thanks

I also greatly enjoyed reading your profile page. Being a Terry Pratchett fan, have you read "good omens?" I think that's the only Pratchet I've read, but I've always meant to read more.

Your mention as to the nature of science reminded me of Kuhn's "The structure of scientific revolutions" Here's a synopsis: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html

In reply to this comment by MycroftHomlz:
*promote

Its a trick question. The answer is neither.

I value science because it provides me with reliable, practical information. Such information is useful for improving my everyday life; while unreliable or impractical information is at best a waste of time and a worst detrimental or life threatening—so recognizing and avoiding such information is important not only to my happiness but to my health and long term survival.

Science, then, is a way of filtering information. The internal mechanism, of course, is the scientific method. This method is important because it is the actual process which filters out unreliable, impractical information.

Strictly speaking, the scientific method is a list of best known methods (BKM). Over time it has evolved into this:

1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

Each of the above eight steps also have best known methods (BKM). For example, the BKM for #4 (Experiment) include double blind groups and controls, while the BKM for #5 (Analyze) include statistical analysis.

“Science” then, is merely a label for the subset of information which has passed through the BKM for obtaining reliable, practical information--steps 1-8, namely, information which has been obtained via the scientific method.

while “Good Science” is merely a label for the subset of information which has passed through steps 1-8, while also utilizing the BKM for each step – such as double blind groups, controls, and statistical analysis.

and “Poor Science” is merely a label for the subset of information which has passed through steps 1-8, without utilizing the BKM for each step.

What passes for "science" today is not science at all. Science today emphasizes "peer review" which consists of publishing articles in several journals and counting how many citations they receive. The presentation of experimental results confirming or refuting a hypothesis is only the first step in the #8 Retest, not the last. A lot of modern scientists forget that.

Here is a quote from Courtney et al in a response to "On The Nature of Science"

"At this point, is science really a powerful, objective epistemology for exploring natural law, or have we merely replaced one set of authorities (the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages) with another (the scientists of the 21st century)?

We must not replace experimental repeatability with peer-reviewed observations as the ultimate arbiter of scientific validity. Only repeatable experimental results qualify as scientific observations."

The knowledge of the Middle Age Catholic Church was based on divine revelation, and had no predicative power. It was viewed by the populace as authoritative because of the position of church leaders, and made widespread by their consensus. Likewise, scientists of the 21st century, in my mind, have lost their predictive power. They are no longer practicing science as it was or is intended. There is little emphasis on repeatability--all the emphasis has shifted to peer consensus. The only reason the general public believes the scientific consensus over any other is their position – not the predictive power of their models – and not unlike the Catholic Church of the middle ages.

The emphasis is supposed to be on the repeatability of results by independent experimenters, not peer consensus in "scientific" journals.

Congrats again:) your sift are a nice blend of thoughtful and wicked clips:) and like me you sure care about the optimalization of the currently implemented siftpolitics! thumbs up!!

A law channel would be great, it should also include crime - breaking of the law: it would be better than to have a separate law and a crime channel.

As far as a *bio channel there would indeed be overlap with nature/eco/science, but a *health/medicine channel would be a good idea..

Talks is considered to be too broad, probably *lectures / *interviews / *debates would be possible channels.

*University would overlap with * howto and *lectures and what to include is to some degree (too?) subjective (e.g. I created 2 personal university playlists)

Fantasy is a missing genre and would nicely complement scifi, horrorshow, love, mystery, grindhouse, drugs/spacy etc.

What? This is just wrong. There have been several scientific advances which goes very much against the bible and religious thought. Evolution is the easy one to point at; Carbon dating, geology and stem cell research. I may misunderstand what you mean by "ideological tolerance", however, so please elaborate.

What I meant was that science only seems to progress in places where there is substantial freedom of thought, both for religion and for science. While it's true that there have been substantial scientific advances which go against the theological attitudes of certain (occasionally substantial) elements of the Christian church, these scientific advances only occurred in areas where neither "scientific" nor "religious" reasoning was given primacy or control.

