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the more religious you are, the less intelligent you are. (pg. 12)
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Tito,
Which do you think is the most inefectual? The War on Drugs or the War on Creationism?
I stopped keeping track a long time ago, but isn't this sortie number 43 against TvD? Good luck on your next drug interdiction flight, and don't forget to say hello to your wingmen for me. |
Both are partly ineffectual regarding the fact that there will always be idiots who get overdosed and brainwashed wackos who wouldn't believe that the earth was round if it were written in the bible differently. But they are both effective in a way that they reduce the number of such people. You can just as easily say that police is useless because people are still killing each other and speeding on highways. But when you look at what sort of anarchy happens when the police force stops functioning, you see that such logic is incorrect. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Tito,
Which do you think is the most inefectual? The War on Drugs or the War on Creationism?
I stopped keeping track a long time ago, but isn't this sortie number 43 against TvD? Good luck on your next drug interdiction flight, and don't forget to say hello to your wingmen for me. |
If the war on drugs is half as fun as the war on creationism than I can see why there's such an obsession. Funny, I see you feel the need to participate with your observational quips ... with the intent of achieving what exactly? |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
with the intent of achieving what exactly? |
Freeing you.
But first you have see the prison before you can conceive of escaping it.
I'll use a simplistic example to illustrate the nature of the prison.
**
You need to make a choice. Your cursory examination of the choice suggests 3 potential conclusions. Thinking 3 heads are better than one, you enlist the aid of 3 people to help you.
The 3 logical people conclude 3 different things. We will label these conclusions a,b and c.
[key question] How do you choose between the three then?
[Classic answer] *you* evaluate them.
[Deflection] *you* already have, you are one of the three people, yours is b.
[Classic action] *you* you choose b.
[Personal Bias Fallacy] There is no reason to choose b over a and c. The fact that *you* came to that conclusion in no way makes it more valid than the other ones. If anything your conclusion 66% likely the wrong one.
The point of this example.
1) Recognize the Personal Bias Fallacy 2) Once you recognize it then you can figure out ways to escape it.
**
To hammer in the point in an example that doesn't *threaten* personal bias imagine the following example: Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Trump and Ralph Nader walk into a room. Each is asked what is the first thing that they see?
JS: Isn't it funny how...
DT: I could make money here if I...
RN: That's a dangerous use of...
Everyone sees different things. Old School Logic is a war where you argue "what I see is the most accurate because...", Prison Break Logic is "What do you see that I can't?" |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Freeing you.
But first you have see the prison before you can conceive of escaping it. |
Haha, oh man... :o
Subey, you seem to see yourself as occupying a higher intellectual plain than everyone else on the board, but based on the many senseless ramblings of yours that I've read, I'm not so sure that this arrogance is justified. Maybe you should try examining the merits of the opinions put forward by others instead of proffering the same knee-jerk, psuedo-philosophical tangents about the subjectivity of perception that you do in absolutely every topic you post in?
| quote: | | Everyone sees different things. |
No they don't. We're discussing the merits of religious fundamentalism here and whether objective evidence supports such views. The evidence offered by the posters here against creationism and in favour of naturalistic science is evidence that is observable, demonstrable and repeatable for anyone willing to look into it. If you have a problem with any of the conclusions reached by any of the posters in here, perhaps you could draw upon your clearly masterful comprehension of scientific theory and explain why their conclusions are wrong and / or how the evidence they are deriving these conclusions from is flawed? What you seem to be forgetting here is that science is a philosophical doctrine whose epistemological basis is that of observable phenomena. If people genuinely see different things, then I wonder if you could explain how scientific consensus is ever reached? I wonder if you could explain how so many individuals, well-studied in the philosophy of empiricism, could have come to such uninimous agreements on the nature of the evidence on offer and of the conclusions that must necessarily be drawn from that evidence, if they're all seeing that evidence through unique, subjective, perception-contorting epistemological filters?
