Another fine example of outdated binary logic. If Zimmerman is innocent, thus Trayvon is guilty.

Bzzzt. wrong. That's not how logic works, please learn what logical fallacies are.

Waiting for Bobknight33 racist comment in...

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awwww..did the big bad man on the internet hurt your feelings? How can you have possibly survived the internet for this long with such thin skin. Your "hurt" feelings are just another attempt at distraction and use of emotional manipulation.

No one cares about this argument eh? hrm, that's funny, *you* cared enough to reply to perpetuate it. Again...and again....and again. So, another failed argument. You have a decision to make. I hope you make the correct one.

Lets summarize shall we? You haven't demonstrated how more gun control makes anyone less free, you haven't defined what freedom is or how you even measure it. You keep attempting to evade these questions and tug at heart strings by using words like freedom, and coercion to attempt to manipulate the argument. You make repeated false equivalencies. And you have made no attempt to justify why the right to bear arms is exempt from requirements and other controls the same way other rights and freedoms have requirements and controls.

I answered your question yet you continue to pretend otherwise. I showed you numerous examples of requirements before freedoms and rights are granted and no one is claiming they are less free because of them. You make the claim that people are less free because of gun control but you REPEATEDLY fail to demonstrate how other than to suggest we should be an anarchy. Who cares how many people suffer, they'll learn their lesson eventually right?? right?? Sorry, we tried anarchy, didn't work..we moved on. Just because you wrapped your claim in the form of a question doesn't mean shit other than you're really to play Jeopardy with Alex Trebek. You're still making a claim that people will be less responsible with less freedom. Its your claim, you need to prove it. I've said this before and you still haven't done it.

Debate??!! Who said this was a debate? This is an internet forum. This is merely someone calling another person out on their BS I guess we can add strawman to the list of your logical fallacies now. That and you're making another attempt at distraction. There are actual rules in debate. Oh wait, you think rules take away freedom so I guess you won't be participating.

Don't cry foul, don't whine about name calling...be an adult and own up to your role in this. Suck it up. You chose to step into this and I called out your faulty logic. You made your bed, now lie in it. You claim it's pointless...yet you keep responding and asking for more. You can continue going in circles and bending and twisting your rationalizations as you go, or you can make an alternative choice. Put up or shut up.

Take your own advice. You have freedom and it appears that you have made a mistake. I am awaiting you to learn your lesson.

It's up to you amigo.

@enoch

you honestly think this shitstorm of a "discussion" is a good example of debate and discourse? It started off nice enough but the @shinyblurry web-bot detected the word atheist in its search algorithms and ran its "scripture_dump_#647.bat" script and then insecure @chingalera heard the commotion and decided that enough people weren't paying enough attention to him so he had to enter the fray.

and of course the people who just haven't been around long enough to know how those two operate unwittingly took their bait and assumed that these people were actually genuine and engaged them and viola! instant shitstorm

This has nothing to do with taking offense. You honestly think we ignore people merely because we disagree with them? Fuck that and fuck you for thinking so. We ignore people because we don't think they add anything to the discussion and their posts eventually become noise and distraction.

This has everything to do with people who have no actual interest in the community here and are just here to push an agenda or they're here to agitate people in a non-constructive way.

there is NO debate in this thread, there is NO discourse here. just brick walls and trolling.

@messenger this is EXACTLY why moderation is needed because this thread demonstrates exactly how there is NO self-moderation going on. Things are blowing up now until the next time someone falls for the chigalera/shinyblurry trap and we do this all over again lather rinse repeat and zero progress.

This sift keeps naively assuming that everyone wants to contribute constructively. Not everyone does. Some people are just attention whores. Dissent and offense is fine as long as it can be done constructively and you can at least make a decent argument to back it up. Most of us do that here, but non-insignificant number of us don't And sometimes you have to pull out the weeds.

Not every opinion is equal. You want debate and discourse here? Well there are rules and a structure to that. If you can't back your shit up or you commit blatant logical fallacies or are non-constructive, expect to get your ass kicked. That isn't squashing dissent, that's enforcing a standard.

The straw man argument is that you claim/imply that someone claims that the laws of nature will always be the same, and so forth, then you say that that's not a possible claim to make. But nobody claims any such thing.

I didn't claim or imply anyone did..I was pointing out that Dawkins failed to justify the scientific method because he did not overcome the problem of induction. I then further elucidated the argument by pointing out what the problem of induction is, and why pragmatism could not be justified in light of it.

If the underlying intent behind the question is: "

Listen carefully to what the man is asking and the responses; they're speaking in philosophical terms. The questioner is asking about justification, and Dawkins understood exactly what he meant when he framed the question as "what justifies the faith that science will give us the truth?" This is exactly the intent behind the question. It's a philosophical question, and Dawkins gave an inductive argument as an answer.."it works", but the inductive argument has its own issues which I have already pointed out.

Science has worked incredibly well so far within its domain, so I'm curious why you think there's any reason to even raise the possibility it won't continue to work in the future.

I believe that science will continue to work until the end of time, because there is a God who upholds His lawfully ordered Universe. This isn't really about whether science will work in the future; it's more about the nature and basis for truth claims. Empiricists claim, for instance, that knowledge only comes from sense experience. Empiricism is of course the cornerstone of the scientific method. Because most atheists trust in science to explain the world to them, they are empiricists by default and they think empirical evidence is the measure of everything that is true and real.

