Occam's Aftershave
Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006
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| Quote | OA says: Is every aspiring AF pilot guaranteed to get his wings and then be allowed to fly fighter jets? Or is there a winnowing out process so that only those who have passed a battery of rigorous tests will be deemed qualified?
And who gets to decide if an aspiring pilot has the right skills and attributes to fly F-22s instead of tankers or trainers, or gets to fly at all? Is it AF cooks, and drivers, and mechanics? Or is the judgment made by a group of senior pilots who have themselves put in the years learning the trade, and know what separates the real aviators from the wanna-be ones?
I think we should give wings and assign fighter duty to everyone who applies.
Why are we standing up in the Air Force Academy and teaching that some people make better pilots than others is a FACT? This is dishonest and potentially damaging to society for any number of debatable reasons. What we SHOULD be doing is telling them BOTH THEORIES—ONLY A FEW PEOPLE MAKE SUPERIOR PILOTS and ALL POTENTIAL PILOTS ARE EQUALLY CAPABLE and clearly let them know they are UNPROVEN THEORIES and it is up to EACH PILOT HIMSELF and HIS PARENTS to decide if he is qualified. My tax dollars are funding the military budget for F-22’s, etc. just like yours are and I have a different opinion on something that is an unprovable fact in either direction. Why is my opinion shut out and vilified? Is this country supposed to be a representative democracy or is it not? Last time I checked IT WAS. You do believe in the democratic process, don’t you Dave? Shouldn’t it be applied here too? I’m really curious to hear your answers. |
AFDave says:
| Quote | | Good question. I knew you could say something substantive. |
When will be able to say the same for you? 
| Quote | | Answer: The generals who set the rules EARNED THE RIGHT to do so by exercising sound judgment regarding EASILY VERIFIABLE TRUTHS. What is this EASILY VERIFIABLE TRUTH? It's very easy to distinguish the good pilot candidates from the bad ones. In science today, we are talking about a different matter. |
Wrong Dave, we’re talking about the exact same thing. Scientific ideas are put through a rigorous peer-review process very similar to pilot selection. The scientific peer-reviewers are the “generals” who have EARNED THE RIGHT to do so by exercising sound judgment regarding EASILY VERIFIABLE TRUTHS. It is very easy for scientists to winnow out the sound scientific theories like ToE from the crappy pseudoscientific junk like Young Earth Creationism by the quality and quantity of the evidence. In fact, the YECs have submitted almost NOTHING in the way of positive evidence TO BE reviewed. They consistently and willfully AVOID THE SELECTION PROCESS because they know they can’t cut the muster. That which they have submitted for scrutiny has been found woefully lacking, just like the noob pilots who wash out on their first day.
Would you fly on a plane with a pilot who washed out of flight school, then went crying to his local Congressman and got given his pilot’s license anyway over the severe objections of the flight school professionals? That’s exactly what you’re doing when you accept AIG’s YEC claims over the objections of the qualified scientific community.
Once more, with feeling: You, Dave, ARE NOT QUALIFIED to judge the quality of scientific evidence being presented, just as I an NOT QUALIFIED to dispute the generals’ judgments about a pilot’s aptitude. The charlatans at AIG, your primary information source, are also NOT QUALIFIED to judge. They, like you, are motivated by their religious beliefs, NOT by any desire for scientific veracity. AIG is rife with lies and disinformation. You saw how badly they misrepresented the human-chimp chromosomal fusion info – just wait till you see how badly they lie about the Young Earth data.
| Quote | | We are talking about many qualified students who can do much in the way of good, useful scientific work regardless of their worldview. To exclude people because of their worldview is like excluding people based on sex or religious preference, ESPECIALLY when there are thousands of "Darwin dissenters" among scientists in all major universities AND half the US and British population rejects Darwinism. |
Your worldview is not an issue as long as the quality of your work doesn’t suffer because of it. You can be an atheist and be a damm fine pilot, you can also be a YEC and be a damm fine doctor or scientist. However, if you reject any of your scientific findings based solely on your YEC preconceptions then you deserve to be tossed out on your ass. Imagine your daughter is desperately ill. You take her to Doctor A who prescribes a new antibiotic, because he understands the strain of flu your daughter has contracted has evolved and no longer responds to the old antibiotic. Doctor B is a YEC, and he tells you your daughter is possessed by Satan’s minions and that you should just go home and pray. Whose advice would you follow, and why?
| Quote | | This is a significant difference. Contrast this with putting the following question on the next national ballot, "Do you think there should be a selection process in choosing fighter pilots?" I think you'd be very close to 100% YES. |
Agreed. Do you think there should be a selection process based on positive evidence in deciding the veracity of scientific ideas? Or should every last idea, even the crackpot ones, be given equal time in school?
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"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."
- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.
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