Rover

Scientists go where the evidence goes. If you are un-aware of the depth and width of the empirical evidence (as you have at times demonstrated) that is not my problem. Sitting in your armchair reading Socrates, Kant, Descartes Hegel etc really doesn't qualify you as an expert on evolution or cosmology. What caused the big bang to "go off" so to speak? I don't know, there is a lack of data which scientists readily admit. Is a lack of data justification to jump to the conclusion of a prime mover simply because you personally cannot fathom an explanation which does not involve one? If the evidence suggests a prime mover, the scientific community will follow this evidence.

I didn't say that "hominids, natural selection and dinosaurs lie outside the realm of science" at all. I said the super natural lies outside the realm of science because it is unverifiable. It cannot be tested. You're putting words in my mouth. Okay first the story with human chromosome #2 Ken Miller, a catholic evolutionary biologist can explain this story best so I ask you to take a moment and watch this video Second, I know science can only approach the truth asymptotically that is true. We can only work to reduce the error bars to their smallest possible level. But this is not an excuse to obfuscate. There is good evidence to suggest dinosaurs did once roam the earth, most strikingly their fossilized remains. You can always say we can't be 100% sure of anything, but that's not a good reason to just wave away the evidence of their existence. Fortunately you don't get to decide what is a scientific theory and what is not. The scientific community does this, the people who are aware of all the data and finer points of which you as a non-scientist are not aware. They do research, uncover data, check if it matches their predictions and adjust their views accordingly. They go on evidence, not pseudo-philosophical meanderings centered around obfuscation and subjectivity. Edit: Why? Well, that is, at least how our society works, we are the ones who create rules, they don't just exist. I'm not saying it has to be, it's just, at the moment at least to me it is much more logical since we can connect to that much more than living in a world with random rules. Still, that is just one creationalist argument. Come to think of it, It is an argument by observation, therefore evidence??? I'm more interested in the counter-argument though, why would there be rules without a creator? Congratulations, you just anthropomorphized the universe. You need to prove your premise that because humans create "rules" the universe can not form forces which are constant and predictable (which are thus called laws.) You are simply assuming that which you are trying to prove, is that not a logical fallacy?

You do not get to change the definition of what scientific theory is for the purpose of your argument. And I said anything which involves untestable and undetectable supernatural entities cannot be falsified. Evolution on the other hand can be falsified if you find modern fossils, say that of a dog of rabbit in the pre-cambrian or something. Evolution would have been falsified if DNA didn't allow for mutations to cumulate, which it does. Hominid evolution would have been falsified if we could find no explanation why most apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes while humans have 23. I was going to explain this, but to gauge your knowledge I'm just going to ask you why in science human chromosome #2 is an important piece of the puzzle in human evolution.

Do you really want me to start bashing my head against the nearest wall? They are not both theories, the theory of evolution is a theory. Creationism is most certainly, without a doubt, not I don't understand, creationalism and macro-evolution are both logical. Since they are logical, they are theories. Something can not be a theory if it can not be falsified. Creationism posits a supernatural creator which lies outside the realm of science.

That is because you are incapable of looking at things from any point of view other than your own. Because you don't accept any evidence provided. It would conflict with your belief system to even consider any other belief. If there is so much evidence supporting your viewpoint, why is not represented in the scientific literature? I'm asking an honest question, and can you answer it without resorting to a conspiracy? Continental drift theory was once a much ridiculed upstart hypothesis, invented by a meteorologist and championed by only very few scientists. There was no known mechanism at its inception which could explain how it would work. Yet over the years as evidence mounted, papers were published and the idea gained traction. It changed the mind of the scientific community through peer reviewed research which was built on empirical evidence. Plate tectonics is now taught in every school in the industrial world. Why has creationism not yet done the same?

Definitely the CRU e-mails, "Hide the decline" sounds so nice and conspiratorial. I suggest we play global warming "skeptic" bingo http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo.php

Many will see these two phrases and their brain will be unable to connect the two. "How can the globe be warming if it's cold in the winter?" It's a common known fact that if it's snowing where you live, it means climate change is bogus.

Ehmm, there are explanations for almost all of them. Both scientific and spiritual. Because in the end, spiritism is a scientific subject. Please explain to me what a "spiritual explanation" might look like. If there is a more nebulous subjective term than spirituality I have yet to hear it, so enlighten me on this. Also would you be so kind to explain how a spiritual explanation has any real explanatory power. And spiritism is a scientific subject? Could you perhaps explain that further?