The notion that two ideas are inherently equal is bull. It's not a matter of two sides seeing different things, it's a matter of one side seeing the world for that which it is and the other side willfully ignoring any part of the observable world that doesn't conform to their own preconceptions as to how this world should, in their opinion, operate. If you want to debate the evidence or the conclusions reached in this thread on their own merits, then I'm happy to do that. If you want to debate the merits of the philosophy of science, then I'm happy to do that too. If you want to stand at the back berating us all with baseless, pseudo-philosophical platitudes, then don't expect a warm response. You are not tapped into a higher plain of consciousness, you appear to have an aversion to intellectual integrity and a genuine fear of knowledge. |
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| Elroy79 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
...
Everyone sees different things. Old School Logic is a war where you argue "what I see is the most accurate because...", Prison Break Logic is "What do you see that I can't?" |
BULL PUCKEY!
All you've succeeded in showing anyone is that you can't handle REAL logic so instead you depend on half-baked attempts to obfuscate the issue to disguise the fact that your point of view is usually based on NOTHING.
Yours is a common tactic used by liars, demagogues, con-artists and pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself to hide the fact that you're too lazy or too incompetent to properly justify your point of view. If all you have to contribute to this board is worthless muttering about real and imagined biases, I suggest you pack your bags and get out because that kind of nonsense isn't worth the bandwidth it took to upload your so-called ideas to the server. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Freeing you.
But first you have see the prison before you can conceive of escaping it.
I'll use a simplistic example to illustrate the nature of the prison.
**
You need to make a choice. Your cursory examination of the choice suggests 3 potential conclusions. Thinking 3 heads are better than one, you enlist the aid of 3 people to help you.
The 3 logical people conclude 3 different things. We will label these conclusions a,b and c.
[key question] How do you choose between the three then?
[Classic answer] *you* evaluate them.
[Deflection] *you* already have, you are one of the three people, yours is b.
[Classic action] *you* you choose b.
[Personal Bias Fallacy] There is no reason to choose b over a and c. The fact that *you* came to that conclusion in no way makes it more valid than the other ones. If anything your conclusion 66% likely the wrong one.
The point of this example.
1) Recognize the Personal Bias Fallacy 2) Once you recognize it then you can figure out ways to escape it.
**
To hammer in the point in an example that doesn't *threaten* personal bias imagine the following example: Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Trump and Ralph Nader walk into a room. Each is asked what is the first thing that they see?
JS: Isn't it funny how...
DT: I could make money here if I...
RN: That's a dangerous use of...
Everyone sees different things. Old School Logic is a war where you argue "what I see is the most accurate because...", Prison Break Logic is "What do you see that I can't?" |
Ah, but we do know what TvD sees that we can't. He sees that the earth was highly pressurized and surrounded by a transparent yet incredibly strong shell which was engulfed in a sphere of superheated ionized oxygen and hydrogen. And because of a high concentration of pressurized oxygen, which is usually toxic for most normal folk, plants grew 10 times the size and people and animals lived eternally. But although fruitfully multiplying, they somehow managed to avoid the problem of overpopulation. Why gee, now that I put it this way it really does start to make more sense, doesn't it?
And what he doesn't see is that humans and chimp share 96% of genetic code, that microbes evolve on a daily bases, that even worms have been observed to evolve in a matter of a century, that DNA has been regularly observed to not be 100% accurate in self-reproduction, that there are numerous fossils around, and that finally theory of evolution, geological time layers, radiocarbon dating, and measurments of the age of the universe based on light speed among other factors all happen to converge into the same timeline. Bible, on the other hand, does not.
