Peanut Gallery

So RAZ has absolutely no idea what he deistically believes in he just knows he does. And you know that those who tell him this is a silly position are wrong, you just don't know why. I guess there is a sort of brotherly symmetry in that. Thomson and Thompson strike again.

We're talking about taking a hypothesis to theory.I gave you the back info.

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Hypothesis -> Theory: peer-reviewed confirmation by scientific experiment around the world. See cold fusion's failure.

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Living rodents aren't machines created by man. Rodents were around before humans.Scientists have been working with rodents for centuries. About 20 million rats and mice are used in the US every year by scientists. This doesn't include all the other rodents used for research.To my knowledge, no scientist has claimed to have found a talking rodent. Is this really something we need to waste money on to test? Criteria for Scientific TheoriesSo how many more rodents must be questioned to be able to say that talking rodents are a product of the human imagination?
What takes it from a hypothesis to a theory?I found this interesting: Why is this a theory if it is untestable?I can predict that when you talk to a living rodent, it won't communicate with you using human language. Anyone can test that prediction.In message 9, bluegenes made a prediction. RAZD was unwilling to do this. So was RAZD able to produce the SB and just didn't or was the prediction correct?

LOL fun read. but if you insist on finding a rodent who can speak the King's English, you may be missing the rodent who can speak those african clicking languages like Xhosa. You miss the point - repeatable experiments. repeatable experiments.... Oh, believe me, and check with Cavediver, experiments are waiting to test this. They are working hard to get this kind of stuff. This is a stupid line of argument. Forget your talking rats. This is a splendid illustration of bluegenes' complete misunderstanding of RAZD's challenge.... It was never ever RAZD's problem. It was bluegenes problem.The challenge was not for RAZD to prove that the IPU could falsify his theory, but for bluegenes to provide objective peer-reviewed repeatable evidence that it was a figment of human imagination. The onus was being put on bluegenes, never on RAZD. However, Modulous elegantly showed how the challenger does not get to pick the experiment. bluegenes should have shrugged the challenge off with that argument instead of stupidly asking RAZD to prove it could exist and thus falsify the theory. This was never about falsification. It was about the initial supporting evidence for the theory.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

It's about both. The fact that RAZ cannot tell the difference between one and the other is not Bluegenes problem. Nor is RAZ's apparent inability to comprehend the meaning of:1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. As per Message 149Doesn't RAZ even understand which aspect of objectively observable reality Bluegene's theory is designed to explain? Do you?

Actually, bluegenes was laughing at your brother, and taking the piss. The request to establish the invention of the IPU was ignored because I knew why it was being asked. This was why: Now, young xongsmith, having implied that PD is stupid, and stated that I was being stupid, you can tell us why bluegenes knew from the above that your brother had no real understanding of theorizing in science at all. He's as ignorant as you.So, as you insist on commenting on scientific theories on the internet, tell us what's wrong with what I've quoted from RAZD, and show that you understand a little bit of the basics, instead of just talking crap about science and calling other people stupid. {BTW mods, although I've read on RAZDs posts that participants in GBs have been asked to keep of the peanut gallery, it isn't actually true in my case - no-one has asked me - so, please don't consider this an infringement until I am asked. }

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LOL fun read. but if you insist on finding a rodent who can speak the King's English, you may be missing the rodent who can speak those african clicking languages like Xhosa.

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I didn't say King's English, you did. I said a human language.

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You miss the point - repeatable experiments.

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What's not repeatable about interviewing rodents? It's not like there's a shortage of rodents.

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Oh, believe me, and check with Cavediver, experiments are waiting to test this. They are working hard to get this kind of stuff.

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You didn't answer the question. Why was it considered a theory when it was untestable?

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This is a stupid line of argument. Forget your talking rats.

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No it isn't. You're simply explaining how a hypothesis becomes a theory using the info I provided.

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The challenge was not for RAZD to prove that the IPU could falsify his theory, but for bluegenes to provide objective peer-reviewed repeatable evidence that it was a figment of human imagination. The onus was being put on bluegenes, never on RAZD. However, Modulous elegantly showed how the challenger does not get to pick the experiment. bluegenes should have shrugged the challenge off with that argument instead of stupidly asking RAZD to prove it could exist and thus falsify the theory. This was never about falsification. It was about the initial supporting evidence for the theory.

