Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #15 on: 2007-07-11 17:22:48 »
[Hermit] "Hypothetical" ie an hypothesis.
[Bass] No, hypathetical ie a scenario based on "what ifs". Not a hypothesis that I intend to prove. If they meant exactly the same thing, there would be no need for them both. Ask any linguist that.
[Hermit aka A Cunning Linguist] Hypothesis, n. Hypothetical, a. Different parts of speech. Same root. Same meaning. Get a dictionary.
[Bass] But if your going to use Ockhams razor here on me to try and validate yourself I don't think it will work.
[Hermit] I don't think you have said anything meaningful to respond to here.
[Bass]Ockhams razor basically says that the simplist solution always tends to be the right one, making as few assumptions as possible.
[Hermit] No, classically it has been understood as "do not multiply entities unnecessarily." i.e. Hypotheses should be simpler than the issue they address and should not introduce unnecessary complexities. Today we tend to use Einstein's articulation, "Things should be as simple as possible but no simpler."
[Hermit] Example in point, Bass reports an imaginary (i.e. not based on the interpretation of all available tangible evidence) concept, "Ancient Egypt had electric light bulbs." This is put in perspective by Hermit and shown to be untenable in the light of the technologies needed to produce light bulbs. Bass then suggests that the light-bulbs came from aliens (new entities for whom no evidence is present) and was another new entity, an easy to make technology (for which no evidence is present and for which no method is disclosed) all trace of which has since apparently been lost. As there is no evidence for this loss, it too is an additional entity. So in his attempt to support his initial assertion, Bass introduces two new assertions, neither of which are grounded in facts, both of which introduce unnecessary complexities. The simpler hypothesis is that the Egyptians used oil lamps for which huge amounts of evidence does exist.
[Bass] But if you use that then I could just as easily retort that some supernatural alien (god, deity, ect) simply just created man instead of the complexity of evolution. That would apply to ockhams razor more wouldn't it?
[Hermit] No. Evolution is an observed process with a plethora of substantial evidence supporting it. The strong theory of evolution, that a process of selection based on fitness for a given environment determining the characteristics of subsequent iterations is completely sufficient to explain the diversity we observe, explains why evolution works. Modern genetic science explains how the theory of evolution works and substantiates the theory of evolution, i.e. has shown that the theory of evolution made subsequently validated predictions about how the process of evolution operates. The theory of evolution has been used to implement powerful software constructs in feedback and artificial intelligence systems. So we can say that evolution has powerful explicative and predictive capabilities, and as it posits a simple mechanism which governs many complex adaptations, that it is a compellingly general theory covering a wide array of fields some of which were not even thought of when the theory was first introduced.
[Hermit] Introducing "supernatural aliens" introduces at least two new and completely unnecessary concepts: "supernatural"; and "aliens" (multiplies entities), neither of which explains or predicts anything (unnecessarily). The idea of "creation" is yet another concept without explanatory power, which would leave the question of why we share 98% + of our DNA with our simian cousins, along with our behaviours, and that the further up our and their family tree we go the closer to one another we become. The idea of "creation" (which is again an idea without evidence proposed by people without a clue) is utterly unable to address why this would be so.
[Bass] Supporting my bet is that even evolution is hypothetical. If Man evolved from Primates, then why are Primates still around? Selective evolution and other forms are all theories and hypotheses. No one will know for sure, probably ever, until some sort of time machine is invented and brings back proof of either. Neither group can really disprove the other, or any group in between, except maybe those who lack any rationality at all, of course. (cough, radical conspiracy theorists, cough cough
[Hermit] This is raving. It is somebody without sufficient knowledge in the field making assertions which are incorrect (e.g. man evolved from primates) about theories (natural selection) designed to explain observations, (the distribution of alleles alters over time) which have been repeatedly shown to have powerful explicative and predictive capabilities, and contrasting this to assertions without evidence that explain nothing and fail Ockham's razor asserting that because he cannot tell the difference that there is no difference in quality between these ideas....
[Bass] So I could just simply (Ockham) say that man has not lived millions of years yet (and what evidence is there that he even has?), so everything before then is faded until a time of understanding is upon us; When will this understanding come about? Probably when man is no more.
