For literal sake of argument, here is the transcript:

'Hello, my name is Kelly Tripplehorn, and my company is ready to offer anyone one thousand dollars if they can explain how they are able to account for modern science without invoking god to do so.

Here is the basic problem that all non-theists face when engaging in inductive science: The modern scientific method is grounded in the idea that one is able to correctly form and deduce scientific theories and scientific laws through one's inductive inference, but before we are able to understand what induction is, we must first learn what DEduction is.

Deduction is, for instance, when I say something like "all fire is hot therefore that particular fire over there is hot" - thus, deduction makes inferences from the GENERAL to the specific.

INduction, on the other hand, would be like when a child touches fire for the very first time and he says "Ouch - that fire is hot therefore ALL fire is hot." Thus, induction makes inferences from the specific to the general.

Now for modern science to work, it must assume the truth of induction, or something more commonly known as "The Uniformity of Nature." If one does not assume that the natural laws work uniformly, then modern science as we know it is impossible.

So, for instance, as a scientist, if I release this fork from my hand, I can assume that it will fall towards the ground at 9.78m/s^2.

But if I do not assume the existance of a creator that created this world uniformly, what warrant do I have to believe that this fork, in the future, will continue to fall at exactly 9.78m/s^2. More specifically, what warrant would I have, as a non-theist, to believe that this fork when released, will not just continue to hover in the air, or begin to spontaneously fly upwards. Because, you see, you can not point to the past to prove the future without fundamentally begging the question as to why it is I should assume that the past events will continue to resemble the future events.

As a Christian, though, I do not have this problem, since the first two chapters of Genesis inform me that God created the world with order and uniformity. And, I, as a Christian can assume that the past laws of nature will be like the future laws of nature because god has implicitly told me so in his word.

Unless you are a theist, your worldview cannot even begin to justify why it is that the natural laws of the past will continue to operate uniformly.

Now, by this point, you're probably very confused, so let me give you a very vivid illustration of this.

Suppose you're playing a racecar video game and then I ask you "why is it that you believe your racecar in the next few seconds will not spontaneously turn into a horse?" Now no "thinking person" is going to say "well that's because my car has never turned into a horse in the past." No! noone would say that, because noone would ever believe that the past events govern the future events.

Rather, the videogame designer designed the game in such a way so that the rules and laws of the game operate uniformly.

This analogy applies to real life.

I can say that I have warrant for not believing that my car will spontaneously turn into a horse because I believe in a logical god that has created the world to reflect his own logical nature.

So here's the challenge:

All any non-theist has to do is give a justification concerning their inductive inference. In other words, justify why it is that you believe the sun will come up tomorrow, or that in the next few seconds why it is that you won't spontaneously turn into a grasshopper.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is just dying for someone to answer them, and if you, as a non-theist - that is, if you are an agnostic or an atheist - can get your answer published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and have the Encyclopedia acknowlege that you have justified your inductive inference, then we will give you one thousand dollars.

In the Encyclopedia section entitled "The Problem of Induction," it gives a 250 year history of man trying to justify his inductive inference without invoking God. After having exhausted every notable thinker who has tackled this problem in the last 250 years, the encyclopedia concludes as follows:

"David Humes' simple argument for the impossibility of a justification of induction is a dilemma. Induction is hence unjustifiable."

So in other words, there is not one atheist/agnostic philosopher in the history of the world who has been able to justify his inductive inference, and christians have basically ignored this fact, but that time has now ceased.

So all the agnostic has to do is to submit his response that fully resolves the problem of induction to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, have them publish your answer, and the i53 Broadcasting Corporation will give you one thousand dollars.

All submissions should be emailed to webmaster@plato.stanford.edu. Once again, that email address is webmaster@plato.stanford.edu.

And please remember not to fall into this common trap by saying "well I have to admit that I do not know for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow or that the laws of nature will continue to operate uniformly, but I just think that it is highly probable, based on my past experiences." But, as the atheist David Hume has already pointed out to us "probability itself assumes uniformity," and thus probability cannot itself justify belief in uniformity.'

(continued below)

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

All he's saying is;
1. the bible says the world was created with order and uniformity, which means to him that past events allow prediction of future events...
2. non-Genisis believers don't have a book that makes this statement, and therefor can't assume that any past event can be relied on to predict any future event. SO...
3. he justifies that random nonsense doesn't happen because of a blessing of uniformity and order, while non-theists have no justification for why they don't "turn into in a grasshopper" at any moment.

The encyclopedia he refers to addresses this subject at 7.4.2
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/#WhyTruIndQueRev

Hilarious that he directs edits to the encyclopedia to the webmaster... what a douche.

