Why Evangelicals Are Fooled Into Accepting Pseudoscience

[jem]

Quote from Free Thinker:

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. Richard Dawkins

here is your buddy telling you the universe appears fine tuned

1. note his weak dismisal of a tuner.
2. weinberg - it has to be this way
3. stenger says not fine tuned
4. multiverse

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mlD-CJPGt1A?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

then here is ben stein getting dawkings to admit there could be a designer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc&feature=related

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/...s-universe-s-fine-tuning-difficult-to-explain

Outspoken evangelical geneticist Francis Collins revealed that combative atheist Richard Dawkins admitted to him during a conversation that the most troubling argument for nonbelievers to counter is the fine-tuning of the universe.

“If they (constants in the universe) were set at a value that was just a tiny bit different, one part in a billion, the whole thing wouldn’t work anymore,” said Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, during the 31st Annual Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

These constants regarding the behavior of matter and energy – such as strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, and the speed of light – have to be precisely right during the Big Bang for life as we know it to exist.

“To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability,” said the world renowned scientist.

“That forces a conclusion. If you are an atheist, either it is just a lucky break and the odds are so remote, or you have to go to this multiverse hypothesis, which says that there must be almost an infinite number of parallel universes that have different values of those constants,” explained Collins to Christian scholars of various disciplines in the audience. “And of course we are here and so we must have won the lottery, we must be in the one where everything worked.”

There are some serious scientists in the world, however, such as English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who believe in the multiverse hypothesis.
Read more

 

[Hansel H]

Quote from Stu..
Well there you are, in your own words. Yes of course great philosophers are wrong about a lot of things. One of the greatest, Bertrand Russell ,was expressing that very thing. "science agrees some things - philosophers none"; philosophers get it wrong.
It is only with science can wrong philosophy be agreed upon as being proven wrong.

In regard to Karl Popper, again the only way scientists could have agreed about falsifiability, is if it was to be anything more than just a philosophical concept. Falsifiability would have to be practically demonstrable . It was. It is.

Karl Popper was articulating the scientific method..

Russel's flippant comment was simply incorrect. There is a great deal of agreement in science but also a great deal of disagreement; consider the grand controversies in the scientific community over the multiverse and over the origin of the universe. There are innumerable lesser competing theories in the scientific world and it often happens that testing and observation can simultaneously confirm alternative hypotheses.

In philosophy there is a great deal of disagreement but there is also a great deal of agreement. If there weren't agreement how could we have the various schools of thought such as the Pragmatists and the Idealists? Often the disageements between philosophers are less about interpretations than about what should be interpreted.

Science can prove philosophy wrong? How can science prove a philosophical approach to beauty, art, or morality wrong?

Philosopher of Science Karl Popper's falsifiability has been accepted as an ineluctable conclusion from his analysis of the scientific method, not from any scientific testing of his hypothesis. Falsifiability is a product of philosophical logic, not of scientific methodology.

You seem to disparage philosophy; this puts you at odds with Russel himself and many of the great polymaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polymaths

Note how frequently 'philosopher' comes up among the polymaths' credits. Note how often 'scientist' and 'philosopher' describe the same great thinker (most notably da Vinci, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Goethe).

 

[stu]

Quote from jem:
Who has called me a troll... only stu and sock puppets.
at least a dozen people have called stu a troll and disingenous.

Lol. You sound more juvenile each time you post.
Does it not occur to you there could well be more trolls on this board prepared attack anything that questions religion?
People call me all sorts of things usually because like you they can’t deal with the substance of the topic.

There are no sock puppets this side of things, unlike the actual sock puppet you were caught red handed trying to use and hide behind to support your own posts. You loon.

Quote from jem:

How is your definition different from an agnostic?

: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably
unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence
or the nonexistence of God or a god

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic

Not committed to believing is someone who is not or doesn't believe. No belief for the existence , no belief for the non existence of God.

They have no belief.

In a word, atheist.


: a person who holds the view
Agnostic is uncertain of all claims to knowledge.
You can't really be agnostic and hold a view

 

[stu]

A Designer Universe?

• 
  It is still too early to tell whether there is some fundamental principle that can explain why the cosmological constant must be this small. But even if there is no such principle, recent developments in cosmology offer the possibility of an explanation of why the measured values of the cosmological constant and other physical constants are favorable for the appearance of intelligent life. According to the 'chaotic inflation' theories of André Linde and others, the expanding cloud of billions of galaxies that we call the big bang may be just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.
  
  In any such picture, in which the universe contains many parts with different values for what we call the constants of nature, there would be no difficulty in understanding why these constants take values favorable to intelligent life. There would be a vast number of big bangs in which the constants of nature take values unfavorable for life, and many fewer where life is possible. You don't have to invoke a benevolent designer to explain why we are in one of the parts of the universe where life is possible: in all the other parts of the universe there is no one to raise the question.

Steven Weinberg
Professor of Physics, University of Texas at Austin
Winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics

 

[stu]

Quote from Hansel H:

Russel's flippant comment was simply incorrect. There is a great deal of agreement in science but also a great deal of disagreement; consider the grand controversies in the scientific community over the multiverse and over the origin of the universe. There are innumerable lesser competing theories in the scientific world and it often happens that testing and observation can simultaneously confirm alternative hypotheses.

In philosophy there is a great deal of disagreement but there is also a great deal of agreement. If there weren't agreement how could we have the various schools of thought such as the Pragmatists and the Idealists? Often the disageements between philosophers are less about interpretations than about what should be interpreted.

Science can prove philosophy wrong? How can science prove a philosophical approach to beauty, art, or morality wrong?

