Should we keep analyzing the statistics to see if we get different results? That's insanity.
I was not advocating for further statistical analysis. I was arguing against taking a leap of faith just because nothing is certain.
Multiverse7 wrote:
I was not advocating for further statistical analysis. I was arguing against taking a leap of faith just because nothing is certain. | |
Magicsofa wrote:
I was not advocating for further statistical analysis. I was arguing against taking a leap of faith just because nothing is certain. That's a strange reason. For many people, it's just the opposite, and the fact that nothing is certain is the very reason for their leaps of faith. | |
"But if you leap into the ocean of uncertainty, you may find yourself unable to breathe the oxygen of surety." - EmpirezTeam 2014
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I guess for some people, uncertainty is just too far outside their comfort zone.
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Multiverse7 wrote:
As for Bill Nye, he clearly supports the agenda of Al Gore and the policies of the Obama Administration. Let me quote what he said during the debate. As I already mentioned, Bill Nye is a science popularizer and simplifies complex theory to written and oral form. Nye, along with other popularizers (NDT, Michio Kaku, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, etc) support increasing scientific literacy. The goal is to educate the uneducated and inspire others to assist with educating. In our current state, votes and taxpayers are the people he's talking to, because this debate is attempting to convince the audience that Creationism has no place in the school system. Elected officials need proper cause to justify fixing the system and because of campaign financing that means money. The movement to improve scientific literacy requires more funding because the Creationists have some big backers. Further, our discouraging scientific literacy rates are fundamental to the current problems in political system. Many elected officials in Congress are anti-science, climate deniers, creationists and accept funding (read: bribes) from Big Business, but the problem stems from the constituents that voted for them. Increasing scientific literacy will lead to a movement to vote these guys out, but funding is needed to combat Big Business. Different people present different methods to improve our education system and each persuade their audience with unique rhetoric. While Nye used Creationism as his platform, others promote improving education with strategies such as improving the difficulty of early education, or increase the capability of teachers by raising the rigor of entrance and increasing salary. The method depends on the priorities of the person presenting the argument. Personally, I think if the US is to remain significant in the growing global economy, a combination of solutions is necessary to fix the fundamental problems within the system. Multiverse7 wrote: Magicsofa wrote: By the way, this wasn't Nye's first rodeo, he has done many debates against creationists. Even if you agree with the larger points, I highly recommend looking them up along with the other popularizers on youtube. While I agree that Magicsofa's interpretation of science is faulty, remember that skepticism will skew and bias your perspective. I have seen this type of argument before, people who want to be skeptical will force a conspiracy based on a misunderstanding. For instance, your belief that Nye's argument was laden with a hidden agenda. Skepticism is a tool that you do not develop overnight. Without understanding the different cogs in the large machine, it's complicated to see the connections. | |
Multiverse7 wrote:
That's a strange reason. For many people, it's just the opposite Not so! Magicsofa wrote: I was arguing against taking a leap of faith just because nothing is certain. Multiverse7 wrote: the fact that nothing is certain is the very reason for their leaps of faith. Yes! To reiterate a third time, not having 100% certainty is a bad reason to take leaps of faith | |
Magicsofa wrote:
Multiverse7 wrote: My entire career centers around not being completely certain, but scientific training teaches how to process information by remaining openminded yet skeptical. Moreover, improving scientific literacy will provide these tools to others. Progress in science is made by building information supporting a theory, and theorizing new explanations when results opposes the initial hypothesis. The scientific method is fundamental to understanding the universe but anti-evolutionists, climate deniers, and frankly the uninformed, misunderstand that a scientific theory is different than a casual theory. | |
Magicsofa wrote:
Lugia319 wrote: I wasn't suggesting that you stop experimentation. I was noting that if you want to prove everything you'll run into an issue of trying to prove things ad infinitum or trying to use circular reasoning or trying to prove things you can't get experimental evidence for. | |
Kalzar wrote:
As I already mentioned, Bill Nye is a science popularizer and simplifies complex theory to written and oral form. Nye, along with other popularizers (NDT, Michio Kaku, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, etc) support increasing scientific literacy. The goal is to educate the uneducated and inspire others to assist with educating. In our current state, votes and taxpayers are the people he's talking to, because this debate is attempting to convince the audience that Creationism has no place in the school system. I think popular science is overrated. It tends to alienate the public from the real, professional science, and it probably doesn't increase literacy as much as we think. These science "popularizers" speak with a kind of authority that makes the public feel greatly inferior to them, such that they would never even consider working towards similar careers, which doesn't help the outlook of science in general. That's not even to mention the bias and dramatization that often comes along with this format. It often leaves viewers totally confused about the nature of the subject matter, and when combined with the lack of details, it can make people assume that it is nothing that they could ever hope to understand. Basically, what I'm saying is that we shouldn't be "sugar-coating" science so much that it becomes a completely different subject by the time it reaches the viewers. I'm not saying that it necessarily has to be shown with all of the scary details involved, but that the basic scientific format should stay the same. Actually, popular science wouldn't even really need to be replaced if the professional science just received more public attention. When Bill Nye mentioned "voters and taxpayers", I don't think he was just suggesting that they are needed to solve the problem of creationism being taught in schools. He seems to be referring to something else entirely. Elected officials need proper cause to justify fixing the system and because of campaign financing that means money. The movement to improve scientific literacy requires more funding because the Creationists have some big backers. Further, our discouraging scientific literacy rates are fundamental to the current problems in political system. Many elected officials in Congress are anti-science, climate deniers, creationists and accept funding (read: bribes) from Big Business, but the problem stems from the constituents that voted for them. Increasing scientific literacy will lead to a movement to vote these guys out, but funding is needed to combat Big Business. You are missing one major point that complicates everything. Within the government, a complex "infrastructure" has been developed that involves a kind of mutual support between science and "big business", which could become a big problem for literacy. At the same time, mutual support exists between this system and the government itself, so it doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon. In this way, whatever affects one side will affect all of the others, so you kind of lose the game no matter what you do. All I can think of that might help is some kind of legislation to separate big business from the government's policies, but it has become so firmly grounded into the system that I don't know if that's even possible at this point. The very nature of the system that is currently in place has become resistant to certain kinds of changes, and tends to just balance itself out no matter what happens. Also, I'm not at all convinced that Bill Nye would seek any kind of policy that would combat big business. In fact, just the opposite is likely the case. Bill would be much more likely to use the monetary and political power of big business to achieve the goals of science. He may be democratic, but I think he wants people to vote for certain kinds of big businesses, not against them. He sees it as the solution, instead of the problem. Different people present different methods to improve our education system and each persuade their audience with unique rhetoric. While Nye used Creationism as his platform, others promote improving education with strategies such as improving the difficulty of early education, or increase the capability of teachers by raising the rigor of entrance and increasing salary. The method depends on the priorities of the person presenting the argument. Personally, I think if the US is to remain significant in the growing global economy, a combination of solutions is necessary to fix the fundamental problems within the system. While state funding of some religious schools is certainly an issue, which goes as deep as the constitution itself, I doubt that it's a primary cause of the scientific literacy problems in the United States. I think something that would help a lot would be to modernize the educational system with new technologies. By upgrading the education itself, you can effectively upgrade the teachers, students, and eventually the rest of the world. By the way, this wasn't Nye's first rodeo, he has done many debates against creationists. Even if you agree with the larger points, I highly recommend looking them up along with the other popularizers on youtube. While I agree that Magicsofa's interpretation of science is faulty, remember that skepticism will skew and bias your perspective. I have seen this type of argument before, people who want to be skeptical will force a conspiracy based on a misunderstanding. For instance, your belief that Nye's argument was laden with a hidden agenda. Skepticism is a tool that you do not develop overnight. Without understanding the different cogs in the large machine, it's complicated to see the connections. I have seen some of his other debates, but this is the first time that I have heard him specifically mention "voters and taxpayers". There are many different kinds of skepticism. The most common variety that I have noticed is the one where you are skeptical of any new information received, especially if it challenges existing ideas. I dislike this mentality and believe that it is detrimental to progress and making discoveries, but at the same time it makes sure that any new information holds up against existing theory, so it does have a certain benefit. Another variety of skepticism is one where you are skeptical of already existing or largely accepted ideas. This variety makes use of the philosophy that no existing theories are likely to be complete, and that there are always methods for improving them. If it must be completely rewritten, then so be it! When new information is processed, instead of questioning the new information directly, one looks at the current information, and sees if it holds up