Death Sentence for Sorcery

[Plow]

How many people did Bush directly murder Neo?

We've argued this before, but because you are dense and can't remember (or didnt understand the first time I simplified it for you): Both Bush and Bin Ladin (if he even existed) taught ideologies of exclusion-ism. Philosophies that other beliefs were wrong and would result in damnation. We have has McCain singing "Bomb bomb Iran," but i guess since he's killed people himself he's good enough to be president. Bin Ladin goes a bit farther with direct instructions to kill/destroy, but the implications in the "war on terror" are just as influencing (as we have seen from the multitudes of deaths at the hands of people like you).

If you had the intelligence to not get stuck doing grunt work with a phd in physics, you might be able to fathom this concept.

[Cadsuane]

Not this shit again.

[Neosutra]

Dont worry Cas, Ill just ignore the bait.

On that note though, do you think it is a fundamental problem with science education, or will all the education in the world not fix this due to people closing their ears/minds to anything that refutes their dogma?

[Cadsuane]

Mmm. Well I wouldn't mean to imply that anyone is immune to bouts of double think, in fact you're not a very good philosopher if you think you are. It's more about it being a challenge for one's powers of persuasion. Deconstructing a sloppy argument takes far more knowledge, skill and inference than deconstructing a well organized argument with precise definitions.

I've always felt a bit socratically that someone who pre-emptively ignores a discussion with fallacious opinions from people who have the capacity to improve them is committing a greater intellectual crime than those who are merely incorrect. Not being able to persuade someone of a demonstrably correct opinion can be taken to mean that you yourself don't properly understand why it's correct (and maybe it's not correct). Maybe you've spent too long preaching to like minded peers that you've forgotten how to justify an opinion, and that's always bad, because intellectual honesty requires you to ask occasionally, "how do I know that?".

So take Yugl there. He's literate, uses uncommon diction, whatever else you can say about his argument it is complex and semi-reflective. He's obviously not a mongoloid. However his opinion on science vs. theology is riddled with some basic misconceptions and some other very complex logical problems which are harder to pin down, and that invites pre-emptive dismissal and ad hominem etc. The real, productive question though is, why does he believe what he believes? Answering that question would give you the persuasive leverage to resolve the discussion, and the yardstick to measure the legitimacy of your own knowledge against.

[Aleth]

A big problem trying to teach reasoning and method to someone raised religiously is that religion is based on "faith" - it's most important concept. In order to have strong faith you are taught to ignore logic and reason, told not to look for evidence or proof of your god's work and instead just "believe". As soon as something is deemed "sacred" then suddenly questioning it's legitimacy is seen as hateful.

Having reasonable doubt in a faith based system is seen as a weakness, just take the bible's story of "doubting Thomas". In the real world however most people are well aware that in day-to-day interactions with other people having a dose of scepticism stops you getting ripped-off, cheated or used.

Faith is like the ultimate shield of ignorance. "I don't need to know the reasons, I just believe because the punishment for not believing is eternity in agony."

Is there any wonder that in the middle-ages the church was richer than kings?

[Neosutra]

Mmm. Well I wouldn't mean to imply that anyone is immune to bouts of double think, in fact you're not a very good philosopher if you think you are. It's more about it being a challenge for one's powers of persuasion. Deconstructing a sloppy argument takes far more knowledge, skill and inference than deconstructing a well organized argument with precise definitions.

I've always felt a bit socratically that someone who pre-emptively ignores a discussion with fallacious opinions from people who have the capacity to improve them is committing a greater intellectual crime than those who are merely incorrect. Not being able to persuade someone of a demonstrably correct opinion can be taken to mean that you yourself don't properly understand why it's correct (and maybe it's not correct). Maybe you've spent too long preaching to like minded peers that you've forgotten how to justify an opinion, and that's always bad, because intellectual honesty requires you to ask occasionally, "how do I know that?".

So take Yugl there. He's literate, uses uncommon diction, whatever else you can say about his argument it is complex and semi-reflective. He's obviously not a mongoloid. However his opinion on science vs. theology is riddled with some basic misconceptions and some other very complex logical problems which are harder to pin down, and that invites pre-emptive dismissal and ad hominem etc. The real, productive question though is, why does he believe what he believes? Answering that question would give you the persuasive leverage to resolve the discussion, and the yardstick to measure the legitimacy of your own knowledge against.

As Alteth stated, it has less to do with "doing a disservice to the scientific side of the argument by not correcting the misinformation" and more to do with "extremely tiresome and often futile effort of re-breaking down every ridiculous argument brought forth for theism".

If after being presented with the evidence/reasons that their argument is false, theist would simply say "oh, ok thanx", then there was would be great reward in investing so much time into breaking down these false premises. However, as every single theist on the planet has a different definition of their dogma/creator, and each one has a unique reason (albeit all similar reasons) for belief, it is irresponsible to require the scientific community to address every inadequate hypothesis they present for validity.

As in all cases, before we give any hypothesis merit, the originator of said hypothesis needs to present reasonable evidence to support their premises.

I think the problem here is that due to either lack of education on the scientific process, or just a blantant misunderstanding of what constitutes "evidence", many theists assume that their arguments are self sustaining and thus obviously correct. "there is a universe, thus there is a creator" is an example of such fallacies where theists see -everything- that exists as evidence for their argument and thus they are "obviously right".

I dont know, do you think Yugl will gain anything from you carefully deconstructing his posted argument?

[Aleth]

The sad thing is that being a theist doesn't have to mean you believe in actual-factual sorcerers and witches.

Someone being killed for entertaining people with "predictions" puts all of humanity to shame.

Only poorly educated, cruel and scared people would murder someone for something such as this.

[CDF]

Comments re: evolution don't even rise to the level of Dunning-Kruger. More like false-dichotomy shit, ignorance of how the scientific method applies in practice (explanatory power of evolutionary theory), failure even to be informed about the basics, and retarded strawman.

[Cadsuane]

As Alteth stated, it has less to do with "doing a disservice to the scientific side of the argument by not correcting the misinformation" and more to do with "extremely tiresome and often futile effort of re-breaking down every ridiculous argument brought forth for theism".

If after being presented with the evidence/reasons that their argument is false, theist would simply say "oh, ok thanx", then there was would be great reward in investing so much time into breaking down these false premises. However, as every single theist on the planet has a different definition of their dogma/creator, and each one has a unique reason (albeit all similar reasons) for belief, it is irresponsible to require the scientific community to address every inadequate hypothesis they present for validity.

As in all cases, before we give any hypothesis merit, the originator of said hypothesis needs to present reasonable evidence to support their premises.

I think the problem here is that due to either lack of education on the scientific process, or just a blantant misunderstanding of what constitutes "evidence", many theists assume that their arguments are self sustaining and thus obviously correct. "there is a universe, thus there is a creator" is an example of such fallacies where theists see -everything- that exists as evidence for their argument and thus they are "obviously right".

I dont know, do you think Yugl will gain anything from you carefully deconstructing his posted argument?

I think you and Aleth are right about combating theistic fallacies, indeed what I said needs to be tempered with keen judgment of character and discretion in picking the right battles. Theistic fallacies are usually not good examples of that unless you're doing it for the benefit of a third party spectator. As for Yugl, ostensibly not being a theist helps. The way he tried to undercut science had a vibe to it like he was concerned about epistemology (how do we know that we know?). It was more ontological nihilism (my assessment) than a vindication of theistic knowledge by way of a critique of science as (and I'm guessing here) esoteric and transcendentalist dogma. On occasion that can be a noble endeavour, like with Max for instance. That at least is something to work with.

[Cadsuane]

Double post

[Trinsie]

I hate to say it since I am an atheist and don't particularly like religion but my stance is this.

Should the man get the death penalty? Yes
Why? Cause he went to Saudi Arabia

You see they have laws. Their law is based on a religion and basically they can kill you for one of a billion reasons. They could even make one up if they want you dead.
So if you know this and you go there and they kill you. Well... sorry you knew in advance that could happen. You can't go to Japan with a gun, can't chew gum in Singapore, can't smoke weed in the US. Can't do anything in any other country and go to Saudi Arabia. Sorry laws are laws and if you plan to break them don't go to that country.

If he didn't go to a country that believes in sorcery and magic and crazy crazy she bang bang then he wouldn't be facing death right now.

[Biddinger]

I hate to say it since I am an atheist and don't particularly like religion but my stance is this.

