Reduce Spending and Raise Taxes?

[Scat]

Where did the first single-celled organism come from?

Kansas. that's why when we say there's no place like home, we mean Kansas.

One Brow is not known for his sense of humor but this right here made me laugh.

 

[One Brow]

When you observe "scientists" holding forth on opinions/beliefs that lack actual data or that are, so far, beyond our reach in time/space that nobody has yet been able to set up a definitive experiment that competently tests the hypothesis, what you are seeing is likely some form of modernist substitute for "religion".

Any mainstream scientist I have read acknowledges that extrapolations outside of the test range get increasingly unreliable the further out you go. It's a part of any basics statistics class I've taught. However, it's still evidenced-based, and therefore can't really be said to be a religion (I realize you didn't say that, but I wanted to make that clarification).

I consider religion to be a separate human capacity from knowledge or "science", much like developing a business enterprise is a separate talent from being about to keep a set of books to record expenses and income.

I go even further, saying that the truths derived from personal beliefs systems are completely different kinds of truths than the truths derived from empirical systems.

 

[Scat]

How did a thread on reducing the deficit turn into evolution vs. ID??

 

[The Thriller]

How did a thread on reducing the deficit turn into evolution vs. ID??

One word:

Millsapa

 

[babe]

I've never read more than snippets of Darwin, but that sounds like a lot of scientists when wrtiing about science.



In the sense that books are not science, sure. Darwin discusses science in his book, but he would not be able to perform science in them.



There are witnesses otherwise. Not to mention all the work he did in his own yard. I have no doubt he was eridite, English, and pampered, but he was also willing to get in the dirt.



As with many great scientists, Darwin did not originate ideas, but brought them together in a way that made sense of things. Natural selection, random variation, inheritence of traits, and species differentiation had all been observed before, but Darwuin was the first to being them together in a systemic manner using the first three to explain the latter.

Conspiracy stuff snipped.



Yes, I know. In fact, I even know the difference between anecdotal evidence and epidemilogical evidence. Do you think you can make an argument that Darwin, in particular, relied on anecdotal evidence for what he said where firm conclusions? That would be fun to read.

This is a pretty good response to my rant.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to One Brow again.

I have to at least give you a compliment for your attempt to raise the level of discourse in here.

I admit we all have to give nineteenth-century writers, scientific or otherwise, some credit for trying to push the envelope of human comprehension a bit. They are in many respects responsible for getting us into a whole new regime of dogma. Which I find prefereable to what it used to be.

My sympathies for "defenders of the faith", or faiths as the case may be, arise largely from my skepticism that we have arrived at an ultimate truth so far, and I just don't like to let folks who are having too much fun making old-fashioned "believers" look bad go untested in regard to their new-fashioned beliefs.

OOPS. . . . I have to get back to work. Have a nice day.

 

[PearlWatson]

One word:

Millsapa

I think SKAss brought it up.

 

[One Brow]

My sympathies for "defenders of the faith", or faiths as the case may be, arise largely from my skepticism that we have arrived at an ultimate truth so far, and I just don't like to let folks who are having too much fun making old-fashioned "believers" look bad go untested in regard to their new-fashioned beliefs.

Actually, I think that's a valuable role to play. First, no matter how impartial and skeptical any person tries to be, they always miss something. You need a tough grindstone to sharpen an axe. Second, while I think there may be an ultimate truth, I don't think we are capable of knowing it, and all of the ways we do know and learn things are flawed in that respect. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of that from time to time.

Thanks for the kind words, and have a good day at work.

 

[sirkickyass]

I mentioned that Ben Stein supports ID and made a joke about young-earth creationism. Since Millsapa had already revealed herself to be a total zero on the issues of early 1980s fiscal and monetary policy she decided to attack on the basis that ID is legitimate science.

She could have tried to pick apart my statement that "Stein's political and economic philosophy could be called incoherent at best and absurdly cynical and calculating at worst" but decided to go the religious angle instead.

 

[One Brow]

I think SKAss brought it up.

It was completely unfair to you.

 

[sirkickyass]

My sympathies for "defenders of the faith", or faiths as the case may be, arise largely from my skepticism that we have arrived at an ultimate truth so far, and I just don't like to let folks who are having too much fun making old-fashioned "believers" look bad go untested in regard to their new-fashioned beliefs.

For what it is worth, I don't believe we've arrived at ultimate truth. I just think we're "less wrong" today than we have been in previous decades, centuries, and millenia. On this issue I always defer to this Asimov essay "The Relativity of Wrong:" https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

 

[PearlWatson]

It was completely unfair to you.

Ha! I did jump on it like a hot stud.

 

[PearlWatson]

I mentioned that Ben Stein supports ID and made a joke about young-earth creationism. Since Millsapa had already revealed herself to be a total zero on the issues of early 1980s fiscal and monetary policy she decided to attack on the basis that ID is legitimate science.