[Hermit] Genetics and fossil evidence show that we have a family tree stretching back to at least 4.8 million years BP. The fact that you claim that you cannot understand the evidence does not mean that the evidence is not compelling, it does however speak convincingly about your comprehension and intellectual capacity and your willingness and indeed apparent desire to introduce unnecessary mysteries into simple natural processes while refusing to acknowledge it demonstrates that not only do you not currently comprehend Ockham's razor but that you may not have the intellectual integrity and capacity needed to correct this plurality of deficiencies.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
In answer to Teh and for the state of the argument(s),
What are we striving for here !? To wipe the earth from the map of the universe !? We're already doing a fine job of that. Global warming; a possible new Ice- Age; the nuclear hazzards; overpopulation; environmental ruins, the bombs and their destructive power, generate rubble_ ruins upon ruins, a total collapse.
But, if we are to believe theories that the stories about Gods have some truth within_ to be proved right_ than we shouldn't forget Erich von Daniken, his book ' Were the Gods Cosmonauts' knocked you out cold, but his theories remained far from the truth ! Finally putting it all to the test, his point that the large pictural figures found in the remote bareness of Peru were in fact ' landing sites' or ' welcome postcards ' disappeared for good when found he himself drew the lines !!! And than came the confirmation of his fraud more and more frequent. The situation was growing unbearable and finally catched up with him. The shame felt by those who believed and already reached for the distant stars, held within the fears for those early navigators.
Von Daniken expanded our knowledge about space and in a sense his theories completely grasped our ideas and opinions of what Gods were to be like. That something immense he took away with his treatery. But was his reasoning completely unsound or did he failed to proove it !? There is no evidence in either sense_ if ever our planet was visited by aliens_ they left nothing behind and in that respect all the work and all the drawings of helmed figures done by early man sprouted then from fantasy, a possible glimpe of what should be. If on the other hand, aliens did visited us_ and thus Von daniken was right in his assumptins, what went wrong !?
Who were they and did they visit us on a more regular basis !? Questions without answers ! Anyway, we lost the battle. What we"re looking for, ' the forgotten song of mans posterity ' is maybe hold within the forms of religion and belief, but the idea is too vague to link moral/ ethical/ scientifc etc. values to it.
IMO, I think any religion or belief is false in its own respect ! There is no absolute truth in any part of any dictionary whatsoever ! We are prisoners of gravity and of the evil star ( we call it the sun, in homage to the figure of the Father, yet science calls it a yellow Dwarf).
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #17 on: 2007-08-28 15:29:21 »
On the subject of evolution...
It seems, Hermit, that you don't (fully) understand the theory of evolution yourself, and you're trying to disprove me?... and you don't even understand what I was even saying about it...
Evolution is a change in physical and genetic makeup to adapt to the surrounding's and survive. In some circumstances, yes it happened, but in the case of Humans, if the previous form exists and still exists over those millions of years, then it was unnecessary to change at all. Evolution only happens when there's a need to survive from extinction.
If it was a case of Viral Evolution, then, again, the previous form would still not exist, as it would be fazed out over the millions of years of exposure to viral changes occurring in the environment.
That's why it's a theory, and will forever be a theory because it is inconclusive. In order for it to become a scientific law, it would have to be true for all it refers to with 100% evidential proof of how it happened. Because there are so many holes in the theory, it will never happen.
An example would be the theory of relativity, because there are so many different undiscovered radioactive elements, it can't become a true scientific law. On the other end would be the law of gravity and the law of inertia. They apply to all and are proven in all circumstances.
No rational scientist, researcher, or doctor with an understanding of that theory alive or dead would argue that point, otherwise.
Lastly, you might not think 2% difference in DNA is much, but in reality it's means a drastic change in the protein bridges upwards in the 10,000. I'm not sure about you but about 10,000 differences, to me, is rather significant.
In turn both religion and scientific ideals are made up of theories to fill in the blank holes in the world timeline. In the basic sense, they're really just the same thing, a big mass of theories.
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #18 on: 2007-08-28 17:09:58 »
I just wanted to note that I am aware the above is completely off topic, but seeing as this thread is, well, mine I suppose, it still makes a completly vaild point.
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #19 on: 2007-08-29 05:36:30 »
I chose not to respond because you are so far out of the ballpark that there are no common points from which to work. As for imagining that I don't understand evolution, coming from a source such as yourself, that is very rich.