Should the man get the death penalty? Yes
Why? Cause he went to Saudi Arabia

You see they have laws. Their law is based on a religion and basically they can kill you for one of a billion reasons. They could even make one up if they want you dead.
So if you know this and you go there and they kill you. Well... sorry you knew in advance that could happen. You can't go to Japan with a gun, can't chew gum in Singapore, can't smoke weed in the US. Can't do anything in any other country and go to Saudi Arabia. Sorry laws are laws and if you plan to break them don't go to that country.

If he didn't go to a country that believes in sorcery and magic and crazy crazy she bang bang then he wouldn't be facing death right now.

he wasn't doing his "predicting the future" thing in the country though, was he?

[thestalkmore]

Is he dead yet? =|

[Pirian]

he wasn't doing his "predicting the future" thing in the country though, was he?

You see they have laws. Their law is based on a religion and basically they can kill you for one of a billion reasons. They could even make one up if they want you dead.
So if you know this and you go there and they kill you. Well... sorry you knew in advance that could happen. You can't go to Japan with a gun, can't chew gum in Singapore, can't smoke weed in the US. Can't do anything in any other country and go to Saudi Arabia. Sorry laws are laws and if you plan to break them don't go to that country.

Bolded the important part because I think you missed it.

[Trinsie]

he wasn't doing his "predicting the future" thing in the country though, was he?

Doesn't matter if he was or wasn't, because the country he went to doesn't care where he does it. You see if he does magic and is a witch (or warlock? idk) and he flies to another country, does he cease to be a witch? (or warlock? idk) if not than just existing is reason enough to kill him.

[Blarg]

The state you live in probably has a stupid law about eating ice cream in the tub being illegal.

[Trinsie]

The state you live in probably has a stupid law about eating ice cream in the tub being illegal.

There are a lot of silly laws about ice cream and crocodiles, singing in the shower and even driving with an uncaged bear in the state Missouri. However, you are safe to travel in the US cause I cant find one such example that carries the death penalty.


Edit:

Just checked what can carry the death penalty for every state. Some states don't have the death penalty and of those that do most you can only receive it for murder. there are 4 total things in the US that you can die for. The other 3 are Treason, Kidnapping, and believe it or not a a couple of states even have Rape.

So there you go no matter where you are in the US the only 4 things you can die for is Murder, Treason, Kidnapping, Rape. None of those of which are sorcery preformed in another country prior to visiting. Like I said, know the laws before going to a country and if simply existing can get you killed enter at your own risk.

[Yugl]

Spoiler: show

Yugl.. A theory isnt strong due to not being able to be disproven, it is strong based on the foundations (premises, evidence, supporting observation) that the theory was derived on.

Different fields of study use strong in different manners, so I'll clarify what I mean by strong. A statement is strong if there are less cases in which it may be true. Essentially, it's the same as when you say "Well sir, that's a pretty strong statement". It entails boldness. The fact that creationism rests on so many assumptions, yet hasn't been straight out proven false (from what I've seen) only serves to emphasize the opposing view.

Creationism isnt a "strong theory", it is a poorly drafted theory with MANY logical fallacies, and cant even be called a good "theory". At best it is a poorly drafted hypothesis.

Again, I'm not commenting on how good creationism is or is not. I'm simply pointing out that neither creationism nor evolution have met outright contradictions (That I have seen at least).

You are also misrepresenting the word theory when you attempt to attack evolution. It isnt just "the strongest will survive". That is a large part of it, as it specifies natural selection, which is the cause of a majority of genetic filtering among species, but it isnt quite that simple.

I'm not misrepresenting the word at all. It's true that the term is loosely used as simply an explanatory statement (And in this respect, evolution meets the criteria), but a good theory not only has explanatory value, but predictive value as well. Evolution and Creationism are flawed in this sense. Although both may give ad hoc explanations for why things are the way they are, neither tells us how to predict what we will see the in the future. Good theories, on the other hand, do give us predictions. For instance, the science that lies behind cars allows us to make blueprints about how we expect a car to function *before* it is built. That does not mean there are errors upon creation, but typically, those errors arise due to the manufacturing rather than due to the scientific tools (i.e. calculating velocity and energy) that lie behind the construction. The same occurs with weather when we use science to make predictions. Of course, once again, flaws occur, but they do so because of inaccurate measurements rather than because of the theories behind environmental science.

