A stupidity of Darwinism: "There was never a time when there were only two humans!"

[Lon]

<Have deleted the bit where you suggest that gay people need permission>

You certainly cannot handle ANY truth. It makes me greatly question your science ability.

I’m not in prison, and I’m without any gods. You seem to have bought into the mythology and the misery.

Er, no, what is good for the goose isn't good for this gander. I didn't buy into anything and you are naive. Incredibly so.

Redemption from what? Christianity has it that you are born needing to be pulled up by the bootstraps, and if you don’t make the effort then you will be destroyed and/or punished in burning sulfur. Like any good peddler of snake oil it will convince you are sick in order to sell you the cure, but uniquely it adds the urgency of the threat of severe punishment to the proposed transaction.

See. you feign like you have history with us, then say something that completely misses the mark, thus I see it as very shallow, Stu. It just wasn't what you thought it was, so of course it still isn't what you yet think it is either.

And you would call that ethical.

No, you do, from your own shallow pool of understanding.

It doesn’t even address what I wrote.

Incorrect. It did.

Stuu: You don’t burn them at the stake, you fry them in the chair. That’s about the only American modernisation. The rioting and taking over countries continues unabated.

But it is the christians doing the frying and the invading? It’s not atheists rioting particularly.

You are being thick. YOU are the one that said in this thread they were nice and intelligent people, Stu. You cannot talk out both sides of your mouth. The disconnect, in my suspect, is simply believing without discernment. The two don't work together. On the next, who knows what they believe. I don't.

Self-declared non-believers in gods make up something like 10% of the US population, but they are only 0.23% of the imprisoned population. That means either that atheists are drastically more law abiding or they are astonishingly more skilled at getting away with crime.

Hypothesis doesn't get to make its own statistics. Ask yourself why a prisoner would identify with any group. Think more than guess.

Yes obviously it was wrong.

On what grounds? "Why" was it wrong? :think:

You should start wearing a beret and whistling the Marseillaise while you are out carrying your grocery shopping home with a big French stick sticking out of the bag.

Or perhaps we should just agree on a prison term for you that would pay both debts.

lain: Please go on....

You would insist others allow you to live your unhealthy religious fundamentalist lifestyle without interference.

Pretty nasty and mean, Stu. Is this how you treat everyone that gives a care? :think: I CAN tell you how dismal atheism has made you and how inappropriate in response, INCREDIBLY unlike my lifestyle or belief. You are being a mean punk :noway:

You don’t seem to be willing to extend the courtesy to others.

Without intereference? :think: Perhaps you've been fighting with a few other members here and have gotten one of them confused with me.

Especially you don’t appear willing to respect a woman’s right to autonomy over what happens to her body.

Uhm, we were talking about literally 'eating' fetus', even without ingesting them. You simply have no recourse to that and no leg to stand on.

If you think it is a principle to oppose a woman’s right to medical consent, then if I ever need a liver transplant I’ll come round to your house and take some of yours.

Which is STILL cannibalism, Stuart! Don't be a moraless monster. You think it is okay to eat unborn babies but it is wrong to put Ted Bundy to death? YOUR morals are extremely messed up.

I don’t think $$$ is a mark of superiority. The point of the graph is not really about GDP, it’s really a marker of development, of education levels, of living a relatively comfortable life. The trend is, the more developed a country is, the less its population professes religion.

While cannibalizing???? I'll take the other. Just because a society goes to school longer, or has more $$$$ or 'thinks' it is better than anybody else, doesn't make it so. There are plenty of counter-statistics that greatly question nearly all of these other statistics. Statistics can be made to lie. As I said, Go to any CDC website. They aren't lies there.

The United States is exceptionally religious when controlling for other possible factors. How did it get to be that way? I’ve given you what I think is one of the significant factors.

A number of reasons. Could one of them be because God promises to prosper a country that honors Him? :think:

 

[Stripe]

OP boils down to this:

Darwinists believe that the biosphere has no objective divisions. There is no non-arbitrary, concrete division between a sparrow and a walnut.

Creationists believe that there are objective distinctions between kinds. Ie, all of mankind is descended from a common ancestor population, while apes are descended from a separate common ancestor population (and in all likelihood multiple ape groups).

