Reason Rally (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, April 03, 2012, 22:26 (4595 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony,-> By definition, if you think that chance and random events are enough to explain the life, the universe, and everything, then you think that numbers are sufficient explanation.
> -That depends heavily on your perspective. Science works via the "null" hypothesis, and for most atheists I've encountered this means that to validate some claim--such as God exists--you actually start with its *negation* and then work to build your case. For example, when a scientist tests how a medicine will work, he will make the claim, "This medicine does NOT work." He then validates his hypothesis by experimenting and generating enough evidence that dislodge the claim. That's then where our "confidence intervals" come into play. This is in fact, how I operate, though I don't consider myself an atheist. When someone asks, I simply say "I haven't been convinced God exists." -Judging purely in a literalist light, most claims that holy books have made against the physical universe have been overturned by exactly this process. We know for example, that Zeus is NOT throwing lightning bolts down from Olympus. -
> I don't claim to know where God came from, or how he came to be in existence. I only claim that the well regulated system that we are fortunate enough to live in has to start with organization. Even if you try to say that "the laws of physics dictate that...." you are starting with a rule, a law, a means of organization. 
> -As opposed to what? I'm currently reading "Everything Forever" by a Gevin Giobran. He makes an extremely good argument that science unnecessarily has assumed that the 2nd law means disorder. The argument is based on the observation that we have two types of order in the universe--symmetry order and grouping order. Meaning, that our ideas of "disorder" are wrong. What we identify as disordered patterns are all systems where order is mid-transformation from one kind of order to the other. I'm still mid-read, but this is compelling work. If we establish that in all frames of reference--with or without God--there is no such thing as nonexistence, then that also means there is no such thing as disorder. -> > Troublesome is your statement in red. What's the moral value of a rock? How about a qubit, quark, the Sun, or the new planet they just discovered 22 light years from here? 
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> When a new string of genetically engineered food is introduced, or a new vaccine is developed, or a new drug, or a new system of power generation, a new weapon, or a new piece of hardware, there are ALWAYS moral questions that should be examined with the same exactitude as the discovery itself. 
> -Here's where we'll disagree. Should we have questioned building the Atom bomb? Had Hitler succeeded, what then? -> > Furthermore, science limits itself in psychology and sociology by ethics boards, whose job is to stop experiments like The Stanford Prison Experiment.
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> > But even for the harm those studies have caused, they certainly give us extremely powerful information about the human mind, do they not? 
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> Was the expense worth it to the people being experimented upon? Are the advances in pharmaceuticals worth it to the people who die or have a life filled with horrendous side effects of medications that in all likelihood were not 100% necessary to begin with?
> -Missed my point. Ethics boards. Scientists have that problem handled. -> 
> > I will further make the claim that morality now, is far superior to the morality of 3000 years ago. I read a book over the last few months called "The Better Angels of our Nature." It makes no argument over what's caused the nonviolence trend in our species, but it seems to me pretty clear that despite Hitler and Pol Pot, we live in a much more moral age than our ancestors. 
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> I will argue this point. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Bosnia, Apartheid, WWI, WWII, etc etc. We are no better. Don't kid yourself. More people have died in wars/murders in the 20th Century alone than in all of recorded history combined. 
> -Ha! What happened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did we do what the Romans did to the nation of Carthage? Didn't we continue to support and rebuild Vietnam? -In fact, the entire notion of rebuilding the nation of your former enemy, is a HUGE paradigm shift from the ancient concept of Total War. It had never been done before. Even up to WWI, the loser always paid the entire cost of the war. -You're right: Human nature itself hasn't changed. In that sense, yes, we are no different from the ancients. But the solutions to common human problems we have are drastically different. Hitler's morality, was Spartan morality. -In the 70 years since WWII, we've had an unprecedented period of peace in the world compared to ages past. Where did that come from? -> > Finally, I'd like you to point me to where you got the statistic about "most" of all scientific papers being retracted after 3 years. Considering how fast paced some fields are (like my own computer science) it doesn't sound like a horrible number.
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> I will have to find the link again. It was an article I read about a year ago that, with particular regard to the medical field, cited a 60%+ redaction/overturn rate.-Medicine. Not shocking. Hardly a "hard" science. David?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"