Darwin is an excellent example. (Though it should be understood that evolutionary theory was already more or less accepted by biologists at the time; the main questions were what the mechanism of evolution might be. So-called theistic evolution was the predominant viewpoint.) In England at that time, Catholics and Protestants were both allowed to worship freely. Atheists were beginning to be open about their lack of faith. The term "agnostic" was coined around that time. An increase in ideological tolerance was the predominant trend.

The jump from orthodoxy and orthopraxy is a small one. Orthodoxy concerns your thoughts and beliefs while orthopraxy is focused on actions. The law is still laid down by the religion. And to set my sights again, the "big three" have both elements in them.

The jump from orthodoxy to orthopraxy is very easy, to be sure. One need only look to the Catholic and Orthodox church or Sunni Islam to see that to be the case. The reverse is not true. Predominantly orthopraxic religions have a very difficult time implementing orthodoxy. Specific schools or branches might have their own teachings, but do not condemn competing branches as "going to hell" or anything like that.


Well, how can you believe in a religion with supernatural elements then? Supernatural elements do not exist in our natural reality and thus cannot be disproved or proved. There is no discernible reason why one belief in a supernatural being is right and any other is wrong. There is plenty of corroborating evidence towards there NOT existing any supernatural beings. Every evidence ever properly studied shows no traces of the supernatural.

I dislike the term "supernatural." In its most literal sense of referring to things that are "above nature," it applies mainly to monotheistic ideas about the world. In the Big Three, God is "above nature" as its inscrutable, unlimited Creator. Thus, anything God does is by definition "supernatural." In religions which do not have this stark distinction between nature and the divine, it is not clear exactly what one means in referring to a belief or even as "supernatural."

Until someone has hashed out what it means to say that something is "supernatural," the term is almost useless, especially when talking about religion in general.

Though it should be pointed out that, from the Christian point of view, one would not expect to find scientific evidence of the supernatural. Science makes use of methodological naturalism, so science cannot study the supernatural. The disagreement is about faith, knowledge, and the ethics of belief, and not about science.


Government and religion have also had overlaps - in the olden times religion acted as a secondary government that collected its own tax. But the difference is that we choose our government and we change the people in the government on a regular basis. I would argue that religion is not been an agent of change as such, because it has just been fragments of bigger religions that rebelled against "big brother". People have been agents of change, not their faith.

A couple of points need to be looked at.

First, religion and government did not merely overlap in the past, but were almost inseparable. Each city had its own patron deity, the worship of which was the civic duty of every member. (Again, this was because of a combination of the necessity of joining together with the ease of using the shared ideologies of religion to make that happen.)

Second, saying "people have been agents of change, and not their faith," makes a distinction that would more or less collapse your entire argument against religion. It is no more true that the rebels were religiously motivated than it is that the oppressors were. To say that the rebels were acting as individuals and not as religionists, is to imply that the oppression was instigated by individuals, and not by their religion. In both cases, it was individuals performing the actions, but religion certainly helped.

Our current situation of "separation of church and state" is something we can thank the Christian tradition for. Christianity started out as a relatively non-political religion--though many of its doctrines made it easy to turn it to that cause. After the collapse of Rome and the spread of Christianity, the feudal system was the means by which the state ruled. The Church had relatively little control, so the ideological dispute over the proper relationship between the two continued for some time. Eventually, the state won. (With spectacularly beneficial results for just about everyone.)

Applying separation of church and state can be difficult depending on the religion; the distinction between government and religion is not always so clear. Hinduism made the transition just fine. Islam may eventually learn to make the transition, though it will only be with serious difficulty. Christianity is no longer a significant political force in most of Europe.

In any case, I think we can more or less agree that the Big Three have some seriously problematic tendencies toward authoritarianism. This is unfortunately true of almost every form of monotheism. I do not believe that eliminating them is even close to feasible, however. Any kind of solution for this problem is going to have to involve understanding of why these religions tend toward authoritarianism, along with collaboration and dialogue, especially with the anti-authoritarian elements within these groups.

