Real Open-mindedness and Skepticism

[Guest]

Wow, I find it extremely annoying that the board insists on changing "A-l-r-i-g-h-t" to "all right". This is taking grammar nazism to an entirely new level (and not even getting the capitalisation right in the process).

[_cinepro]

Whoa. Can someone please boil down tiktaalik's post?

[_Tiktaalik]

Whoa. Can someone please boil down tiktaalik's post?

lol

[_marg]

Whoa. Can someone please boil down tiktaalik's post?

LOL. I'm in the same boat, I'll wait to see if anyone disagrees or agrees with Tik, including E.A.

[_Gadianton]

Tik's summary of my son's post and my son's post are one way to go. Another way, which is more common for Mopologists I think, is to over-exaggerate the ultimate dead end of the philosophy of science and look for ways that science has failed like religion, or to show that good science has been mischaracterized in the past, thus science is unpredictably open minded. DCP's dismissal would be,

I will prove the resurrection of Jesus happened one day because I am an empericist and the historical evidence for this position is impressive. Those who reject my work outright are not very open minded, similar to those who overlooked Mendel's work.

Also, a lot of Mormons will deny believing in the "supernatural" and say that everything in Mormonism has a scientific explanation.

[_Tiktaalik]

Tik's summary of my son's post and my son's post are one way to go. Another way, which is more common for Mopologists I think, is to over-exaggerate the ultimate dead end of the philosophy of science and look for ways that science has failed like religion, or to show that good science has been mischaracterized in the past, thus science is unpredictably open minded. DCP's dismissal would be,

I will prove the resurrection of Jesus happened one day because I am an empericist and the historical evidence for this position is impressive. Those who reject my work outright are not very open minded, similar to those who overlooked Mendel's work.

Also, a lot of Mormons will deny believing in the "supernatural" and say that everything in Mormonism has a scientific explanation.

EAllusion is your son? Cool!

[_JohnStuartMill]

I was planning on participating in this thread, until EAllusion came and screwed everything up by saying everything that I was going to say. Thanks a lot, asshole.

[_Dr. Shades]

Wow, I find it extremely annoying that the board insists on changing "A-l-r-i-g-h-t" to "all right".

Why? You should be happy about it.

This is taking grammar nazism to an entirely new level (and not even getting the capitalisation right in the process).

To get the capitalization right, type the two words "All right," in that order, as the first words of your sentence. For example, you could type your sentence:

"All right, I'll have a go at it."

. . . and it works fine. See?

[_marg]

I don't know if the video goes this far, but there is a naïve idea floating out there of some ideal observer fairly considering every idea they happen upon and applying a skeptic's acid test. Sometimes, the appropriate thing to do is to just ignore ideas that don't meet some standard of prior likelihood because there are more fruitful things to be spending one's time on if the goal is efficient pursuit of understanding the world. Really, insofar as that is our goal, we should tailor our resources to ideas that best mesh with our prior framework for understanding the world. We can't give everything equal consideration, nor should we.

The video's intended audience was meant for people who don't appreciate the concept..of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" or that evidence for a claim should commensurate with the claim being made. The intended audience was not the skeptic. It was not suggesting that evidence is needed for every claim. And no where in the video did it suggest that every extraordinary claim needed to be taken seriously and considered.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Why? You should be happy about it.

A-l-r-i-g-h-t is a non-standard spelling but one that is generally considered acceptable in written dialogue or casual communication. It is essentially a contraction or elision based on the Middle English spelling al right, not unlike "already" and "altogether". A-l-r-i-g-h-t can be found in several dictionaries, including American Heritage and Random House. Censoring it does seem a bit obsessive-compulsive.