DCP's puff pieces now include supernatural tall tales

[_Buffalo]

Obviously the story isn't true.

The supernatural parts.

Do you think a FA-18 flying over the Nile in Moses' time would be considered "supernatural"? Or how about a computer used in the first century?

Arthur C. Clarke's "three laws":

Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Clarke's Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Science and technology have changed our world more in the past century than it changed in the previous hundred centuries. It took 10,000 years to get from the cart to the airplane, but only 66 years to get from powered flight to a lunar landing. Moore's Law of computer power doubling every eighteen months continues unabated and is now down to about a year. Ray Kurzweil, in The Age of Spiritual Machines, calculates that there have been thirty-two doublings since World War II, and that the Singularity point may be upon us as early as 2030. The Singularity (as in the center of a black hole where matter is so dense that its gravity is infinite) is the point at which total computational power will rise to levels that are so far beyond anything that we can imagine that they will appear near infinite and thus, relatively speaking, be indistinguishable from omniscience (note the suffix!). When this happens the world will change more in a decade than it did in the previous thousand decades. Extrapolate that out a hundred thousand years, or a million years (an eye blink on an evolutionary time scale and thus a realistic estimate of how far advanced ETI will be, unless we happen to be the first space-faring species, which is unlikely), and we get a gut-wrenching, mind-warping feel for just how godlike these creatures would seem.....Although science has not even remotely destroyed religion, Shermer's Last Law predicts that the relationship between the two will be profoundly effected by contact with ETI.

"Shermer's Last Law: Any sufficiently advanced Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is indistinguishable from God "

Shermer and Dawkins have been fooling the public for so long about what they really believe, or what they can potentially believe, it's just not funny. They would just prefer to see a "natural God", one who evolved to gain enormous power, but was nevertheless a product of evolution.

Absolute twaddle. First of all, even a bronze age tribesman could see that an F-18 was a mechanical device, even if they didn't understand how it worked. And secondly, there is no such thing as "spirit." Consciousness resides in the brain. If you wish to have an afterlife, you'd better think of a way to keep your brain going after your body dies.

[_RayAgostini]

Right, therefore any crazy idea anyone believes is equally justified as what is most reasonable to cautiously think today. Good call. That's why I think vaccines cause autism. Not because I have any good basis for thinking this - but hey - science could be different 10 years from now!

Dream on, harm.

On Second Thought ....

[_Darth J]

Right, therefore any crazy idea anyone believes is equally justified as what is most reasonable to cautiously think today. Good call. That's why I think vaccines cause autism. Not because I have any good basis for thinking this - but hey - science could be different 10 years from now!

Dream on, harm.

On Second Thought ....

Ray--

I have underlined the key part of the headline for you:

Scientists are supposed to change their minds when evidence undercuts their views.

Arguing from ignorance, which you are eulogizing, is not evidence.

[_RayAgostini]

Ray--

I have underlined the key part of the headline for you:

Scientists are supposed to change their minds when evidence undercuts their views.

Arguing from ignorance, which you are eulogizing, is not evidence.

I think you may need to read the article more closely, Darth.

Yes, scientists are "supposed" to change their minds when the evidence undercuts their views. Begley's point is that, often, they don't.

But it's fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore "facts" to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm topples only when the last of its powerful adherents dies.

[_EAllusion]

The article was pretty poorly written on a number of fronts. It mishandles the issue evolutionary psychology's failings (and seems to be unaware of longstanding criticism of the field) by oversimplifying the matter to the point of falsehood. It doesn't seem to understand what paradigms are in Kuhn's philosophy. But it's still generally true that scientists don't always change their minds in the face of persuasive evidence and you have to win the day by waiting for people to retire or die.

To the extent any argument is being offered here it is an attempt to suggest that you can believe whatever the heck you want, because hey, what is reasonable to think might be a little different tomorrow. Question the efficacy of homeopathy? Well check out this article where it says that scientists aren't always rationally persuadable. Heck of a substitute to actually having a reasonable case there, champ.

[_RayAgostini]

To the extent any argument is being offered here it is an attempt to suggest that you can believe whatever the heck you want,...

I must have missed that part, EA. Care to point it out?

[_Darth J]

Ray--

I have underlined the key part of the headline for you:

Scientists are supposed to change their minds when evidence undercuts their views.

Arguing from ignorance, which you are eulogizing, is not evidence.

I think you may need to read the article more closely, Darth.

Yes, scientists are "supposed" to change their minds when the evidence undercuts their views. Begley's point is that, often, they don't.

But it's fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore "facts" to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm topples only when the last of its powerful adherents dies.

As Tarski has observed, "Kuhn, therefore Nephi" is not a particularly compelling or reasonable argument.

Continuing scientific advancement, and problems with particular theories or framing, do not equate to evidence in favor of affirmative propositions of fact made by cranks and/or religious apologists.

[_RayAgostini]

As Tarski has observed, "Kuhn, therefore Nephi" is not a particularly compelling or reasonable argument.

That's a very simplistic observation, considering Kuhn's influence.

