Kris
Posts: 93
Joined: Jan. 2011
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| Quote (Louis @ Jan. 24 2011,03:28) | | Quote (Kris @ Jan. 24 2011,08:02) | [SNIP]
1)
Look, all I'm trying to say about ID or creation is that they are possible, at some level or in some form, by some sort of intelligent entity, until and unless it's proven otherwise. I am not saying that any religious beliefs are true or scientific or provable.
[SNIP]
2)
It's interesting to think that some scientists are trying to find the how, what, when, and why of the universe(s), life, and what makes everything tick, but at the same time some scientists and science supporters hate the idea that it could be an intelligent entity of some sort.
[SNIP]
3)
We now have tools that allow us to see and understand a lot more than we used to but there are still countless mysteries. We can't even get our shit together here on Earth, let alone figure out and understand what (or who?) made everything come to be.
[SNIP]
4)
I do not condone the teaching of religion, ID, or creation in schools, but I also do not condone science or teachers saying that any sort of creation and/or ID are impossible.
[SNIP]
They're probably also more likely to accept a lot of other scientific claims than religious zealots are but they obviously aren't convinced that science knows everything, and especially everything about how the universe and life came to be, and what makes it all tick, and what's going to happen to it all eventually.
[SNIP]
5)
It would be nice if religions were a thing of the past...
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6)
...I think there must be better ways to promote science and to shut them up than to simply bitch about them on a website. Even if sites like this were to remain, there are other things that could and should be done too, to make science more popular (which would help to dispel the myths in religions). The more people there are who like, accept, and trust science, the fewer people there will be who want to support the religious zealots in any quest to force their religion into schools, government, or anywhere else. |
Snipping, bolding, italicising and numbering all mine.
Forgive me, in the following there may be something we UK citizens call "taking the piss". Frankly, it's time for Kris to get the benefit of some mockery again.
1) So at some point, somewhere, somewhen, some magic fairy could have possibly done something.
STAND BACK FOLKS! KRIS IS DROPPING SOME SCIENCE ON US!
Dude, pass the bong and learn not to take everything you think when stoned out of your mind seriously.
It was said in regards to ridicule, but it also makes the point here well:
| Quote | | "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them." Thomas Jefferson. |
You are promoting an idea so vague, so nebulous and so pointless that laughing at it and you is really the only avenue left. Well, ignoring both works just as well I suppose, but it's less amusing in the immediate short term. It will gradually become more amusing to ignore you I'm guessing. This makes me sad. Anyway...
The two statements in 1) are mutually exclusive if you take them to their logical conclusions. Firstly, proving a negative outside of some refined mathematical system is to all intents and purposes, impossible. So you get a nice big LOGIC FAIL for that for starters. Secondly, you are shifting the burden of proof undeservedly. This mythical entity you have concocted called "science" does not have to prove gods/god/pixies/designers do not exist, proponents of such ideas have to demonstrate that these gods' or pixies' existence is constistent with the available evidence. Note that this is a different thing from "proving" something. Proof, again, is something that really only exists within the rarified confines of mathematical systems. "Science" does not "prove" things in that sense, it's more accurate to say that through the process of scientific research we can eliminate extraneous hypotheses, refine other hypotheses and derive explanations that are parsimonious, testable and consonant with the available evidence. There is a great deal of difference there, and a great deal of epistemology that, as your posts demonstrate beyond doubt, you do not understand. Thanks for lecturing people that do though. Undeserving arrogance like yours, delivered in an insulting manner is always a massive PR win, especially when, you know, you are profoundly concerned with PR and all.
So how are they mutually exclusive? Well, before you equivocate as you have done with others I'll explain. You say some sort of ID or creation or something is possible. Okay. How do you know that? Seriously. On what data, reason or anything other than simply false equivalence, logical fallacies and just pulling things out of your arse is that claim based?
{Pauses}
Oh right, nothing other than those things. Gotcha. It's "possible" in the same way that "the universe is really a giantic banana but we can't see it" is possible, i.e. it's a baseless assertion. That is UNTIL it has some evidence to support it, burden of proof remember. {Aside: the use of "proof" here is slightly different to the use above, closer to the formal and original meaning of "testing", not (as in the colloquial manner you used it) "demonstrating".} Anyway, you are asserting without basis that this "designer(s) done it" claim is worthy of some consideration, and yet it is barely a coherent proposition, it's not anything anyone can work with until the details are fleshed out. And unfortunately even that nebulous concept does fit into a religious tradition, that of deism. There have been ostensibly christian deists for example, i.e people who believe the christian god set the universe in motion as it were, and then did not intervene (except for the odd dubious miracle). This isn't very strict deism I'll grant, but my point is this, even the nebulous claim is one that falls under the wide brim of religious claims.
These vague notions are not new, and their refutation is just as old, look up Last Thursdayism as a classic (humorous) example. This is what irks about your inane drivel and trolling, it's not merely that they are based on ignorance of what (for want of a better term) knowledge is available to you, it's that they are the hallmarks of a confused attitude that is profoundly anti-knowledge. As we will see...
2) Simply stated: no. Not a one. No one hates the idea of some intelligent entity being behind the curtain, you're simply making that up. It's not an uncommon piece of conspiracy crankery advanced by those who have an idea and get laughed at when their idea is shown to be utter bullshit (happens to the best of us, some of us get over it). Again you rely on a nebulous concept. Would someone "hate" the idea of, say some vicious South American deity who demand human sacrifice being the one behind the curtain (so to speak)? Yes, probably, and I think it's obvious why. I think you'll find the idea of SPECIFIC deities/concepts of deities being utterly hateful to be relatively uncontroversial, but the idea of ANY possible deity/concept of a deity being hateful? Nope. The claim is too nebulous once again.