against the new. If not, then you know that one of the ideas must be wrong. This effectively prevents any kind of bias towards existing ideas, no matter how well developed they may be. I like this kind of skepticism more, because I believe it benefits progress and the discovery of new information, more so than the usual variety. Out of all the different kinds of skepticism, I think the best kind is the "reflective" variety, where you can look inward, and try to be skeptical of your own ideas and beliefs. Doing so will allow you to directly attack your own bias and can correct some fundamental problems with the logic you are using. It probably takes a certain kind of mind to utilize this type of skepticism, but it's never really clear if someone is using this or not, due to the internal nature of it. I would say that this is my favorite kind of skepticism and I use it often. I would also encourage anyone to do the same. Anyway, I would say that it is probably most practical to use a balanced range of skepticism from these different groups, especially when it's being applied in science. I have a good understanding of how these things work. I see things on many different levels; from the smallest details, to the biggest pictures, and I make connections between those levels to come up with a comprehensive understanding of the whole machine. Doing this requires developing a flexible mind that can easily shift between different perceptions and ways of thinking. My entire career centers around not being completely certain, but scientific training teaches how to process information by remaining openminded yet skeptical. Moreover, improving scientific literacy will provide these tools to others. Progress in science is made by building information supporting a theory, and theorizing new explanations when results opposes the initial hypothesis. The scientific method is fundamental to understanding the universe but anti-evolutionists, climate deniers, and frankly the uninformed, misunderstand that a scientific theory is different than a casual theory. Do you believe in chaos theory? I think most, if not all unpredictable or uncertain events have an underlying order that the current form of science is unable to completely explain. This is because the models that are currently used to predict events all rely on linear systems. There's one very big problem with that. Most of nature is inherently nonlinear! Take this pendulum for example:  Science has a hard time dealing with things like this, and unfortunately they are often ignored. It's disturbing to think that most of the universe operates this way, and the sciences were never really developed around this concept. Many things may have to be rewritten if we wish to discover the ultimate "source code" of the universe. | |
Multiverse7 wrote:
It's disturbing to think that most of the universe operates this way, and the sciences were never really developed around this concept. Many things may have to be rewritten if we wish to discover the ultimate "source code" of the universe. How sure are we that the universe operates chaotically? That example you gave looks completely linear and predictable to me, given a starting position. Multiverse7 wrote: I think popular science is overrated. It tends to alienate the public from the real, professional science, and it probably doesn't increase literacy as much as we think. You are probably right, but have you ever read a real, professional scientific paper? These guys usually do not have any sort of narrative flow, and they are required to pack in lots of technical information. As a senior in college, I took a course called Climate Change Ecology. As you can imagine we read papers from many different disciplines. These papers were very difficult for me to read, especially when they were far from my area of study. Even the professor of the course reassured us that the papers were a task for her to read as well. All of us had to spend some time with each paper, often looking up terms that we didn't know. We also didn't necessarily read every word - knowing your way around scientific papers you can sometimes skip over certain details (like methodology) in the event that you're just reading the paper rather than critiquing it. I think the average person just couldn't handle it. Here is an abstract from a scientific paper: Drought assessment and projection for the island of Crete was carried out with the aid of thirteen General Circulation Models (GCMs) output (precipitation), bias corrected, using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A comparison throughout three future time slices reveals a significant decreasing precipitation trend and temperature rise. The Spatially Normalized–Standardized Precipitation Index (SN-SPI) was calculated in order to evaluate the spatial and temporal distribution of droughts by classifying the stations in terms of severely and extremely dry conditions as a time percentage. Intensification of drought events is projected for the central and eastern part of the island during the last future period under study (2065-2099) under RCP8.5. The above findings should be taken into consideration for future strategy planning for drought management and warning systems development. (link) I would consider that a very easy-to-read abstract. But does the average joe have any idea what "spatial and temporal distribution" means? As far as I know the general public is still hung up on the order of the planets in our solar system, the reason for the sky being blue, and the location of the milky way. Try asking random people about the configuration of the sun, earth, and moon: They will often tell you that the sun orbits around the earth, and that the dark side of the moon is always facing away from us... | |
I don't know anyone who thinks the sun revolves around us and the moon does only show one face to earth...