Unfortunately, it seems that evolutionists are too mindful of how extraordinarily bizarre their worldview is in this case to admit to the distinction, let alone discuss it rationally.

 

[Stuu]

You certainly cannot handle ANY truth. It makes me greatly question your science ability.

Science is not about Truth. It is about what is most likely to be true. Your Truth does not appear, to me at least, to be true.

See. you feign like you have history with us, then say something that completely misses the mark, thus I see it as very shallow, Stu. It just wasn't what you thought it was, so of course it still isn't what you yet think it is either.

What isn’t what I yet think it is either?

Stuu: And you would call that ethical.

No, you do, from your own shallow pool of understanding.

You could try to point out what is theologically wrong with what I wrote. It won’t make much difference of course, but it might finally be a use for theology.

Incorrect. It did.

Well, that’s me corrected with a tightly argued rebuttal.

You are being thick. YOU are the one that said in this thread they were nice and intelligent people, Stu. You cannot talk out both sides of your mouth. The disconnect, in my suspect, is simply believing without discernment. The two don't work together. On the next, who knows what they believe. I don't.

I am struggling quite a bit to understand what you believe.

Hypothesis doesn't get to make its own statistics.

From memory the statistics come from Pew Research.

Ask yourself why a prisoner would identify with any group. Think more than guess.

By all means enlighten us.

On what grounds? "Why" was it wrong?

Another useless why question. What category of answer are you looking for?

Pretty nasty and mean, Stu. Is this how you treat everyone that gives a care?

It could be true though, couldn’t it. Look what fundamentalist religious adherence does to your rational brain. It forces you to believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old when every relevant line of evidence unites to demonstrate that it is billions of years old.

It makes you see intent everywhere when actually there is no good reason to think there is intent anywhere, apart from the intent brought by the actions of animals with motives. Those displays of intent result from processes that have no intent. That is overwhelmingly what the evidence shows, and also what the absence of any unambiguous evidence for a master intender suggests. But there you are, believing that everything is meant to be according to some invisible all-seeing force. That kind of cognitive dissonance cannot be not a healthy thing, long-term.

I CAN tell you how dismal atheism has made you and how inappropriate in response, INCREDIBLY unlike my lifestyle or belief. You are being a mean punk

Well, maybe you could consider your accusations that I am blind, and reflect on whether there is a possibility they apply to you.

Uhm, we were talking about literally 'eating' fetus', even without ingesting them… You think it is okay to eat unborn babies …

Well in that case I retract, and instead tell you that I have no concept of what you are talking about, nor who you are accusing, or of what.

but it is wrong to put Ted Bundy to death?

Which criminals do you believe deserve death, and which don’t? What is your principled criterion?

Just because a society goes to school longer, or has more $$$$ or 'thinks' it is better than anybody else, doesn't make it so.

You should go back and read what I actually wrote.

Could one of them be because God promises to prosper a country that honors Him?

That doesn’t really explain the poverty in Pakistan, does it.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

OP boils down to this:

Darwinists believe that the biosphere has no objective divisions. There is no non-arbitrary, concrete division between a sparrow and a walnut.

Have you seen sparrows and walnuts interbreed? They really are different species. There are many different species in each line back to their common ancestor, an alga. Where one species stops and the next begins is a matter of slow change in populations, not sudden change in individuals.

Creationists believe that there are objective distinctions between kinds. Ie, all of mankind is descended from a common ancestor population, while apes are descended from a separate common ancestor population (and in all likelihood multiple ape groups).

Unfortunately, it seems that evolutionists are too mindful of how extraordinarily bizarre their worldview is in this case to admit to the distinction, let alone discuss it rationally.

It must be time for another line of evidence for common descent.

So far we have:

Firstly (post #71), all living species use the same system to store and transmit their genetic code, and the molecular machinery of any one species can read the DNA of any other species.

Secondly (post #97), the phylogenetic tree of life made from comparisons of the physiology of fossil species and modern species matches very closely the phylogenetic tree of life made from comparing the DNA sequence or amino acid sequences for the same proteins in different species.

