truly guilty of.
That's kind of like saying that you didn't really call me a twit who is devoid of wisdom; it was really me all along.
It's like an M. Night Shyamalan twist. And about as fictional!
If we're going to start slinging around the names of psychological mechanisms like projection, why not talk about the worrying trend of assuming all disagreement from you that burrs under your skin on theological matters (which you, in turn, inflect upon ANY serious disagreement, including Star Wars, literature, and biology) are the hallmarks of not only delusion but often the corruption of sin and the doomedness of those who do not see your way?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Ron, allow me to destroy this argument for you.
The argument:
quote:You actually have no rational reason for disregarding the tremendously likely paradigm of an Intelligent Designer being responsible for the highly ordered universe we observe, other than totally arbitrary rejection of the possibility...
1) No Intelligent Designer has ever been observed directly. 2) The impact of an Intelligent Designer has never been indirectly observed. 3) There does not appear to be any mechanism currently unexplained by science that uniquely demands an Intelligent Designer. 4) Of those mechanisms currently unexplained by science, none are most simply or elegantly fulfilled by postulating an Intelligent Designer, not least because... 5) ...an Intelligent Designer is an enormously complex assertion. Even the most basic model -- that some alien lifeform somehow deliberately seeded life on this planet -- requires several assumptions which currently cannot be tested or substantiated. More complex forms of Intelligent Designer, like some timeless Prime Mover, of course fall victim to classic logical arguments like "Why, if the Prime Mover doesn't require something to create it, must we assume that the universe required something to create it?"
quote:If my answers and arguments did not shake them up, then they would not be so obssessed with countering and ridiculing anything I say about anything in any thread.
No. I ridicule what you say, Ron, because it's really, staggeringly, amusingly dumb. And if you honestly believe you're "ministering" to the silent lurking multitudes, here, you're dumber than I thought.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
AT the risk of performing an excercise in silliness, Tom--
Your point number one is untrue. The Intelligent Designer has been observed directly, by many people. You just disregard the written testimony.
Your point number two is obviously false. The existence of a highly ordered universe, from the macrocosmic to the submicroscopic levels--and especially on the genetic level--is clearly the impact of an Intelligent Designer.
Your point number three contradicts what you yourself and your philosophical kin have already admitted, that you cannot account for the origin of anything, let alone the origin of every natural mechanism now known to exist.
Your point number four is simply an arbitrary assertion that is patently contrary to what every reasonable person can observe for himself.
Your point number five is disengenuous in introducing contrived complexity where none is required. The beginning of Existence can only be explained by ONE who IS EXISTENCE. Nothing else can suffice. Nothing in addition can be valid. And positing ONE who IS EXISTENCE is the simplest possible explanation.
And your final two sentences merely show you resorting to the usual insults, which is all you have left when you have forsaken reasonable argument. Thanks for your confirmation of all that I said previously. I rest my case.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Your point number one is untrue. The Intelligent Designer has been observed directly, by many people. You just disregard the written testimony.
Which people? The Hindu? The Mormons? The Baptists? Note that many of these supposed contacts are with "designers" that are mutually exclusive. And none of them provide particularly reliable evidence to back up their claim that theirs is in fact the actual designer, or even that any contact has happened at all.
quote:Your point number two is obviously false. The existence of a highly ordered universe, from the macrocosmic to the submicroscopic levels--and especially on the genetic level--is clearly the impact of an Intelligent Designer.
No. Order does not require intelligence, as anyone who's watched crystals form knows intimately. You're welcome to argue, but calling it "obviously false" ignores the fact that well over 80% of the people who work in the physical and biological sciences don't agree with you. That's not "obviously false" by any stretch.
quote:Your point number three contradicts what you yourself and your philosophical kin have already admitted, that you cannot account for the origin of anything, let alone the origin of every natural mechanism now known to exist.
You make the assumption that because one cannot account for the origin of everything, one cannot account for the origin of anything. Science actually does a pretty good job of accounting for the origin of stuff since the creation of the universe; there are a few additional gaps, but for the most part the mechanisms are known or reasonably supposed. And while, yes, science does not currently have an explanation for the origin of the universe, neither do you (as I've noted) have an explanation for the origin of the thing you say created the universe.
quote:Your point number four is simply an arbitrary assertion that is patently contrary to what every reasonable person can observe for himself.
This is, I should note, precisely the response I expected. Because point #4 is the point that absolutely destroys your argument. I did not expect you to have a satisfactory rebuttal, and indeed you do not.
quote:Your point number five is disengenuous in introducing contrived complexity where none is required. The beginning of Existence can only be explained by ONE who IS EXISTENCE. Nothing else can suffice.
Really? Why is that? You honestly can't come up with any other way to conceive of the beginning of existence? I mean, you can't imagine a universe which has always existed? Or a universe which was created by accident when some aliens blew up their galaxy? Nothing? Just "Oh, there's a universe; therefore, there must be God?" I know you're smarter than that, Ron.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Blayne, didn't Einsteinian physics supersede Newtonian physics?