She could have tried to pick apart my statement that "Stein's political and economic philosophy could be called incoherent at best and absurdly cynical and calculating at worst" but decided to go the religious angle instead.

Frankly I'm just more interested in one subject than the other. I can understand your desire to draw a nigh insufferable noobcake into a subject you think you are expert on, but I just don't feel like it. If I want to be schooled on economics I would rather go to someone I respect, like Franklin or my economist lawyer friend.

 

[PearlWatson]

Dr. Behe was a very good biochemist. However, he has not been a good evolutionary biologist.

Evolutionary biologists? Those are the very cultists who turned Darwin's busted theory into religious dogma forced on public school kids.

What do these ESP biologists even do besides spend money that should go toward beneficial science on trying to disprove God?

 

[PearlWatson]

Life violates the laws of thermodynamics.

In what way?

Nature tends from order to disorder. Life flows the opposite way, making it an anti-entropic force.

 

[One Brow]

Evolutionary biologists? Those are the very cultists who turned Darwin's busted theory into religious dogma forced on public school kids.

Yawn.

What do these ESP biologists even do besides spend money that should go toward beneficial science on trying to disprove God?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology

 

[One Brow]

Nature tends from order to disorder. Life flows the opposite way, making it an anti-entropic force.

There is no law of Thermodynamics that says "nature tends from order to disorder". In fact, it's flatly false. A snowflake is more ordered than the water it was made from.

I know which law you are trying for, but you can't even state it correctly. Do you want my help in explaining your position to you?

 

[franklin]

There is no law of Thermodynamics that says "nature tends from order to disorder". In fact, it's flatly false. A snowflake is more ordered than the water it was made from.

I know which law you are trying for, but you can't even state it correctly. Do you want my help in explaining your position to you?

For what it's worth, I'll second this Sapa.

Your [not so uncommon] thermodynamics idea fails to quantify the +/- randomness, to start. Creating order requires energy, thus obeying the law as heat is let off from the process. Entropy is obeyed.

 

[PearlWatson]

There is no law of Thermodynamics that says "nature tends from order to disorder". In fact, it's flatly false. A snowflake is more ordered than the water it was made from.

I know which law you are trying for, but you can't even state it correctly. Do you want my help in explaining your position to you?

The confusion about disorder and entropy comes from an 1898 statement by a brilliant theoretical physicist whose mathematical contributions to thermodynamics and entropy are still totally valid. However, his attempt to interpret entropy in simple language was incorrect.

Entropy: The natural direction of energy flow is from concentrated to dispersed.

Energy is required to make a snowflake from water, so your example to dismiss order---> disorder was a fail.

The concept I was going for is still valid. The moment something is built (intelligently designed) the minute it starts breaking down (becoming less ordered/concentrated).
Humans grow to a peak (about 21 years) and then start breaking down. Plants grow to their potential (design) and then deteriorate. The force that pushes for life is intelligence (mother nature if you will). It doesn't stem from random mutations or accidents like the Darwiniac dogma states.

 

[babe]

For what it's worth, I'll second this Sapa.

Your [not so uncommon] thermodynamics idea fails to quantify the +/- randomness, to start. Creating order requires energy, thus obeying the law as heat is let off from the process. Entropy is obeyed.

I've heard some great scientists wonder about the things we don't understand, listing the anti-entropic force/power that "wound up" the cosmos in the first place. The heat capacity of water vapor, even at 32 degrees, compared to the heat content of the same water vapor atoms arranged in a form of ice called a snowflake, is greater. When that vapor solidifies into ice, the air around is warmed by the quantity of heat called the heat of sublimation. It takes energy to melt and vaporize that same flake, the same amount of energy.

Most natural processes involve a release of heat to the environment, or other dispersals of energy. Unless someone knows how to use energy from elsewhere to create something that represents an "ordered" store of energy of some kind, like say an atom.

Folks who believe it's unecessary to invoke the god concept in dealing with the cosmos still do essentially the same thing when they invoke the Big Bang or some other theory of creation/origin.

I'm seconding Sapa here, in case anyone can't follow my little rant.

 

[LogGrad98]

The confusion about disorder and entropy comes from an 1898 statement by a brilliant theoretical physicist whose mathematical contributions to thermodynamics and entropy are still totally valid. However, his attempt to interpret entropy in simple language was incorrect.

Entropy: The natural direction of energy flow is from concentrated to dispersed.

Energy is required to make a snowflake from water, so your example to dismiss order---> disorder was a fail.

The concept I was going for is still valid. The moment something is built (intelligently designed) the minute it starts breaking down (becoming less ordered/concentrated).
Humans grow to a peak (about 21 years) and then start breaking down. Plants grow to their potential (design) and then deteriorate. The force that pushes for life is intelligence (mother nature if you will). It doesn't stem from random mutations or accidents like the Darwiniac dogma states.

Who are you, my physicist?




Uh...hmm...wrong thread.