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If someone says they have a living talking rodent, how do I prove the rodent is a living talking rodent if it isn't brought to me or made available for testing?To test if the IPU is real or only a product of the human imagination, wouldn't it have to be brought to the tester. It can't be tested over the internet. A concept is from the human mind, so until the IPU is presented to a facility for testing it is a product of the human imagination.Give me an example of what you expect bluegenes to do without using any of the following words: objective peer-reviewed repeatable evidence. That doesn't really mean anything to me. Use my rodent hypothesis as an example.

No, he does not have a theory.Parts 1 through 4 of the agreed on process apply to the formation and testing of a scientific hypothesis.At best he has a scientific hypothesis, if he can show the evidence that supports his formulation.Even then his hypothesis is not tested., ergo NOT a theory. QED Message 121
Message 963
Message 1
ALL of which I take to be a general requests for GD participants to stay out of the Peanut Gallery.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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to share.

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Would you know if the rat was speaking Xhosa? What if, because of the limitations of a rat's mouth, the Xhosa he is speaking is barely audible? What if this rat could not understand english and didn't even recognize it as a human language and thus is choosing to ignore it? In this case the problem isn't the repeatability - it's design of the experiment. A human who can only speak & understand English interviewing a whispering rat who can only speak & understand Xhosa is not a valid experiment. I think there are split camps on that. There certainly some who claim it is untestable, but there are others who would disagree with that. For example we have that strange friend of Roger Penrose who was claiming to see places in the cosmic background data where possible "branes" of other universes had bumped into "branes" of our universe. There are people looking, some perhaps way too hard in this case.But the real reason is probably the mediots, like Discover Magazine, who slapped the label "theory" on it before they could be stopped and it got out into the world at large. I would conjecture that these popular portrayals of String Theory are doing it a great disservice, despite their desire to explain the concept clearly. I think the rat analogy has a limited usefulness here. ...and this is where the analogy usefulness gets dodgy: You have stated this wrong. The flaw is the 8th word "or". There was to be no test that the IPU is real. The test was only to show, to demonstrate that it was a product of human invention. It was not an either-or test. The IPU could still be completely a product of human imagination, but we may never be able to demonstrate it other than from the deep armchair sessions with the snifters of cognac, leaving a glimmer of a shadow of philosophical doubt hanging in the air like a waft of cigar smoke of days gone by. And here is where the mistake of presenting the test as an either-or test traps your progress. The task is NOT to present an IPU to the facility for testing. The task is to demonstrate that it is made up. We have to strike the "real or" part so that the statement above now appears as follows: And you can see that the sentence no longer makes sense.However, this task was out-of-bounds and bluegenes would have just written that he will take his legally correct right to ignore it. I'm sorry it doesn't mean anything to you. For me, it is the very thing that makes science so solid and strong.I would have expected bluegenes to tell the truth: Sorry - I haven't collected anything on the IPU yet, and, anyway, you don't get to ask me which SBs to test for support of the theory. Which is sort of what he did.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

But RAZ how would you know? You have repeatedly demonstrated across multiple threads your utter bewilderment regarding the innate difference between inductively reasoned scientific tentative theories and statements of certitude derived from deductive logic. You wouldn't recognise a scientific theory if one sat on your lap and slapped you round the face with a wet fish. But you have demonstrated that you don't even understand the first step in this process. Structuring the steps in a colourful chart is not the same as understanding what they mean. You once again reveal that you have absolutely no idea how a scientific theory is constructed. As per Message 149So why don't you do yourself a favour and show us all that you are actually able to answer that post? I'll even give you some pointers if you ask me nicely.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

What a hilarious little side topic has developed here. Rats speaking obscure human languages. EvC never ceases to amaze me. This is an example of someone speaking Xhosa. Xhosa. Are you really going to suggest that nobody would have noticed a rodent speaking in this way? Dude - Are you really suggesting that the theory that rodents do not communicate in human languages is evidentially weak?Really?

