Bevets: What is the source of the 'the force'?


Duck Tape???

Bevets:

If by 'faith' you mean 'scripture' and by 'science' you mean 'evolutionism', then I agree

Close enough for this hour of the night, I won't split hairs with you. It doesn't mean that you can not be a scientist if you believe in God, that is a personal thing. I mean that you can't mix and match theories. They are seperate. No labels in the texts. Teach physics in physics class, teach God in church.

collectivemind: confused himself and just decided to sing.

I just didn't see anything worth responding to in your post, so I responded with a coincidental song lyric.

TheCaptain: I agree with that entire list. Furthermore, I am willing to comment on string theory: speculative would be a mild term for it, and it has become the haven of "physicists" who are attracted by the fact that their work will never be exposed to actual data in their lifetimes. And indeed, to have a serious understanding of science you need to know why we hold certain theories. The problem is, those reasons are generally very complicated and hard to teach to high-schoolers.

One quibble, though: physicists do not make "wild" speculation. Our unfounded speculation is thoroughly reasoned and subject to stringient peer review, thank you very much. ;-)

I just didn't see anything worth responding to in your post, so I responded with a coincidental song lyric.

alright, cop out. fair. just don't preach about things you refuse to understand, you don't seem to like that

Well this thread has gone from entertainably stupid to stupidly worthless, I'm heading to bed also.

"I know God dosen't exist because I've seen the entirity of it all and he wasn't there," proudly said the young fish to the plastic castle.

N. S. Radieaux

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

That was some really farked up shait right there!! Religious nutjobs tailoring christian twaddle to children are no different than crack dealers.

They're both selling something that destroys a person's ability to think and function normally in the REAL world.

Bevets: You are a nutty loon, as usual.

TheSeer
The problem is, those reasons are generally very complicated and hard to teach to high-schoolers.

maybe when we're less closeminded. maybe when the truth cannot be ignored

now let's go get WASTED!

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

does everything you don't agree with have to be evil?

TheCaptain:

but I do think textbook writers need to qualify a few things. Science, like religion, tries to explain everything. Some of these explanations are based on sound observations; others are little better than wild speculation.


Basics text books are just that Basic. Most of the time the details are glossed over because:
a) You don't know the math to do the equations.
b) There is not enough time to explain it fully.
c) It is easy to confuse people who are just starting to learn the concepts.

That doesn't mean that something doesn't have a good basis in fact or good theories based in established math and physics. It seems like a lot of people here are saying "I don't understand the theory so it must be bunk"
I often wonder how many people posting on these threads have the degree and course work to back it their posts. It takes months of reading, sometimes years, to get to the root of most of these topics. You just don't know enough.

That is why you don't get me mouthing off on theories that I have not studied. Outside of my field I have a passing interest. Most of these theories are based on the current observed data, as more comes in they get revised. That is why they are theories, not laws.

Re: Insanely innaccurate and deceptive Taliban comic

does everything you don't agree with have to be evil?

to be fair, i don't agree with a couple of the things that comic says either. but it seems pretty bushist to say something that sounds a lot like "if you do/don't agree with [this comic/this treaty/etc] then you are [anti-american/a terrorist/deceptive Taliban]"

I find it useful to start such an arguement as this with simple questions and assumptions.

Assumption: Everything that exists was created by someone.

Questions: Who created the creator? What is this creator made of? Where is this creator now? Can I measure this creator?

At this point a christian (which I am not) will usually cite a bible passage.

Assumption: The Bible is the literal word of the creator.

Questions: Who actually wrote down the bible? How can you be sure they did not make any mistakes? How can you know that they did not have motives other than truth and accuracy when they wrote it down? Furthermore, how can you translate the literal word of the creator into another language, and from that language into another, and from that language into another, and still retain any accuracy?

Assumption: Faith

At this point there is no sense debating. The religious side has left rationality behind. There is no arguement against faith that will convince anyone on the other side, because faith will trump rationality all the time, to the religious.

meatman:

Now, math on the other hand, when they started adding in *imaginary* numbers, I was like WTF are those? Some douche didn't have an answer so he just created something...


