Comparitive delusions

Except everybody, from Message 10I said it before and I'll say it again. The moment you have all the training to understand the evidence, and you have seen all the evidence, you are no longer a laymen. However, most scenarios have been explained in laymen's terms, what scenarios could you not find layman's terms for?This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 17-March-2006 05:05 PM

Taking a look at the OP – rather than this being reserved for another thread I think that's largely the point of this thread

It looks like you have dropped 'wild speculation' now, if so I guess that is progress.In a mathematical sense, everything science does is conjectural - not just theories that involved the distant past. Treating geology/evolution/cosmology etc as something different because of the issue of the past is not a strong argument.In a less formal sense, conjecture is really that which applies to hypotheses. Not only can we come to firm conclusions (supported by the evidence) but we can also test the validity of our assumptions. This is what tests mean. We can't test the past, but we can test that our methods of explaining the past hold water. The classic example is supernova 1987 allowing us to test radiodecaying rates hundreds of thousands of years ago, but geology has a fair amount too. Being able to find oil and predict other formations before they are examined are a good indicator that our ideas about the past are good.But this isn't the fact vs interpretation thread. As you yourself have just admitted, scientists make conclusions based on the evidence... ...whether or not they are correct conclusions, whether or not it is good nomenclature to refer to these conclusions as fact is irrelevant. What is relevant is that using independent lines of evidence to arrive at a conclusion is not delusional, it has proven to have been a very successful method of learning about the world, and putting our knowledge to practical use.On the other hand, believing that animals can talk (or have talked) so well as persuade human beings to do things, heck believing that not only a bush can talk, but that a burning bush can and so on and so forth has more characteristics of delusion because they run counter to everything we have been able to learn about the world on our own, especially when, asked to validate the animals can talk idea, the person in question says "Some guy told me it was true, and I believe what he tells me",
"What guy was that? Surely you have some evidence that he is reliable?"
"Well, he's dead now - he wrote it all in a book thousands of years ago, but I faith that he was both right and speaking literally"Its about comparitive delusions. Objectively speaking if we meet someone who tells us that once upon a time donkeys could talk, he knows it to be true because he read it in a book, and the book swore that everything in the book was real, we'd probably think they were delusional. Especially if the book told us that the British Royal Family were all reptiles/dinosaurs from another planet.Actually we might not. We'd simply call them naive or gullible, but the purpose of this thread is comparing which one is more delusional than the other. I think it is clear which one is the more delusional.

Connotations is the difference. I am not saying that conclusions are conclusive in the sense you have taken it to mean. As I said, its a nomenclature issue. To me, the things you are calling fact, I call data. The things that I call fact are conclusions inferred from several lines of evidence. Finding oil springs to mind. Indeed, using your definition we can't conclude anything ever. If you carefully read my post you'll realise I never said we can test the past, but we can test the validity of our assumptions about the past. I even gave examples. Technically IRG is misrepresenting you. What caused the serpent to sow dissent amongst humans is irrelevant - it was still talking which goes against everything we have learned about the world on our own. Indeed they unthinkable, outside of experience and ordinary thought. I think that is what IRH was trying to say. It is because of these things that objectively speaking delusion might be a good lable. After all - you speak to someone we both think is deluded and they'll come up with a similar explanation.

Maybe not, but impression others are getting is different. Your context is full of 'unsupported' and 'speculation' and the like. I'm sure you can see how people might imply you were using 'conjecture' in a negative way.Hypothesis is a better term, but its not strong on enough, you need to go one step further - theory. I take conclusive, in the context you are using it to mean 'without doubt'. A conclusion in science is never without doubt though it might be beyond reasonable doubt.

quote:

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con·clu·sive Audio pronunciation of "conclusive" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-klsv)
adj.

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Serving to put an end to doubt, question, or uncertainty; decisive.

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quote:

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Main Entry: con·clu·sion
Pronunciation: k&n-'kl-zh&n
Function: noun
1 : a judgment or opinion inferred from relevant facts

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I was using it to mean as defined above, you thought I meant it in the other way. I trust that's cleared up now. %0 Dover, its that we seperate terms. The more we understand about how oil is formed (how long it takes to form, how it forms etc), the more accurate our projections are going to be as where we might find oil. If the age of the earth is much lower (eg 6,000 years) then we know nothing about how oil forms, so we have no way of being able to detect where it might form. I think I might need to repeat my point, because I think you are addressing something else. I'm not saying we can test how limestone forms today and thus we can form conclusions about how it might have happened in the past. I am talking about testing whether or not it is valid to make the jump from present to past. Exactly. So - the question is, how can you accuse others of delusion, when you operate using rules which have no confirmation? I'm not saying it is invalid. I am saying that if we met someone that said 'donkeys are aliens', he was totally convinced of it etc. If we provided with evidence to the contrary (and advise him that the alien hypothesis flies in the face of everything we have learned) he could say point though. By saying this, you are judging GOD, not me.[/qs]I think you missed it Faith. I was judging people that believe some entity out there does the unthininkable, things outside of experience and ordinary thought. I was judging people who believe this because someone told it to them, and they read it in some old manuscripts. When we compare delususions, who is more deluded:1. The Scientist who relies on what the data tells him to try and form explanations and conclusions about the world. He tests the validity of his conclusions, and invites others to test them too. He presents the raw data to any that are interested, and says 'It seems clear that this is the way things are'.2. Someone who ignores the data, or says the data is wrong, because an ancient tribe of desert nomads believed in a god that created the world and life several thousand years ago, and anything that these desert nomads say goes, becuase there were under the direction of this god.Looking at it objectively, surely you can see that the second one looks more likely to be the thought processes of a delusional person. Hell, that person might be right of course - but if I was going to place bets on it, I'd go for number 2 as mr delusional.

Did somebody give you the impression that science was about absolute certainty? They should be spanked.