Now, thirdly, ring species exist in which there is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which interbreeds with the geographically closest related populations, but for which there are two end populations that are too distantly related to interbreed. It is possible that the ‘end’ subspecies, although unable to interbreed, live in the same location, completing the ‘ring’.

Here’s the classic example, given in a slightly simplified description in the Holy Wikipedia of the Larus gulls found around the Arctic:



1. Larus argentatus argentatus interbreeds with 2. Larus fuscus sensu stricto, which interbreeds with 3. Larus fuscus heuglini, which interbreeds with 4. Larus argentatus birulai, which interbreeds with 5. Larus argentatus vegae, which interbreeds with 6. Larus argentatus smithsonianus, which interbreeds with 7. Larus argentatus argenteus, which can’t interbreed with 1. Larus argentatus argentatus.

This is exactly the same as common descent except the species are not continuously changing through time, they are continuously changing across geography.

It should be noted that the superspecies of Larus gull contains other subspecies too, that have a complicated relationship with the above, and indeed there are more well-defined examples of ring species than this one. But this one involves a world map. Strictly, the connecting up of the ends to make the ring is still underway.

This is a prediction of the model of common descent, and therefore is evidence for it.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

Have you seen sparrows and walnuts interbreed? They really are different species. There are many different species in each line back to their common ancestor, an alga.

:rotfl:

And you actually have some evidence of this? (Hint: no, you don't).

Where one species stops and the next begins is a matter of slow change in populations, not sudden change in individuals.

This old pile of baloney just keeps getting repeated by the brain-dead evolutionists in our midst.

Populations (i.e., groups) are made up of INDIVIDUALS. A population/group is an ABSTRACTION... the reality is INDIVIDUALS.

 

[Stripe]

Have you seen sparrows and walnuts interbreed? They really are different species. There are many different species in each line back to their common ancestor, an alga. Where one species stops and the next begins is a matter of slow change in populations, not sudden change in individuals.

Your arbitrary line is the ability to interbreed. :idunno:

 

[Right Divider]

This is a prediction of the model of common descent, and therefore is evidence for it.

:rotfl:

Again, common descent from the originally created KINDS is no problem for a creationist.

You have YET to provide even ONE single piece of evidence to support a SINGLE common ancestor for ALL life on earth.

 

[Lon]

Science is not about Truth. It is about what is most likely to be true.

:nono: Science says "billions of years," extrapolated, reasoned out, as if it is true in every textbook. It means it, the rest of science, and I, disagree with you. It may 'try' not to be about truth, but it is portrayed less carefully. You realize about 70% of the U.S. questions science specifically because of this very thing, right? It is important.

Your Truth does not appear, to me at least, to be true.

I assume that's why we are discussing it, but the posture at the end of your last post doesn't give me any hope that it is well-thought-out on your part.

What isn’t what I yet think it is either?

Stuu: And you would call that ethical.

You could try to point out what is theologically wrong with what I wrote. It won’t make much difference of course, but it might finally be a use for theology.

You characterize all of Christianity in a lot of your posturing. Sometimes you may get the categories right, but then you do a specific that doesn't apply to all of us, or isn't in the book.
It means, you really aren't that familiar.

Well, that’s me corrected with a tightly argued rebuttal.

As an insider to an outsider, as it were? Doesn't need to be.

I am struggling quite a bit to understand what you believe.

It isn't too hard, but you are correct I don't fit all your bins. On TOL, a lot will fight every hill. I see some of them as 'flat earth' (historically) that aren't huge one way or another EXCEPT that someone gets ostracized for it or worse. The heavy posturing, I understand because there is a desire to salvage something, but the subject itself doesn't warrant the metaphorical bloodshed. I'm okay with a scientist thinking "billions of years." It is, as you say above when they say "The earth was formed 9 billions years ago" that I say, "no." It "COULD" be, but we need to see the calculated speculative nature of extrapolations that leave us wondering. A MUCH better science claim would be "We believe the universe was formed 9 billion years ago based on the age carbon dating and observation of the stars." It does two things: It doesn't overtly challenge a different theory which IS good science and it doesn't stop inquiry in to the actual age of the earth. In that sense, an overt science statement can stagnate science interest in a particular field. A good scientist will continue second-guessing anyway, just as they do trying to find a better/cure for cancer, but the rest of the populace that doesn't do science on that scale are affected, at least in the U.S. adversely by overstatements such that 70% of the U.S. population questions (rightly so). My theology is mostly about what is true and what isn't. I'm convinced God exists, at least for some of us, clearly.

