Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

[Slap Shot]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Is he subconciously suggesting he wants to perform fellatio?

Generally speaking, the South has stronger economies than the North.

Waaa?

I'm just offering proof that there are lots of reputable people out there that question evolution....

Without actually providing evidence that, "lots of reputable people [of science] out there question evolution".

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Science is more than willing to look at its short comings, its fallacies, and its flat out wrongness. How do you still stand behind a text that has gaping holes in it? If science is willing to change, why can't religion? Why is it science that is always wrong and all these religious beliefs on creation (which evolution doesn't even touch) and/or intelligent design right? When you start looking at the bible with a logical and scientific eye, I'll start looking at evolution with with a religious bent and still come up with the same answer....stuff slowly changes over time....but will you come to the same conclusions?

The value -- functionalists would say the purpose -- of religions is not to change. They exist to prevent the "turtles all the way down" problem. The world of scientific reality is like a dictionary: everything is defined in terms of other things defined in terms of other things. There is an infinite regress and you can't say anything is the "beginning" or the "rock" that the rest is built on. A lot of people (by a rough count, 90% of us) do not like this, and want to have an unchanging "first cause" around which the rest of reality is organized. That's where religions come from, and while all individual religions come and go the concept of religion has and will always be with us because there will always be things that are "not in the dictionary." Philosophies are provisional explanations of observations for words not yet in the dictionary ("thunder is Thor's hammer," "man has one fewer rib because of the creation of Eve") and also meta-statements like "why are there words at all?" or "what is a word?" Religions are special kinds of normative meta-statements having to do with moral authority like "which words are good and which are bad, and who says so?" Note that no matter how exhaustive the dictionary becomes, it will never answer these questions.

Science enlarges the dictionary, and each time it does the religious definition of the terms that are added is either reinterpreted as metaphor (a perfectly acceptable and highly human and poetic place for them to live) or simply becomes irrelevant. That need not shake the religion as a whole, as long as its texts haven't supplanted the faith itself. Every statement in the Bible with a scientifically-verifiable truth value could be proven false and that still need not tarnish the theological validity of Christianity. But if you are a Biblical literalist, you have missed the entire point and substituted the map for the territory, and that leaves you having to make ridiculous defenses of pre-scientific (and BTW pre-Christian: the Bible accounts of creation are a hodgepodge of camel tent tall tales swiped from the Sumerians) folkfloric explanations for things that have long since been explained better not merely by science but by simple observation. That's what the 2nd Commandment was supposed to protect against.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

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Interesting speech by Bernie

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Let's alienate everybody! Sanders / Paul 2012!

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Theory is different than fact, a fact lost to most on this thread. Duh.

Did you skip science class entirely? No wonder the rest of the world is kicking America's ***.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Definition of theory:

THE'ORY, n. [L. theoria; Gr. to see or contemplate.]

1. Speculation; a doctrine or scheme of things, which terminates in speculation or contemplation, without a view to practice. It is here taken in an unfavorable sense, as implying something visionary.

2. An exposition of the general principles of any science; as the theory of music.

3. The science distinguished from the art; as the theory and practice of medicine.

4. The philosophical explanation of phenomena, either physical or moral; as Lavoisier's theory of combustion; Smith's theory of moral sentiments.
Theory is distinguished from hypothesis thus; a theory is founded on inferences drawn from principles which have been established on independent evidence; a hypothesis is a proposition assumed to account for certain phenomena, and has no other evidence of its truth, than that it affords a satisfactory explanation of those phenomena.


Definition of fact:

FACT, n. [L. factum, from facio, to make or do.]


1. Any thing done, or that comes to pass; an act; a deed; an effect produced or achieved; an event. Witnesses are introduced into court to prove a fact. Facts are stubborn things. To deny a fact knowingly is to lie.

2. Reality; truth; as, in fact. So we say, indeed.


Now, continue your rants against anything that doesn't fit your narrow conceptions of reality. You're right Scooby, this thread demonstrates why America is getting clobbered in this world.

I'm done with this discussion. If any of you can conduct yourselves with a modicum of civility, I'd be happy to reengage.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

You're using the wrong definition.

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

You obviously know nothing about science. Hell, I don't even know anything compared to some around here but I least know that what you are talking about is wrong.

Sure, take your ball and go home. Again, where are your scientists theories?

 

[blockski]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Again, Bob - if you want to discredit science, then you should use the actual principles of science:

In the sciences, a scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.

The defining characteristic of a scientific theory is that it makes falsifiable or testable predictions. The relevance and specificity of those predictions determine how potentially useful the theory is. A would-be theory that makes no predictions that can be observed is not a useful theory. Predictions not sufficiently specific to be tested are similarly not useful. In both cases, the term "theory" is hardly applicable.