Now that I put it this way I am starting to see the pointlessness of this debate. It's like trying to convince somebody that the sky is blue and the person keeps insisting that it's yellow because dandelions are yellow and they must be yellow because they grow under the sky and therefore reflect its color. But I certainly can't say it isn't fun :) |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Haha, oh man... :o
Subey, you seem to see yourself as occupying a higher intellectual plain than everyone else on the board, but based on the many senseless ramblings of yours that I've read, I'm not so sure that this arrogance is justified. Maybe you should try examining the merits of the opinions put forward by others instead of proffering the same knee-jerk, psuedo-philosophical tangents about the subjectivity of perception that you do in absolutely every topic you post in?
No they don't. We're discussing the merits of religious fundamentalism here and whether objective evidence supports such views. The evidence offered by the posters here against creationism and in favour of naturalistic science is evidence that is observable, demonstrable and repeatable for anyone willing to look into it. If you have a problem with any of the conclusions reached by any of the posters in here, perhaps you could draw upon your clearly masterful comprehension of scientific theory and explain why their conclusions are wrong and / or how the evidence they are deriving these conclusions from is flawed? What you seem to be forgetting here is that science is a philosophical doctrine whose epistemological basis is that of observable phenomena. If people genuinely see different things, then I wonder if you could explain how scientific consensus is ever reached? I wonder if you could explain how so many individuals, well-studied in the philosophy of empiricism, could have come to such uninimous agreements on the nature of the evidence on offer and of the conclusions that must necessarily be drawn from that evidence, if they're all seeing that evidence through unique, subjective, perception-contorting epistemological filters?
The notion that two ideas are inherently equal is bull. It's not a matter of two sides seeing different things, it's a matter of one side seeing the world for that which it is and the other side willfully ignoring any part of the observable world that doesn't conform to their own preconceptions as to how this world should, in their opinion, operate. If you want to debate the evidence or the conclusions reached in this thread on their own merits, then I'm happy to do that. If you want to debate the merits of the philosophy of science, then I'm happy to do that too. If you want to stand at the back berating us all with baseless, pseudo-philosophical platitudes, then don't expect a warm response. You are not tapped into a higher plain of consciousness, you appear to have an aversion to intellectual integrity and a genuine fear of knowledge. |
Spot on, once again. Subey, you want to argue the merits of creationism/ID vs. evolution, then let's discuss the evidence supporting both NOW. Don't obfuscate, don't dodge, put forth evidence to support the assertions. Your rambling is cute, but it does not in any way support the notion that the argument of creationism has equal scientific validity with evolution.
Discuss the validity now, if this argument of creationism has merit. Science demands validity done with observed, tested, and repeated, and falsified results. Argue on this basis with creationism if you want both sides to hold equal merit in scientific terms. Otherwise, you're rambling. |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
such logic is incorrect. |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
I am starting to see the pointlessness of this debate. |
Progress :D
The problem is that you are still too focused on the details.
You can sum up the creationist position with 6 words:
"They are anchored to the bible"
BUTT more importantly, instead of focusing on them, the important issue is to ask yourself why has it taken you so long to realize this?
Or to put it bluntly, could the mechanism that blinded you to this obvious truth be the same mechanism that blinds them? |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by Elroy79
BULL PUCKEY!
All you've succeeded in showing anyone is that you can't handle REAL logic so instead you depend on half-baked attempts to obfuscate the issue to disguise the fact that your point of view is usually based on NOTHING.
Yours is a common tactic used by liars, demagogues, con-artists and pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself to hide the fact that you're too lazy or too incompetent to properly justify your point of view. If all you have to contribute to this board is worthless muttering about real and imagined biases, I suggest you pack your bags and get out because that kind of nonsense isn't worth the bandwidth it took to upload your so-called ideas to the server. |
You seem to have a problem with my View? I will infer that you disagree with my view on Creatonism. I will repeat it.
"Creationists are anchored to the bible"
Would you agree? If you do then you are apparently agreeing with a "liars, demagogues, con-artists and pseudo-intellectuals". I wouldn't want to keep company with them... |
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| Subey |
Renegade, I appreciate the Ram Blings remark, as an Aries there is no greater honour. Opus thank you for seconding it.