From memory the statistics come from Pew Research.

I believe the statistics Pew does is fine, it is often what they think it means, I disagree with. For instance, there is a saying in the U.S. "In war, and in prison, everyone believes." We always want to be careful of statistics. You'd question a statistic that said Christians make up most MENSA members, for instance? The 'us/them' often and more often than not, needs to be 'we.'

Another useless why question. What category of answer are you looking for?

It seems you don't like talking to kids (or inquisitive adults?). I was wanting to know why you, specifically, believe it is wrong for someone else to end the life of a serial killer.
For me, I don't want to participate in the thing that they did. Putting them away for life does cost taxpayers, but it keeps them where they cannot harm another. That said, I do recognize statistics that favor the death penalty. In a word I see it as a necessary evil.

It could be true though, couldn’t it. Look what fundamentalist religious adherence does to your rational brain. It forces you to believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old when every relevant line of evidence unites to demonstrate that it is billions of years old.

If you are still having a hard time evaluating my Christianity, on this, I believe both science and theology estimate. Both are good estimations for what they want/need to do in their lives. As such, an appreciation for the difference, on my part. Science nor theology has to be 'right' about everything, just the things where it helps another. We want all of our efforts to be beneficial. There is room for science and theology to do better, always. I'm on the "let us pursue the 'do better' program" so I don't get caught up in these 'science/theology' discussions unless I can learn something, or if I think/hope a science-minded person can pause and learn something.

It makes you see intent everywhere when actually there is no good reason to think there is intent anywhere, apart from the intent brought by the actions of animals with motives. Those displays of intent result from processes that have no intent. That is overwhelmingly what the evidence shows, and also what the absence of any unambiguous evidence for a master intender suggests. But there you are, believing that everything is meant to be according to some invisible all-seeing force. That kind of cognitive dissonance cannot be not a healthy thing, long-term.

In theology and philosophy, this doesn't work. In simply living life, this doesn't work. Ask a man to give you his money and he will act like it matters and has meaning, specifically because it isn't random, and does have meaning. Meaning begets meaning and as I said earlier, it is a closed system, so much so, that many scientists speculate on our planet being seeded by extra-terrestrials. There is a reason that happens, and I posit to you, that it is 'reason' itself that demands it.

Well, maybe you could consider your accusations that I am blind, and reflect on whether there is a possibility they apply to you.

Absolutely! As I said, wheat are not tares, and tares are not wheat.

Well in that case I retract, and instead tell you that I have no concept of what you are talking about, nor who you are accusing, or of what.

I was simply telling you why I'm against fetal research.

Which criminals do you believe deserve death, and which don’t? What is your principled criterion?

Empathy. Empathy with families and with the toll all crimes take on everyone. The family has a right to do what they need, whether I want to be a part of that or not. I'd want to kill anybody that harmed one of my kids. That is the emotion. I'm astonished that a group of Amish families offered forgiveness to a many who murdered their girls in a school, yet the need to bind wounds is a healing gesture and we need healing more than anything. Just as in medicine, sometimes the leg has to come off. I'd rather qualify the death penalty as a necessary evil and let states and families carry out those decisions in the same way people carry out their own medical treatment, hopefully well informed.

That doesn’t really explain the poverty in Pakistan, does it.

So look at what is the same, and what is clearly different.

 

[7djengo7]

Science is not about Truth. It is about what is most likely to be true.

Which would you say is "most likely to be true": truth, or untruth?

Thank you for admitting that the nonsense and falsehood you, in your irrationality, call "science" is not truth.

 

[Stuu]

Your arbitrary line is the ability to interbreed. :idunno:

You are right to question it. It is by no means definitive. But it is indicative.

There are obvious cases where it doesn't work, not the least of which is taxa which reproduce asexually.

Stuart

 

[Stripe]

You are right to question it.

