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| Author | Topic: Definitions, Daffynitions, Delusions, Logic and Critical Thinking. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days)  Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Looks like the shyster arts of suckering the gullibles is alive and well eh? You could run this operation out of your backyard, with the only overhead being a picture of one large rock, a rock saw and sufficint other rocks to slice up and distribute "while supplies last" ... set up an email account and get a PO box for the checks to be sent.
 we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Funny.
From Wikipedia (still)
quote: I don't see any missing parenthetical phrases in that definition ...
Iano writes: I've added in parentheses what is excluded (for some reason) from the first half of the definition. Thus we can read the second half of the definition better as ... Thank you for providing another example of creationist inability to deal with the real definition.
Now that's what I call a neutral definition. And it's one that I call worthless, as it isn't used in evolutionary science, so therefore it doesn't apply to a discussion of evolution. So Iano, do transitional fossils exist that meet the criteria of the scientific definition? A simple yes or no eh? Or is that why you need to change the definition in some way to attempt to neuter this fact? Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
But Grissom will always have some BUG he can pull out to validate his theory ...
 we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
From another thread:
Message 53 Aussie: I know how ludicrous this sounds, but I really felt like I had a grip on science. I see the literalists debating here and sometimes I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. No matter how many well-prepared and precisely-delivered lists of evidence for evolution and an old Earth are presented, they just throw out a new turn of phrase, or another variant in their long list of rhetorical objections, and leave feeling as if they have adequately defended the faith. You've surely noted the swagger creationists often display when they first arrive at EvC. They've imbibed the idea that 'God and I make a majority' so they burst into the saloon thinking they can whup any cowpoke in the place. Someone told them they're giants packing bazookas in a world of midgets squirting water pistols. Then comes the collision with reality. Always fun to watch. The confidence surely comes in part from the myth that science is 'really a religion.' This insistence (so bewildering to scientists) is crucial to fundamentalists. It creates the illusion of knowing. They don't understand science at all. To them it's an unknown--a blank surface. But they understand how their religion works and how explanations are crafted in it. To be told science is like that gives them a sense of sure footing. They don't really know the terrain. But blank surfaces are ideal for projecting. In saying 'scientists are like us' they assume a mirror image of their own fundamentalism with left and right inverted. They debate not with real scientists, but with the mirror image. What do they see when they look in the mirror? They tell you. It's a revealing picture. No sooner do they decide 'science is a religion' than they start describing all the things they understand religion to be. They see people deciding all answers a priori. They see people conducting research that isn't open-minded and honest. They see arrogance and materialism. They see people ignoring, suppressing, or even forging evidence. They see a theocracy that refuses to allow dissent. They are telling you how religions, in their experience, really do things. They disclose all the dirt about how fundamentalism works. Under normal curcumstances they would never ascribe these things to religious people. But let that religion go by another name and everything comes out. They point at the mirror and say 'You're a religion. We know what you're really doing!'
and
Message 55 RAZD: Or the only methodology they have for thinking about things is the methodology of their religion, so they think it is the only way things are done. Good point. We've had opportunities here to watch fundamentalists try to put forward their own theories. And they certainly go about it as if science operated by the methods of religion. They think forming a theory is about inventing explanations. And you can see why. In Sunday School they stitched prootexts into a story and called it a doctrine. So in science they expect to stitch bits of data into a story and call it a theory. As soon as all the bits are assembled into a plausible story, mission accomplished. They have science! They expect their story to be as valid as yours because, like your theories, it is an explanation. They expect it to be more true than yours because, like their doctrines, it conforms to religious orthodoxy. And it is work, trying to explain a mountain of scientific data in a way most o fthe world does not. A coherent alternative story is not crafted in one afternoon. But even if they did this, they will have done no science yet. Scientists know no explanation can be called a theory until it demonstrates predictive power. Can we run tests? Can we predict findings? Over and over you see fundamentalists here creating 'theories' who never once think of this. It never occurs to them that any theory they invent should be called upon to predict anything. Why not? I think you hit it, RAZD. It's not necessary in religion. In religion the doctrine of the Trinity works because it explains all the prooftexts and meets the demands of orthodoxy. No one asks what tests to run on the Trinity or how to falsify the Trinity or how to predict what the Trinity will do next. Predictive power is not expected of a religious idea. So they don't expect it of their 'science.' Picking up this conversation here to keep the other from getting derailed:
Over and over you see fundamentalists here creating 'theories' who never once think of this. ... It's not necessary in religion. In religion the doctrine of the Trinity works because it explains all the prooftexts and meets the demands of orthodoxy. There's another element I keep running into - the use and misuse of evidence. First it seems evidence can be something said by just about anyone whether there is a factual basis for it or not - this can be just a layperson's unfamiliarity with science qualifications for evidence - (thus the argument that "Lucy" is some kind of composite is made without checking the facts):
Message 21 Lucy is hardly a worthy example. First of all, she's an extremely incomplete skeleton, secondly, they aren't sure she was in fact female, thirdly, the bones were not found in one location but over a mile stretch. That's quite an amazing feat how bones were dispersed like that. If you want to see an interesting video that brings Lucy into disrepute, start here. And a video is presented as evidence instead of going to the actual fossil and the record of that fossil. Second it seems that contradictory evidence is not a concern, they just need evidence FOR their view, and any old evidence will do. Thus evidence for a young earth is touted, while evidence that invalidates a young earth is ignored or denied, brushed off. Perhaps this has to do with the fundamentalist need to deal with contradictions and conflicts in their interpretations: it isn't anywhere near as prevalent in other christian interpretations. There is the old phrase (I think it is in Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice) that "the devil can cite scripture for his purpose" -- meaning that any position you want to take you can find some section to support it (just don't worry about the ones that contra-indicate it). Thanks, Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. |
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