Is Atheism Unscientific?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by th.w.heller, Oct 15, 2008.

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  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Even if that's not convincing, we have roughly the same volume of evidence in DNA. Not only that, but the DNA and the fossils correlate to a satisfactory degree on the particular paths of evolution. The correlation of two completely different types of evidence is more than enough to promote evolution to the status of a canonical theory.
    That would be impolite, but within your rights as a practitioner of the scientific method. Any assertion that claims to completely falsify a canonical theory, and thereby to gainsay the mountain of evidence and the lack of respectable controversy that its canonical status represents, can only be classified as an extraordinary assertion. The Rule of LaPlace, one of the cornerstones of the scientific method, then tells us that this extraordinary assertion must be accompanied by extraordinary evidence before we are obliged to treat it with respect.

    Nonetheless, in a public forum it's not such a good idea to ignore posts that promote religionism, crackpottery, or any other sort of unscientific or antiscientific nonsense. If you disagree vehemently with someone, do you really want to let everyone else hear ONLY his side of the argument?
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2009
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  3. Saquist Banned Banned

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    Of course for fear of such perspectives from spreading.
    But fear is an emotion. Should emotion have such power over action?

    You answered my question sufficiently, Fragglerocker.
    I have frequently found that fear and reason often do not make for good partners.
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    This is an atypical microcosm of society; I'm not talking about adults. The average age of our members is something like sixteen. Many kids come here to learn. If they read something stupid here and no one rebuts it, they'll probably think it's reasonable because after all this website has the word Science in its title. We have an obligation to them.
     
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  7. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting statistic (in bold). Probably correct, but how did you arrive at it?
    Certainly the number of posts increases during school holidays.

    What do you think that average age given by total number of posts on sciforums divided by age of poster would be?
    Older people post more because they have more established opinions.
    My guess would be early twenties.

    I would guess that the average age of frequent posters
    (more than 5 posts per day) is over 20.

    The most prolific posters are probably self employed, receiving sickness benefits or retired. They have the time to research news.
    These would be older still.

    The ditching of the so called Jokes thread in the cesspool is a welcome loss.
    It was a dinosaur on the site. I hated it.
    I ignored it, but it made me slightly ashamed of being a member of sciforums.
    Do you think that the contributors were old fools or young fools?

    I've opened the general question on a new thread
    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2148829#post2148829
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2009
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Last I heard was a couple of years ago, from one of the Admins. IIRC a few years before it was even younger than that. I think having Free Thoughts at the top of the TOC attracted a lot of kids.
    Well sure. But it's the ones who come to read that I'm most concerned with in this case.
    I wouldn't bet on it. Sam is in her 20s or not far beyond. We also have our share of stay-at-home moms. Young people just have more interest and energy, and they've grown up in a virtual community with their cellphones and MMORPGs.
    More of a monster-under-the-bed.

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    Fortunately I never paid much attention to it. What little I saw of it, from the rhetorical styles and other linguistic tells--to the extent that they were Americans and I could cold-read them at all--I'd guess they were 20s-40s, but that's just a guess.
     
  9. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    Conversion!

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    Fraggle, comparative fossil analysis and DNA aren't even the only two fields which support evolution and each other. Even theories as oblique as plate tectonics pile on their support. Embryology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, even psychology are all gelling around a core of evolutionary theory.

    All it would take is one layer of fossils in the wrong strata, one organism in the wrong era, one piece of bio-chemistry with no parallel anywhere else in nature, and the largest, most successful theory in the history of science would be called into question.

    No theory is more often tested and more often validated. And no other theory has an army of rabid dissenters scouring the planet for a refutation. And I can not think of a single theory in science which has remained largely intact over the past 150 years like Natural Selection. Reading Darwin today is like reading a contemporary evolutionary scholar.

    Doubting evolution and natural selection is the same as doubting science and the scientific method.
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    You're never going to "convert" an Evolution Denialist. Religionists by definition believe in the supernatural--an unobservable universe external to the natural universe, in which the laws of nature and perhaps even the "universal" rules of logic do not apply, which contains creatures, forces and other phenomena which are able to affect the behavior of the natural universe--thereby contradicting the never-falsified and consistently supported underlying premise of science that the natural universe is a closed system. This is a deliberate and conscious violation of the scientific method, specifically the Rule of Laplace which demands extraordinary evidence before an extraordinary assertion becomes respectable. It unequivocally identifies these people as anti-scientific no matter how passionately they claim otherwise with their "evidence" of carefully selected fossils and poorly-reviewed theses from third-rate universities.

    You will never convince an antiscientist of anything by presenting scientific evidence. Their cognitive skills operate on a different model. All of the mountains of evidence were merely planted here in a dishonorable act by a capricious god, in order to test their irrational faith.
    You put it somewhat more succinctly.

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  11. Saquist Banned Banned

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    Propaganda:
    Save the children from the ignorants.
    "Where reason fails then social opprobrium will do."

    "We have an obligation to them."
    An obligation, the opposite of having a choice. Not subject to reasonable exchange, Not subject to thought but a duty- action only, a dictated predetermined response "for the purpose of training-conditioning."

    Previously, Fragglerocker, I would say that the purpose (not the obligation) of science was to teach.) This forum has shown differently. You support science as a....social caste system?

    YES, conversion, indeed. Thank you swivel.

    I aprrove of the word usage here. "support" as opposed to proved. Nothing proves evolution. As in a system of fact finding and discovery such as a court system, evidence which supports one theory can support another but note only definitive evidence, that which is a direct link, proves innocence or clinches a conviction.

    This is where theory and reality diverge. From what you can prove away from the theoretical. Thus it is accurate to say that there is much support for evolution but no proof for the longer building of adaptation.



    Evolutionist-Uniformitarianist-Appologist
    The suffix -ist is used to denote a person who either practices something or a person who is concerned with something or a person who holds certain principles, doctrines, etc.

    Grandstanding.
    But also accurate.


    This exemplifies the realm of perception, an inaccurate perception. "Deliberate"- is perception, and irrelevant. The "violation" of the scientific method is perception. The non-compliance to the method is the logical description of the nature of all things that exist beyond the boundaries of the physical universe. Cause and effect are propperties of matter and energy. Anything extraneous will be subject to adjectives such as indefinite, infiinite and paradoxial. This includes any and all attempts to define the creation of the universe in anyway.

    By the flawed definition offered, Science has attempted to "violate" the scientific method by attempting to define what is beyond cause and effect. In reality scientist have merely stepped beyond their "jurisdiction."

    With no causal nature, observation is inexplicably handicapped.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2009
  12. wizard Registered Senior Member

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    saquist, you need to stop wanting to stay ignorant, and listen to the facts. you describe common descent as a weak idea because it can't be proved. nothing can be proved. but there are mounds of evidence that are consistent with the idea. that is much more than anything that is in line with your religion (zero). stop posting your bullshit if you don't want to learn.

    you disagree with "forcing" kids to embrace science and its findings, but you aren't against early brainwash of made-up fairy tales? how hypocritical
     
  13. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Welcome to mankind, it's almost a synonym.
     
  14. Saquist Banned Banned

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    Fairy-tales is perception. Perception in this discussion is irrelevent. Unfortuantly that makes all the arguments you've put forth thus far completely irrelevant.

    I have never endorsed brainwashing, you are speaking from blinding ignorance. Your knowledge is quite insufficient to makes such a determination. (forgive me I realize that may come off as insulting but this would seem to be the level of discussion you understand and prefer.)

    Whether that was directed at me or in general, I am forced to agree with the statement.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2009
  15. Saquist Banned Banned

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    FYI

    Fragglerocker was somewhat justificed to call the universe a closed system. However we do not know how the theoretical virtual particles that Paul Dirac postulated would come about that have been quite accepted in physics and justifies quintessence.

    Is the universe a closed system?
    Einstein found he was wrong to call the universe closed but found that it is in fact an open universe constantly expanding. These terms "closed universe" and "closed system" do not exactly correspond with each other.

    What Fragglerocker didn't tell you is that even a closed system is capable of accepting energy from an external source. He may have a preconception that this universe we occupy is an "isolated system" incapable of any reception of matter or energy but then again thise are natural science terms juxtaposing with the terminology of quantum physics. The astrophysist here is justified with telling the biologist..."stay in your field".

    In biology none of these systems are subject to strict truism. As enviroments they all are capable of some exchange at a particular point in time however limited.
     
  16. wizard Registered Senior Member

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    this doesn't even make sense.

    so you do not endorse the spread of (your) religion? i find that pretty unbelievable.
     
  17. Saquist Banned Banned

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    It means your approach in this discussion has been grossly irrelevant.
    Stick with the facts instead of your interpretations of them.

    I do not endorse brainwashing.
     
  18. swivel Sci-Fi Author Valued Senior Member

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    With more evidence than any other theory in history, what does the Christian counter with? Where is the evidence for creation? Or even for the existence of a historical Jesus?

    Saquist, stop pretending that this is about "proof" or "science". Stop using the word "theory" as if it means "hypothesis". You are emotionally wed to an idea with zero evidence and against one that has overwhelming evidence. At least make your appeal to faith, and stop using the language of science while perverting its methods.
     
  19. Saquist Banned Banned

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    Your post was nothing more than Confidence Grandstanding.

    You are making assumptions from which you can not possibly have knoweldge of. If you can not relate your position from knowledge in a scinetific fashion, you can not hope to communicate correctly with my position. By offering only frank and objective information, as opposed to righteous indignation, you may actually come to some sort of understanding. But if no understanding is your objective then your course is straight true.
     
  20. wizard Registered Senior Member

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    it's not my fault you're not intelligent enough to understand that lots of small changes can add up to an overall large change. you're just playing with words when you say "micro" and "macro" evolution

    lol... a theist who doesn't endorse brainwashing. nice try.
     
  21. Saquist Banned Banned

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    I have accused you of nothing but being irrelevant.
    You've offered no proof over your claim. Word play is unnecessary. If you cannot be accurate, why are you here?

    Is your contempt supposed to be some sort of valid argument?
    Perhaps you should trying using the word correctly.
     
  22. wizard Registered Senior Member

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    there is no "proof." it's logic. learn it.

    yeah, it really is. so stop doing it.
     
  23. Saquist Banned Banned

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    There is no proof of evolution? Yes I would agree with that. but as some have shown it is indeed a some what supported theory.

    By evading the statement is it your hope to appear smarter? Do you think sparing is the right way to resolve problems?
    Are you saying you don't like using words correctly?
     
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