And you are wrong to question my analysis.

 

[Stuu]

Science says "billions of years," extrapolated, reasoned out, as if it is true in every textbook. It means it, the rest of science, and I, disagree with you. It may 'try' not to be about truth, but it is portrayed less carefully. You realize about 70% of the U.S. questions science specifically because of this very thing, right? It is important.

It is very simple. If you want to deal in absolute proofs then be a lawyer, not a scientist. Lawyers are forever picking around the low probability options looking for a way out.
In court, billions of years is proved. In science, billions of years is so good a fact, with such a high probability against any other hypothesis, that you would be perverse to deny it.

70% of ‘the US’ is wrong. Science is not a democracy.

You characterize all of Christianity in a lot of your posturing. Sometimes you may get the categories right, but then you do a specific that doesn't apply to all of us, or isn't in the book. It means, you really aren't that familiar.

I’d say I am familiar. There are well over 40,000 denominations calling themselves some version of christianity, so it almost wouldn’t matter what claim I made, some splinter will have schismed off in line with my statement at some point. You could say that denomination isn’t christianity, in which case we could question your claim to being True Christianity, whatever that is. I do happen to think it is important that I not misrepresent your beliefs though: it does me no good to make strawman arguments.

It isn't too hard, but you are correct I don't fit all your bins. On TOL, a lot will fight every hill. I see some of them as 'flat earth' (historically) that aren't huge one way or another EXCEPT that someone gets ostracized for it or worse. The heavy posturing, I understand because there is a desire to salvage something, but the subject itself doesn't warrant the metaphorical bloodshed.

It's generally not about science at all. It’s about identity, and belonging to a group, and the conspiracy of ‘their experts’ versus ‘our experts’. It involves the understanding that power comes from knowledge, but that it doesn’t really matter what the knowledge is, even if it contradicts science. Because science is so diametrically opposed to faith as a method of epistemology, there is little trust of scientists in the religious fundamentalist group, and there is little trust in religious fundamentalists amongst scientists. Creationism is in the bizarre situation of acknowledging the power of science, and it seeks any opportunity it can have to bask in the reflected glory of the success of science, but it repays science by biting at its heels like an unruly lap dog.

I'm okay with a scientist thinking "billions of years." It is, as you say above when they say "The earth was formed 9 billions years ago" that I say, "no." It "COULD" be

No, it can’t be. It’s almost exactly half that amount of time.

but we need to see the calculated speculative nature of extrapolations that leave us wondering. A MUCH better science claim would be "We believe the universe was formed 9 billion years ago based on the age carbon dating and observation of the stars."

Not sure what ‘calculated speculative nature of extrapolations’ are. I’m left wondering too.
The age of the universe is not based on radioisotope dating, and especially not carbon dating, which at best gives you tens of thousands of years. The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

It does two things: It doesn't overtly challenge a different theory which IS good science and it doesn't stop inquiry in to the actual age of the earth.

The measurement of the age of the earth has given the same answer since the 1950s. There would be no point in continuing to use the same methods on that question because you will get the same answers. What might happen is that unrelated research highlights a possible technique for measuring the age of the earth, and then we could have reason to revise the conclusion. One thing is sure, it won’t turn out to be less than 10,000 years.

In that sense, an overt science statement can stagnate science interest in a particular field. A good scientist will continue second-guessing anyway, just as they do trying to find a better/cure for cancer, but the rest of the populace that doesn't do science on that scale are affected, at least in the U.S. adversely by overstatements such that 70% of the U.S. population questions (rightly so).

That may be important to you, but for that large percentage of Americans who believe that their religious mythology is actually what has happened on this planet in the past, it’s not important. All that is important is that they find people willing to affirm their beliefs, no matter how laughable they are against scientific conclusions. Most people have absolutely no idea what radioisotope isochron dating is, and how it is calibrated, and how sources of error are minimised or eliminated, nor indeed what a billion years is. All science needs is enough people to trust scientists, or trust people around them capable of explaining it to them. The obvious group to consider in that are educators. How is the public education system in the United States?

My theology is mostly about what is true and what isn't. I'm convinced God exists, at least for some of us, clearly.