More prosaically, only a few centuries ago, mainstream scientists asserted with utter self-assurance that rocks cannot fall out of the sky, and ridiculed venomously anyone who dared to suggest otherwise. Today there is no scientist who does not acknowledge the reality of meteorites. Some even make a study of the comparative number of micrometeorites found in various rock strata.
Most of these responses you lot have given here are just double-talk, and avoid dealing with the real logical import of the points I have made. You seem to be wedded (enslaved) to your chosen fondly held traditions, and keep trying to convince yourselves that anyone who challenges your assumptions must be unintelligent or uninformed or blindly biased. The only ones who show themselves to be blindly biased are these characters who keep harping about materialist views being the only true views of reality. You actually have no rational reason for disregarding the tremendously likely paradigm of an Intelligent Designer being responsible for the highly ordered universe we observe, other than totally arbitrary rejection of the possibility. Claiming that it is unscientific, or that science need not concern itself with such things, is a plain lie. You need to quit lying to yourselves, and begin analyzing the world with more open-minded objectivity. What have you got to lose?
Incorrect, Newtonian physics is still perfectly valid on the local scale, ie the math for an apple falling is equally correct with either general relativity OR newtonian physics, newtonian is only incorrect when dealing with when alpha centuri would notice the sun suddently being removed from the universe.
"A few centuries ago" what? Are you smoking blow or crack? Chinese astronomy texts have been tracking comets and meteorites for thousands of years, the Summarians also have significant written records of meteors! Your making stuff up!
Yau, K.; Weissman, P.; Yeomans, D.. "Meteorite Falls in China and Some Related Human Casualty Events". Meteoritics 29: 864–871
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quote:Your point number one is untrue. The Intelligent Designer has been observed directly, by many people. You just disregard the written testimony.
Which people? The Hindu? The Mormons? The Baptists? Note that many of these supposed contacts are with "designers" that are mutually exclusive. And none of them provide particularly reliable evidence to back up their claim that theirs is in fact the actual designer, or even that any contact has happened at all.
While it may be true that Cultural Diversity seems to call into question religious testimony, that doesn't matter, logically, with what you have argued here Tom. You claim that no one has *ever* directly observed an Intelligent Designer, but it doesn't matter if anyone has, it matters if it is logically possible or not. For your argument to work, it must be logically impossible for one to observe an intelligent designer, and you are far from proving that with your cultural diversity argument.
I'm not saying you are wrong, I am just saying that I think you have much more work to do than that.
Posts: 457 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: So you claim I am disrespectful, so biased that I can't or won't understand what anyone else is saying. But what I am actually doing is pointing out how that is exactly what my habitual detractors are doing. What they (and you) are doing is called projection. You are imputing to me what you and others are the ones truly guilty of.
I make clearly logical arguments, with supporting evidence and practical examples, and so far the only response has been to dismiss everything I say in any thread arbitarily, and with personal insults. Then you accuse me of being the one doing what you are actually the ones doing.
I am not trolling. I am simply refusing to let intolerant, arrogant blowhards drive me away. A number of people have communicated with me privately over the past few years, asking why I bother to put up with such outrageous treatment--they tell me they gave up and stopped frequenting this forum some time ago out of disgust for the one-sided, atheistic, materialistic bias, and the self-righteous derogatory discourtesy shown toward anyone who challenges them. My reply was that I did not want to leave the field to these bigoted, would-be manipulators of the forum unchallenged, and perhaps allow any innocent reader to come away with the impression that no one dared to stand up to this kind of thing. I do dare, and I can answer them, and have never been afraid to.
If my answers and arguments did not shake them up, then they would not be so obssessed with countering and ridiculing anything I say about anything in any thread. Look how they follow me around in any thread, just making silly insults. Every time they do this, they demonstrate the wrongness of their spirit, the weakness of their positions, and the rightness and strength of mine. It is not to those who will not hear--or read--fairly and with an open mind to whom I minister; it is to those other readers, the vast majority, who need to know that someone can and will speak up to these ill-mannered control freaks. In service to them I put up with it, and contend with the contentious.
Id this an elaborate con? Do you really think you are ministering to a "vast majority" of posters here?
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:For your argument to work, it must be logically impossible for one to observe an intelligent designer...
No. My argument is not that it is impossible to observe an intelligent designer; it is that we have no clear and reproducible evidence that an intelligent designer has ever been observed.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:My reply was that I did not want to leave the field to these bigoted, would-be manipulators of the forum unchallenged, and perhaps allow any innocent reader to come away with the impression that no one dared to stand up to this kind of thing. I do dare, and I can answer them, and have never been afraid to.
