the bluegenes Challenge (bluegenes and RAZD only)

Welcome back. RAZD, this is an adult board. It shouldn't be necessary for me to spend post after post explaining basics. You do not falsify evolutionary theory by asking its supporters to demonstrate that a specific genre of dinosaur, for example, was not specially created by gods, or to demonstrate that rabbits have never ever been produced ex nihilo by conjurers.If you want to present the IPU as being an exception, and not coming from the only known source of supernatural beings, the human imagination, then the onus is on you to demonstrate that it's an exception. My theory predicts that you won't be able to do this.What you're doing in this post instead is demonstrating that you don't understand what empirical evidence is.All through the thread, I've had to deal with someone who appears not to know the difference between a scientific fact and a scientific theory, who doesn't understand what mutually exclusive means and when the law of non-contradiction is applicable, and now I'm going to be required to teach what empirical evidence means.Even worse than that, you seem to think that presenting people's religious beliefs is in some way presenting evidence for the veracity of those beliefs. If you want to claim that the creation mythologies are based on real universe creating gods, then you need to establish the existence of those gods in order to support that claim.I might add that someone who thinks a story like the Norse one I've used, which is about a universe forming the gods, is an analogy for some real gods creating a universe, could be politely described as dimwitted.Please stop trying to support your argument with religious faith, and attempt to present some substance.You could present fairy rings as evidence that there actually are fairies, for example, and we could discuss that.Or you could present the existence of disease as evidence that there are real evil spirits that give us diseases.It won't work, but it's better than using the fact that you and others believe in gods as evidence that they're really there. Your post, RAZD, is not in Swahili. Message 30
Direct experimentation has established that your statement above is wrong, even for those, like you, who don't understand the law of non-contradiction, and for those, like you, who do not accept the evidence that humans descend from other animals rather than being:(a) created from clay by one universe creating supernatural being;(b) created from half-formed beings by two non-universe creating supernatural beings;(c) created from logs by three supernatural beings who were themselves created by the universe.Your religious beliefs do not change the fact that the four propositions are mutually exclusive. Those three myths come from the human imagination, even if you want to regard them as allegories for the biological evolution of our species.

I certainly have. Are you trying to demonstrate publicly on the internet that you're a fool?On allegory:The genesis story could be read as being allegorical for the point in the history when our ancestors became sufficiently intelligent to recognise the difference between good and evil, for example.It could also be read literally, as we see so often here on EvC.Either way, it is fictional, and its characters and their actions come from the human imagination.The Norse and Australian examples I gave have nothing to do with universe creating gods.Your "Hindu hypothesis" is completely baseless, and typical of the baseless assertions on which you seem to try to build your arguments. It requires support. Stating that a religious group has certain beliefs is not providing evidence of the veracity of those beliefs.It's also silly to claim that a story (the Norse one) about the universe creating some gods via an abiogenesis event would be an allegorical tale about gods creating universes.Back to basics. Direct questions:Do you agree that the human imagination is the only source of supernatural beings known to science?If not, what is the other known source or sources?Why wasn't your post No. 32 in Swahili?You claim that you don't need lessons, but if you cannot answer the first and third of these questions correctly, you certainly do.

That's bad news, RAZD, and I hope you get over it quickly. I think that neuralgia can be an effect of shingles, and, having had that myself from another cause, you have my heartfelt empathy.I'll reply to the above post when you let us know that you're fully well again.

Hi RAZD,Don't worry about taking things slowly. I've been away for 5 days, and in general, I'm a much more intermittent poster on EvC than you are. As I said before, no hurry.On your definitions. Your 4 point description of the modern scientific method seems fine for our purposes here (although, as with all such definitions, there will be some scientists, historians of science, and philosophers of science who would dispute it).You quote the guy from Rochester making this point:

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"It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory."

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A scientific theory can't be "proved", as your source points out, just falsified.As for your own comments, I find this strange: What do you mean by"true"? Because a hypothesis is based on data doesn't mean it's true.Now, here's a thing about my theory. Lot's of people have been testing it for a very long time. There are organizations dedicated, at least in part, to testing it (the Discovery Institute is one modern one which is actively trying to falsify my theory).The most interesting current research in relevant fields isn't really into whether or not humans invent supernatural beings, but has moved on into the question of why we have a tendency to do this. For example, the view of supernatural beings as our inventions is the basis of research in evolutionary psychology into why our brains have evolved that tendency.

It's not that I wave it off. It's just that we seem to have different ideas as to what constitutes "contrary evidence". For example, you seemed to express a view that some people believe that the creation mythologies have some kind of underlying truth in common. I don't doubt that some people believe this. But that's sociological data, not scientific evidence supporting the supposed underlying truth. I can easily imagine such ideas too.I read a survey recently that had 20% of Americans believing in witches. Interesting sociological data, but no use in verifying the existence of a single witch.The creation mythologies that I've used as examples certainly have points in common. They have to, in order to be mutually exclusive. Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood can't be mutually exclusive stories because they're not about the same thing, but the mythologies I picked as examples are deliberately chosen because they have the common point of describing supernatural beings doing a "hands on" creation of our species, but they describe very different characters of different origins in different numbers creating in different ways.This is in no way presented as an attempt to show that there couldn't be a real team of gods who created us, for example, by genetic modification, or whatever. It's merely to establish that the human mind can and does imagine fictional supernatural characters. My point about mutual exclusivity is a direct observation, not a hypothesis or theory in itself.As for points about subjectivity and bias, I'm well aware of them. That's one reason why two of us are building up the theory, and why it's important that one of them thinks it's a load of crap. It's also why we'll be involving others with different inflections of opinion. That explains what puzzled me about your use of the word "true", and it's just a semantic point. I'd have said that the hypothesis must be in keeping with the results, or fit the results, or not be falsified by the results. Your last sentence is exactly the point I was making.Here's a rough example, using the creation mythologies again, but unrelated to the "mutually exclusive" point. This relates to points (3) and (4) in the method.What I'm doing at the moment (when I've got the time and inclination) is going through the mythologies, taking the hypothesis that "supernatural beings are human inventions" as the null hypothesis, and, in each case "the story fits the scientific data" as an alternative hypothesis, and comparing these accounts to what we know from modern cosmology, geology, and biology.So far, having examined more than 20, I'm in the 95% to 100% confidence bracket that's considered standard to pass the null hypothesis. On point (4), we happen to have people from all three fields here on EvC. So, when I've got the time, I can easily start a thread and ask for comments from other members.A kind of discussion board peer review.Briefly, on points (1) and (2).