Imaginary numbers are no more "created" than negative numbers. I admit that didn't relly understand them at first, but thats because they are poorly taught in high school. At least they were for me, and I assume its the same in many places because there isn't a lot of time, and most people are never going to use that stuff.

Hyernel: I was actually fairly impressed by that comic. Yeah, it was false and wrong and stuff, but it was well-written, appealed to actual (though misleading) evidence, and generally presented itself as rational discourse. There were places where they twisted that, like the bit where they tried to say that evolution is essentially racist, but once they've agreed to argue from evidence and reason rather than faith and emotion, they've already lost. (Except on the points where they're right, if any, in which case, shame on us scientists.) Anyone who's converted to Christianity by that comic will be the sort of person to go straight to the Bible and start at Genesis, and it doesn't take much of that to make clear exactly how incoherent a literal reading is.

I_C_Weener: It buoyancy that is not explained. I mean, why don't small rocks float?


Things float when their weight is less than the weight of the displacement.


For instance, if a ship has 50 tons of displacement, it will float as long as it doesn't weight more than 50 tons. Once ift weights 51 tons it will start to sink.

Say a small pebble that displaces 1cc of water. If the rock weighs more than 1gram (The weight of 1cc of water i believe) The rock will sink.


Same goes for a balloon. When you fill a balloon with air (by blowing into it) you add the same weight material that is surrounding it, so the balloon will fall (the rubber weighs more than the air it displaces). Now fill teh baloon with helium and it will float because helium is lighter than air!

Go go typos. I"m not proofreading my post.

I_C_Weener: Tell me there is no God, and I am crazy for thinking so.

Now why would I say that? You go right on believing if that is what you want to do. I'm not out to kill your belief in God.

Just don't use your limited knowledge of the subject matter as justification of your point. You have a limited view on this subject, it shows from your posts, and you want some "expert" on FARK to give you an answer that fits in 5 or 6 lines. It is not going to happen. There is thousands of published articles on this subject. You can't summerize in the way that you want.

Good night by the way...

nyihockey:

Imaginary numbers are no more "created" than negative numbers. I admit that didn't relly understand them at first, but thats because they are poorly taught in high school. At least they were for me, and I assume its the same in many places because there isn't a lot of time, and most people are never going to use that stuff.

That comes off kind of high and mighty... I didn't intend for it to be that way. In no way am I any kind of math god or something. not at all

WorldCitizen:

Back in my day we could comment on the articles and only have a few religious fundies to make the arguments fun. Now it's just chocked full of non-crazy idiots.


Normal people you mean?

Yeah, I've got no problem with theists. My best friend believes in God, and so does my brother, and they're both really smart guys who I agree with on a lot of things. My friend has even argued me into admitting that something vaguely resembling a god could concievably exist, though I say that once you've diluted him to that point God's not important anyway.

I think its funny that people like bevets dont recognize the simple fact that if the happened to be born in Iran they would be Muslim, if born in India a Hindu.

Bevets spouts scripture like its fact when the only thing supporting it is itself. It's moronic for anyone over the age of 7 to believe in. How about I have my buddy write on a piece of paper that I'm god, and then at the bottom write "everything on this paper is true". I guess that would mean I'm god. It would have just as much authority.

Sometimes I think that one of the FARK rites of passage is to put Bevets down. The more people try to "burn" him the more it just seems like a keg stand or some manly chest thumping thing.

Continue.

armageddonbound

it's funny, if you were to write that, you wouldn't be wrong.

it seems that the point that theists seek to establish is one which we all believe in but cannot put our finger on. for some, religion is the closest thing that explains it.

you bring up a good point. if you happened to be born in Iran or India, your religion WOULD be different. religions seem like languages, varying in interpretation... no ONE is right.

ALL RELIGION BELIES THE SAME TRUTH, in different interpretations and to varying degrees

maybe the bible isn't meant to be taken LITERALLY. maybe it's meant to explain things for a certain group of people to understand

you are part of god as much as anyone else.

Can we start the revolution now?