This is the essence of science. Scientific knowledge is specifically structured so you can prove it wrong if the evidence does not support the theory or the hypothesis.

You haven't produced any evidence of those false conclusions. You've got a nice list of people who say they disagree - but I'm not interested in people's names, I'm interested in the basis of their disagreement.

By the way, I've found this entire discussion quite civil and rational. Logic can seem cold and heartless, but it is most certainly rational.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

There is an infinite regress and you can't say anything is the "beginning" or the "rock" that the rest is built on. A lot of people (by a rough count, 90% of us) do not like this, and want to have an unchanging "first cause" around which the rest of reality is organized.

EΨ = ĤΨ doesn't do it for you?

(or, if you prefer, iħ d/dt Ψ = ĤΨ)

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

I'm done with this discussion. If any of you can conduct yourselves with a modicum of civility, I'd be happy to reengage.

What do you want us to say Bob, that it's ok to treat intelligent design on the same level as evolution? It's not - ID is a religious question, not a scientific one.
If you want us to say evolution isn't sound science, well we can't do that either because it IS sound science as we know it today.
You want us to leave open the possibility that it could be wrong? Then fine, there is an infintessimally small chance that the last 150 years of testing since Darwin first put forth the theory has nevertheless taken us down the wrong path. That chance is about as likely as Einstein's theory of relativity being wrong or Newtonian physics being discredited, but if that's what you're asking for, whatever. The odds of me winning powerball next week are probably higher, but whatever.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

You haven't produced any evidence of those false conclusions. You've got a nice list of people who say they disagree - but I'm not interested in people's names, I'm interested in the basis of their disagreement.

I took a second look at that; they don't even say they disagree (necessarily). They say they're skeptics. From a technical sense, all scientists should be skeptics of everything in as much as they need to have open eyes whenever they perform a test.

Being skeptical in science doesn't have the negative connotation is does in the real world.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

EΨ = ĤΨ doesn't do it for you?

(or, if you prefer, iħ d/dt Ψ = ĤΨ)

I had to look it up. It is breaktakingly depressing to me that I used to actually understand this. My brain has been dying for 25 years since then, I guess.

 

[Rimbaud]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Now, continue your rants against anything that doesn't fit your narrow conceptions of reality.

I'm done with this discussion. If any of you can conduct yourselves with a modicum of civility, I'd be happy to reengage.

Bob, why haven't you answered any of my questions. I proposed honest questions the same way you did, yet you just waited for Scooby to be Scooby and then went about ignoring everyone else who would put up a legitimate question to you. I clicked on all your links to lists of people that don't think evolution is sound, I could have sent a list that was many, many times bigger than yours of religious clergy that support modern science's views on evolution AND religious faith but I figured those people weren't credible in your world since they disagree with you.

Why are your experts sound (the one's that just say 'i'm not sure about that' but posit no alternative) and my experts (the ones in the field, doing the science, making the observations, and discovering how things work) wrong?

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

The value -- functionalists would say the purpose -- of religions is not to change. They exist to prevent the "turtles all the way down" problem. The world of scientific reality is like a dictionary: everything is defined in terms of other things defined in terms of other things. There is an infinite regress and you can't say anything is the "beginning" or the "rock" that the rest is built on.

Interesting post with some misconception.

Religion is not why religions 'don't change'. Its due to the people that have always been attracted to religion. All religions frequently attract those who are conservative (admiration of the past), who see only in black and white, and who like to have their actions justified (such as greedy popes or tyrants). In this case, the 'religion', Christianity, cares little for whether evolution happened or not. Its pretty much about acceptance, tolerance and love. In Christianity, the religion itself is not the instigator...but rather the real value here.

It appears you know this as you indirectly alluded to in your second paragraph.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

I had to look it up. It is breaktakingly depressing to me that I used to actually understand this. My brain has been dying for 25 years since then, I guess.

Its called use it or lose it

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Its called use it or lose it

I have clearly lost it.

But we knew that.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

The talking point is about the South's "pro-business" climate, which is a fancy way of saying "We pay our employees less."

They have a ways to go to be competitive, however.

 

[Foxton]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Just to get away from laughing at Bob, let's all laugh at Glenn Beck.

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[DaveStPaul]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Let's alienate everybody! Sanders / Paul 2012!

Berke Breathed wants his royalties.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Anti-Newtonian "physicists" as proof that our entire understanding of physics is just a myth, too. I'm sure there's some out there.

Nah, I'd rather just refer to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics