The "science" of Miracles

You're just recycling arguments you raised previously that have already been rebutted. You need responses to the rebuttals, not repeats of the original arguments.From your Message 451 to Phat: Another recycled argument.--Percy

My rebuttals have not been addressed, because all you did was repeat your original arguments. Again and again. Only because one hasn't happened yet. "But what if...," as Tangle asks. This is just a thin disguise for yet another repeat of your Catholic Church Miracle of the Sun argument. If they have no scientific evidence for their miracles, then what is the relevance to science?Regarding your Message 457 to NoNukes: And here we have yet another repeat of your miracles of the Catholic Church argument. If you had truly addressed the rebuttals as you earlier claimed, doesn't honesty require mentioning the rebuttals you claim to have addressed, and the ways you have addressed them? How can the discussion advance if you're stuck repeating your original arguments? This is another of your arguments whose rebuttal you have not "addressed" because you've merely repeated your original argument unchanged, emptily declaring over and over that they're not inexplicable. That's a broken record that addresses nothing. In order to argue that the provided examples of miracles are not inexplicable you're going to have to do something you're obviously loathe to do: discuss them. All human endeavor is subjective, including science, which attempts to reduce subjectivity through replication and consensus."Miracle" is just a word, one you obviously prefer science wouldn't use, but what term science actually employs is not a key issue. The more important issue is how would science would react were it to encounter phenomena that fulfilled all the criteria for a miracle, whether they called it that or not.I came across an interesting essay over at The Secular Web: Science and Miracles by Theodore Drange. He uses a different definition of miracle than I've been advocating, but at heart it isn't really all that different, and it is pretty close to a definition offered by others here: An event that violates a law of nature.The essay wrestles with some of the same issues raised here. He deals with the issue of inexplicability and discusses whether it can only be inexplicable at present or needs to be inexplicable forever. He discusses how science might consider one possible miracle (walking on water), but in his conclusions never considers the question, "What if it really happened?" At one point he approaches our conclusion that miracles are of necessity local, but in the end never states that as a conclusion.He includes a list of possible scientific attitudes, something you insisted that you know what it would be. His possibilities are:

1. No scientist could ever believe in miracles under any circumstances.
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2. Scientists could believe in miracles, but not as scientists.
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3. Scientists could believe in miracles, even as scientists, but not when they are engaged in scientific research on the specific area in which the alleged miracles occur.
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4. Scientists, as scientists, could believe in miracles, even when engaged in scientific research on the specific area in which the alleged miracles occur, but such belief could not be regarded to be a result of the research or a scientific finding.

Missing from his list is the one I think Tangle and I are pushing:

5. Scientists working as scientists could believe in miracles and could engage in scientific research of alleged miracles to the extent that they create evidence amenable to scientific analysis.

Drange concluded (B) is the correct position, but he does discuss the position Tangle and I have advocated, calling it the pragmatic position that doesn't appeal to him. In any case, I found it an interesting essay well worth reading.--Percy

Your Bigfoot what-if contributes pretty much nothing to this discussion since it represents a false equivalence and has nothing to do with the topic. But the frying pan what-if, though intended as mockery, could actually be a miracle.So what if a frying pan suddenly jumped off the stove and onto the counter and began singing opera? And what if it happened in a science laboratory full of high speed cameras sensitive to both the visual range and wavelengths outside the visual range, and magnetometers, and mass spectrometers, and electric field measurement devices, and gravitometers, and so forth, so that a wealth of scientific evidence of the whole episode were captured. How would science react? You're repeating another of your old arguments without change, and the rebuttal hasn't changed. We're doing science here. We're not talking about something that someone just happened to see and who happened to have an opinion about whether it was a miracle or not. We're talking about scientific evidence of an event that violates known physical laws. A scientific consensus develops around that which has sufficient evidence. Should enough scientific evidence accumulate for miracles then a consensus would build around the concept of miracles (regardless of the term actually adopted within science). Sure you have, repeatedly, plenty of times, here's a partial list:

• Message 412: "If there is scientific evidence for an event, there are necessarily possible scientific explanations and by definition it is not a miracle...But scientist George doesn't call the choice a "miracle"; he just keeps looking for the why and how...We know that scientific consensus would never call something a miracle...Nothing is "inexplicable" according to science. It may be unexplained temporarily...Science is never going to conclude "insert miracle here".
• Message 417: "Tentativity in science means that even if something seems to be a miracle, we can never rule out the possibility that a natural explanation will be found. That's why scientists don't call things miracles."
• Message 419: "When they're doing science, they don't refer to miracles... Science is collective... Science stops at the evidence."
• Message 424: "Miracles are not referred to by science because miracles are religion...But science doesn't define miracles any more than it defines gods or leprechauns."
• Message 425: "If science was going to introduce new terminology for flying bridges, it would be more likely to call them "flying bridges" than to borrow religious terminology."
• Message 443: "If evidence for an event existed, scientists would examine the evidence and try to come up with an explanation. They would not declare it 'inexplicable'...What I'm disputing is your certainty (Message 266) that, "A consensus of scientists would most certainly concede they're miraculous." I think the evidence shows that they most certainly would not...I'm predicting what scientists would do based on what they have done in the past."
• Message 445: "Science develops tentative explanations pretty quickly, so they have no need to call something 'inexplicable'."
• Message 447: "You proposed a fairy tale, which is why science has no reason to deal with it...And of course, science does not call them miracles."
• Message 449: "Miracles are religion, not science."
• Message 451: "Second, science has already distanced itself from that vocabulary."
• Message 455: "You're just refusing to accept reality - scientists do not use the word 'miracle'. "
• Message 471: "In science, the subjective parts are to be avoided."

Is that the way this is going to go, you're just going to say whatever is expedient at the time, true or not? The evidence clearly says that you have repeatedly declared what science and scientists think. But the point isn't that what you're saying about what science and scientists think are wrong (some are, some aren't). The point is that you're again making another false claim about what's been said in this thread, in this case about what you yourself said. The one thing you say that I think everyone could agree with is, "I'm not a scientist at all " (Message 419). You're again returning to an original argument as if responses to it had never happened. I've said on a number of occasions that "miracle" might not be the term science adopts, that it's the concept that's important. For example, in the very message you're replying to I said: --PercyEdited by Percy, : Typos, minor grammatical improvement.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Because it wasn't miraculous like the other scenarios that have been presented. So Bigfoot turns out to be real with political aspirations, what's miraculous about that? But your frying pan "what if"? Pure miracle! You're getting repetitive again. What if no explanations are forthcoming? How would science react? More repetition. Of course it's made up. That's the nature of a "What if..." You don't say what particular examples you're referring to, but this just repeats your argument that no scientific miracle has ever been found to occur. We're asking what if an event occurred leaving behind scientific evidence that *was* inexplicable to scientists? You're repeating yourself again. The evidence is part of the "What if..." You didn't claim "to know something independently." You said you "never claimed to know what scientists think," yet it was easy to find tons of statements of you claiming knowledge of what scientists think. "What you mean we?" In the excerpts from your 12 messages you only used the word "we" twice. Where in this thread is anyone arguing that scientists would merely "insert miracle here"? It's been described many times how hard scientists would work to understand the phenomena and develop explanations. This is just another way of saying what you just said, that it's being suggested that scientists would "insert miracle here" - it's still false. And as already told to you many times, the "what ifs" describe unprecedented events, so of course there are no miraculous events in the history of science. We do understand that they *haven't* found any miracles. But what if one of the described scenarios occurred? Should we assume you'll just repeat your non-answer of, "With tentative explanations," which doesn't address the actual question posed by the scenarios? Consider yourself corrected.--Percy

The true puzzle is why you believe no one's allowed to play a game you find stupid. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Though science has not yet encountered a miracle, that does not mean it never will. You mean according to past experience, not observations, and past experience shows that while many phenomena can be understood and explained, some scientific phenomena have resisted explanation for a very long time. Why is there something instead of nothing? What explains quantum behavior? What explains entanglement? How do we unify Einsteinian and quantum physics? What is dark matter? What is dark energy?Now of course none of these questions concern miracles because they don't involve violation of known laws of nature.
Science has not as yet encountered any miracles, but what if it did encounter an event that violated known natural or scientific laws? How would science react? And again, please, don't ignore the true question being asked with non-answers like, "With tentative explanations." How many times do you have to be told this is a science thread? A lot, apparently.Look at the top of the page. See where it says "Science Forums"? That tells you that this thread is in one of the science forums. We shouldn't have to pepper the adjective "scientific" all over the place just so you remember that we're talking science here. Tangle was obviously stating that we only agree that science has found no miracles thus far.Your frequent return to old already-addressed arguments and refusal to address actual points seems purposefully obtuse.--Percy

Responding to your last two messages to me...Regarding your Message 488: By "no explanations are forthcoming" I obviously meant explanations that worked out. For example, the scientists that hauled a magnetometer and a gravimeter about a helicopter obviously had some ideas for areas to explore (which is what I think you really mean by "explanations"), but what if nothing panned out?We already discussed the Miracle of the Sun, and it doesn't support your contention. Are there any examples in the Wikipedia article on miracles that do? This is like Hicks walking back a Trump tweet, but you're seriously responding to someone noting that you're only repeating old already rebutted arguments by saying it wasn't that old rebutted argument but this other one? How many times are you just going to forget or ignore the many descriptions of how hard scientists would work to understand things. Obviously during a discussion no one's going to repeat their entire argument in every post, and you're seizing upon this with false "Aha!" moments as if what's not said in a particular post was never said in any post. Bad on you. You have to ask? "Insert miracle here" is from a comic and implies no effort was made to study the phenomenon. "No explanations are forthcoming" means that the phenomenon was studied and none of the ideas and hypotheses panned out. Obviously false. The sun will rise tomorrow. Unprecedented? I don't think so. Scientists don't follow some set of rules, and in particular they don't follow the set of rules you're laying down for them. They follow the evidence where it leads. The scenarios we've described leave behind evidence that when scientists follow it they are led to the inexplicable according to natural and scientific laws. Of course it doesn't, and this is just another repetition of "tentative explanations" with the same answer. The "tentative explanations" don't pan out. Now what. Do you seriously not know that your inability to move beyond your original arguments makes clear how bereft your position is?Regarding your Message 489: My, aren't we literal. What do you care whether people discuss things you think stupid? Tangle, Phat, Stile and I are discussing this. And it's all your fault. If you were doing your job right no one would be discussing this. Well, sure, but staying on topic about miracles, is that what you think, that absence of evidence is evidence of absence? Obviously from context (see the sentence preceding your cut-n-paste) I was not. Your analogy has a couple flaws. First, without defining how the new mud is different from the old mud, how do you know pigs would wallow in it? And second, your analogy doesn't really fit. A more fitting analogy would be to ask what pigs who only knew mud would do were they one day confronted by snow?As already explained many times, scientists would react differently because they have evidence of something unprecedented in the history of science, violations of known natural or scientific laws.--Percy

Responding to a couple of your recent messages...Regarding your Message 492 to me: Of course they keep looking. But for as long as nothing pans out the violations of known natural or scientific laws would remain, for the time being, inexplicable. You're back to your broken record again, reintroducing old arguments as if they hadn't already been addressed. My dear boy, nobody implied that calling it a miracle would bring research to a halt. Giving dark energy a name didn't end research, why would giving inexplicable violations of natural or scientific laws a name end research? Yes, of course. I kinda think you know they'd give it a name and that it wouldn't be "something we're working on." You think the comic implies they put a lot of effort into the miracle step? Hmmm, interesting. In any case, the answer to your original question about the difference between "no explanations are forthcoming" and "insert miracle here" remains the same, that "no explanations are forthcoming" means that no ideas have panned out so far, while "insert miracle here" means just declaring something a miracle.I get the feeling that you view them as synonymous terms. If so then I of course disagree, but it doesn't seem worth arguing about. The sun rising tomorrow hasn't happened yet and therefore according to your statement is unprecedented. Perhaps you meant "every phenomenon" rather than "everything," but that doesn't work either. The history of science is of discovering new phenomena that in some way add to what we know of existing phenomena. That's why we made sure that the suggested scenarios represent phenomena that violate existing phenomena, something unprecedented in the history of science. Agreed. I think we may be using the word "explanation" differently. When you say "explanation" I think you mean an idea or proposal or unproven hypothesis. When I say "explanation" I have in mind something more complete around which, at a minimum, a consensus has begun to form. Relativity is an explanation. Ideas about, for example, why there's more matter than antimatter, don't seem like explanations to me, since they haven't uncovered enough evidence to build a consensus.I don't think this is a case where one of us is right and the other wrong. It just points out the need to agree on a definition. I don't think I've ever said or implied that scientific research ever ends. Science never stops questioning. Naturally investigation is directed into areas that appear to have the most promise for new knowledge, with the result that areas that appear well established tend to receive very little attention, but that seems okay to me. You mean backward. Yes, that was me, but your current arguments must stand on their own merits and not on accusations that I'm not perfect, because I'm sure that's a quality you also do not share. It's been said many times now that the particular term chosen by science for inexplicable phenomena that violate known natural or scientific laws isn't important, yet you're still hung up on the term "miracles". This is a science discussion, not a religious one, and it's already been established that attribution or cause isn't a necessary quality of scientific phenomena. You continue to return to your original arguments as if substantial discussion about them hasn't already taken place, a strong indication that your position is bereft of merit. Mr. Janitor, you're cleaning up the wrong aisle! You chopped off the front part of my sentence that indicated agreement with your "Yup, sometimes". But you also chopped off the part that reminded you we're talking about miracles. So asking the question again, is that what you think about miracles, that absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence? If so, why? I think that if you try to find where I suggested this that you'll come up dry. You still seem to be claiming knowledge you don't have, but let's just say you know your pigs and are correct. The actual point was that you didn't choose an inappropriate analogy, and if pigs actually do wallow in all types of mud, including any new type of mud, that just makes the analogy even worse. Agreed. Hmmm. That sounds unexpected. Is that what you observe your pigs doing in snow up there in the frozen wasteland? But that's beside the point. What's important is the inappropriate nature of the analogy you chose. Hardly relevant. Your analogy is not only inappropriate, but upon further consideration isn't helpful, either. The main point is that science follows where the evidence leads. The unprecedented nature of violations of known natural or scientific laws would lead scientists in new directions.Regarding your Message 495 to Phat: We agree on this. The relevant consensus is the one among the scientists in the new field of study focused on the new phenomena. That most scientists are in other fields doesn't matter. Of course a consensus could form among scientists in this new field.--Percy

There *are* profound philosophical and perhaps unanswerable questions surrounding the boundaries of science. I found a good discussion from a somewhat religious perspective at Miracles and Science: The Long Shadow of David Hume. I'm a little hesitant to introduce any of it into this discussion as you completely ignored my attempt in Message 468 to introduce some of the arguments from Science and Miracles into this discussion, but I'll say just a little anyway.David Hume wrote:

quote:

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A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.

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Hume is arguing that past experience is proof that miracles can't exist. My own reaction is that this violates tentativity, but the essay itself addresses the question from several points of view, including the one that miracles are non-repeatable and a-scientific, a view you might share. I won't invest further time describing the essay as I fear the effort might, as before, draw no response and be wasted, but if your response indicates an interest then maybe there's something we can discuss. Maybe they'd call it a miracle, maybe something else, but surely they'd call it something much shorter than "inexplicable phenomena that violate known natural or scientific laws." It's a comic, not real life. Are you imagining that the comic's author did anything more than make stuff up or copy stuff out of a math book? And concerning the miracle step, which is what I actually asked about, do you really think the comic implies a lot of effort was placed into "Then a miracle occurs"? If so then I still have the same reaction: Hmmm, interesting. Yes, of course, and so I was correct that you actually meant "every phenomena", not "everything". But you're leaving out the violation of known natural or scientific laws, something scientists haven't encountered before. Is the word "unprecedented" really so difficult for you to understand? Yes, of course. As already pointed out many times now, were science to identify evidence of actual miracles they might choose some other term, but such phenomena would still be inexplicable violations of known natural or scientific laws. Um, yes it has. Do you need to be reminded of the two-slit experiment and quantum entanglement and radioactive decay and so forth? Up until now that is true. But what if tomorrow that changed? It has nothing to do with whether I like it and everything to do with you declaring things true that are not so. Because your pigs react to the new type of mud as if nothing about it was different from the old type of mud. An accurate analogy to what's being proposed in this thread would be if pigs were presented something different to wallow in. But it's a new (no quotes) and unprecedented question. Incorporating into science the hypothesis that there can be violations of known natural or scientific laws would require some new thinking.--Percy

No, I haven't changed my mind about the impossibility of miracles - the messages you quoted are from a different thread, The Tension of Faith over in the Faith and Belief forum. This thread's in the Is It Science? forum, and we're considering the question, "But what if a scientifically verifiable miracle *did* occur?"--Percy

But if the evidence exists then neither can science ignore it. Oh, what to do, what to do? Science pretty much works on anything that leaves evidence behind. Why do you think religion should have a say in a scientific definition? I don't think everyone shares your view on intent. Plus it would be incorrect to say the scientists had given up, since obviously one scientist wrote the equations and the other scientist is commenting. Also, that the scientist who wrote the equations had given up is just one interpretation.Even what is funny is open to interpretation. Is it funny because the scientist made such an absurd error? Is it funny because of the understated way the other scientist calls attention to the error? Is it funny because of the incongruous insertion of a miraculous event into science? All of these? Some of these? Something else? One thing we can be sure of, opinions will vary.But that's all beside the key point, which is that scientists would work hard to study and understand the phenomena. They wouldn't just "insert miracle here." Known natural or scientific laws have been violated many times in the history of science, just not as flagrantly as in the scenarios that have been suggested. I think scientists would most certainly explore the possibilities you mention, that what happened wasn't as it seemed (deceptive) or that theory must change, but what if neither of these possibilities (nor any others) pan out? It can't help but have relevance. When in the history of science have known natural or scientific laws been violated as flagrantly as in the proposed scenarios? The answer is "never," hence the term "unprecedented." More repetition. Again, you mean "every phenomena," not "everything," and you're missing the point. It isn't that the phenomena of the proposed scenarios are unprecedented in the sense that they haven't been observed before.
They haven't been observed before, that's true, but that isn't what I meant when I labeled them unprecedented. It's that they're unprecedented in that they totally violate known natural or scientific laws. That violate known natural or scientific laws? I don't think so. And here you are again with yet another loop back to a failed religious argument. Plus you're ignoring the point, which was about attribution. Attribution is not a necessary quality of scientific phenomena. That's why I asked if you needed reminding about the two-slit experiment and quantum entanglement and radioactive decay and so forth? I think religion might prefer the term "supernatural" to "unnatural," but other than that yes, I agree, religion attributes miracles to the supernatural.But getting back to science, anything that leaves scientifically analyzable evidence behind can be studied by science. Right. And their MO is to follow the evidence where it leads. I saw no point in arguing with you about what types of mud pigs wallow in, so I said that if pigs actually do wallow in all types of mud, including any new type of mud, that just makes your analogy worse. You asked, "How so?" and I responded that it was because your pigs react to the new type of mud as if nothing about it was different from the old type of mud. An accurate analogy to the proposed scenarios in this thread would be if pigs were presented something different to wallow in.--Percy

Yes, Tangle just said that. More clearly, you and Hume are crafting your definition of miracle as something that can't exist. But the flaw in Hume's definition is obvious and of the first order: science is tentative and doesn't offer proofs.--Percy

Religion and science are two different contexts. In the context of the religious question, "Could any of the miracles claimed by religion be real?" tentativity, a scientific concept, is out of place. In the context of the scientific question, "What would mean to science if faced with inexplicable violations of natural or scientific law?" tentativity is perfectly at home.Your response should be, "But you said you thought some things were impossible," and I still believe that for religious claims and other things made up. I quoted a brief version of Hume's position on miracles where he uses the word "proof," and in science nothing is ever proven because science is tentative, but the flim-flam of religion can make no claims on the graces of science. Religion has no scientific evidence or process, and so its myths can claim no benefit from scientific concepts like tentativity. That there was a global flood 4500 years ago that wiped out all life not on a certain boat is just a religious myth (did you ever wonder why no fishermen survived the flood?), not science and not something tentativity rescues as possible. Same for thunder and lightening representing the anger of the gods.Well, I'm being called to dinner, this is as well thought out as it's going to get tonight.--Percy

Responding to your last two messages to me...Responding to Message 522: If science creates the definition then it is a scientific definition. Science is constantly defining words and terms it wasn't previously using. Whenever a new phenomenon is discovered science defines a word or term it didn't previously use. That's one interpretation, but there are many others. The comic's by Sidney Harris. Just go to Google Images, enter "then a miracle occurs sidney harris", then visit the webpages where the comic occurs and see all the different interpretations. We'll likely never know the true motivation for the comic because in the New York Times article One-Liners to Lighten Up Science Sidney Harris says:

quote:

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"I wish I remembered what the inspiration was. I've never equaled it, in terms of popularity."