I think the "paranormal" is a manifestation of people not always being able to explain what they see, hear or experience. Doesn't mean there are no explanations. A phenomenon called infra sound may be responsible for a lot of ghost sightings in certain locations considered haunted. As discovered by Vic Tandy in his own lab http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/ghost/ghost-in-machine.pdf (PDF) There are also a lot of people who claim to have paranormal abilities. But when these are tested under controlled conditions where the ability to cheat is removed, the abilities always vanish. No one's ever been able to take James Randi's 1 million dollar prize. Magicians like Randi and Penn & Teller are always very skeptical of the paranormal because they know how people are fooled, and more importantly how people fool themselves. As for premonitions [/url]

Here's my Rig: Cpu: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0 ghz 12mb OC'd to 3.8ghz Motherboard: Asus P5Q Ram: 4GB DDR2 1066 Ocz Reaper memory. GPU: MSI R6870 HDD: Two 500gb Samsung 7200rpm F3's in RAID-0 And one additional 2TB Samsung F4 5400rpm PSU: 620w Cooler Master modular power supply. Cpu cooler: Xigmatek S1283 Case: Cooler Master Sniper. As for AMD vs Intel: it all depends on who's on top at any given time period. Back in 04 or 05 I got myself a Prescott pentium 4. Those were terrible, I really regretted not getting an AMD Athlon fx at that time, they were miles better. But with the core series intel has really taken back the performance crown, I really hope AMD can come out swinging again with their Bulldozer CPUs. The market could really benefit from the competition. As for AMD vs Nvidia, I largely go by gaming benchmarks to see which card offers the most performance for my price range, in this case it was the 6870.

Offtopic: Btw I'd like to invite BTGbullseye ,or anyone else, to visit the league of reason forums http://www.leagueofreason.co.uk/ where you can debate evolution, climate change, atheism, religion etc to your hearts desire at a place which has a higher concentration of individuals with relevant knowledge to these topics and love to argue about them.

The thing is, lay people like ourselves aren't scientists. When was the last time you read a peer reviewed climatology paper? I'm guessing you never have. You probably haven't studied this field much at all, yet you presumed these scientists shouldn't be taken too seriously. How can you make any judgement regarding to correctness of current climate change theory, without the knowledge necessary to make such a judgement? How can you presume you know everything there is to know about it? This is the point I was trying to make. Whenever science conflicts with people's ideology, suddenly lay people think they know better than the experts. But this never happens with other less controversial fields. People read a few things on the internet and think they're suddenly better informed than the entire scientific community. I wonder if BTG can present his case without using a conspiracy. Or without copy/pasting a wall of text from some other website.

Why? What makes a climatologist different from a chemist? or a biologist? Or a neurologist? Or a physicist?

Why not? I would like to hear an alternative way of gathering knowledge which is more reliable than science. Those so called "scientists" gave you the computer you're using, your cellphone, vaccines which kept you from dying as an infant. Put a man on the moon, filled your supermarket's shelves with food. The reason your life expectancy is higher than 45. Oh those silly scientists, always changing their minds based on new information, so silly.

You know what I find both amusing and disheartening about discussions about Climate change? A lay person won't claim to be an expert on neurology because they read a few things on the internet, people will generally trust experts in this field. Same goes for most medical fields, engineering, physics, geology, law etc etc. People realize that experts have spent their lives specializing in a certain field and are more knowledgeable than themselves in these fields. I'm not saying they're the final authority, there are no authorities in science, only experts. But when it comes to climatology suddenly the experts are all idiots, fools, hacks, pawns in a global conspiracy. And everyone who read something on the internet thinks they know better. "Those silly climatologists, don't they realize it's the sun? Mars is warming too you know! Those martians and their SUV's" I've heard this one a million times, often it's said very smugly. Without realizing TSI is one of the first things scientists looked at. Just like this one. "in the seventies scientists said there would be an ice age!" even though a review of peer reviewed climatology papers from that decade indicate only a very small number of papers hinted at global cooling, and the vast majority of papers suggested either no change or warming. It is also often said that scientists are only coming to the conclusion that climate change is man made because they get grant money that way. Like grant money is some blank check which can be spent on hookers, blow and fast cars. I've been wondering why there were so many climatologists these days on MTV cribs. People don't realize scientists can make A LOT more money as industry lobbyists. And then there's a little fact that every scientist and every university would love the publicity and prestige of completely overturning the consensus in any given field. Not to mention it would save governments and industry a lot of money and trouble. I will agree that greenpeace and Al Gore have exaggerated the dangers, in doing so they have done a great disservice to the science. But they're not experts so people shouldn't give them a lot of credence anyway. If all you have to go on is some kind of global conspiracy, your position really isn't as strong as you think. I generally recommend Potholer54's series on the scientific debate surrounding climate change. http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#grid/user/A4F0994AFB057BB8