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1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

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2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

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Phenomena: Human beliefs in and descriptions of supernatural beings of all kinds. These are beings whose existence and description cut clearly across the laws of nature as we currently know them. Magical beings. Observing these, we can see that there are many thousands of such beings that are or have been believed in in the world's many different cultures, and others that we seem to invent largely for amusement. We can also see that there has been no scientific verification of the actual existence of a single individual such being of any type or genre.An added observation is that there are mutually exclusive beliefs from different cultures. Examples of this are seen when different groups of supernatural beings in different numbers and of different descriptions and different supposed origins are credited with the same action, like creating the first human beings. We can also note the many different mutually exclusive "true" religions believed in around the world today.Based on such observations, I propose the following as a hypothesis on the origins of supernatural beings:Hypothesis: Supernatural beings and their descriptions are human inventions (figments of our imagination) and do not have any real external existence.

Far from it. What I'm doing is demonstrating how the theory can be built up from scratch, starting with the stated hypothesis. For those with understanding of it, I have a strong theory. I've actually demonstrated that the human imagination is the only known source of supernatural beings known to science, and that's taken 20 posts because I'm discussing this with you. Again, I'm explaining this to a particular individual. It's hardly my fault that it took numerous posts to explain the difference between something being stated as a scientific theory, and something being stated as a scientific fact. That view of my view is, of course, based on your own biased world view, as you should know.On worldviews. It's certain that you and I have differences in our worldviews. When people like Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis constantly bring up the "worldview" argument, it is done in order to pretend that all worldviews are equal in respect to the evidence. It is a trick that's necessary for those who have no positive evidence to support their positions, and you supernaturalists use it a lot.Those of us who can support our positions do not need to constantly harp on this truism. Perhaps you need help.1) There's a mermaid who lives in your bath, washes your hair for you, and sings to you in Spanish.2) There are large visible yellow centaurs grazing in your yard.3) There's a magical blob with 27 tentacles in your kitchen. It cooks your meals for you, conjuring up the necessary ingredients from thin air.Now, do you accept the point that humans can and do make up supernatural beings?Do you accept that the human imagination is the only source of supernatural beings known to science?If not, what is the other known source?.If you answer the first two questions with "yes", the third requires no answer. If you don't answer the second question with a "yes", then you should be able to tell us what the other source known to science is. You don't know whether or not Satan is manipulating your mind. But we do know that humans are capable of imagining beings like a mind manipulating Satan.It is when we cannot conclusively know things that scientists look at evidence, hypothesise, and theorise. We cannot conclusively know for sure the origin of the earliest mammals identified in the fossil record, but we can look at the available evidence, and formulate the strong theory that they descended from reptiles.The whole point of science is and has been the exploration of what is/was unknown. Faced with a phenomenon, like the widespread human belief in supernatural beings, we make observations, and explore the phenomenon. In other words, you agree that the involvement of human fancy can be established. You should also agree that the role of externally existing real supernatural beings has not been established. This leaves us, as I've been saying all along, with "human fancy" or "the human imagination" as the only known source of supernatural beings. I'm pointing out that the stories are fictional. That is the case whether you choose to regard them as allegorical or not. Let me give you some examples of allegorical supernatural beings. Death.The figure with the scythe is a portrayal of the reality of death. Satan.The horned tailed figure can be construed as an allegory for evil, a concept that is rather subjective in itself. Father Time.The bearded old man is an allegory for time, or at least our perception of it.The fact that these supernatural beings are allegorical, and could be allegorical for things that are real (death, certainly) does not mean that the supernatural beings themselves are not figments of the human imagination. "God", for example, is sometimes used in a similar sense by pantheists meaning "the universe", or "everything". That the universe and everything can be said to exist does not in anyway support the existence of a real supernatural being.The creation stories that ancient cultures have come up with are certainly interesting. I'll point out a few things about them here.When supernatural beings are involved as creators, the storytellers can come up with three basic alternatives.The first is the one that we're familiar with from Jewish mythology, and could be described as "mind before matter". Here, the god/s exist first, and create the universe ex nihilo.The second category is mind and matter described as existing simultaneously, then creator beings often reshape some or most of what's there. The Australian one I've mentioned is in this category.The third category is matter before mind, and has a material universe existing, and then the creator/s beings are produced from that matter by some kind of event. The Norse story of Odin and his brothers is in this category.Think about it, and it has to be one of the three general alternatives when creator beings are involved, and humans have thought of all three.Then there's a fourth category; the "non-creation" story. An example of this is the Jain religion, which describes an eternal universe, with no creator beings involved. Within the universe, neither life in general nor humans in particular are created, and there are no creator gods of anything.Then there's a fifth category which does not, like the fourth, describe an eternal universe that excludes creators, but merely doesn't include the mention of any. Some animist and ancestor worship cultures have no mention of creator beings as such.Then there's a sixth, which actively declares lack of knowledge of origins, rather than just not mentioning any. An example would be the Buddha, who declared that the ultimate origins and nature of the universe couldn't be known, and advised his followers not to worry about problems they could not solve. A strong agnostic point, if you like.Anthropologists could probably add more categories and variations on all these themes.You can present your idea that real gods are in some sense responsible for planting these ideas in people's minds, just as I can present the idea that Satan is manipulating your mind. But such ideas mean nothing to science unless they have positive evidence to support them.Some Americans believing in witches doesn't support the existence of witches, and some Hindus believing that many described gods are aspects of a real god does not support the existence of that real god.The progress we might be close to making is that you might be close to admitting that the human imagination is the only source of supernatural beings known to science.It's no good complaining if I have to take another 20 or 40 or 60 posts to establish that point here. I knew it before we started, and it's hardly my fault if my debating partner hasn't caught on very quickly. {Good luck with the neuralgia, and don't hesitate to take breaks from this discussion. You could take as long a break as you liked, and I would certainly not be sitting here claiming that that in any way means you cannot answer my points. A personal recommendation to all EvC members would be that, when seriously ill, keep away from contentious discussions of all kind, and stick to the lighter coffee house/humour type threads if participating on the board.}Edited by bluegenes, : deleted a couple ofunnecessary words

That's four different claims that you cannot verify or support. You bring up people's religious beliefs in an attempt to attack my theory while talking about pseudo-science. Are you trying to make me laugh? No it isn't. Your task is to learn how science works. Scientific theories are not weakened by asking others to falsify unfalsifiable and unsupported religious claims. Evolutionary biologists do not have to falsify Omphalism in order for evolutionary theory to be a very good explanation for what we see in the fossil record.You're still making the same basic mistake that you made at the beginning with your "supernatural beings can exist" claim.Unsupported and unfalsifiable claims can only be accepted by science if and when properly supported by positive evidence.People believing in religions, witchcraft etc, is not evidence for the veracity of those beliefs. It's happened to me, and that's the same as saying that our minds can come up with ideas that turn out to be good, even occasionally when in dream or semi-conscious mode. It has nothing to do with magic. Would you like to be the first person in the world to demonstrate that a human being has ever dreamed of a supernatural being who turned out actually to be real? You could go on the fact that you have plenty of evidence that humans are real things, but no positive evidence that gods actually exist. I'd look for behaviour that smashes the laws of nature, personally, and if absent, I'd assume the default evidence based position that what appears to be human very, very probably is human.There are frogs in my garden, and I go for the "frog" view of them rather than the "prince" view of them because I have absolute zero positive evidence that princes can actually be turned into frogs. You'd be uncommitted on the question, of course.Think about this, and it might help you understand why scientific theories are presented as falsifiable rather than provable. As I've said before, you have no way of conclusively knowing whether or not Satan is manipulating your mind. But, like the unsupported unfalsifiable propositions you've been making, such an idea requires positive support in order to be taken seriously. Again, a scientific theory is regarded as falsifiable, which is the opposite of assuming that it's right. That was not the point of the experiment. It was to establish that human beings can and do make up supernatural beings.Once again. Human invention is the only source of supernatural beings known to science.Human authorship is the only source of books known to science.It's no use telling me about people's religious beliefs about sources of supernatural beings, or telling me about people's religious beliefs about books like the Bible and the Koran being authored by gods unless you can establish the real existence of these sources/literary gods.If you can't demonstrate that any supernatural beings actually exist, you should concede that I have a strong theory.Prediction of the day from my theory. You will not falsify it in your next post, and no-one on the peanut gallery will falsify it in the next ten posts.Strong theories give high confidence predictions.Supernatural being of the day. The five-eyed, seven legged backwards-walking backwards-talking mind bending magical monster who will force you to write your next post backwards with the last word in the top left and the first, bottom right. Edited by bluegenes, : grammar

You've demonstrated it for me. In addition, your comments about pseudoscience seem to indicate that you're not aware that experimentation is very much a part of science.When people imagine up supernatural beings in testable areas, it can be demonstrated that people can and do invent them, and that's the purpose of the several little experiments I've done on this thread. Surely I'm not going to have to try to teach you what a good "analogy" is, along with trying to teach you what "mutually exclusive" means?Here's a real analogy:"All raindrops come from clouds".That is a strong theory if clouds are the only source of raindrops known to science. If another source can be properly established beyond all reasonable doubt, it is falsified.It is not weakened by asking proponents of the theory to disprove an unfalsifiable suggestion like: "Some raindrops come from invisible angels pissing".It is not weakened by pointing out that some people believe the "angels" suggestion, if there are such people.
Analogies are for illustration, so does that help you see where you're going wrong? Of course, my theory isn't that, and you needed to make the idea up. At least you seem to agree that humans can and do invent supernatural beings, and that there are fictional supernatural beings. Good. There are plenty of examples in the creation mythologies I pointed out to you, but I'll give you some easy ones.
The god who created the earth flat is a straightforward one for you.Modern flat Earth beliefs - WikipediaChrist Community Church - WikipediaThen there's one that we're all familiar with here on EvC, which is the god who created the earth about 6,000 years ago, and caused a world-wide flood about 4,300 years ago. Answers in Genesis That the flat-earth creator is a human invention can be established by direct observation that the planet isn't flat, and that the (non-omphalist) YEC creator is a human invention can be established beyond all reasonable doubt by the overwhelming scientific evidence that contradicts it. If you're arguing that I should have used the awkward phrase "supernatural being concepts", which I think I have used in earlier posts, then I think you're being pedantic. You'll find anything from witches to evil spirits to djinns (what Egyptian schizophrenics tend to perceive their supernatural communicants as, according to a psychiatric paper I read long ago) to gods referred to in the literature.In anthropology, of course, and in psychiatry and psychology, for example: Evil Spirits causing disease in Malay patientsGod's relation to attachment theory I agree entirely that there's plenty of evidence that people believe that supernatural beings exist, and that they believe they can communicate with them. What's strange is that you seem to think this is some kind of problem for my theory.
I only know of one general explanation for these beliefs that is known to science. If you're looking for more specific explanations, there's plenty of research going on.For example: Population distribution of hallucinationsWhat's certain is that the actual existence of any real supernatural beings external to the human mind has never been established. People believing in supernatural beings is perfectly in keeping with my theory. When they believe in something that is actually testable and can be falsified, then my theory predicts that it will be falsified. The "Obama Anti-Christ" is an example I've given you whose falsification is predicted, and the "flat earth creator" is an example of one already falsified. You'll find that these texts taken collectively support my theory because they often describe mutually exclusive beliefs, and taken individually, some of them support my theory if taken literally (Genesis, for example). None, of course, have been demonstrated to be true, which is consistent with my theory, and something it predicts.Keep on pointing to them if you want to present evidence in support of my theory. Thanks. I do not note that you have pointed out (a). I note that you do not understand (or do not want to understand) the evidence I've presented, and I note that your claim (b) means that you do not appear to understand the concept of falsification of scientific theories. Again, evidence that people believe that they are communicating with supernatural beings is not evidence that they actually are. You demonstrate here that you think that demanding the falsification of unfalsifiable propositions is something that weakens theories. See my example above of the pissing angels.Evolutionary biologists and proponents of tectonic plate theory do not have to falsify Omphalism merely because some people believe it.If you continue in this vein, it'll be interesting to see how many established scientific theories you'll be implicitly attacking.Don't make the mistake of treating scientific theories as "provable". If things are considered provable, they would be stated as facts, not theories or laws. I went through this with Pasteur's Law early in the thread.If my theory is weak, why is it that you cannot demonstrate the actual external existence of one single supernatural being of any genre, when we both know very well that humans can and do imagine them?Edited by bluegenes, : missing word added

I've demonstrated that humans can and do make up supernatural beings, which is all that the experiments were designed to demonstrate. We can easily establish that private detectives exist outside the human imagination.The purpose of my demonstrating that humans can and do make up supernatural beings was that you seemed to be questioning that point in earlier posts. It's only when combined with the point that the human imagination is the only known source of them that we arrive at a strong theory.However, we now seem to have progressed past that point, and we are reaching some agreement. As you say here: Here we see how ghosts differ from private detectives.So, we can reasonably say that we know that humans can make up imaginary ghosts, but do not know, in scientific terms, of any source for them other than the human imagination. You claim that this is not evidence that they are imaginary. Would you claim that, because descent with modification is the only source of the species we see around us known to science, that evolutionary theory is not a strong theory because no-one has conclusively falsified the suggestion that supernatural beings are involved in designing them, and no evolutionary biologists have falsified omphalism?This brings me to a point that I've been trying to make throughout the thread. When you present something like your "Hindu hypothesis", you seem to think that an unsupported belief or suggestion in some way weakens a scientific theory, or makes it invalid.That isn't the case, and it isn't necessary to falsify an unfalsifiable proposition like "some rabbits are produced from conjurers hats" for biologists to reasonably assume that being born from other rabbits is where they all come from. Would you like to support this belief with evidence? It might help if you established their existence before you give them a complexity rating. If you think that's the way the gods of religions appear, then I have a strong theory that would explain that appearance when you bear in mind that different individuals and different human cultures will imagine different things.If religions are confused and confusing about their gods, perhaps it's because they are failing to treat the god concepts scientifically, which would lead to regarding them as coming from their only known source, the human imagination. No-one who understands what scientific theories are would claim that they are assumed to be "true". They are generally understood to be assumed to be unprovable but falsifiable. Certainly. You mean new things are imagined. I agree. The god of the bible evolves from Old to New Testament, and the original Eastern European vampires didn't transform themselves into bats, but more recent versions do, and there are people who believe in these things. What "original account" of how many supernatural beings of which description doing what, and when? Would you care to demonstrate that you're not imagining the idea of this "original account"?My theory predicts that you won't be able to.We could speculate, for example, that there were fairies in Africa about 100,000 years ago, sharing the territory with our common ancestral group, and known to them. These could be the origin of all supernatural concepts in the mind, all of which have been distorted out of all recognition from the originals by subsequent human imaginings.But there's no scientific evidence to support this idea, and the parsimonious explanation of the supernatural beings known to our minds is that they come from their only known source, and that they're human inventions.

Welcome back.I've helped you with your title, as it was ambiguous. There's some redundancy in that sentence. I could hardly make up non-fictional ones, could I?Which real supernatural beings (ones that have been confirmed to exist beyond all reasonable doubt) are my imaginary beings caricatures of? How would you know how to distinguish a "caricature" of a supernatural being from the real thing? Making up supernatural entities has no bearing on supernatural entities being made up? You may not have noticed, but my theory is about human beings making things up; about figments of our imagination. You seem to fail to see that it is the fact that humans can and do make supernatural beings up combined with the fact that human invention is the only source of supernatural-being-concepts known to science that leads to the theory that all supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination. My posts are in English. You've just quoted me saying: It would help if you could read and understand English, because then you would have known way back in the thread (from the beginning) that I am not making up the logically invalid constructions you keep describing. You are making them up.If you can arrive at a conclusion in science via a logically valid and sound deductive argument, you are arriving at a knowable fact, not a theory. See above. If you really think there's no difference between our knowledge of the existential state of private detectives as compared to that of supernatural beings, then I suggest that you're constructing a reality of your own in which to argue from. Would you like to give me a list of documents which provide "objective empirical evidence" of "other possible sources"? I read quite a lot of scientific papers, and I'd be happy to look at any you can recommend that are available online. I'd have thought such material would be very, very well known. In fact, famous.Or were you talking about other documents? If you are, will you be prepared to demonstrate that any supernatural beings described in them do not come from the only source of such things known to science, which is the human imagination?We know that human belief in supernatural beings is widespread. People documenting their beliefs in literate societies provides no more evidence for the actual existence of the entities than the oral traditions of non-literate societies.I thought you might be agreeing with me, by this time, that the human imagination is the only source of supernatural being-concepts known to science. Do you agree? (A direct question that should be easily answered).It's worth mentioning, once again, because of your use of the word "possible", that scientific theories are at ease with speculative alternative possibilities. The theories are regarded as potentially falsifiable from the perspective of our knowledge, therefore, by definition, alternatives must be considered to be theoretically "possible". It is only scientific facts that cannot tolerate alternative possibilities. Feel free to present this evidence. I haven't seen any evidence for the actual existence of supernatural beings on this thread. Evidence that people believe in them is not evidence that they exist, as I've explained. It's an undisputed fact that loads of people believe in them. Look hard enough, and you'll probably find someone who believes that Harry Potter exists.You can tell me about a group who believe in the one true creator god who hates gays, and you can tell me about people who believe in the one true creator god who loves all humanity, but all you'll demonstrate is that one of the two characters must be a figment of the human imagination, and you won't be able to support the existence of the other.Or tell me about the 45% of Americans who believe in a (non-omphalist) god who created the world less than 10,000 years ago; a character adequately demonstrated by modern science to be a figment of the imagination. There's plenty of evidence in the creation stories alone. Anyone can read them and compare them with what's known to science from cosmology, geology and biology. My observations are easily repeatable.I know that I'm dealing with someone who doesn't seem to know the difference between evidence for a scientific theory and proof of a scientific fact. This is getting old.I'm waiting for you to realise how many scientific theories and laws you're implicitly dismissing.Tell me, do evolutionary biologists have to demonstrate that there is no omphalistic god in order to have a strong theory of the formation of the life forms we see around us, and the history of life back to its origins? That's another direct question. That, to play your little game, is just your personal opinion. I'm highly skeptical of the validity of your opinions. There's good evidence in the contents of your posts that emotions may be involved.Some people seem to react very strangely to the suggestion that all supernatural beings come from their only known source. Using reason alone, without emotional or cultural bias, the reaction should be the same as a reaction to the suggestion that baby rabbits, books, and raindrops come from their only known respective sources. Scientific theories are assumed to be falsifiable, not "correct". That's an analogy for the creation accounts? I could see that it would be analogous if various groups of human beings were separated into different groups, and then watched different groups of creators creating different parts of the universe, and then the humans came up with very different accounts from each group, and slight differences in detail between individuals within the same groups.Are you suggesting that some humans observed the creation of the universe, including, in many accounts, the creation of the first humans? Wrong. If two kids in the same group watching the same furniture being made by the same makers came up with the different "details" that:(a) they were watching three men make a chair;(b) they were watching two women make a cabinet;then logic would tell you that one or other account (or both) must be an invention; and the beings involved in at least one, figments of the imagination. That's what you get in the creation mythologies. Different characters making different worlds when they're supposed to be accounts of the same creation of the same world.Even my version doesn't relate too well to the creation mythologies, because of the major points that (1) we can demonstrate the existence of furniture makers but not of supernatural creators, and (2) there is, to put it mildly, a distinct lack of evidence to support the idea that any humans watched the creation of the universe, and overwhelming evidence that we arrived on the scene long after the event.You've entirely misunderstood the mutually exclusive argument in relation to the creation mythologies. It establishes widespread human invention and use of the imagination, but it is in no way intended to prove that there weren't real creators. That can't be done. If I could go around proving the non-existence of concepts like supernatural creators, elves, fairies, vampires etc., and do it for all the supernatural beings anyone could suggest, I'd be presenting a scientific fact, not a theory.You like talking about logic, and I've suggested to you before that you frequently misunderstand how it relates to science. As I've said at least once in this thread, science explores the unknown. Laws and theories do not give you logical truths, or facts.If you want logical constructs, examine this:1) Human beings can and do invent supernatural beings.2) The human imagination is the only known source of supernatural-being-concepts known to science.Tentative conclusion or Theory: All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination.Because the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises, the conclusion can never be regarded as a fact. The argument is inductive reasoning.No scientific theories and laws can be arranged as deductive arguments that are both logically valid and sound (meaning the premises are verifiable). You would always end up with at least one unverifiable premise, or else you would have a fact, not a theory.You're criticising something presented as a theory, not something that's presented as a fact.(Good luck with the new company and I hope the new house isn't haunted) .

Is that intentional comedy? Did you expect me to make models of my beings out of clay and breath life into them? Of course they're not externally real supernatural entities, they are figments of my imagination. And of course they're "intentionally" fictitious.I was intentionally demonstrating that humans can and do make up supernatural beings.As for caricatures, my dear little question avoider, I asked you in the last post: I think there were some other direct questions in the last post that went unanswered.But I digress from your comedy: Do you think I should have phrased my theory: "All supernatural beings are the product of human mental masturbations?" I certainly don't mind that phrase, but then I'm not the one in this debate who believes in any of them. If you want to redefine Deism scientifically as mental masturbation, go ahead. *Are you "anyone else"? You use the phrase "self-delusion".I should think that most (if not all) people reading the thread are already aware that human beings can and do make up supernatural beings. I thought you had agreed to this as well, and the need for the experiment was over. Now you seem to be saying that yes, we can make up fictional ones, but we can't make up real ones. Of course we can't invent real ones. Didn't you mean "tentatively conclude", or better "theorize"? How could someone "note that there are no black swans", then theorize about them, without having considered them? It isn't logically possible. Indeed. There are black swans known to science, which is why it would be very strange for someone to theorize that they're products of the human imagination. Even if there weren't, and only white swans had been observed, one would never eliminate the possibility of other coloured swans without having observed all swans directly. So, it would only be correct to theorise that all swans are white, and it wouldn't be considered a fact.We would, of course, have to imagine the black swans until we knew of real ones, and could give them the scientific status of "real". This is exactly the situation we're in at the moment with all supernatural beings. We can't give any of them the scientific status of "real", and we can't actually observe their behaviour or characteristics, so we can only discuss our imagined concepts.What's your point?I'll help you with your attempt at analogy. If it's intended to describe what I'm doing with supernatural being-concepts, here's how it should read. When you observe populations of swans and note that you have observed only white swans, and then theorize that all swans are white, you must be considering the possibility of non-white swans, because you've stated a theory, rather than declaring a fact.But it wasn't my argument, was it? It was just your incompetent attempt at analogy. Now you are touching on an area in which you do have expertise, for the first time in the thread. No need to do either. Both are well known facts, as I said in my last post. I have linked to documents describing supernatural beings on this thread, but I don't think you have. Really? Well, if there's no evidence to the contrary, then the only scientific conclusion possible is that the concepts come from their only known source. Just like raindrops from clouds and rabbits from other rabbits when you can't demonstrate other origins.I thought you said you had documents that contained "objective empirical evidence" of the real existence of supernatural beings. I asked for them. Where can they be found? Such documentation should be famous, and I'm sure every EvC member would be fascinated to read such stuff for the first time in their lives. I've given you examples of falsified beings who are believed in, like the flat earth god and the young earth god.Do you mean demonstrate conclusively that they're all imaginary? Actually prove a scientific theory when they're considered unprovable? It's for the same reason that Pasteur wasn't able to conclusively demonstrate that all life comes from other life, and that Newton couldn't conclusively demonstrate that his laws were truly universal. They could only infer these things based on the available observations. What I can demonstrate is that the human imagination is the only source of supernatural beings known to science. Perhaps you'll eventually learn why it is that scientific theories are considered falsifiable rather than provable.There are known exceptions to Newton's laws. You can't demonstrate a single exception to my theory, yet you claim that it's not a strong high confidence theory. You have no basis for that claim whatsoever. I pointed out that it was your construction, not mine, and gave you a basic lesson in inductive reasoning that you clearly haven't understood. You left out the premise (below) that does apply to ghosts, but doesn't to private-eyes. No wonder you end up with your silly conclusion. Comedy again? People are the only source of documents known to science. Why should documented supernatural being concepts like Allah and Harry Potter be any different from the concepts in Australian Aboriginal orally transmitted mythology?Or are you proposing an alternative "hypothesis" that books, as well as people, invent supernatural beings? That has exactly the same level of evidence in support of it as the "Hindu hypothesis", absolute zero, but I personally prefer it because it's funnier.A little exercise:

quote:

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He was torn from the rock, stretched my his own strength to tree height. His eyes were formed blue, as wells of water, and his hair was the black of the deepest dark night. On his shoulders rode the eagle and the owl.

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quote:

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She was created in the image of the unknown, decorated with skulls, snakes, and lacerated hands. There are no cracks in her body and she is a perfect monolith (a totality of intensity and self-containment, yet her features were square and decapitated).

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Are these descriptions of supernatural beings known to have been believed in, or are they fantasy fiction, or are they "caricatures", or are they all three of the above? And whether they were believed in or not, how would you tell if they exist or not short of their manifestation? (Feel free to explain how you come to your conclusions). *Rebel American Zen Mental Masturbator has a kind of very apt subtle poetry to it, I think.

Well done. Would you like to list some extant beings that are capable of supernatural behaviour? Don't be silly. In the real world, I presented not only evidence, but essential proof that human beings can and do make up supernatural beings. Strictly speaking, and more correctly but clumsily phrased, "supernatural beings- concepts".The theory, RAZD, is about the human mind imagining non-existent things, and that's what I was doing.How you've got the idea into your head that these were supposed to be real when the whole point was to demonstrate our capacity for fabrication, I don't know.The entire thread so far has been about imagined supernatural concepts. Even when we refer to "real" supernatural beings, it is an imagined concept, because we have not established the real external existence of any supernatural beings. Because you seemed to be questioning that humans can and do make such things up. Why is it irrelevant to establish a known source for the supernatural concepts we all have in our heads? That's what I'm waiting for. A source for our concepts other than human invention would be supernatural beings that are actually known to exist, and I can't find any. All I can find is our concepts, and that's all we have on the thread so far. When I did that with the creation mythologies, comparing them to what we know from cosmology, biology and geology, you went into denial, and replied with some meaningless emotion driven waffle about confirmation bias. You've since imagined up some underlying meaning to all these stories, without telling us what it is. Wow!When I point out that the flat-earth creator and the young earth creator are effectively falsified, you choose to ignore the fact that it demonstrates widespread false belief when not one single true belief in a supernatural being has been established on this thread.45% of American adults believe in a demonstrably false supernatural being-concept, and that's over 100 million people.On the other side of the coin, we have yet to establish that one single human being is believing in a supernatural being concept that is demonstrably true.That means that I have, effectively, infinitely more evidence on my side than you do on yours.And you have the gall to describe my theory as weak! I was particularly hoping, as you keep harping on about her, that you were going to demonstrate her existence for us, beyond reasonable doubt. I have to give you a chance, and you need all the help you can get. So, instead of going down the easy road and pointing out that the two adjectives used to describe her are mutually exclusive (perhaps a waste of time, because you'd probably give me some Hindu mystic "hypothesis" that pink is an invisible colour, or some such crap), I've left her for you to verify as real. The word "pseudoskeptic" seems to crop up as a sort of catch-all, when you're desperate and losing an argument. I expect we'll see a lot more of it in this thread. I must say, congratulations on cutting out the ironic constant repetition of the phrases "confirmation bias" and "cognitive dissonance." Did you finally find out what they mean? Did I miss a link to some documents containing evidence that a supernatural being-concept of some kind is actually real? Which documents are you referring to? Not the Book of Moses, I hope. The Koran? I've read it long ago, and found no evidence at all of real supernatural beings in there. Lots of mentions of one concept in particular, but no evidence.The tightening was necessary. "Known" is a difficult word. There are plenty of people who claim to "know" that one god or another exists. Not long ago I met a woman who told me that she "knew" she was a witch. Being familiar with your ways of arguing, I wanted to save you the trouble of asking me to falsify Joe Schizophrenic's opinion that he "knows" that the voices in his head come from angels.What you're getting wrong, though, is that the fact that human invention is the only known source to science at the moment in no way stops us from establishing another. No-one's implying that scientific knowledge in general is anything other than massively incomplete. Instead of complaining, why not tell me exactly where to look for the "black swans", instead of telling me where to look for people who believe in them. It's no good pointing to Buzsaw's posts as evidence that his god exists. They are only evidence that he believes in it. I know. It would be better for our purposes here if they appeared in some more exotic form, then they could be caught on film, and we'd be well on the way towards falsification. I know. I've spent a lot of time in the east. I know. I've had the "complete absence of time", experience myself, one commonly described, and it was quite striking. But no gods turned up. I know. I'm fond of that one, and read a lot about it around 30 yrs ago. I'm very well aware that there are many such claims. You haven't even covered the tip of the iceberg. Religious people frequently believe they have special "knowledge", but that is not "knowing", it is believing, and there's no evidence that there actually are real supernatural beings involved. Really? It's my task, is it? Is it part of your religious belief that scientific theories only become strong when they've falsified lots of unfalsifiable beliefs?I don't do tasks at the behest of people who don't know the difference between belief and knowledge. I haven't falsified the man in the moon yet, either, nor have I falsified Joe Schizophrenic's angels. More than 100 million false believers, and you can't demonstrate one single true believer. Stop fantasising. Is that the Hindu hypothesis you're talking about supporting with science? How many Hindus have we demonstrated to be believing in true supernatural beings so far? Not even one? Oh, dear. Don't mention the Hindu hypothesis again unless you can rectify that situation. Why? A difference between theories about the colours of swans and theories about supernatural beings is that swans are known to exist. That's a massive difference.And as so many religions have false creation stories, it would hardly be surprising if they also had false communication stories.If you're taking religious documents as a good guide to reality, why don't you go out and stone someone to death? That's what the Taliban do, and the direction to do so is in their religious documents, and purported to come from a real supernatural being. I'll put up a magic-attracting antennae in my yard, and the next time your god communicates with you, could you ask him to drop me a line?Alternatively, we could discuss neurology, and some of the things that are actually known about people who believe they are getting messages from invisible beings. Stop just assuming that you are correct and do the ground-work necessary to demonstrate evidence that you have something more than wishful thinking based on personal opinion and religious desires.I've got more than 100 million believers in a false supernatural being-concept. When will you show me just one person who believes in a demonstrably real supernatural being? Just one falsifies the theory that you claim is so weak.