I'm well aware of natural selection, but essentially, isn't the core of that suggesting those with adequate properties to survive are the ones that survive and the rest perish (Before offspr, thus, leaving only a specific group of genes left in the pool? Scratch that; I'll just post a working definition so as to not arouse anger and rage over this:

* Organisms produce more offspring than can survive and reproduce.
* Those that do survive tend to be better adapted to local environments.
* Most adaptations are genetic, so they can be passed from parent to offspring.

http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/a_question_of_evolution


Yes, I realize you can get more detailed on the matter. If you have more to add, then do so, because quite frankly, I've yet to run into a definition that escapes the problem. What does natural selection predict about the future? It essentially tells me that creatures in the future will be who they are because their genes were not eliminated (i.e. because they were "strong"). That's nice, but what can I specifically say about the characteristics of these creatures? In other words, can will I have so much knowledge about them that I can envision exactly what their traits and functions will be like in the same way I can construct an missile and have a damn good idea of how it will work?

Another important point about theories is that you should be able to disprove them. So tell me, how would I disprove evolution? I can't say "Oh well this gene isn't here, so it's wrong" because that would signal that the gene was simply not fit or not strong enough to survive. No matter what the outcome is, evolution can cover its ass much like how Freudian psychology did in many cases. No matter what the final composition or outcome is, evolution simply tells you that what is left is because you had traits that could survive until now.

Actually, there is a very compelling way to disprove the theory which would be to find a creature with no ancestral roots. That would require that we first know every creature in existence and then are able to look back in history and trace that creature's origins. Anyone looking into this problem will immediately note the chaos that ensues like with most other theories (Which is not necessarily bad at all). So on that note, I'll concede that evolution is explanatory in the sense that it predicts all creatures of the future will have an ancestor (note that I wrote most of this post before reconsidering the issue). The problem I see with this is that it misses the entire question evolution was intended to solve (Or at least what I speculate it was intended to solve), but more on that later.

You cant even compare creationism as a "theory" to evolution as a "theory", they arent even in the same league.

Whether two things are of the same league depends on your threshold of perception for defining leagues. Until you or someone else brings forth the predictive values of one or the other (And I have seen very close attempts with evolution), I will continue to consider both of them garbage.

This brings me to my next point which is that a good theory will probably not emerge until all other sciences complete. To see what I mean, you must ask yourself why these theories are emerging in the first place. What question is evolution trying to answer? I've actually seen different answers to this question, so I'll let you respond (in PMs) and one that I've seen. It attempts to answer "Why are do creatures have the features they have?". The prediction question would be "What feature will creatures have in the future and why?". If we accept these as our questions, then evolution offers is an incomplete theory for the latter because it says that the only defining characteristic of a creature is that it will have an ancestor. It works nicely as an ad hoc explanation for the former. Why? It's because we have facts about history and can make conjectures based on these facts. The explanatory component, however, requires information on the future (i.e. predictions). Not only that, but the magnitude of the theory, because it encompasses all creatures, means we need not just information on a specific object or the environment, but also information from the social sciences in order to calculate interactions between individuals. In other words, until we make vast progress in social sciences, evolution will have relatively little foresight value. Environmental science's predictions struggle for the same reason, but it's less encompassing and has more patterns that allow it to make fairly good predictions.

Maybe Im misunderstanding you or something, but were you really trying to infer that evolution was just as rediculous as creationism? I hope not.

I'm saying they both fall far behind by my standards. I'm not religious, if that's what you're presupposing when you read my responses. At the same time, grasping at the fundamentals of a statement and piecing out its components is not bad either. Other than that, I will leave responses to PMs as well because these type of threads and debates take too much time and threads have time horizons as far as salience is concerned.

I can clarify a part of what he said for you. The "ratio level of measurement" thing comes from a point he made in another thread about temperature scales originally being poor "theories" since without a minimum temperature of absolute zero, temperatures can't be compared to one another proportionally. For instance a temp in Celsius can't be said to be x times hotter/colder than another temp in farenheit.