What would it take for you to stop believing this? You haven’t seemed willing to even countenance that thought in your writing here, in the past. How can your conviction have meaning if it can’t be questioned, or if there isn’t a way it could be falsified if actually it’s not true? What is the difference between there is a god and there is no god?

there is a saying in the U.S. "In war, and in prison, everyone believes." We always want to be careful of statistics.

Neither is true, though, is it.

You'd question a statistic that said Christians make up most MENSA members, for instance? The 'us/them' often and more often than not, needs to be 'we.'

MENSA members are joiners. Agnostics/atheists/non-religious tend not to be joiners, so you are less likely to find them in an organisation like MENSA.

I was wanting to know why you, specifically, believe it is wrong for someone else to end the life of a serial killer. For me, I don't want to participate in the thing that they did. Putting them away for life does cost taxpayers, but it keeps them where they cannot harm another. That said, I do recognize statistics that favor the death penalty. In a word I see it as a necessary evil.

If killing is a legitimate way of dealing with problems, then the state that does the killing is no better than the killers it executes.

Science nor theology has to be 'right' about everything, just the things where it helps another. We want all of our efforts to be beneficial. There is room for science and theology to do better, always. I'm on the "let us pursue the 'do better' program" so I don't get caught up in these 'science/theology' discussions unless I can learn something, or if I think/hope a science-minded person can pause and learn something.

The job of science is to be right, or at least be right eventually. No one expects theology to be ‘right’ in the same way. At best theology has a duty to believers to provide some mechanism for interpreting scriptures in their contexts. Science has a duty to be right for everyone.

In theology and philosophy, this doesn't work. In simply living life, this doesn't work. Ask a man to give you his money and he will act like it matters and has meaning, specifically because it isn't random, and does have meaning. Meaning begets meaning and as I said earlier, it is a closed system, so much so, that many scientists speculate on our planet being seeded by extra-terrestrials. There is a reason that happens, and I posit to you, that it is 'reason' itself that demands it.

Evolution by natural selection is a complete explanation for how ‘meaning’ has come to exist. Insisting on a creator of meaning only opens an unending regression of questions that must end somewhere in an assumption, all of which is slain by Occam’s razor. Meantime, Darwin provides the route to simple, right answers.

I was simply telling you why I'm against fetal research.

Well then, I still don’t know why you are.

Empathy. Empathy with families and with the toll all crimes take on everyone. The family has a right to do what they need, whether I want to be a part of that or not. I'd want to kill anybody that harmed one of my kids. That is the emotion. I'm astonished that a group of Amish families offered forgiveness to a many who murdered their girls in a school, yet the need to bind wounds is a healing gesture and we need healing more than anything. Just as in medicine, sometimes the leg has to come off. I'd rather qualify the death penalty as a necessary evil and let states and families carry out those decisions in the same way people carry out their own medical treatment, hopefully well informed.

Empathy for the perpetrator’s family? Indeed, empathy for the perpetrator? No excuses whatsoever for their actions that blight or destroy the lives of innocent people. But if people are broken and can’t function without posing a danger to others, lock them up or offer them a cure. No cure? We should make more effort to find the fixes.

Stuart

 

[Stripe]

In science, billions of years is so good a fact, with such a high probability against any other hypothesis, that you would be perverse to deny it.

Nope.

Science is the process of showing ideas to be impossible.

Science is not a democracy.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Not sure what ‘calculated speculative nature of extrapolations’ are. I’m left wondering too.
The age of the universe is not based on radioisotope dating, and especially not carbon dating, which at best gives you tens of thousands of years. The universe is 13.7 billion years old.


The measurement of the age of the earth has given the same answer since the 1950s. There would be no point in continuing to use the same methods on that question because you will get the same answers. What might happen is that unrelated research highlights a possible technique for measuring the age of the earth, and then we could have reason to revise the conclusion. One thing is sure, it won’t turn out to be less than 10,000 years.

Your information is out of date.

Apparently, that 13.7 billion years number is a billion years too much.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200727114724.htm

 

[Clete]

It is very simple. If you want to deal in absolute proofs then be a lawyer, not a scientist. Lawyers are forever picking around the low probability options looking for a way out.
In court, billions of years is proved. In science, billions of years is so good a fact, with such a high probability against any other hypothesis, that you would be perverse to deny it.