Change in alleles over time (evolution the fact) happens all the time. Most of these changes are either fatal or insignificant. If fatal they are not perpetuated. If not fatal, but insignificant, they are not selected for. It is only when they are not fatal and not insignificant that they might be selected for. Even then the change might as well be regressive as progressive. The allele doesn't care. And one day's adaption is the next days extinction. The reverse is not true. Nature is brutal, wasteful and ever changing. Especially in rapidly evolving species such as ourselves.
Examining mitochondral RNA we are able to follow genetic change, generation to generation, in the female line as mitochondral RNA is passed unchanged except for mutation, transposition and other coding errors or through splicing of foreign RNA. And we know that this happens a lot and that it allows us to track genetic signatures across populations.
Next the scientific method operates only on hypothesis and theory, there is no such thing as a "scientific law." All scientific conclusions are provisional. A theory may be a weak theory (poorly supported, close to a guess, not very general, not very predictive) or a strong theory (well supported, often unsuccessfully challenged, having endured, having wide applicability and making useful (measurable) predictions. Examples abound. Gravity, ohms law, relativity, Darwinian evolution). In the past some strong theories were referred to as laws (e.g Ohms Law, Law of Gravitation), but despite the nomenclature, they nonetheless remain theories.
Your faith in the difference between theory and practice then leads you off on a path into the weird and wonderful, so far from any scientific comprehension that rebutting it would require an entire reeducation campaign -some of them apparently based on mistaking homophones (relativity vs radioactivity) for scientific consanguinity, and others for mistaking completely unjustified historical certainty (Newton) for something foundational. Even the poets know better.
"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; God said 'Let Newton be' and all was light." [Pope's epitaph for Isaac Newton]
"It did not last: the devil, shouting 'Ho. Let Einstein be' restored the status quo." [John Collings Squire]
As for your assertion, "No rational scientist, researcher, or doctor with an understanding of that theory alive or dead would argue that point, otherwise," I am these and I do. Which is sufficient rebuttal in and of itself.
I could discuss your ideas on statistical significance and based on your showing to date you won't comprehend a word of it. Suffice to say, I don't think you know where your "2%" comes from, or what you are trying to convey by it.
In conclusion, it is not possible to hold a rational discussion with anyone who can assert "In turn both religion and scientific ideals are made up of theories to fill in the blank holes in the world timeline. In the basic sense, they're really just the same thing, a big mass of theories." and mean what they are saying. Granting that you are striving for honesty, this statement leaves you condemned as mentally incompetent.
Perhaps you should read [ Church of Virus BBS, General, FAQ, FAQ: The Scientific Method, Hermit, 1999, 2002-03-05 ] and cogitate on exactly how religious theories follow the scientific method. Which is what is required for a scientific hypothesis to gain standing. A realization that the word "theory" is opaque to you might follow - and this would be no small improvement over your current confusion.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #20 on: 2007-08-29 14:28:51 »
Quote:
and you don't even understand what I was even saying about it...
oh dear....
Hermit said it before, I'll rephrase.... we are not mind readers, we do not have telepathic abilities, we can only interpret what you post.
We do not know from what obscure mindset you write your words from, nor do we share your map of reality that seems to be yours alone (if you want to talk about solipsism).
If you wish us to "understand" what you really intend to say rather than what you actually say, then say what you actually mean.
Hermit has yet again responded in a masterful concise fashion, before i even had a chance to read your post.
Yet again, Bass, you display a level of comprehension, of yet another subject, to be less than rudimentary.
I would usually not respond in such a way, but your posts are quickly becoming very tedious and tiring to myself (not sure about others).
If you wish to discuss against a theorem, then it is worth performing some thorough research first, possibly specifying some references for your argument. As an example, Iolo does a good job of this when discussing in The Flipping Point thread. Although I remain unconvinced of his side of the argument :-p . At the very least he presents something to us that we can read and seriously consider)
Structuring and organising your argument before you post to the BBS may also help us understand you better, as well as giving you the chance to revise your post.
My advice, stop trying to score cheap points (which you aren't scoring) or cherry pick what you read to backup your missunderstanding and start to learn for the sake of expanding your mind and bettering your understanding of what goes on around you.
