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-- Scientificity (and "intelligent design")
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Originally posted by Fledz I'm close in thinking to you. While I don't strictly 100% believe in a higher power, I am open to the idea of one. Like any good scientist I take into account all proof and base my judgements on that but when it comes to an issue such as that, I don't mind delving more into the philosophical side of things purely because it's impossible to explain it in a scientific way.

that isn't scientific. its akin to leaving your "mind" so open your brain falls out. if youre taking into consideration ALL proof of god, you still come back with a big fat zero. by your way of thinking, its just as feasible to argue pink fairies live on the dark side of the moon, or that my cat is the cause of global warming.

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Personally, I refuse to discredit the notion of a possible unexplained higher power which is why I'm so against atheism and consider it just as bad as religious zealotry.

how can you honestly believe that? could you make a list of all the crimes against humanity committed in the name of atheism? or list atheists that are enforcing their superstition into science classrooms? start wars in the name of atheism? preach intolerance and hatred in our societies because of a "good book"? stifle scientific discovery because of an arbitrary interpretation of a commandment? foster a "us" and "them" mentality that breeds deep resentment?

the only reason you might even know any atheists is because of religion's habit of thrusting itself into the public sphere where it does not belong. if every religious person worshipped privately and didn't use it, say, as an election platform, there would be no need for people like me to scream "bullshit!" from the rooftops. atheism is a natural counter-balance to religious oppression, superstition and influence. if religion minded its own business, so would we.

think about that for a second.

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Originally posted by Krypton Religious folk can't prove 100% there is a god. Atheists can't prove 100% there isn't a god. Where are we at? Nowhere!! They cancel each other out! As an objective mind, one must understand this discrepancy. Most people who take this into account into their worldview tend to be more moderate, such as myself, where I fully admit there is no physical proof of a god, but philosophically speaking, we can still talk about god all day.

Same as me. I believe in the existance of a higher power but I can't say for certain whether it's true or not. I like philosophy because it lets you debate the endless possibilities out there.

currently reading George A. Morgan "What Nietzsche Means"

so far on page 62. good book.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN that isn't scientific. its akin to leaving your "mind" so open your brain falls out. if youre taking into consideration ALL proof of god, you still come back with a big fat zero. by your way of thinking, its just as feasible to argue pink fairies live on the dark side of the moon, or that my cat is the cause of global warming.

It's not meant to be scientific. It's philosphical.
I don't agree that there is 0 proof. The big bang happened correct? Where did all the matter that caused it come from? Surely you can't 100% say for sure that it wasn't due to something which we don't understand, ie a higher power?

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN how can you honestly believe that? could you make a list of all the crimes against humanity committed in the name of atheism? or list atheists that are enforcing their superstition into science classrooms? start wars in the name of atheism? preach intolerance and hatred in our societies because of a "good book"? stifle scientific discovery because of an arbitrary interpretation of a commandment? foster a "us" and "them" mentality that breeds deep resentment? the only reason you might even know any atheists is because of religion's habit of thrusting itself into the public sphere where it does not belong. if every religious person worshipped privately and didn't use it, say, as an election platform, there would be no need for people like me to scream "bullshit!" from the rooftops. atheism is a natural counter-balance to religious oppression, superstition and influence. if religion minded its own business, so would we. think about that for a second.

What's that got to do with anything? My point is that you 100% believe there is no god yet you have no conclusive evidence to back up your point. I'm not saying there is a good but you cannot prove there is or isn't one which puts atheism and religious zealotry on the opposite ends of the scale but the total extremes. There is no moderation at all. One preaches the total existance, the other preaches the total non-existance.

Rubbish to both those points because anyone with half a brain shouldn't categorically dismiss something so complex, regardless of what side you are on.

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Originally posted by Fledz It's not meant to be scientific. It's philosphical. I don't agree that there is 0 proof. The big bang happened correct? Where did all the matter that caused it come from? Surely you can't 100% say for sure that it wasn't due to something which we don't understand, ie a higher power?

absence of knowledge does not = god.