There you go again, suggesting that science doesn't prove anything!

As though a lawyer (a good one) doesn't use the same logic that science uses to prove their cases. In actual fact, lawyers only present the evidence that proves their case. The actual work, the actual science of criminal investigation has already been done by the detectives in the police department. Those detectives go through a process that is very scientific indeed. They begin with a crime, look at the available physical evidence and witness testimony, develop leads that hopefully turns up suspects. They then go about trying to eliminate suspects by seeing if there is a way to disprove their guilt. At the end, as Sir Author Conan Doyle put into the mouth of his famous character, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." It is a process of proving something by establishing the impossibility of the contrary.

Some of the things that investigators must scientifically prove every time they successfully close a murder investigation...

1. A person is dead. (i.e. not simply missing)
2. The manner of death (i.e. That the death was neither natural, accidental nor self-inflicted.)
3. The cause of death (i.e, How the person was killed. Was he shot, stabbed, choked, beaten, poisoned etc)
4. Which weapon was used (if any).
5. Who had a motive to kill the person and what was that motive.
6. Of those who has a motive, who has the above established means.
7. Of those who had both a motive and the means, who had the opportunity.
8. Anyone who did not have motive OR means OR opportunity (any one or more of the three) did not commit the crime.
9. etc.
10. etc.
11. etc.
12. etc.

Stuu, I wonder if you could ignore everything on that list and just concentrate on point number one alone and tell me whether you would accept it as an absolute scientific fact that people have, in fact died. Is it a scientific certainty that George Washington is dead?

Clete

 

[Clete]

Nope.

Science is the process of showing ideas to be impossible.

Science is not a democracy.

Showing ideas to be impossible is only one means that science uses to progress.

At a given pressure, water boils at a specific temperature. True or False?

That question has been answered, by science, without the need for disproving a counter claim.

It asks an affirmative question and answers it.

Under 1 bar of atmospheric pressure, does water boil at 100° C?

Yes!

Indeed, the very definition of a degree of temperature in Celsius is 1/100th of the temperature difference between the freezing and boiling points of water at 1 bar of atmospheric pressure. (Yes, I know it now officially has to do with the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water but the point is the same either way.) That definition is not based on having proven some counter claim to be impossible.

This notion that science is imprecise and non-absolute is political. It is a way of elevating theory to the status of fact by suggesting that there is no such thing as facts. It is a way for evolutionists, global warming advocates, big bang cosmologists, et al to get around the objection that they cannot prove their theories. They attempt (and are succeeding) to convince the public that science isn't about proof.

It's a lie! Science has always been about proof! It has always been about the methodical application of logic to the questions of the world around us. Any scientific theory that has substantively unanswered questions is still a theory and MUST not be taken as fact and when, as a supposed scientist, you believe that every aspect of your work deals exclusively with scientific concepts that are full of unanswered questions then you are no longer doing science. Worse than that, if you accept as true theories that contain concepts that are fundamentally unfalsifiable or questions that are fundamentally unanswerable then not only have you left the realm of science but are practicing a religion where the unfalsifiable becomes dogma and logic is irrelevant.

Clete

 

[Right Divider]

It is very simple. If you want to deal in absolute proofs then be a lawyer, not a scientist. Lawyers are forever picking around the low probability options looking for a way out.

:rotfl:

In court, billions of years is proved.

Completely false.

In science, billions of years is so good a fact, with such a high probability against any other hypothesis, that you would be perverse to deny it.

Utter hogwash.

 

[Right Divider]

Showing ideas to be impossible is only one means that science uses to progress.

At a given pressure, water boils at a specific temperature. True or False?

That question has been answered, by science, without the need for disproving a counter claim.

It asks an affirmative question and answers it.

Under 1 bar of atmospheric pressure, does water boil at 100° C?

Yes!

Indeed, the very definition of a degree of temperature in Celsius is 1/100th of the temperature difference between the freezing and boiling points of water at 1 bar of atmospheric pressure. (Yes, I know it now officially has to do with the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water but the point is the same either way.) That definition is not based on having proven some counter claim to be impossible.