You are correct. I should have done that, my apologies. I've heard this before and I think I saw you mention it in the evolution creationism thread as well. Social Darwinism is pure pseudo-science. A deliberate twisting and mangling and misrepresentation of evolution and natural selection to justify pre-existing racial intolerance and hatred. Just like the KKK is pseudo-christianity. However, religious commandments to order the death of certain individuals, such as non believers or homosexuals, or people who gather sticks on the sabbath, can be quoted ad verbatim. Though sometimes maybe out of context, but in general the bible torah and koran are pretty explicit on who should die, and why. A religious commandment issued by a supreme being who is perceived by those who seek to carry out the commandment as infallible and righteous can not be questioned at any time by those who accept the deity's position as supreme moral arbiter. Thus, my point, acceptance by an individual of a deity's supreme authority on the question of morality can lead to that individual carrying out inherently immoral acts, but perceive those very acts as morally righteous. After sitting here for a while I realize that Social Darwinism is in fact similar, the nazis believed that slaughtering millions of people was not morally objectionable in accordance with their ideology. Though Social Darwinism could be easily argued against, it was inherently dishonest and deceitful, and has largely died out. I think we can both agree that our wider problem then is with the vigorous and blind pursuit of an ideology, which can lead to disastrous results. But I will have to reiterate that when it comes to religious scriptures there are some pretty explicit commandments in all 3 major holy books which are by todays standards down right evil. And it's up to people to develop a moral compass independent from their religion in order to decide which commandments to follow and which ones to ignore. And with that I rest my case for the evening.

Incorrect statement. Inductive reasoning. Assuming all monotheists accept god as a supreme arbiter of morality because you only know of that kind of people. I am generalizing for the sake of the argument, this is what I meant with you obfuscating. the 3 major mainstream monotheistic religions we here in the west are most likely to encounter all share the common doctrine of god as the supreme arbiter of morality. The topic is modern society, after all. Acknowledging god as the source of all morality is a basic tenet of those religions and a requirement in order to be considered a believer by the religious doctrines which founded the religion. If people call themselves christians but do not believe god is the source of their morality, they're by definition not christians. You do not get to re-define the basic tenets of christianity, judaism and islam to your hearts desire. There is more then three monotheistic religions. See what I said above. I am restraining the argument to only encompass what we call modern western society. No, if you believe in God/Gods and at least one other person agrees with your point of view and you study and teach what you believe in then you are participating in a religion. Red Herring. There is such a thing as mainstream religion, defined by the many commonalities all the different sects share. Which also wields considerable influence which can't be ignored. Having a few people out there believing wildly different things has no effect on the behavior of the elephants in the room, so to speak. You're giving me the impression you're deliberately ignoring the bigger picture by focusing on small details. Abductive reasoning (You narrowed it down to only religious commandments while in reality it could be any info in the world making religious commandments specifically look bad) I will regard this a Non sequitur until you can clarify. My point was using a deity's position of supreme arbiter of morality, religious commandments (as passed down by that deity) can be used as a perceived irrefutable legitimization of inherently immoral behavior. Such as stoning a person for being gay, just to name an example. Something which can't be done with ideologies which do not include deities.

Actually it says "thou shalt not murder." A distinction is made between killing in battle and murdering someone. You could argue that's mere semantics, and I'd be inclined to agree. However most christian apologists and every christian soldier and general you can find will make that distinction. From Numbers 15 KJV here we have god ordering the killing of a man, for gathering sticks on the sabbath. So the question is, is this a moral act? A man is killed for doing nothing but gathering wood, yet his killing is commanded by god. Who's morality is superior here, ours or god's?