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #21 on: 2007-09-23 19:27:50 »
Okay then riddle me this (since this is already on the topic of evolution anyway): Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #22 on: 2007-09-23 23:42:06 »
Quote:
[Bass]Okay then riddle me this (since this is already on the topic of evolution anyway): Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Morph was first brought to the masses by the Arch Angel Tony Hart
please join me in prayer to Aardman. The sermon will commence a femtosecond before the end of time, we shall be holding congress at Milliway's Restaurant. See you all there.
[Bass]Okay then riddle me this (since this is already on the topic of evolution anyway): Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Morph was first brought to the masses by the Arch Angel Tony Hart
please join me in prayer to Aardman. The sermon will commence a femtosecond before the end of time, we shall be holding congress at Milliway's Restaurant. See you all there.
(coffee at 04:44 hrs, no good I tell yeah!!!)
WTF? Thats not evolution...
Refer to what I said all over again:
Riddle me this: Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #24 on: 2007-09-24 02:33:11 »
Posted by: Bass Posted on: 2007-09-23 17:27:50 Okay then riddle me this (since this is already on the topic of evolution anyway): Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Name as phylum Common name Current consensus Craniata — Subgroup of phylum Chordata; perhaps synonymous with Vertebrata. Cephalochordata Lancelets Subphylum of phylum Chordata Cephalorhyncha — Superphylum Scalidophora. Enterepneusta Acorn worms Class of phylum Hemichordata. Pentastomida Tongue worms Subclass of Maxillopoda of phylum Arthropoda. Pogonophora Beard worms Part of family Siboglinidae of phylum Annelida. Pterobranchia — Class of phylum Hemichordata. Symplasma Glass sponges Class Hexactinellida of phylum Porifera. Urochordata Tunicates Subphylum of phylum Chordata. Vestimentifera Vent worms Part of family Siboglinidae of phylum Annelida.
[Blunderov] (Taxonomy is essentially an entirely arbitrary system of classification devised by humans. Other taxonomies are less complicated. Edible/non-edible. Easy-to-chase-and-catch/Not easy-to-chase-and-catch. And so on. Taxonomy depends on what you are interested in.)
"Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life?" Well, duh. How did we get here otherwise?
"Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?"
Sounds like the old creationist ploy of "Why don't (say) chickens evolve into (say) cats?
Dear Bass: they do! If you watch really closely for a few million generations it will happen right before your eyes - given the correct environmental stimuli. I myself observed dogs transforming into bears several million years ago but I was lucky. I almost blinked at the wrong time and nearly missed the whole thing.
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #25 on: 2007-09-24 05:45:34 »
Dear Blunderov
Your eyes were fooling you. Those were not dogs but long legged seals. The evidence is all over the mitochondrial RNA.
Yours very kindly
Hermit
PS When Bass supplies me with a planet (between 10^48 and 10^51 atoms) with a hot sun (high energy) and little shielding (no ozone layer), and a few million years of labtime (life seems to have arisen within 200 million years of the earliest rock formation), I will personally show him life evolving ex nihilo from chemical soup. While we wait, he can read-up on Stanley L. Miller's experiments at the University of Chicago in the early 1950s, where he mimicked the ocean/atmosphere system of early Earth, placing water and ammonia into a flask with hydrogen and methane gas [10^44 fewer atoms than the original Earth scale experiment] , boiled the solution, and sparked the contents with an electrical discharge to simulate lightning. Several days later [73 * 10^9 times less time then the original Earth scale experiment), the solution turned dark brown. Miller analyzed the solution and detected the presence of at least two amino acids. Unconvinced by the results, Miller repeated the experiment and got at least five amino acids—and in large amounts. These results were repeated and reported in Science 1953, 117, 528; and in J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1955, 77, 2351. If amino acids were produced in this way, then we have the raw materials for the development of RNA. Most organic chemistry students have performed experiments folding lipids with heat, allowing for the development of a membrane from back folding lipids that would have protected the earliest protocells from their nasty environments.
And of course, where we have identified 22 Amino acids on earth, we have identified over 90 in meteorites, so even without the Miller-Urey mechanism, we know that there was a ready source of both lipids and amino acids in the early anoxic environment required to instantiate the process which has resulted in too many humans too ill-educated to even partially comprehend their genesis.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
To the untrained eye, the tiny, misshapen, fatty blobs on Giovanni Murtas’s microscope slide would not look very impressive. But when the Italian scientist saw their telltale green fluorescent glint he knew he had achieved something remarkable - and taken a vital step towards building a living organism from scratch.
