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Author | Topic: Crop circles and intelligent design | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
We have 6+ billion people ... some of whom construct something looking like a termite hill ... can we conclude all termite hills are made by humans?
Suppose we couldn't find the termites? Does that mean they aren't there? That's why I say that a claim based upon heresay and replicatability is as weak as a claim that something that we haven't discovered yet caused it.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
"Except that the evidence has stood up to scrutiny, which is why we don't think that aliens are responsible. Since the theory 'humans did it' is always more supported (since we know humans can and do do it, and that humans exist, have the opportunity and the motive)."
But there is NO sufficient evidence. Heresay and eye-witness accounts are ruled out when they are eye-witness accounts of alines or strange lights, but accepted when it's 'doug n' dave' (well Ok maybe not now since I think at least one of them is deceased). That people CAN is not evidence of anything to do with the origin. It simply shows that there are ways of replicating the result.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
"As a point of comparison could you tell me whether you think it is justifiable to conclude evolution over Last Thursdayism on the basis of positive evidence?"
No it's not. The support for evolution is a lack of negative evidence/refutation. "If I showed you a herd of cows making a crop circle are you saying that the "human-crop-circles-are-the-only-ones" theory would not be falsified?" OK ... that's true. But it'd also be evidence FOR non-human crops circles and a GREAT money-maker. But it is impossible to implement a test for that. To me that's just as unfalsifiable as 'aliens did it.'
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Not as ridiculous as all that.
Just because I can demonstrate A way of doing something, does not mean that all instances of that 'something' were created in that way. The fingerprint thing is quite telling, since it IS possible to plant fingerprints in order to incriminate. So by themselves the fingerprints on the murder weapon are not sufficient evidence (in all cases). I'm sure there are lawyers who have tried that one when that's all the evidence against their clients
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Without knowing the claims of last thursdayism I cannot comment on it's potential.
OK ... I actually agree that 'all crop circles are human made' is a falsifiable proposition. However, it is an opinion rather than a theory ... since it, itself, is not based upon anything other than a failure to believe that crop circles could be formed apart from by humans.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
See msg 132
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Two year absence:
Sorry had to go back to the home-world for crop circle making supplies Evidence that humans exist: Existential arguments aside ... tick.Evidence of crop circle making capability: ... tick, but with reservation. Evidence of resource availability: ... tick. Evidence of pschological motivation: ... tick, but what IS that motivation? Evidence that some H have created CC's: ... tick. All known creators of CC's be H: ... tick. Comments: The above, does indeed, provide a body of evidence to show that some CC's are created by humans. It cannot be used to project that ALL CC's are, no matter how reasonable that proposition may sound. So far as the known H-made CC's go there is significant suggestion that the known H-made CC's differ in many observable ways from the unknown-made CC's. That alone suggests that there are other ways to make CC's than those provided by the known HCCM's. The motivation for the creation of HCC's appears to be a desire to proove that CC's are a prank perpetrated by H's on other H's.This requires that CC's appeared prior to this where the maker is unknown. Alien existence:There are the statistical arguments ... possible to dispute by changing the assumptions made, but with the expanding number of earth-like planets being identified in this galaxy alone, it does not seem reasonable that H's are the only (nominally) intelligent life. Travel capabilities:If it is possible to develop technologies capable of interstellar travel, then, in a near infinite universe, someone probably has. Can't proove it one way or the other, despite all the UFO sightings and abduction accounts (lot of weirdos out here ). Alien Motivation:Doesn't the above phrase sum up a H's capability for figuring out the motivation? How does a rat view the mazes that they are put into by H experimentors? How does the biological subject of ANY experiment understand the motivations of the experimentor? Lack of apparent motivation is NOT negative evidence ... it's an open question. Evidence of any Alien CCMing:Cyclic reasoning if that's the proposal being investigated, surely? Fingerprints: There are several methods of planting fingerprints, from creating fingertip moulds to extracting them from rubber gloves. The point of mentioning it was to refute the analogy being made. Lawyers: Have you heard some of the arguments that come out with? And you think I'm erratic and non-sensical
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Last Thursdayism:
Cannot be refuted ... unless we can find conclusive evidence that there is no godly person ... which I think we can't. Falsifying 'All CC's are created by H's': Find features in unknown-origin CC's that diverge from those of known-origin CC's. Which there appear to be several of -- admittedly according to people who already subscribe to a 'something else is doing it' opinion. Only known source: It's based upon the ability of H's to replicate CC's. That's not the same thing at all.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
LAck of evidence, and all that ....
The proposal that all CC's are made by H's is more to do with the fear that the concept that anything else exists and is more advanced than H's. Reminds me of the cricket war robots ....
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Not an approriate analogy.
It's more like saying that because I can write a simple set of computerised rules that can cause a spider-web design to be created, that spiders must use the exact same rule-based mechanism to do what they do.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I have the following confession when I started this thread many years ago I had little to no interest in crop circles.
I WAS interested in belief systems in so far as what makes people reject some ideas but not others.
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