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The comic first appeared in the New Yorker magazine, I couldn't narrow it down to what issue. I already agreed with you on this. Of course they wouldn't change their MO. They'd continue to follow the evidence where it leads. You keep making the same argument. Repeating the same argument many times as you have won't change the response. Accurate as ever. Einstein never said this. You can find this misattribution explained on many webpages, e.g., 12 Famous Quotes That Always Get Misattributed. Well sure. Scientists will always be attracted to difficult problems, the scientific method will be their guide, and the evidence could indefinitely indicate phenomena inexplicably breaking known natural or scientific laws. How so? You're attempting to define away your problem again. Where in science does it say there is no such thing as a violation? In any case, the presented scenarios include violations of known natural or scientific laws. That's always the hope. You're again repeating your old argument using a religious definition of miracle, and we're doing science here. If they leave evidence behind that science can study, then why are they not science? As I said, your analogy doesn't apply to the proposed scenarios. A more appropriate analogy would be one where the pigs were presented something different than mud to wallow in.Responding to your Message 523: I'm not sure what you're arguing about. You and Hume agree, right? That by definition miracles can't exist. That's the very definition of defining a problem away. By the way, like you Hume considered miracles from a religious perspective, the only one you're willing to consider. Yet what if the scientific evidence shows a violation of natural laws, and a consensus develops around the evidence that a violation of natural laws did indeed occur?--Percy

It does in the "what if". I'm saying they would follow the standard practices of science when confronted with unprecedented phenomena and creating new conceptual frameworks. Only the ignorant would believe an attribution to Einstein. The first clue is that it doesn't sound remotely like Einstein. How can adding to our knowledge be equated to our understanding breaking down? None of this sounds relevant or even scientific. You originally said back in Message 502, "(If you have examples of scientists labelling things as miracles in the past, feel free to cite them.) That's why we can comfortably predict that they won't do it tomorrow." I replied that the phenomena were unprecedented. That's still the answer. If you have examples of science encountering such dramatic contraventions of known physical laws in the past then feel free to cite them. "Following the evidence where it leads" isn't terribly constraining. That's a silly thing to say. Where did science ever say something existed before it was either first observed or theory predicted it? "They leave no evidence behind that science can study" is not part of the definition of miracles, and the proposed "what ifs" all included evidence amenable to scientific study. So pigs not only wallow in all types of mud, even new types of mud of unknown qualities, they also wallow in everything? There's no non-solid in which they would not wallow? If a significant component of your new type of mud were something like vinegar, turpentine or chlorine bleach, would pigs really wallow in it? I don't know much about pigs, but it is generally wise to question any overly ambitious claims.But your original intent was to create an analogy between pigs wallowing in mud and scientists considering new phenomena. You're correct that they would follow their standard MO if by MO you mean following the evidence where it leads. You're incorrect if by MO you mean they'd refuse to consider the possibility of phenomena that violate known natural or scientific laws. Yes, of course. Isn't "follow the evidence where it leads" just a more succinct form of the same thought? But you and Hume agree, right? Your shared position is the very essence of defining the problem away. Scientists are people. Once again you offer a weak analogy and misframe the argument to make your position look better. More appropriately and accurately, a scientist saying something hasn't yet been explained would be like an astronaut saying we can't yet go to Mars. Hume's consideration of miracles came when he stepped into an already ongoing debate about religious miracles. You're stepping into a science thread and insisting only religious perspectives on miracles are allowed. Possibly, but remember, miracles are local in time and space. Outside of when and where miracles are taking place, in the entire rest of space/time in the universe the laws continue to operate unchanged.--Percy

You're again stating one of your original arguments as if it hadn't already been addressed. Someone forthright would say, "Now I know Percy has said that attribution isn't an essential quality of scientific phenomena, citing the two-slit experiment, entanglement and radioactive decay as examples, but...", and then go on to explain why that is wrong, something you haven't yet done despite repeated opportunities, always instead merely repeating your original argument unchanged.--Percy