Renegade, please solve the following:
You are in a room, there is a mirror in that room. You look in that mirror and you think "I am fat".
Please provide me with a logic test that will determine if you are in fact fat or if you suffer from anorexia. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Progress :D
The problem is that you are still too focused on the details.
You can sum up the creationist position with 6 words:
"They are anchored to the bible"
BUTT more importantly, instead of focusing on them, the important issue is to ask yourself why has it taken you so long to realize this?
Or to put it bluntly, could the mechanism that blinded you to this obvious truth be the same mechanism that blinds them? |
Yes, but you see, it's not the problem of teaching a marginal group of fundamentalists that their worldview is incorrect, because that obviously won't have much success. The thing is that there are many people who are not die-hard creationists but give the idea of creationism some merit simply because of their lack of knowledge on the subject. Those people can be swayed if they're shown that one idea makes sense and the other one doesn't. Secondary, those people have children like TvD who have been convinced from their birth that the other side is wrong and will burn in hell. Hopefully some of those children who are more intelligent can be swayed if the very least to the point where they at least poise some scepticism about their current worldview. That worldview is largely based on bias and misinterpretation, so I feel the need at the very least to point out the errors in their thinking. If they still want to hang on to creationism, well, there's nothing more I can do, but I do think that it should be pointed out to them where and if their logic is faulty.
And finally, if we hadn't pressed this debate over and over, we never would have gotten to that hilarious ionized hydrogen explanation. When I read that it really made my day :) |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Renegade, I appreciate the Ram Blings remark, as an Aries there is no greater honour. Opus thank you for seconding it.
Renegade, please solve the following:
You are in a room, there is a mirror in that room. You look in that mirror and you think "I am fat".
Please provide me with a logic test that will determine if you are in fact fat or if you suffer from anorexia. |
Alright, first allow me - if I may - to break down the epistemological foundation you've espoused in this thread and countless others, then I will proceed to answer your question.
Firstly, you appear to have adopted a psuedo-Cartesian stance by positing a schism between the "world-in-itself" (that is, the noumenal world) and the "mind". From this ultra-skeptical, rationalist world-view, you're attempting to argue that there is no absolute epistemological foundation from which truth about the noumenal world can be obtained, because all knowledge of this world is, ultimately, filtered through our senses, which are demonstrably fallible. The subjectivity of these senses leads to "perception bias" where the mind of the observer subconsciously conceptualises the sensual information it receives to conform to pre-held beliefs, creating a "positive feedback loop" of sorts, where the observer sees, quite literally, only that which stengthens his own beliefs. Am I on the right track here?
The problem is, however, that in adopting this position, you're confronting the nature of truth from an "absolutist" position, that is the position that something is either "absolutely true" (white), "absolutely false" (black) or "neither absolutely true nor absolutely false" (grey). In essense, if a statement cannot be shown to be absolutely true or false, you're just lumping it all into the same "indeterminate" category, as though the colour grey only ever comes in one shade. This absolutist, epistemological trichotomy, however, is not particularly adept at determining the relative truth value of statements as it, by definition, dismisses all non-absolutist truth-values out of hand. Ultimately, within this framework, it is only meaningless tautological statements that can be considered "absolutely true" (all triangles have three sides, all bachelors are unmarried, 2+2=4 etc.) and direct logical contradictions that can be considered "absolutely false" (all triangles have four sides, all bachelors are married, 2+2=5 etc.), which means that you're lumping every other part of human knowledge into the same "indeterminate" category, ranking their truth-value, in essence, absolutely equally. This method of taking every statement which cannot be absolutely proven or disproven and suggesting that they have inherently equal worth because they cannot be proven to be absolutely true or false, however, lacks logical integrity. It is still possible to suggest that, in between the extremes of black and white, there are wildly varying degrees of grey.