Pantheistic and polytheistic religions have much less of a problem with authoritarianism, for the most part. (Though I wouldn't refer to them as "small," necessarily. Buddhism and Hinduism make up a fifth of the world's population between them.)

I personally don't understand the negative comments being received about his talk. I find the man incredibly interesting, and entertaining, which is precisely what most intellectuals and scientists need to be. To know that he's teaching eighth grade science, puts a smile on my face, because if I had him as my grade school science teacher, I'd probably be finished my post graduate studies by now, instead of just re-kindling my love of the scientific process.

He is entirely right when he mentions that he doesn't do the "read chapter seven in the text and do questions, etc, etc". That fails our kids nowadays. Carl Sagan even spoke of this folly in the education system. It doesn't teach the wonderful nature of science, nor does it condition the mind for critial thinking. It locks it into this mode of repetitve work, and no allowing for imaginitive, scientific, expression through their work.

I also agree that computers are too prevalent in the school systems, when I was in school the computers ended up being more of a hinderance than a help, and this was when they were coming into schools with more force. We stopped working together in groups, bouncing ideas off one another, the class became less and less cohesive, and ended up secluding some students from others. And in my opinion that is a major loss for the kids.

More hands on work is needed, less "do this excersize, and repeat" stuff. Unfortunately, I fear it all goes back to what George Carlin said when I'm thinking in my completely negative and paranoid, conspiracy minded ways:

"They don't want a society of people capable of critical thinking, what they want is a society of people just smart enough to run the machines and do the paper-work, but just dumb enough to not realise how badly they're getting fscked in the ass."

All kids should have the opportunity to pursue a higher intellectual learning process, not just those who stumble into the wonders of the scientific fields. Seems like more and more these days you only hear about the "gifted" or the "genius" kids that make it out with PhDs, and research grants. The rest... Well, I work in a distribution warehouse driving heavy machinery, and now doing online and at home courses to get into an Astrophysics program, and it's not as fun as it sounds.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Atheism: the belief that others actually care about one's lack of belief

Quoted for stupidity.


As for the show, it seems to fail at its intent, which is to be an atheist show for non-atheists. Though I agree with the arguments in general, if they are going to talk to non-atheists, they need to gear down to the level of the caller.

For instance, the caller says "Who created everything?" A more appropriate answer would have been "Your question implies that there had to be a conscious mind behind creation. There is simply no evidence for that, and you won't find evidence through introspection or nature appreciation. Science explains a lot about how the world around us came to be, and we're discovering new things all the time. There is absolutely no evidence for a single all-powerful creator, and I don't need to believe in one to be able to appreciate the wonderful world we live in."

Address the poorly worded question if you must, but the idea behind the question is what is really important if you want to teach people about a different way to live. They get caught up in semantics and make themselves look like arrogant assholes who are lording it over the uneducated.

a nice talk.

very cool intro about the cumulative nature of science, and how wild this is.

Ryjkyj's wife says: If you believe that faith is based completely on a person's lack of intelligence you greatly underestimate the necessity for spirituality in the balance of a humans mind. Faith is not necessarily rooted in a belief in God but it is important for human beings to look outside of themselves even if it is to embrace nature and science. If a person cannot look to or depend on spirituality they become a victim of their own ego, and fall into narcissism. Human beings cannot control the world around them and by virtue of that fact alone spirituality in all their forms may be for the betterment and enhancement of everyone. Faith in God or faith in science (and no matter what the majority opinion they are NOT mutually exclusive, nowhere in the bible is evolution refuted absolutely,it is the distortion of common christian extremeists that has mainstreamed that idea) are equally and totally beneficial no matter your intelligence. Using the word "stupid" to describe another humans belief system or spirituality is not only closeminded but absolutely untrue.