Ron, I'm not sure who you're attempting to impress, but it takes exactly zero 'daring' to 'stand up' to people on the Internet. None whatsoever. Even if, for the sake of argument, we granted that your ideas were heroic in and of themselves, espousing them here most certainly doesn't require any sort of daring.
Being afraid doesn't enter into it. Your words along these lines just illustrate what has been quite clear for some time, that this is quite an enormous exercise in vanity for you. I say this because I don't think you can really be entirely unaware of it. You're not actually doing this for the 'betterment of the readers', Ron. And you're clearly not doing it for an interesting exchange of ideas, or to learn. It's because, as you come so close to admitting with your talk of 'daring' and 'not afraid', that there's nothing new under the sun.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Blayne, if you are unaware that not too many centuries ago the scientific mainstream denied there were such things as meteorites, then you are woefully ignorant of history. You need to go read up on it. You are wasting my time.
Parkour, I am guessing there are close to 10,000 registered members of this forum. There are only a handful of yapping terriers nipping at my heels, always the same ones, the same select few, who can't stand having their ideological hegemony over this forum challenged.
Tom, you demand "clear and reproducible evidence" about seeing the Intelligent Designer. Why don't you just come out and say it--you demand that scientists who refuse to believe in God are the only ones whose testimony you will regard as credible. Thus it would seem that you are making unbelieving "scientists" to be your holy men. You exalt them over prophets, apostles, and other saints, since you disregard their testimony, even when verified by perfectly fulfilled prophecy, when compared to history, interpreted objectively using sound scholarly methods.
Also Tom, God is not a phenomenon, He is a Person with free will. He chooses to whom He will reveal Himself, and how repeatedly--by His choice, not ours. He did appear to some people repeated times, always saying things that were consistent. He also chose to join Himself to human nature and live among humans as part of their community for 33 and 1/2 years. Note John 1:1-4, 14.
Rakeesh, what are your real motives? Notice that I am asking you, not merely imputing things to a strawman.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: A number of people have communicated with me privately over the past few years, asking why I bother to put up with such outrageous treatment--they tell me they gave up and stopped frequenting this forum some time ago...
and good riddance to them, if they shared your definition of reality, debate and evidence we're better off without them
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: it is to those other readers, the vast majority, who need to know that someone can and will speak up to these ill-mannered control freaks. In service to them I put up with it, and contend with the contentious.
OK Ron, here's another "put your money where your mouth is" idea that you will ignore and use to pivot to one of your tirades about how you're so awesome and we all suck.
You claim to be protecting the "vast majority"... so list them. Give us a list of the posters here on this board that you are "speaking for" or "standing up for". If you can get even close to a majority you'll have taught us all a lesson and I, for one, will cease telling you you're the twit in this case.
On the other hand if, as I suspect is the case, you can't it will prove you are deluding yourself and maybe you'll just shut up already. Or better yet, maybe you'll finally take the hint that this board is not the place for your behavior and just leave already.
Posts: 409 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Also Tom, God is not a phenomenon, He is a Person with free will. He chooses to whom He will reveal Himself, and how repeatedly--by His choice, not ours. He did appear to some people repeated times, always saying things that were consistent. He also chose to join Himself to human nature and live among humans as part of their community for 33 and 1/2 years. Note John 1:1-4, 14.
Ron, you are completely missing Tom's point. And using scripture to try and "prove" your point proves this even further (and is just a downright stupid circular argument.
At this point you are demonstrating an extraordinary level of stupidity in not comprehending what anyone is saying or an extraordinary level of arrogance/self-righteousness/jerkiness in ignoring it or an extraordinary level of trollishness in understanding it but pretending you're not.
Which is it, Ron? Are you: a) an idiot b) an arrogant/self-righteous jerk c) a troll
Or do you want to propose, and provide support for, another option?
And don't spout this "I am all knowing it's all of you who are deluded nonsense". Your "debate style" of simply claiming the victory without actually addressing the issues is tiresome, not to mention infuriating.
Posts: 409 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Tom, you demand "clear and reproducible evidence" about seeing the Intelligent Designer. Why don't you just come out and say it--you demand that scientists who refuse to believe in God are the only ones whose testimony you will regard as credible. Thus it would seem that you are making unbelieving "scientists" to be your holy men.
Hee. Yanno, he's not going to come out and say that because even a really basic-level comprehension of his scientific point shows his position has no requirement to make only atheist/unbeliever testimony credible. It's not necessary, and it's not even a point being led to! It's entirely a supposition of your own, which is invalid regardless of your own attachment to the idea. But, as always, when you're certain of an idea, you're shut off to practically even the possibility that it's wrong. I'm sure when he corrects you, you'll default to assuming he's lying to you (for whatever reason) even if he explains why there's no practical requirement for your assertion. I guess it helps keep the cognitive dissonance in check for you?
quote:You exalt them over prophets, apostles, and other saints, since you disregard their testimony, even when verified by perfectly fulfilled prophecy,
Are these anything like your own little prophecies? :)
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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