In 1987, Kuhn's work was reported to be the twentieth-century book most frequently cited in the period 1976-83 in the Arts and the Humanities[5] and the Times Literary Supplement labeled it one of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the Second World War." The book's basic concepts have been adopted and co-opted by a variety of fields and disciplines beyond those encompassing the history and philosophy of science.

Maybe you, and Tarski, accept Kuhn's thesis, but don't feel it should apply to an "obvious fraud" like Mormonism? So, you accept Kuhn's thesis on the structure of scientific revolutions? Or reject it?

Continuing scientific advancement, and problems with particular theories or framing, do not equate to evidence in favor of affirmative propositions of fact made by cranks and/or religious apologists.

Labeling someone a "crank" can be dangerous stuff. It could well place you among The New Idolaters, the "fundamentalists materialists" who wish to shut out any conversation contrary to their "orthodox materialist views", and do so by labeling, not by seriously examining.

"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two
or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying
machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
- Thomas Edison, 1895

"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being
unworthy of science and mischievous to to its true progress."
- Sir William Siemens, 1880, on Edison's announcement of a
successful light bulb.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.

"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd
lengths to which vicious specialization will carry scientists."
-A.W. Bickerton, physicist, NZ, 1926

And here's another scientist you can feel at "Darth Leisure" to label a "crank":

Michio Kaku.

And just another thought from a "crank", Harold Bloom (a self-styled "religious critic").

What you and others here have succeeded in doing is excluding from any serious consideration or conversation anyone you think is a "crank", because they don't hold your "factual" views.

This labeling process here and on other message boards virtually encourages everyone to only see Joseph Smith as a philanderer and adulterer and con-man, and nothing else. It's nothing short of what Hitler did to the German people with his campaign to reduce Jews to immoral and unworthy cattle, only worthy of extinction by gas chamber.

I'm not saying you think Mormons should be "exterminated", but your language of exclusion and derision to anything contrary to your "certainties", is not admirable.

[_Darth J]

As Tarski has observed, "Kuhn, therefore Nephi" is not a particularly compelling or reasonable argument.

That's a very simplistic observation, considering Kuhn's influence.

"In 1987, Kuhn's work was reported to be the twentieth-century book most frequently cited in the period 1976-83 in the Arts and the Humanities[5] and the Times Literary Supplement labeled it one of "The Hundred Most Influential Books Since the Second World War." The book's basic concepts have been adopted and co-opted by a variety of fields and disciplines beyond those encompassing the history and philosophy of science."

How influential Kuhn was is 100% irrelevant to an attempt to trade on his name as authority for arguing from ignorance.

Maybe you, and Tarski, accept Kuhn's thesis, but don't feel it should apply to an "obvious fraud" like Mormonism? So, you accept Kuhn's thesis on the structure of scientific revolutions? Or reject it?

I accept that there is no evidence in favor of Mormonism's truth claims, and abundant evidence against them. Kuhn has nothing to do with that.

Continuing scientific advancement, and problems with particular theories or framing, do not equate to evidence in favor of affirmative propositions of fact made by cranks and/or religious apologists.

Labeling someone a "crank" can be dangerous stuff. It could well place you among The New Idolaters, the "fundamentalists materialists" who wish to shut out any conversation contrary to their "orthodox materialist views", and do so by labeling, not by seriously examining.

"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two
or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying
machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
- Thomas Edison, 1895

"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being
unworthy of science and mischievous to to its true progress."
- Sir William Siemens, 1880, on Edison's announcement of a
successful light bulb.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.

"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd
lengths to which vicious specialization will carry scientists."
-A.W. Bickerton, physicist, NZ, 1926

And here's another scientist you can feel at "Darth Leisure" to label a "crank":

Michio Kaku.

And just another thought from a "crank", Harold Bloom (a self-styled "religious critic").

What you and others here have succeeded in doing is excluding from any serious consideration or conversation anyone you think is a "crank", because they don't hold your "factual" views.

In summary: "Kuhn, therefore Nephi."

This labeling process here and on other message boards virtually encourages everyone to only see Joseph Smith as a philanderer and adulterer and con-man, and nothing else.

Not only that. Let's not forget his innovative banking career, his considerable military prowess, and his tenure as a municipal official.

It's nothing short of what Hitler did to the German people with his campaign to reduce Jews to immoral and unworthy cattle, only worthy of extinction by gas chamber.

I think it's a generally-accepted truism that disputing someone's cherished beliefs is morally equivalent to killing the Jews.

I'm not saying you think Mormons should be "exterminated", but your language of exclusion and derision to anything contrary to your "certainties", is not admirable.

And because scientific ideas may or may not change in the future in ways we cannot now foresee, any belief in any given proposition is reasonable.

[_RayAgostini]

And because scientific ideas may or may not change in the future in ways we cannot now foresee, any belief in any given proposition is reasonable.

I feel very confident and positive that you're open to the possibility that NASA is using UFO technology.

I feel very confident that you can summarily dismiss over 400 government, military and secret service witnesses.

I have every confidence in you, Darth, to tell us "the truth".

After all, you know everything.