Clarification: It's that the scales, though consistent with themselves, don't give a strict definition (or in some cases "good") of what it is trying to measure. The intervals chosen are arbitrary. I will admit that it's difficult to point out in the core sciences, but it's a fairly common one in the social sciences, so I'll give you an example using that. Lets say I want to measure how good a worker is. I assign four criteria which the individual must meet and for each one he hits, he is given a point. If a worker (a) hits all four criteria and worker (g) hits one, does that mean worker (a) is four times as good as worker (g)? If your definition of good relies strictly on those criteria, then it does. However, these were just arbitrarily chosen criteria. We cannot apply this so that it functions with everyone's definition of good. It works at the interval level because each criteria and point granted is weighed evenly, but it doesn't hit at the problem at hand. Now lets apply this to temperature since you brought up my example. When we talk about temperature, what are we measuring? It's agreed upon that we're talking about the average kinetic energy. Now lets look at our scales: Kelvin, Celsius, and Fahrenheit. Which one of these truly measures that? Kelvin. I use the zero-reference point argument because it's easy to understand that at 0 Degrees Kelvin, we're insinuating 0 Average Kinetic Energy. On the other hand, can we say the same about Celsius and Fahrenheit? Not quite. You must then ask yourself, "what exactly does it mean to say you have 50 degrees C/F?". Compare that to what it means to have 50 degrees K. Therein lies the answer to what I've been trying to communicate.

Apparently without that "ratio level measurement" they were meaningless as units of scale

It's not that the measurement is meaningless - it's that the object of measurement becomes skewed. However, until we reach that point, we typically make assumptions (because we are ignorant) and work with what we have until that point is reached.

I bet the guy predicts he'll get out of it.

Edit: Even though we have the DP (One of the only OECD countries to maintain it), we seldom carry it out with expediency. Don't be offset by the fact that it's found in every state.

[Andarvi]

Lol I love these threads. Its almost 2 am and I am too tired to fully respond, but I will ask the same question I ask when complete buffoons like Yugl spew nonsense with an authority that attempts to seem educated. Thus, I ask Yugl, did you study any science at a university level, and by study I mean pursue a degree in science? If so, what area did you study?

I ask this as someone with a BS in bio from Tufts and an impending MS from Harvard in molecular bio. And yes, I do not require the same information from those opposing your argument, because regardless of whether their opinion is grounded in higher education or wikipedia searches, its foundation is in far, far, far more legitimate in evidence than that of creationism.

Are you arguing just to argue or are you this naive?

[Neosutra]

First off, you have one main misconception:

"Creationism hasnt been disproven"

This is inherently false, as there is no definitive version of creationism that isnt inherently false by definition. i.e. if the premis for each theory of creation is inherently self contradicting or false, we need not go the extra step of falsifying the theory anymore, as the premis itself is shown to be inconsistent.

Present a theory of creationism that you feel isnt inconsistent and we can break it down further if you feel this is incorrect.

Secondly, you stated:

Another important point about theories is that you should be able to disprove them.

Maybe I just dont like your wording here, but you should only be able to disprove something if it's actually false.. The fact that there is no evidence against evolution speaks only for its credibility and not against its foundation. I think it is just your ignorance of what evidence we have for evolution that makes you say this (and I dont mean that as an insult, im not calling you an ignorant person). Specifically, there is a plethora of evidence for evolution, and you can go about attempting to falsify any given part of it.

For instance: One big booster for the theory of evolution is we carry in our own DNA the remnants of every previous genetic path in our history. You can literally look at our DNA and see the genes that made up previous iterations of our species. The mapping of the human genome was perhaps the most powerful final evidence for evolution. To "falsify" this, one could test to show that we did not have these previous genetic identifiers.

I suggest you take a look at the berkley site below and review some of their supporting evidence for evolution and attempt to falsify each step (instead of assuming the theory is so general you cant falsify it, examine the specific evidence for each aspect of this complex and robust theorem).

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...0_0_0/lines_01

Specific areas of evolutionary evidence include: Fossil evidence, Homologies, Distribution in time and space, Evidence by example. Target these specific areas and get back to us on your results.

Finally, your statement that a good theory has "not only explainatory power but predictive power as well" is a bit off. For one, a theory can simply represent an explanation of how something happened, and has no requirement for prediction. Additionally, the evolution theory DOES have predictive power in that it states how adaptive change occurs in species and that this change expected and does continually happen (even today).

The laws of thermodynamics are not incorrect simply because they dont explain the exact position of each gas particle being excited in a closed field, rather than just explaining what behavior will happen due to temperature and pressure. Hence evolutionary theory isnt lacking simply because it doesnt detail the infinite possible outcomes any specific species may take over a set period of time.