If, again, you shift the goalposts back to an IDCist "information" type scenario (as if "information" were some mysterious force permeating the cosmos) then, yet again, we hit nebulosity at some velocity. It's impossible to hate a nebulous concept. Define it. Give it parameters. Show your work.
3) Science isn't complete? Gosh, who knew? The fact that we don't know everything, does not mean we know nothing. Look up the "god of the gaps" arguments and the logical problems with them and their centuries old refutations.
In the words of Dara O'Briain "If science knew everything, it would stop". We already KNOW that science doesn't know everything, we already know that science (and indeed humans) cannot know everything. Not just in a hippy dippy pot smoking or theistic fashion, but because (as admitted by several people here already and as I'll cheerfully admit to) it's possible that even when scientific research has lead to a working model of every observable phenomenon in the unievrse (we're a way off that!) that it's still all pixies underneath. However, this is yet another demonstration of the vacuity of the pixie claim, because it could equally be leprechauns, or brownies, or the Sidhe, or my mum. These claims are not only unevidence they are beyond the realm of evidence. Believe in them if you want to, but science they ain't and they are fuck all use to man or beast outside of a freshman, weed inspired, bullshit session.
Seriously, do you think you are telling people, some of whom are professional scientists, some of whom are enthusiasts, some of whom are old hands in the arena of flippant fighting with fantatsic fucktardery anything? I guess Darwin was right:
| Quote | | "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" |
Take a ticket and report to Messers Dunning and Kruger. It's a long queue, you'll have to wait.
As for "we can't get shit together on earth" etc, to paraphrase Samuel L Jackson: Non sequitur, motherfucker? Do you even know what one is? I'd put money on us solving a complete, detailed mechanistic pathway for, say, abiogenesis before we solve every human problem on earth. Mind you, since human "problems" are by their very nature insoluble in anything like the same sense and a "simple" scientific discovery, then I guess that's obvious. One of these things, Kris, is not like the other. Naughty, troll. Naughty.
4) Is someone saying these things are impossible? I doubt it. In fact I know it's not the case. Are they saying that no evidence supports the claims of various IDCists and creationists, no data is available to confirm these claims? Yes. Are they saying that SPECIFIC claims (like, say, there was a global flood ~4k years ago) are impossible based on the evidence we currently have? Yes. See the difference? Forgive me if I doubt it. No one is fighting against this vague, nebulous "pixies done it" horseshit you are (dishonestly) retreating to. As if such a claim were even meaningful (see above). What people ARE doing is taking the individual, specific claims and demonstrating how these are wildly inconsistent with the available evidence.
They are also pointing out that the eternal goalpost shifting, which you and your creationist chums (but you're not defending them, oh no no no, heaven forbid. You just make the identical arguments), ends in a welter of logically inconsistent mush. Try to comprehend the difference between "X is impossible" and "there is no evidence to support X, in fact X is contradicted by much/all of what we do know to a high degree of accuracy". Forgive me again if I doubt this distinction (not even a subtle one) will percolate into your head.
No one said science knows everything. You do like this strawman don't you? Your misconceptions about science, philsophy, and well, quiet clearly everything are a) not correct, b) not exhuastive, and c) not binding. You're wrong, do some basic work, fucking deal with it.
5) No it wouldn't. It would be nice if the conditions that made religion necessary were unnecessary, but for religions to be a thing of the past would mean humans were a thing of the past. Marx said it very well I think:
| Quote | “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain, not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun.”
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Now I wouldn't agree with every sentiment there, but I hope it's obvious to even the meanest intelligence (Kris, I'm looking at you) which parts are relevant.
6) Crikey! Really?
STAND BACK AGAIN FOLKS!!! KRIS IS DROPPING SOME REAL SCIENCE ON US AGAIN!!
Thank you, Kris. Thank you thank you thank you. Thankyou for divining our true purpose here. Thank you for telling us that we should be doing something else. Thank you for allowing "sites like this to remain". Oh your genoerosity knows no bounds. Calloo callay, o frabjuous day, Kris is letting people fuck about on the internet in their spare time. The magnanimity of such a gesture will surely elevate Kris to the heights of human compassion occupied by such luminaries as Gandhi, Mother Theresa and the Dalai FUCKING Lama.
Oh please.
I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead.
There ARE better ways to promote science, and thousands of people across the globe are doing them. Some of those people are even here. Doing their little bit, in their little way, off the internet. Some people just come here for the LULZ (as I believe the youth are saying). So what? This is just some corner of the web, if it fails to work for you, it may work for someone else, it may not. Maybe that isn't even the point. Whilst some of the "problems" with science communication and "popularity" can justly be laid at the feet of those scientismaticians locked in their ivory towers with those fat Big Pharma and Government pay cheques (the bastards), not all of them can. Gosh, I wonder if ANYONE has considered any of this before? If I were, you know, someone with an interest in a subject like this, I might do something like go and find out BEFORE shooting my mouth off and trolling websites. But that's only the case if you were...you know...actually interested. Which you're not are you, Kris.
In the words of Evil Willow: Bored now.
We need a new chew toy.
Louis |
Meh.
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The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. Plato
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