This notion that science is imprecise and non-absolute is political. It is a way of elevating theory to the status of fact by suggesting that there is no such thing as facts. It is a way for evolutionists, global warming advocates, big bang cosmologists, et al to get around the objection that they cannot prove their theories. They attempt (and are succeeding) to convince the public that science isn't about proof.

It's a lie! Science has always been about proof! It has always been about the methodical application of logic to the questions of the world around us. Any scientific theory that has substantively unanswered questions is still a theory and MUST not be taken as fact and when, as a supposed scientist, you believe that every aspect of your work deals exclusively with scientific concepts that are full of unanswered questions then you are no longer doing science. Worse than that, if you accept as true theories that contain concepts that are fundamentally unfalsifiable or questions that are fundamentally unanswerable then not only have you left the realm of science but are practicing a religion where the unfalsifiable becomes dogma and logic is irrelevant.

Clete

:thumb:

 

[Yorzhik]

Originally posted by Stuu View Post It is very simple. If you want to deal in absolute proofs then be a lawyer, not a scientist. Lawyers are forever picking around the low probability options looking for a way out. In court, billions of years is proved. In science, billions of years is so good a fact, with such a high probability against any other hypothesis, that you would be perverse to deny it.

There you go again, suggesting that science doesn't prove anything!

As though a lawyer (a good one) doesn't use the same logic that science uses to prove their cases. In actual fact, lawyers only present the evidence that proves their case. The actual work, the actual science of criminal investigation has already been done by the detectives in the police department. Those detectives go through a process that is very scientific indeed. They begin with a crime, look at the available physical evidence and witness testimony, develop leads that hopefully turns up suspects. They then go about trying to eliminate suspects by seeing if there is a way to disprove their guilt. At the end, as Sir Author Conan Doyle put into the mouth of his famous character, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." It is a process of proving something by establishing the impossibility of the contrary.

Some of the things that investigators must scientifically prove every time they successfully close a murder investigation...

1. A person is dead. (i.e. not simply missing)
2. The manner of death (i.e. That the death was neither natural, accidental nor self-inflicted.)
3. The cause of death (i.e, How the person was killed. Was he shot, stabbed, choked, beaten, poisoned etc)
4. Which weapon was used (if any).
5. Who had a motive to kill the person and what was that motive.
6. Of those who has a motive, who has the above established means.
7. Of those who had both a motive and the means, who had the opportunity.
8. Anyone who did not have motive OR means OR opportunity (any one or more of the three) did not commit the crime.
9. etc.
10. etc.
11. etc.
12. etc.

Stuu, I wonder if you could ignore everything on that list and just concentrate on point number one alone and tell me whether you would accept it as an absolute scientific fact that people have, in fact died. Is it a scientific certainty that George Washington is dead?

Clete

And thus the real reason why someone would support bad science like Stuu does. They claim something can be proven in court, in the context of the court process in-and-of-itself, while contradicting themselves in reality at the same time. Why? because:
1) They are a useful idiot and follow consensus.
2) They are aware of their incorrect view of science but lie.
3) They are lazy and don't have enough curiosity to question something that has huge questions attached to it.

Stuu does not fall under number 3 because he is talking about the subject, which leaves him under either 1 or 2. And those two are different from 3 in that they tend to fall into the claim that what is said creates reality.

And that is the goal all along. To force the idea that what is said creates reality so they can lord it over the population in any area of life. For example, bad science says there is more than two genders, and by simply saying there are more than two they can claim that is the new reality. Obviously, molding reality would be very politically powerful. And since there cannot be any area of reality that isn't created by what they say, it's also true for every area of science, including things like claims that nothing can be shown to be impossible by science.

It turns out they've never been interested in finding truth, which is a nutshell definition of what science is, but rather of power over their fellow man.

 

[JudgeRightly]

If the contaminating influence of the Hebrews creation narrative didn’t exist,

Would you like to try to support this claim (in another thread, please)?

the same creationist would accept science and the fact of evolution.

Creationists DO accept science. What we reject is question begging claims (such as the one I'm quoting above) of "the fact of evolution."