One last point is that this post contrasts interestingly with the current top sift, about probabilities and bayesian statistics; http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Monty-Hall-Problem

Hehe.

What is this 'neutral and tangible' proof? I have to trust Plato to believe in Socrates and I am NOT going to become a Platonist.

My consuming problem with the Holy Bible is that it gives Jesus superpowers and that it creates a need for church services (Zzzzzzz).

Furthermore, the only person that I have ever seen with superpowers is George W. Bush (no other way he was electable in 2000 and 2004).

Thou shalt eat thine divine Swedish Meatballs...
IKEA 2206 catalogue: Book of Sven; verse 3:16.

Anyway, at least there's neutral & tangible proof that the Greeks ('Alexander the Great...Plato, or Socrates') existed (aren't these in-disputable figures in history?)...still waiting for the facts on Jesus Christ (who ironically enough: was black & jewish; if in fact, he existed at all!)

benjee:

Check out E.P. Sanders for a good intro of the historical figure of Jesus and the attempts by scholars to use scientific and historical method to parse the mythology from the historical figure of Jesus.

In the field, the minority view is that Jesus was a figment of Paul's imagination. And the archeological proof (both canonical and non-canonical sources) seems to point more towards a historical reality of Jesus than the idea of an imaginary Jesus. Of course, your point about the interpretation of the sources reflecting more about the culture of a particular period rather than a higher Truth about Jesus is well-taken, but it doesn't meant that all of the papyrus is bullshit.

If you take a mistrust of historical textual sources too far (the it's all myth view), then perhaps Alexander the Great did not exist, or Plato, or Socrates. Jesus is actually "better-sourced" than all of these figures. In 200 years, maybe IKEA itself will be thought to be a figment of our cheap Swedish furniture dreams.

I'm with you farhad, unfortunately, people don't credit themselves as often as they should. We're all really ingenuitive creatures.

As for ancient technology and great minds. If we stop to consider that during the entire Middle Ages all classical texts were completely unknown to us. All the great advancements in "Western" Philosophy was spoon fed to us by the Middle East, who had the sense to preserve the texts of Aristotle, Plato, etc.

Just imagine how many great things have been forgotten either through time or our own stupidity. The only problem is, we have the control to stop one of them, we just refuse to believe it.

Very similar to Plato's "Allegory of the cave"

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_allegory_of_the_cave"

Related to http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=1667&where=index

"Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons! "

Interesting song from a great movie. The explanation for the "origin of love" here is based on Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_Plato

For some reason the "VS Population" issue reminds me about learning about Plato's Laws, and how the ideal city would have a population of 5040 (7!).

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PlatosNumbers.html
http://www.constitution.org/pla/laws.htm

Wumpus continued, "But thanks to people like this, we're all prisoners in Plato's cave and we're just chasing the shadows but eventually we'll have to turn our heads towards the light and see things for what they really are."

By your own analogy - or Plato's, I suppose - we're just chasing the shadows. Hey, we completely agree!

We're chasing shadows in Iraq. Those creating the shadows aren't in Iraq - they never were. They're in places like Afghanistan and the mountains of Pakistan.

This administration is batting at shadows and guess what? America is paying for it. You (presuming you're an American) and I are paying for it with money. We're paying for it with *lots* of money.

We're also paying with the social capital that America spent generations building.

We've paying with ethical capital, too. Abu Graib. Alleged torture jails in other countries. When America uses torture, we've lost the ethical high ground.

Finally, we're paying with lives. Not just the thousands upon thousands of Americans, but the Iraqis. The Afghanis. The other soldiers. The hundreds of thousands who've been wounded. Would you like to go through life without your eyes? Missing a leg or two? Not me.

They say you have to choose your battles. The battle came from Afghanistan and we chose Iraq.

We chose wrong.

Yawn...sorry this guy doesn't have a spine, he's just following the rest the the fringe left.
Any political figure who stands up infront of a camera and spouts the same old Bush-hating rhetoric is neither brave or original. Still if he wants to get out and protest, thats fine with me.

But I'm going to let you all in on a little secret here. Going to war in Iraq was not about WMD's. It never was. It's about planting Democracy in the Middle East and ultimately being in a strategic position to confront Iran. But thanks to people like this, we're all prisoners in Plato's cave and we're just chasing the shadows but eventually we'll have to turn our heads towards the light and see things for what they really are.

I could continue, but then I look at my audience here and consider my argument fallen on deaf ears.

dag- my own theory about it is that there IS a missing factor: mind. Mind exists in the universe, but what the f%*^ is it? Matter? Non-matter?
You may prefer to think scientists have it wrong, but it's waaay more likely that the way we perceive the world is through a very thick veil, or again, Plato's cave.... It's hard for our minds to think this way, but I buy it. The evidence is undeniable.