As for reading, there are a number of journals that break papers down into article format still packed full of technical information. In fact a free one is going to be produced soon. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/02/11/ science.1251654 | |
Magicsofa wrote:
How sure are we that the universe operates chaotically? That example you gave looks completely linear and predictable to me, given a starting position. The problem is, there are many variables you have to consider, and the starting position has a huge impact on the outcome, which becomes increasingly hard to predict over time. Take the Big Bang for example. The initial moments before the expansion contained all the information that was needed to get the resulting universe we have today. This could be described as "chaotic". Some of the greatest scientists, making use of the most powerful computers in the world, have trouble modeling how the expansion occurred. Since the universe formed in an initially chaotic way, you can expect that everything will only get more chaotic as time passes. In fact, there is a large amount of evidence to support this. Entropy seems to increase towards the future, which acts like an arrow of time. Can you "unshatter" a glass, or "unburn" something? It would be extremely hard to say the least. You are probably right, but have you ever read a real, professional scientific paper? These guys usually do not have any sort of narrative flow, and they are required to pack in lots of technical information. As a senior in college, I took a course called Climate Change Ecology. As you can imagine we read papers from many different disciplines. These papers were very difficult for me to read, especially when they were far from my area of study. Even the professor of the course reassured us that the papers were a task for her to read as well. All of us had to spend some time with each paper, often looking up terms that we didn't know. We also didn't necessarily read every word - knowing your way around scientific papers you can sometimes skip over certain details (like methodology) in the event that you're just reading the paper rather than critiquing it. I was never suggesting that scientific papers be delivered to the public like that! What I mean is that they should be interpreted by someone in the that field of study, who understands it. The papers should be essentially rewritten in another form that the public can easily digest, which wouldn't even make up the final presentation. It would come in many forms, whether it be papers, books, magazines, or videos. No, the general public is not going to understand scientific papers in raw form, but I think they can be translated into plain English by someone who knows what they are doing, and without removing all of the details. | |
First of all, I was not switching the adjectives in front of "agenda". I was simply adding another one, so you should read it as "hidden, political agenda". Also, not everything that is hidden has to be a "conspiracy theory". Under that definition, you might describe the whole idea of creationism as a conspiracy theory. When I say "hidden, political agenda", what I mean here is a political agenda that is not openly discussed or talked about. I would say that pretty much every politician that exists has a number of these, but they are not all bad or insidious. However, I would also say that the agenda of the debate isn't a particularly good one, especially when considering what should be a very genuine subject matter.
As I mentioned before, the very nature of something that is hidden suggests that it is hard to find much detail or evidence about it, but in any case, research can be done, to a certain extent.
The Creation "Museum", where the debate took place, was supported by the state of Kentucky as a tourist attraction. Ken Ham and his ministry was shunned by former partner, Creation Ministries International, which was basically an international wing of Answers In Genesis. They also changed their name and went as far as to take legal action against him! Ken Ham has zero credibility, and I don't just mean from a scientific perspective. He effectively lost all credibility with an entire international Christian organization, which was first founded in Australia, the place where Ken Ham was born. Now if that's not the perfect scapegoat, then I don't know what is! Bill Nye just went in to declare checkmate on an already weakened opponent.
As for Bill Nye, he clearly supports the agenda of Al Gore and the policies of the Obama Administration. Let me quote what he said during the debate.
Bill Nye said:
Are voters and taxpayers what we need Bill, or is that what you need? He just had to say that during a debate that is supposed to have a far higher meaning. Perhaps more importantly, what problems does he want to solve and what does he want to build? Could it be something that will help his agenda, or fill someone's pockets? In reality, it's probably both.
Bill Nye knew that the debate would be a crushing defeat for Ken Ham, the scapegoat, so that he could come out on top, looking like the savior of science education. This would help him redirect some of the votes of the sheeple to go towards pushing certain abusive policies like carbon taxes. I seriously doubt that Bill Nye would be willing to comment on this issue.
EmpirezTeam wrote:
Whether the universe was created from something or from nothing has no real meaning, because everything is information, which fundamentally has no actual "substance". This might all be nothing more than a thought or a dream.
Lugia319 wrote:
This is very similar to the concept of solipsism. One must make the leap of faith to assume that other minds exist, otherwise nothing outside the self would have any meaning. Would it then be too much to assume that the universe was created or designed?
You may have just pointed out the key here. When something cannot be proven experimentally, but holds up theoretically, you first try to make the assumption that it is true. Then, if that something starts to support many accepted facts and ideas, then that something might just verify itself!
In a sense you could describe this as a much more abstract and indirect form of experiment, which makes logical sense, but would not be regarded as such by the scientific community. At least we still have philosophy around to help with that right? Oh no, that's right, it was "replaced" by science and religion.
Magicsofa wrote:
Actually, a good scientist remains skeptical of current knowledge, and tries to disprove it to make sure that it continues to hold up.
Should we keep analyzing the statistics to see if we get different results? That's insanity.