Bevets: So, I'm wondering.. In Genesis 1.26, where God says "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...", who else is he talking about? Or is it not supposed to be interpreted literally?

Here's another thought. Jerry Springer should have an episode where he invites pregnant teens from the trailer park who believe they have immaculately conceived. That would be teh funay.

They could throw chairs at each other, and scream "my babydaddy goan SMITE yo ass when he get here, biatch!"

Religion is stupid. If you believe in God, you're stupid.

Science is stupid too. Explain the platypus, can you? Ha! I've run rings 'round you using your own tools of "rations" and "logics".

It's turtles all the way down.

N. S. Radieaux

Brain... hurting... from.... too much... ignorance!!

Can't... describe... frustration...

2005-07-07 02:58:09 AM zafner

Religion is stupid. If you believe in God, you're stupid.
Science is stupid too.


You sound like an expert on stupidity.

All of this bickering is pointless.

For three hundred years after the death of Christ, the Christian Church practiced the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and were pacifistic. They refused to fight in any and all wars. For their belief and practice they were persecuted and denied privileges by their government. Augustine put an end to Christian pacifism when he established the idea of the "Just War". In doing so, the Just War became a part of Christian discipleship and a demonstration of Christian love. Today, nearly universally, the Christian Church follows the way of the "eye for and eye", and a "tooth for a tooth," and as such, in this matter, they are no different than the children of darkness.

I'd love to see someone do a nice "set off the nuts" staire involving P vs NP. Nothing like a really simple concept of a problem to tease people into foaming at the mouth.

may have been mentioned in thread already no patience to read all of it...

This person makes so many arguments without providing proof-or a number of points to reinforce their claims. I'm a firm believer in the devils advocate but I hate a poor argument. My background in English and knowledge of proper argumental papers may skew my perspective, but I can't handle an article/paper that doesn't back up its' facts enough even when and if they have a good point. I'm even big on science stuff too but I couldn't even make it through the article bleh...

/skimmed most of article
//didn't read most of thread
///drunk and no expert

This is why planets spin - my hypothesis

Planets start as gas from a supernova. Gravity begins to exert force on the gas particles. Other smaller particles are pulled towards the bigger masses, but they may miss, much like Voyager using Jupiter's gravity to slingshot it out of the system. But the small particles are trapped, unable to escape the gravity well, and are pulled in a spiraling path into the particle cluster. I'm pretty sure the impact aids the cluster in its spinning. After trillions of particles do this, you have a chunk of rock that is spinning in space.

As to why there is an aggregate spin in one direction, I am not sure.

billsil
but HOW did the planet GET angular momentum?

Imagine the dust cloud that formed the planet. All those little tiny bits of dust are moving in different directions. It is almost infinitely improbable that the cloud would NOT have a net angular momentum. It's the same reason why water spins as it goes down the drain (and not the coriolis force, which is typically orders of magnitude smaller than the rotation caused by asymmetries in the flow of water).

And then, as the dust coalesces and the mass concentrates closer to the center of mass, the very small rotation that was seen in the large cloud gets amplified as the particles get closer together.

N. S. Radieaux

On the off chance anyone actually believes the comic, some points to note:

1) "White people are more evolved"

No serious scientists would ever believe that. It is true that, in the distant past, all of humanity was probably black skinned. But, and this is the point that most people miss, *all life* evolves. Blacks have evolved just as much as whites in the time since the two ethnic groups separated. Chimps have evolved as much as humans in the time since they diverged. In fact, the only meaningful way to quantify evolution would be to quantify the number of generations, or the substitution rates per unit time. Either method would make bacteria the most evolved life on earth, and humanity nearly the least evolved.

2) Yeah, the fossil record is incomplete. It's obviously going to be incomplete, as first an animal has to die somewhere (oceans, marshlands) capable of fossilizing, then the fossil has to survive, then it has to be found. For most hominid species, the very small population size almost guarantees that very, very few fossils will ever be created.

The much stronger evidence would be the biochemical evidence which is conveniently ignored in this and all other creationist propaganda.