Happy New Year, RAZD. That certainly is curious. Here's a specific concept. The god who created the world in six days less than 10,000 years ago, and fabricated the first two human beings during that period of creation. As I've pointed out, at least 100,000,000 of your compatriots believe in a god concept fitting this description.There's overwhelming "objective empirical evidence" that such a creation never took place, and therefore that the "specific concept of a supernatural being" described cannot exist.As I said, it certainly is curious. There's another guy on this forum who also calls himself "RAZD" and who spends a lot of time on science threads presenting evidence against this particular specific SB -concept. .Of course they are fabrications. As I've explained repeatedly, they are merely evidence (in fact, proof) that human beings can and do make up supernatural being-concepts. As you're now in agreement with this, there should be no need for me to imagine up any more. Human fabrication is the subject of my theory. You're repeatedly claiming that demonstrating human fabrication is not scientific evidence for human fabrication. I'm wondering how long you'll take to realise how stupid that is. For my imaginings, that's true (although if Dennis Markuze has read the thread, I wouldn't be 100% sure of that). But be careful with popular fiction. People can be found who believe in specific supernatural concepts that come from popular fiction. In the discussion here, most don't believe in a literal Middle-Earth, but some appear to, or at least think it's a serious question. If we could search the entire world, I'd bet on finding some people who literally believe that Tolkien's world exists along with all its magical characters. The same goes for Harry Potter.Vampire concepts are old, but the ones who transform into bats come from nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, and there will certainly be people who actually believe in these modern ones. I believe in vampiresThis illustrates your misunderstanding of the point, again. Of course the fact that people can and do make up supernatural beings-concepts does not necessarily mean that all such concepts are made up. That's one reason why "All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" is properly stated as a theory, not as a fact. Human invention is, as I keep pointing out, their only source known to science, just as adult rabbits are the only known source of baby rabbits, and clouds are the only known source of raindrops.Science goes for best explanations. It certainly doesn't take confirmation bias to theorize that all supernatural beings - concepts come from their only known source. It would require confirmation bias to believe that Tolkien's characters, vampires, fairies, or any other supernatural beings actually exist on the present state of evidence on this thread, or anywhere else. Are you really this obtuse? As I've repeatedly explained, I was making up supernatural being - concepts merely to make the simple point that humans can and do make them up. This was only because you seemed to be disputing the point which, frankly, no sane thinking person would do. Yes. So why did you keep bringing up this Hindu "hypothesis" of yours? And why do you keep putting forward a distinction between supernatural beings-concepts that people actually believe in and known fictions if you're not presenting belief as evidence?So, we can agree that people believing in any given supernatural being - concept is certainly zero evidence for that concept's actual existence. Good. Would you like to give me a list of SB concepts which are known not to have originated as intentional fiction? It might be difficult to judge which ancient seers and prophets genuinely believed the concepts they came up with, and which didn't. Of course. Which is why no-one on this thread has been arguing that. Why do you need to mischaracterize my argument? Have you still not learned the difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning? And between scientific theories and scientific facts? And see above. If you want to make up an argument and attribute it falsely to me, there's no point in complaining about what you've made up.Tell me, why do you think "All raindrops come from clouds" is a weak theory, and why do you think "All baby rabbits are born from adult rabbits" is a weak theory, and why do you think "All supernatural beings are products of the human imagination " is a weak theory?All three use inductive reasoning to attribute things to their only known respective sources. None of them can be described as facts, because they cannot be conclusively proven.You like talking about "confirmation bias". Tell me if you think one of the three is weaker than the others, and if you do think this, tell me why without demonstrating confirmation bias.Bear in mind that this forum is littered with examples of supernaturalists showing clear confirmation bias in their attacks on scientific theories. The other guy who calls himself "RAZD" keeps accusing them of this. Ah! I wasn't aware that some places in the world were better than others for observing supernatural beings. Which environments would you recommend? I've travelled the world extensively and so far I've never observed a scrap of empirical evidence for the real existence of any SB concept. What's it like in Rhode Island? Good for elf hunting?I've seen plenty of evidence of belief in all kinds of concepts, but, as you rightly point out, belief alone isn't scientific evidence. So, people believing in a god who hates gays, for example, does not give that concept's real existence any support at all, and the concept remains on the same evidential status in relation to existence as Harry Potter and Gandalf. Absolute zero. Jewish mythology. The Jewish tribal god who created the world in six days less than 10,000 years ago, whatever name you prefer for him. See above. Over 100 million believers in this concept in your country alone, and the concept is destroyed by empirical evidence.And, of course, you cannot give me one example of one person believing in an SB concept that demonstrably exists.Let's add more than 1 billion Muslims to this. The Koran describes an SB concept who gave his final word to Mohammed, and literally created the first two humans. Nearly all Muslims take this literally, and they are 1.5 billion in total. All the empirical evidence shows us, beyond reasonable doubt, that humans evolved as a group from other animals. So, we're at well over 1 billion beliefs in human invented SB concepts. The score is not 1 billion to one, but more than 1 billion to zero.Few scientific theories have the statistical support that mine does. You certainly haven't. You first claimed that they were allegorical (without actually demonstrating that they were, or what any of them were allegories for) and then, when I pointed out that that would make the actual described SB concepts fictional, you started to waffle about Hindu beliefs as if religious people believing in something was scientific evidence for its veracity, when you now agree that it's not. You're all over the place And your analogy to creation myths would be better if the children came up with different numbers of employees of different descriptions making the exact same piece of furniture. Which would mean that at least some of the employee concepts were imaginary. But it's still rubbish, because furniture factory employees are known to exist, and are known to be found in furniture factories. And you describe the children as observing something directly, when you know very well that our ancestors were not around to observe the formation of this planet. I'll show you how to make appropriate analogies. A group of children go playing in the woods. They return home to the village, and tell their parents that they fell into a time warp and saw some wood elves constructing a mound in a clearing in the wood, covering it with grassy turf, and planting wild flowers on it hundreds of years previously. When questioned separately, they are inconsistent on the number of elves involved, the means used to construct the mound, and the tools used. The accounts taken literally are mutually exclusive. The adult villagers are therefore disinclined to believe the kids' story, although, at a later date, the kids demonstrate that there is a grassy mound in a clearing. All observations of the mound by the adults reveal no signs that it is anything other than a normal natural formation, and there's no evidence of intent in its construction at all.