Philosopher of Science Karl Popper's falsifiability has been accepted as an ineluctable conclusion from his analysis of the scientific method, not from any scientific testing of his hypothesis. Falsifiability is a product of philosophical logic, not of scientific methodology.

You seem to disparage philosophy; this puts you at odds with Russel himself and many of the great polymaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polymaths

Note how frequently 'philosopher' comes up among the polymaths' credits. Note how often 'scientist' and 'philosopher' describe the same great thinker (most notably da Vinci, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Goethe).

What are you trying to get at H?

The product of philosophical logic is either more philosophy OR the logic can be developed scientifically.
You can't develop that logic scientifically with more philosophy!!

Karl Popper's falsifiability - if it is first a philosophical construct as you seem to be suggesting that's all it is - must be something able to be applied as a hard practical process outside of its own philosophical concept for it to become scientific in any way.
It is so able, and because of that it is the scientific method.

If Popper says for instance "must be observable , must be testable" then you have to move away from that philosophical position and be able to confirm observation and testing are possible in reality.

I certainly do not disparage valid philosophy at all. Such disciplines are essential and most worthy.
But I don't try to get it all muddled up into ideas that in some artificial way philosophy is superior or exchangeable with science itself.

 

[jem]

Quote from stu:

A Designer Universe?

• 
  It is still too early to tell whether there is some fundamental principle that can explain why the cosmological constant must be this small. But even if there is no such principle, recent developments in cosmology offer the possibility of an explanation of why the measured values of the cosmological constant and other physical constants are favorable for the appearance of intelligent life. According to the 'chaotic inflation' theories of André Linde and others, the expanding cloud of billions of galaxies that we call the big bang may be just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.
  
  In any such picture, in which the universe contains many parts with different values for what we call the constants of nature, there would be no difficulty in understanding why these constants take values favorable to intelligent life. There would be a vast number of big bangs in which the constants of nature take values unfavorable for life, and many fewer where life is possible. You don't have to invoke a benevolent designer to explain why we are in one of the parts of the universe where life is possible: in all the other parts of the universe there is no one to raise the question.3 If any theory of this general type turns out to be correct, then to conclude that the constants of nature have been fine-tuned by a benevolent designer would be like saying, 'Isn't it wonderful that God put us here on earth, where there's water and air and the surface gravity and temperature are so comfortable, rather than some horrid place, like Mercury or Pluto?' Where else in the solar system other than on earth could we have evolved?

Steven Weinberg
Professor of Physics, University of Texas at Austin
Winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics

Now you get it Stu. You have found a Nobel Prize winner telling you there is an appearance of design in our universe. And you found it all by yourself. Very good Stu.
Does this mean your 10 years being a full of shit troll are over?

Read this again and learn...

"But even if there is no such principle, recent developments in cosmology offer the possibility of an explanation of why the measured values of the cosmological constant and other physical constants are favorable for the appearance of intelligent life. "


You have been lying about this for almost a decade. Do you comprehend the English now? There is currently no explanation for the fine tunings... but... (there is hope for atheists)... There is unproven, unobserved, speculation there maybe almost infinite other universes (or regions with big bangs.)

 

[377OHMS]

Quote from stu:

What are you trying to get at H?

The product of philosophical logic is either more philosophy OR the logic can be developed scientifically.
You can't develop that logic scientifically with more philosophy!!

Karl Popper's falsifiability - if it is first a philosophical construct as you seem to be suggesting that's all it is - must be something able to be applied as a hard practical process outside of its own philosophical concept for it to become scientific in any way.
It is so able, and because of that it is the scientific method.

If Popper says for instance "must be observable , must be testable" then you have to move away from that philosophical position and be able to confirm observation and testing are possible in reality.

I certainly do not disparage valid philosophy at all. Such disciplines are essential and most worthy.
But I don't try to get it all muddled up into ideas that in some artificial way philosophy is superior or exchangeable with science itself.

Your blathering about science and philosophy is...sickening.

You don't know a thing about either. You make FreeThinker look concise and convincing by comparison. Mental vomit expressed in high-English makes me want to hurl. You are a pedant and a self-important schmuck. You probably work in an Falafel shop

 

[jem]

Quote from stu:

Lol. You sound more juvenile each time you post.
Does it not occur to you there could well be more trolls on this board prepared attack anything that questions religion?
People call me all sorts of things usually because like you they can’t deal with the substance of the topic.

There are no sock puppets this side of things, unlike the actual sock puppet you were caught red handed trying to use and hide behind to support your own posts. You loon.



Not committed to believing is someone who is not or doesn't believe. No belief for the existence , no belief for the non existence of God.

They have no belief.

In a word, atheist.


: a person who holds the view
Agnostic is uncertain of all claims to knowledge.
You can't really be agnostic and hold a view

first of all stu (not the original logical Stu but this poster who acts like axeman) before you argue with dictionaries, why don't you have the balls to proclaim your "form" of atheism.

you have still not defined your atheism..

do you deny there is a God or do you simply have no belief in God?

 

[Trader666]

Wrong. Dark energy and dark matter were hypothesized in an attempt to reconcile differences between "the laws of physics" and observations. Why do you keep posting about things you have no clue about?

Quote from STUpid:

Dark Energy and Dark Matter , and macroscopic quantum effects are difficult to reconcile, not the laws of physics.

 

[Trader666]

We already knew you don't know a thing about logic from your previous posts, but your ability to continue to make a fool of yourself is unsurpassed

Logic (from the Greek &#955;&#959;&#947;&#953;&#954;&#942; logik&#275 is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic

Quote from STUpid:

The product of philosophical logic is either more philosophy OR the logic can be developed scientifically.
You can't develop that logic scientifically with more philosophy!!