3) The "it looks like it was designed" theory really fails when you start to look at the actual underlying genetic material. Upwards of 90% noncoding DNA, multiple copies of all kinds of pseudogenes in various stages of inactivation. The random aspect of the process is very visible at that level.

Evolution also guarantees that the organism itself will fit into its niche very well. A badly evolved organism goes extinct. The number of extinct species outnumbers the currently existing species by roughly 4,000 to one. The animals and plants we see today seem very suited to their environments because we're only seeing that small 0.025% of animals and plants that haven't yet gone extinct.

4) The case of living things being dated very far in the past by carbon 14 dating is only relevant in systems where the carbon source is not atmospheric. That is, very deep ocean dwelling organisms, far too deep for gas exchange with the surface, will principally get their carbon from the rocks. The organisms will date as old as the rocks that the carbon came from. It's not a general problem; in 99.999% of the cases, it's well known that the carbon source would be atmospheric, or organisms (like plants) that very recently had gotten the carbon from the atmosphere. Put another way, carbon dating tells you how long the average carbon molecule in the sample has been out of the atmosphere. Plants principally pull carbon straight from the atmosphere -- animals get theirs from eating other plants and animals. Animals also put carbon back into the atmosphere every time they exhale.

5) This whole "things tend to disorder" argument ignores the fact that life, unlike their nonliving example, has sexual reproduction. Negative mutations can and do happen, and every individual human does "break down" -- they die. But before they die, they can procreate. And the best procreators win out. To make their bike analogy fit, a bike would have to be capable of building another bike, and features that would make a better bike would have to be transmitted to the next generation (e.g. only the 100 best bikes were able to copy themselves, imperfectly).

The site owners DO KNOW that it is satire. I just got a reply from one of them:

--------
I am aware it is satire. That is what makes it such a great article. I also support the evidence for evolution as a Catholic. Also, I have received Emails from the author Ellery Schempp giving me permission to have the article on my site.

Schempp's point is simple: those who want to put "warning labels" about "evolution" on biology books, should put those same labels about "gravity" on physics books, since the anti-evolution "logic" from creationists has as much validity as the anti-gravity "logic." BTW, the author Schempp has a Ph.D. in physics.

So are you for or against evolution? I recommend the following books:

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation by Keith Miller
Finding Peace with Science by Darrel Falk

Phil P
philvaz­loaco­m

mookielove:
I think that whatshisname is referring to the Planck length and time. I'm not sure what he means by the smallest particle of matter. (Last I heard, the jury was still out on that one.) You physics gurus, chime in and educate me.

Thank you. Spacetime is thought to be quantized at the smallest scales - at least in QM.

By smallest particle of matter I mean the elementary particles which cannot be divided further. The original post I was responding to was about Xeno's Paradox, which only works if the world can be broken up into infinitely small pieces.

St. Apatheism


Atheists are equal to theists in my book, just two sides on the same coin. They don't even realize it is the orgasmic humor of it all.

I love hearing Atheists claim that they don't take it on faith that God exists and then they use science as a basis for what is essentially faith. (But don't tell that to an atheist cause they will get crazy zelot mouth frothings on your pants.)

==

Im very glad you said "in my book" here. Ive been listening to you in this thread, trying to not bother with another of these 'debates'.

This "Atheists claim that they don't take it on faith that God exists and then they use science as a basis for what is essentially faith" finally broke the camels back.

Atheists simply are not theists. They dont believe there is a God. Simply.

Taking science as 'faith' is a silly non-sequitor. One practical tenant of the scientific process is that if a better theory arrives, you "unlearn" your old failed theory and rectify your knew knowledge with your old theories... you do not hold onto rhetoric and dogma *THIS IN ITSELF* is unscientific.

Get it?

Atheists, who choose to use the power of the scientific process as a prism to form their worldview -- by DEFINITION -- do not have faith.

They have relative certainty of knowns and unknowns.

I am insulted (and dismayed) that you use intellectual dishonesty to justify 'faith' by suggesting "everyone has it, just different, my faith in god is the same as your faith in science" NONSESENSE.