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They don't believe the kids, except for one daft old bugger called RAZD. He tells the story of a guru in ancient India who believed that all the stories that children tell about elves and fairies and magical little mound creators are actually distorted descriptions of the same real little magical mound creators. This is his idea of evidence.

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The other adults laugh.What!? I think you've completely lost the plot. What I'm pointing out is that the creation myths do not describe the formation of the universe or this solar system or this planet at all. They are like the myth of the building of the giant's causeway that I brought up earlier. An Irish giant builds it across to Scotland in order to challenge the Scot to come and compete with him. That is not something about the volcanic processes that actually formed it. It is complete fiction, as much as Harry Potter. But some people were taking the giant explanation seriously as recently as the 17th century, probably later (and possibly even now). Second hand accounts? Are you declaring a religious belief that the creation myths are "second hand accounts" of something somebody witnessed? And how is kids looking at something being made by people analogous to our ancestors not witnessing the formation of this planet and the life on it?If someone explained the existence of the Empire State building by saying that it sprouted from a magical rock buried in the earth and grew, then they would have hit the level of accuracy of the creation myths. Think of myths that explain things like a river being formed by the tears of a goddess who had lost out in love. That is not a truth distorted over time, or because it’s a "second hand account". Like the giants' causeway story, it's a complete fabrication that bears no relation to how rivers actually come into being. Remember, we're talking about scientific empirical evidence of how things happen. In relation to our evidence, we can see clearly that the SB concepts described in the creation mythologies are figments of the human imagination. Why are you lying? I've established that human invention is the only source of SB concepts known to science, and that belief in demonstrably false concepts is the norm. Are you now describing yourself as a pseudoskeptic? Your current position seems to be that my theory is very weak. But a characteristic of very weak theories is that they should be easily falsified. It only takes the establishment of the actual real existence of one SB concept out of the many thousands to falsify the theory.So what evidence do you have to support the position that my theory is weak? Remember, supernatural beliefs aren't scientific evidence in themselves, as you agreed above. Be careful. No biologist can conclusively prove that a single fossilized animal that you point to actually evolved from other different animals. You are making the kinds of demands that the more nave supernaturalist creationists often make of science. That's why I've ignored that request.You haven't made the claim that the IPU exists, but you haven't recognized the point that the only known source of such concepts is human invention. That, therefore, is the scientific best explanation for any given SB concept, just as when you feel a raindrop fall on your skin, the best explanation of its source is a cloud, not an angel pissing from above.As it happens, the IPU is one that can be reasonably demonstrated to be false because the two adjectives describing her are mutually exclusive, as I've mentioned before, so the concept is a logical impossibility. But had you picked the universe creating god who hates gays (and you're usually keen on SB concepts that are actually believed in), then I couldn't falsify that.It shows your basic misunderstanding, once again, of why some things are stated as scientific theories (they can't be proven but can be falsified), and others are stated as facts. There are many examples of unfalsifiable SB concepts you could have picked, and, as I've said before, a general claim like "elves exist" can never be falsified whether or not they actually do exist. Don't be childish. If you don't accept the empirical evidence that the Young Earth Creationists' supernatural being concept is a human invention, then go and argue the point with that other guy called RAZD who keeps posting on the science threads.And if you don't accept that we have excellent empirical evidence on this thread that more than 1 billion people are believing in imagined SB concepts, then you don't know what "objective empirical evidence" is.You haven't shown that one single person in this world is believing in an SB concept that actually exists, and your pathetic waffling about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance is because you can't do this, can you?A debate couldn't be more lopsided.

Once again. Don't be childish. There's a flat earth creator god concept, based on certain verses in the bible. I'm not wasting time typing in evidence that the earth isn't flat. For evidence against the equally ridiculous young earth creator, read the link.http://razd.evcforum.net/Age_Dating.htm#The_Bottom_LineEnjoy

It's hardly my fault that you don't know what empirical evidence is. Why don't you find out? You've been accusing me of making up specific supernatural concepts for the last few posts. Presumably you must have objective empirical evidence that I was doing so. Here's just a tiny bit of the mountains of empirical evidence that effectively falsifies all the supernatural beings - concepts who are described as doing a hands on creation of our species. Well over 1 billion people believe in Adam and Eve and their creator, a demonstrably false SB concept. And there are many other imagined SB concepts in the creation mythologies who create the first humans.And below is a tiny fraction of the mountain of empirical evidence that falsifies the flat earth creator god.