I would just like to point out that the talking rodent example is not as radically different to the god example as one might first assume. Both at root are examples of anthropomorphism. In the case of talking rodents we have a wide litany of characters such as Mickey Mouse which are essentially animals imbued with human characteristics such as the ability to speak. In the case of gods we have a litany of mythical beings responsible for various aspects of nature which are again imbued with human characteristics. Even the most ambiguously defined deistic concepts are invariably imbued with a minimum of human-like conscious intent with regard to their ability and desire to do things like creating the universe.In both the anthropomorphised rodent example and the example of aspects of nature being similarly anthropomorphised (i.e. into gods/deities) the only known source of such concepts is the human imagination. None of either have ever been demonstrated to actually exist.The primary difference between the two examples is that nobody actually has any personal attachment or belief in talking rodents whereas quite the converse is true of people and their apparent need to believe in the existence of gods.But just how different are Danger Mouse and Stuart Little to Thor and Apollo? In terms of exemplifying the human proclivity to imbue things with human characteristics to create conceptual entities which don't actually exist I would say they are very similar indeed.

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Would you know if the rat was speaking Xhosa? What if, because of the limitations of a rat's mouth, the Xhosa he is speaking is barely audible? What if this rat could not understand english and didn't even recognize it as a human language and thus is choosing to ignore it?

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And human imagination begins. You're making excuses when no one has come forward with a talking rodent. You do realize that mice and rats aren't the only rodents, right?Are you implying that a hypothesis cannot become a theory because of what we can imagine would falsify it or be missed?Are you also implying that scientists never "miss" anything in experiments or they never misinterpret the data? So the theory is valid until it is falsified, whether the "missed" information is found sooner or later. When that obscure little rat or his descendants are found, it will negate my theory.

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In this case the problem isn't the repeatability - it's design of the experiment. A human who can only speak & understand English interviewing a whispering rat who can only speak & understand Xhosa is not a valid experiment.

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So it isn't the repeatability. As I said above, the person presenting the rodent would be claiming it speaks blah blah blah. An appropriate language expert would be called in. Not a problem.You're already assuming an obscure rodent will be missed. There are scientists who speak Xhosa. Scientists do animal experiments in South Africa. If someone claims they have a rodent speaking Xhosa, the person testing the rodent would need to speak Xhosa.

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I think the rat analogy has a limited usefulness here.

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It is a rodent analogy and no it isn't. It is the same issue that bluegenes is dealing with. How do we prove that Remy (Ratatouille) or Darwin (G-Force) are only figments of the human imagination? By RAZD reasoning, the fact that we don't see them running around in the real world doesn't mean they don't exist in the real world. (Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence)You find it limited because you don't believe talking rodents exist outside of the human imagination or products of human imagination.

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You have stated this wrong. The flaw is the 8th word "or". There was to be no test that the IPU is real. The test was only to show, to demonstrate that it was a product of human invention. It was not an either-or test. The IPU could still be completely a product of human imagination, but we may never be able to demonstrate it other than from the deep armchair sessions with the snifters of cognac, leaving a glimmer of a shadow of philosophical doubt hanging in the air like a waft of cigar smoke of days gone by.

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Yes, we can demonstrate that the IPU is purely a product of human imagination.The IPU is logically impossible: A thing can't be pink (emitting a particular spectrum of EM radiation) and invisible (emitting an empty spectrum)?Now you can add to the IPU to try and get around that logic, but the source of those excuses are the human imagination. You'd be making up details just like you did with the whispering rat. You pulled those details out of your imagination. You didn't find a whispering Xhosa speaking rat.Bluegenes said: The human imagination is the only known source of supernatural beings.I said: The human imagination is also the only known source for talking rodents.

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However, this task was out-of-bounds and bluegenes would have just written that he will take his legally correct right to ignore it.

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OK, so I don't have to prove to you that Remy is purely a product of human imagination.You haven't convinced me that my hypothesis or bluegenes' can't be considered theories.

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The primary difference between the two examples is that nobody actually has any personal attachment or belief in talking rodents whereas quite the converse is true of people and their apparent need to believe in the existence of gods.

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Exactly!I figured if they can show me why my hypothesis can't be a theory, I'd understand why they don't feel bluegenes has a theory.So far, I think I still got a theory.

We can actually investigate wether or not rats can talk, say by finding that they lack the necessary vocal chords, but we don't have anything to investigate for supernatural beings.

Is there any evidence that conscious intent can exist without physical brains?Do universe creating gods exhibit conscious intent? Do they have physical brains?