You keep your faith. Frankly -- im just discovering this at age 30 -- life is to short for me to worry about correcting the flaws in the world-view of everyone in the world, its not going to happen, but please *do not* try and malign the position of Athiests with illogical BS.

--

On another note -- DONT get me started on ^^that^^ cartoon propaganda. Sheesh, where to begin.

Nice answer, votegreen.

I apologize in advance for my longwindedness. Here goes.

I like this satire (in the article, that is) because I've used the same idea whenever discussing people who question evolution-- you can certainly say that evolution is just a theory; by the same logic, gravity is just a theory.

First of all, as a good philosophy major I must say something that is overly precise for the level of most discussions on the topic of evolution, namely that evolution is not really a theory. It is a type of theory, a type with many specific tokens. That's philosophy talk for saying there are many different theories of evolution (tokens), all in the same family (type).

Furthermore, what people who support evolution are really talking about isn't a particular theory of evolution, or the family of theories of evolution, but rather the real-world phenomena that these theories purport to describe and explain. That is, what happens to groups of organisms over time as a result of gene swapping (sexual reproduction) and random genetic mutation. Different genes express different traits. Some traits are more beneficial than others, depending on the environment. Over time, genes and genetic mutations that tend to be less beneficial tend to be less frequently passed on to offspring, since organisms with less beneficial traits tend to have a harder time reproducing and passing on those genes. Etc. These phenomena can be seen quite easily, and aren't particularly controversial; even the most die-hard creationists are (or could easily become) familiar with the basics if they know anything about livestock or pet breeding.

So, too, gravity is "just a theory." (As with evolution, there are several different theories; Newton had one theory and Einstein had another, so really gravity is a type of theory.) What matters is that gravity is a real-world phenomenon that we all experience, which scientists seek to understand and explain through theories.

Rant over.

If you faith in God is the same as my faith in science, then you are going to hell for sure.

p424c-
thank you for posting my bit, so now i dont have to think about how to word it.

(this following assumes that jesus was a real figure in history. i do not know this for sure. i havent bothered to try and figure out)
The bible is most likely the work of a master storyteller somewhere in the past. The previous volumes (that concern subjects before jesus) may have been adopted as scripture by jesus to support his religion. The books of the bible that deal with jesus were compiled by followers who wrote down what he said, and gave him god-like status (which i doubt he had)

same probly goes with all major religious scriptures, but i dont have experience with them

now i've gone and rambled... damn
my last point: religion is bullshiat, god: im still waiting on this one (even science now may point to a designed universe)

You have a point, votegreen - faith (belief in the absence of any evidence) is certainly not something that good scientists, or responsible laymen, have with respect to science. However, we need to keep in mind that just because someone agrees with you, doesn't mean they're smart. There probably are quite a lot of people who believe in the conclusions of science because their parents did or their teachers did or because it's a pat story that lets them feel like they're on top of things. It's just as possible to have faith in the truth as it is to have faith in a falsehood.

very nice cisco kid

im taking philosphy course as well(as a supplement to engineering)
debating science and religion is useless, because they are not mutually exclusive

scriptures are a different matter

Wow. A straw man vs. a straw man.
Lame satire.

(not to education-whore, but:)
/post-doc doing gravity research
/your tax dollars at work

Oh, almost forgot:
/Christian.

The thing that Christians don't get is that even though I may believe there could be a "creator" that doesn't mean I believe it's their God.

But they think if they can punch holes in scientific theory that the conclusion MUST be that their BELIEF'S are the answer, when in fact those beliefs are full of more holes than the scientific theory. Not to mention they are disagreed upon even more, among believers, than scientists disagree on scientific theory (Jehova's Wittness vs. Pentacostals vs. Mormons vs. Catholics, etc)

So in the comic strip above the concept that science disagrees with science, so is therefore unreliable is the same reason that Christianity is unbelievable.

Also, when it comes to the scientific method you start with a postulation and try to generate reliable data. With religion you start with a postulation and then try to scare everyone into believing it with more postulation.

For those that want to believe no proof is neccessary. For those that want to doubt no proof will suffice. What's common to the believers and the doubters?: desire. People believe what they want to. So quit arguing.