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What's that got to do with anything? My point is that you 100% believe there is no good yet you have no conclusive evidence to back up your point.

not true at all. i am more than happy to accept the existence of god when a suitable amount of evidence is presented.

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I'm not saying there is a good but you cannot prove there is or isn't one which puts atheism and religious zealotry on the opposite ends of the scale but the total extremes.

ideas are more than just words on a page; how a body of thought influences the world is a 100x more important than supposed similarities on paper. they are definitely not the same.

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There is no moderation at all. One preaches the total existance, the other preaches the total non-existance. Rubbish to both those points because anyone with half a brain shouldn't categorically dismiss something so complex, regardless of what side you are on.

so again, you must allow for the existence of pink fairies on the dark side of the moon for your argument to be consistent. now that's whate's rubbish. i think you would find most atheists are like myself, and do not discount the possibility, but being a non-believer in something due to lack of evidence is much more logical than being a believer due to lack of evidence.

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Originally posted by Krypton Religious folk can't prove 100% there is a god. Atheists can't prove 100% there isn't a god.

What has to be established first is whether "god" is even a meaningful term in the first place.

Oliver Leib = God

Re: Re: Re: Re: Scientificity (and "intelligent design")

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles That's similar to Karl Popper's basic idea. If a theory is unfalsifiable, it may be because it's just really good at predicting stuff; on the other hand, it may be because it says little or nothing about the empirical world. Good theories, Popper said, are ones that forbid certain things from happening, because if those things happen, then the theory can be proved wrong; you can know what to expect and what not to expect. If a theory makes no predictions at all, it effectively asserts nothing. It's scientifically meaningless.

yea I think it came from popper, makes more sense now.

we can go as far as to say that as long as there is N C H and O available, amino acids can be formed spontaneously.

Once you have amino acids its not to hard to believe that RNA can be formed. Once RNA is formed you can easily get DNA that is replicable from there you have primordial life. And evolution speaks for itself.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment

But to explain how matter came out of nowhere. thats something a bit far fetched. you can talk about quantum physics all you want parallel universes. String theory. Lasers through the wall shit. I dunno. But i cant fathom the creation of pure matter and energy frmo nothing. If there was something there in the first place. what was it? and how did it get there? Everything else makes sense to me.

Guys science is empirical. There isn't just some guy sitting in a room somewhere pulling theories out of his ass so that he can then go disprove them. You observe the world. Look at your observations and then you try to apply a mathematical model to it. A great example of this is thermodynamics.

a bad example is phylogeny lol

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Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit a bad example is phylogeny lol

Is that some sort of non physics/chemistry shit. Sounds like it. I don't trust it.

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Originally posted by Zild Is that some sort of non physics/chemistry shit. Sounds like it. I don't trust it.

basically its evolutionary history.. family trees based on classification of organisms. The problemwith this theory is that DNA sometimes contradicts morphology. Traits appear and disapear on the same lineage. Very open to debate and its all old people who don't knowhow to database that have been doing them. Hippies.

OK. That isn't science; end of story.

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Originally posted by Zild OK. That isn't science; end of story.

evolution is science. especially when carbon dating is involved as well as genetic tracking.

Knowing that humans are more closely related to starfish then octopus is science due to cell tracking.

to be honest, i agree with the sciences, but beyond that - what do any of us know for sure? really not much


science is not static, not proven.

at the same time faith based decisions are a bit worse as much of faith is all based on human interpretation.

humans have always tried to explain everything, but if there is a god, why and how would we ever have the capacity or possibility of explaining whatever god was?


if there is or was anything that powerful, what would we have to say about it, other than our selfish, questionable needs? we should search more for meaning in our own lives, and communities, not in something that must be so mysterious that we likely would never have any concept of such power.

plus, even with a creator, science is reasonably predictable, which if there was a creator, has something to do with that omni. things that apply to this world are more applicable to humans than hopes of something we cannot control|

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Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit evolution is science. especially when carbon dating is involved as well as genetic tracking. Knowing that humans are more closely related to starfish then octopus is science due to cell tracking.

I guess evolution is science, but you called it history. So I was thinking history of anything is not science.