Inductive Reasoning. I disagree + Logical fallacy. By the way, it turns out my educated guess is turning true in the "bullying" thread. Remember.. If you as a person accept the basic premises of a monotheistic religion, you accept that god is the supreme arbiter of morality. Religion's laws are the laws of god. If you accept the existence of god and adhere to an interpretation of god in line with one of the three monotheistic religions, then the premise that god is sole arbiter of what is moral is what is not logically follows. The only way you can be exempt from this is if you call yourself a deist. But you cannot call yourself a christian or a muslim and not accept that morality comes from god. Accepting god as the arbiter of morality is inherent in the definition of christian, jew or muslim. Don't make this any more nebulous and vapid than it has to be. I know you like to obfuscate. Therefore, whatever god claims is moral, is moral. Even if god commands you to go into a city and slaughter every man, woman, child and animal. As he did in the old testament, hence why I mentioned it. I am not the only one making this point, many christian apologists agree with me: whatever god decides is moral, is moral. Of course, this all depends on whether or not a person A: Believes god is real and B: Believes morality comes from god. Maybe I did not make this sufficiently clear in my previous post. But if you accept A and not B you're at best a deist, you don't get to call yourself a christian since you simply don't meet the requirements for that category. As for saying that people are more willing to kill if they believe they are acting in accordance with the wishes of their deity, maybe I was too hasty as I can't find a conclusive study on that. Maybe the desire to kill comes first and religious commandments are used to legitimize these violent desires. Still the fact that they can so easily be used to legitimize all kinds of heinous behavior is sufficient for an indictment. If you disagree, which I have no doubt you will. Please explain your position more fully rather than just saying you disagree.

There's something to that. But throughout history people have been shown to be more willing to kill if they believe they are acting in accordance with the wishes of their deity. After all god is the supreme arbiter of morality, if god tells you to kill people it must not only be okay, it is righteous. Just like in the old testament. Also, I only -rep you when you engage in logical fallacies because you're so big on philosophy.

+rep When some theist does horrible things, the 'no true Scotsman' fallacies come flying hard and fast.

That was all it took for me to stop reading what you posted, and give you -rep. I am a 160-170 IQ (last full test was almost a decade ago, so I'm giving a nice range to approximate for you) Catholic, and have yet to see any evidence of anything restraining my mind. "I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers." - Stephen Hawking when asked about his IQ If you are religious, there are certain truths you cannot touch certain truths you cannot question for they are the very basis of your faith. By being religious you automatically preclude the basic tenets of your faith from the possibility of them being wrong. Speaking of -rep don't get me started on that, I read your evolution vs creationism topic. "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." (Albert Einstein, 1954, The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press) "Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of Nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being." (Albert Einstein, 1936, The Human Side. Responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray.) "The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously." (Albert Einstein, Letter to Hoffman and Dukas, 1946) Einstein was born a jew, he relinquished his faith at the age of 12, he lived and died an agnostic with a deep admiration and appreciation of nature's beauty.

Same here. Maybe the difference is more in people's heads than they think.

Depends on how you define atheism. If you define it as emphatically stating there is no god. Then it may count as philosophy. But if you define atheism simply as the absence of theism it just that, and nothing more.

I voted negatively, and I'll say why. Religious beliefs are a straitjacket for the mind. The claim to absolute truth is part and parcel to all 3 of the major monotheistic religions. When you claim an absolute untouchable truth you preclude the advancement of knowledge. There's a reason the dark ages are called as such. There's a reason breaking from religious dogma has advanced mankind immensely over the past 300 years. Religion imposes often arbitrary limits on our existence. It lends itself so incredibly well to be used to legitimize bigotry, hatred and animosity. It has always lent itself extremely well to the cause of war. I am not one of those people who claims all war is cause by religion, this would be false. But the increase in the number of people who consider themselves non-religious in the western world is a thing of the past 40 to 50 years. Before this, all wars have been fought by religious individuals. Their much vaunted religious morality has, in general (there are always exceptions), rarely if ever stopped a war. As for the argument that Religion can be used for good, yes it can, but why is that? Why does religion motivate people to do good? The more philosophically inclined here will be familiar with the thought experiment of a runaway train. You're at the switch and you can either switch the track and make it go to the platform with 8 people waiting there, or leave the train on it's current track where it will crash onto another platform on which there is a baby. I probably didn't do this justice but that's the gist of it. Now here's the version that demonstrates religious morality. Now suppose that while you can still switch the track to make the freight train crash into either of two platforms. Only one platform has people waiting there, which is the track the train is currently on, the other platform is empty. And there is a religious person at the switch. In order to motivate this religious person to switch the train into the track with the empty platform, you have to stand there with a gun and a cake. And say: "If you do not move the train onto the empty platform, I will shoot you. If you do move the train onto the empty platform, I'll give you this delicious cake." Is doing good in order to receive a reward, or avoid punishment still good?