So, to bring this back to the creationism / evolution debate, on the one hand we have a theory which has been created, over the space of 150 or so years, in reliance of objectively observed evidence compiled and verified by thousands upon thousands of men, each with a unique, perceptional vantage-point (if perception bias is such an issue, why have so many arrived at the same conlcusions independently?) and on the other hand we have a theory which posits, as its central tennet, a being whose existence has not and can not be demonstrated with any existing objective evidence, a text which makes claims that are either completely unverifiable or that are contradicted by evidence that has been obtained in a precise, demonstrable and repeatable manner and a clique of adherents who have a vested religious interest in skewing the evidence to conform with their own pre-existing belief systems. Now, in framing this question in this way, on what basis can you claim that evolutionary theory is not a far lighter shade of grey than creationism? What part of any of the objective evidence submitted in this thread do you have a problem with, and on what basis can you dismiss this evidence? Failing the deceptive nature of the senses, on what other epistemological basis can you claim that the evolutionary theory is inherently flawed and - ultimately - of an equal truth-value to that of creationism? Before hitting us with another one of your inane "Ram Blings", could you answer these questions please?
Now, as for the anorexic in the mirror, again you've framed an unjustified trichotemy. What you're implicitly asking - correct me if I'm wrong - is how one could determine, absolutely, whether one is fat or merely anorexic. The short answer is that one couldn't tell, absolutely, whether one was fat or merely anorexic, but there are objective steps that can be taken to decide that one of these outcomes is more likely (that is, a "lighter shade of grey") than the other.
Firstly, it's important to distinguish between "fatness" as a subjective, qualitative concept and "fatness" as an objective, quantitative concept. The axorexic, for instance, sees himself as being fatter than he'd ideally like to be. This, however, is a subjecive qualitiative judgement, a bit like preferring one piece of music to another, or one colour to another. The anorexic has an "ideal" in his mind about his preferential body-shape and sees his current body shape as being "fatter" than the ideal. Given that qualititive judgements are generally inherently subjective, a man alone in a room with a mirror would have no way of knowing whether he was fat or anorexic, as he has no objective frame of reference to compare himself with. He knows that he is fatter than he would ideally like to be, but - without any objective measure of "fatness" - how could he possibly know whether he was seeing himself as too fat because he is too fat or just because he's an anorexic?
So, in order to distinguish between the anorexic man and the fat man, we need an objective definition of "fatness". Medically, after centuries of objective, empirical research, we can now provide fairly objective values as to what a healthy weight range might be. If a man wishes to know objectively whether he is overweight or anorexic, he need only weigh himself, measure his height and then contrast the measurements against what medical science determines to be a healthy weight range for his height. Even after taking these measurements and being told by many of his friends, family and members of the medical profession that he is dangerously underweight and anorexic, he may still see himself as being more fat than he'd ideally like to be. His subjective assessment of his weight, however, is not an objective poisition, nor a position that corresponds to what we might call "the truth" of the matter. If fatness has an objective quality to it, on what grounds can the anorexic logically defend the position that he is, objectively, "fat"? If every measurement tells him that he is not fat, on what basis - other than deference to some subjective ideal - can he claim to be "fat"? For the anorexic to be right in suggesting, objectively, that he is fat, it would require a series of unlikely circumstances to be fulfilled (the measurements were completely wrong, the perception of everyone bar the anorexic is completely wrong, the findings of centuries of medical science are wrong, etc.), but for the anorexic to be wrong requires only one fairly likely condition to be fulfilled (he is suffering from an empirically demonstrable mental condition which distorts the way in which he views his own body). The first outcome is a very dark shade of grey (not likely to be true), the second outcome is a very light shade of grey (likely to be true).
Is there any part of this explanation you take issue with? If so, please address my argument directly rather than going off on another one of your tangents.
(I'm not sure what any of that had to do with the discussion at hand, btw, but there you go...) |
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