But yeah I guess that is biology. I've had biology students in some of my classes and I wouldn't really class them as scientists or at least not scientists on the same level as chemistry/physics students. They just memorize a bunch of crap and have almost zero knowledge of mathematics, but I'm biased.


Science is always subject to change. Back to my example of thermodynamics. When Boltzmann came up with statistical thermodynamics to build on classical thermodynamics he was rejected by most members of the scientific community. Then he killed himself and everyone realized he was right. But thermodynamics really is as close to proving something as science will ever get. Nobody thinks thermodynamics as it is right now will ever change because there are no problems with it.

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Originally posted by Zild I guess evolution is science, but you called it history. So I was thinking history of anything is not science. But yeah I guess that is biology. I've had biology students in some of my classes and I wouldn't really class them as scientists or at least not scientists on the same level as chemistry/physics students. They just memorize a bunch of crap and have almost zero knowledge of mathematics, but I'm biased.

Science doesn't have to be mathematical you know. I take offence to you insinuating that biology is a lower form of science than physics and chemistry.

Anyway, they all overlap sooner or later. It's just necessary to split them up into different fields, just as we separate music into genres.

I fully understand that. I just like to take the piss out of 'soft' scientists every chance I get.

It is really just a matter of scale. There aren't well defined mathematical models for extremely complex things like animals as opposed to an atom.

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Originally posted by Zild Guys science is empirical. There isn't just some guy sitting in a room somewhere pulling theories out of his ass so that he can then go disprove them. You observe the world. Look at your observations and then you try to apply a mathematical model to it. A great example of this is thermodynamics.

But you have to have SOME theory you "pull out of your ass" in order for you to know what to look for when making observations. You can't just clear your head of thought and then look at your experiment and spot the important processes without having theorized about it first.

Like I said. You don't pull it out of your ass you base it on empirical observations.

Like the theory of relativity. Empirical observations were made that showed classical mechanics to break down in certain instances. Einstein noticed this and then formulated his theory of relativity which then went on to be empirically tested through experiment which shows that it too breaks down under certain instances. But nowhere did someone just write down some equations and say hey thats probably how it works. Many times theory will correctly predict currently unobserved phenomena but that doesn't mean it was pulled out of someone's ass.

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Originally posted by Zild I just like to take the piss out of 'soft' scientists every chance I get.

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Originally posted by Zild Like I said. You don't pull it out of your ass you base it on empirical observations. Like the theory of relativity. Empirical observations were made that showed classical mechanics to break down in certain instances. Einstein noticed this and then formulated his theory of relativity which then went on to be empirically tested through experiment which shows that it too breaks down under certain instances. But nowhere did someone just write down some equations and say hey thats probably how it works. Many times theory will correctly predict currently unobserved phenomena but that doesn't mean it was pulled out of someone's ass.

Well we don't get the luxury of hearing about the theories that fail miserably. They are either not reported or get lost in time. Also when writing up results and theories, scientist like to make it sound more like a structured set of steps they went through, that is all for the reader, so it is never as simple as someone noticed these things that are important, and then devised this thing about them and it was good. Bad things happen in between...like guess work and ass pulling work...that doesn't get reported. it makes for great stories though.


and didn't quirks force your field to be a 'soft' science?

Are you talking about quarks? No those are elementary particles. They are fully explained by the wave-particle model. We're just still waiting for the higgs boson. If we can't experimentally find the Higgs boson then we have to throw out the whole standard model.

Soft science is stuff like biology or geology where there isn't much mathematics involved due to the scale of the phenomena studied. I think I pointed that out already. There are mathematical models for very simple things like atoms, but not for complex things like animals.

But like I said stuff isn't just made up. You take measurements then you derive laws using mathematics you already know. I think maybe people are confusing theory with hypothesis which is something you pull out of your ass then go test.

That was kinda why i put the " around the pulling out of ass, of course that's not what you do. I'm not sure i can follow your distinction between hypothesis and theory, how can you put forward a hypothesis without having any theoretical thoughts first? It seems impossible to me.

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