The green glow was proof that his fragile creations were capable of making their own proteins, a crucial ability of all living things and vital for carrying out all other aspects of life."
[Blunderov] During the course of my late stepfather's liver disease his system would sometimes become overwhelmed with ammonia. When this happened he would become quite deranged and say the most wounding things to, amongst others, my mother who became very upset. "How could he say such terrible things?" she complained. Her doctor, a wonderful Chinese man, solved her problem with one simple sentence.
Okay then riddle me this (since this is already on the topic of evolution anyway): Has anything inanimate ever combined by accident and formed life? Has anything actually transformed and transcended, by means of evolution, phylums or families of taxonomy?
Call it scientific interest.
As far as original genesis of life, Stuart Kauffman pointed to autocatalytic sets.
An autocatalytic set is a collection of entities, each of which can be created catalytically by other entities within the set, such that as a whole, the set is able to catalyze its own production. In this way the set as a whole is said to be autocatalytic. Autocatalytic sets were originally and most concretely defined in terms of molecular entities, but have more recently been metaphorically extended to the study of systems in sociology and economics. . . .
. . . Several models of the origin of life are based on the notion that life may have arisen through the development of an initial molecular autocatalytic set which evolved over time. Most of these models which have emerged from the studies of complex systems predict that life arose not from a molecule with any particular trait (such as self-replicating RNA) but from an autocatalytic set.
Modern life has the traits of an autocatalytic set, since no particular molecule, nor any class of molecules, is able to replicate itself. There are several models based on autocatalytic sets, including those of Stuart Kauffman and others . . . .
See URL above for complete entry and in-depth mathematical explanations.
Re:Religion: Perhaps not so false after all, just interpreted wrong.
« Reply #28 on: 2007-10-09 07:45:17 »
Hey everyone, I just recently came up with a thought (not much and fairly simple) that might help support why I don't see religion as being all bad (yes, I've been.... well thinking). Right, so while science and the technology it includes was one of the bigger factors behind how modern societies are today, religion has also played a major role. Look at our systems of law for example. Most western countries hold laws which pretty much fit with the ideals religion tries to instill. Religion teaches that we shouldn't kill, the law includes that too. It teaches that we should not steal, there are laws against stealing in most parts. And it teaches us about the wrongness of things such as adultery which while not illegal, is seen by most in a rather negative light.
Mankind would not be the mankind we know without both science AND religion. Regardless of whether or not God exists, I feel it's very important to be aware of this.
Religion helps to give people hope instead of sending them into chaos, but you can't help but feel they are holding us back. Every major issue has to go through this religious insanity for years before it is accepted into the mainstream. Even interracial marriage is still taboo. But any way.
Nothing can be proven if you think about it carefully. After all, all we can do is disprove things and find the most feasible answer. It seems the most feasible thing that water is composed of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule, but it's not proven. It's just that water was examined long enough for us to assume this.
Sure religious people could be right hypocritical bastards at times, but then it wasn't just religious people fighting in wars long ago. It was anyone who had any sort of disagreement with someone else. Back when there was no pen, the sword was quite mighty indeed.
Hey everyone, I just recently came up with a thought (not much and fairly simple) that might help support why I don't see religion as being all bad (yes, I've been.... well thinking). Right, so while science and the technology it includes was one of the bigger factors behind how modern societies are today, religion has also played a major role. Look at our systems of law for example. Most western countries hold laws which pretty much fit with the ideals religion tries to instill. Religion teaches that we shouldn't kill, the law includes that too. It teaches that we should not steal, there are laws against stealing in most parts. And it teaches us about the wrongness of things such as adultery which while not illegal, is seen by most in a rather negative light.
Sure religion isn't all bad, in the same sense that a serial killer who gives to charity isn't all bad. The main problem is the inconsistency. God commands us to not kill or steal, yet the holy books are filled with stories of God commanding his people to kill others and take their stuff. As a source of morality religion fails due to this inconsistency. You can justify practically any sort of behavior by quoting the right scripture.
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