In a round about way, this is getting at the core reason for the question. It's cutting to the heart of a major problem that people have, which is that they are only skeptical to a point. They fail to see the assumptions inherent in their own worldview, or that they even have a worldview.

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

Everyone makes certain assumptions about reality, consciously or unconsciously, in order to function in it. This is something we have discussed before. You think it is unreasonable that you should ever have to justify something like your existence. I happen to agree with you here; it's completely pointless to argue about whether you exist or not. I don't think you should be skeptical of your own existence, and therefore it is justifiable to make that leap. This is an assumption you must make, and there are many more..such as the world is real. That, for instance, the Universe didn't pop into existence 5 seconds ago and all of our memories are false. You must assume that your history is real, and that the people you are meeting are not actors like in the Truman show. All of this sorts out to form the foundations, or basic beliefs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_belief) of your worldview. A world view is like a pair of glasses you put on to interpret reality. My worldview is Christian, for instance..I interpret everything through the revelation of God. Most atheists are naturalists and so their worldview is naturalistic atheism. They interpret everything in natural terms, but this is also informed by their lack of belief in a God. A belief in God or a lack thereof is the cipher which will determine everything you believe about the nature of reality. It is the one truth that informs all other truths.

But here is where things go wrong, and why the question is necessary. People assume things about the nature of reality, and about logic, morality, and science which they cannot justify, and then they falsify truth claims on those topics with reasoning based on those assumptions. For instance, people will say that something isn't real unless there is empirical evidence for it, but this is based on the unjustified assumption that empirical testing is the only method for determining the truth. They will justify this claim like Dawkins justified the scientific method "science works therefore empirical testing". But pointing to the results to justify the assumption is logically fallacious reasoning. I could get out of debt rather quickly by murdering all of my creditors, but if I promoted this to you as a sound debt management plan, would you agree that being debt free justified the assumption inherent in the premise, that murder is acceptable? If you wouldn't, then you can see why no one should agree with the idea that because we sent a man to the moon, the scientific method has been justified. Results don't justify anything; the methodology used to get the results must itself be justified by a higher reasoning process. The idea empirical testing is the only way to obtain truth itself must be empirically tested; and how do you empirically test that idea? This is where the inductive argument completely fails.

Unfortunately for most people their skepticism has already turned off long ago and they are blind to the leaps of logic they make in their own reasoning process. They are only skeptical of what challenges the core assumptions of their worldview, not the assumptions themselves, and they evaluate all truth claims through these assumptions. It would be like if I wore glasses that saw only two colors and you wore glasses that saw three. Everything you told me about seeing three colors I would evaluate in terms of seeing two. I would be utterly blind to the third color because of my assumption that only two were possible. No matter how articulate your argument was, unless you could get me to take off those glasses (put down the assumption that only 2 colors were possible) I would never see it.

So this is the essence of the question..why should we trust science for the truth and not something else? To answer that we must challenge the assumptions that make science possible and see if they are coherent with reality.

science is self correcting... its not a logical fallacy to say "it works", because producing results is what science is concerned with... and testing hypotheses, which is NEVER ENDING...

If two models agree with observation, neither one can be considered more real than the other. A person can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration."

All of science assumes there is such a thing as uniformity in nature. If tomorrow the laws of physics stopped working science couldn't self-correct that..it would become useless. The question was, what justifies the scientific method..and pragmatism doesn't justify it. You have to be able to answer why it will continue to work without using a logical fallacy to justify it.

you will run into limits with a faith based system which the scientific method will accelerate by due to use of logic and model-dependent realism.

In the case of Christianity, there aren't any limits. It was because of the Christian assumption that there is a Lawgiver who created an orderly Universe based on laws which helped birth the scientific method in the first place. Now science still operates with the assumption of an orderly Universe based on laws, but it denies the Lawgiver that created them without explaining why they should exist in the first place.

simple, no??? what do i win?? eternal torment in this form by having to exist with ignorant animals who deny their true existence?? Cool... somedays i wish i hadnt bit that apple, but it is done... and i take some comfort knowing that reincarnation is literally true for the physical world, but this planet is getting a little crowded ill never see the end or the start all i am is a middle... when can i sleep eternal...

Are you of the Hindu faith? Why do you believe in reincarnation?

science is self correcting... its not a logical fallacy to say "it works", because producing results is what science is concerned with... and testing hypotheses, which is NEVER ENDING... something inherently without end and self referencing surely is confusing, but the scientific method builds on observation... so what? Well, maybe this will put it in terms one can understand:

"Adopt a view -- model-dependent realism -- the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation. If two models agree with observation, neither one can be considered more real than the other. A person can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration."


you will run into limits with a faith based system which the scientific method will accelerate by due to use of logic and model-dependent realism.

simple, no??? what do i win?? eternal torment in this form by having to exist with ignorant animals who deny their true existence?? Cool... somedays i wish i hadnt bit that apple, but it is done... and i take some comfort knowing that reincarnation is literally true for the physical world, but this planet is getting a little crowded ill never see the end or the start all i am is a middle... when can i sleep eternal...

Dawkins did not justify the scientific method in this clip. "It works" is an inductive argument (as Stephen Law affirms at :52) which faces the problem of induction:

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

It works the last time you checked, but why should it continue to work? To justify it you have to presuppose that the future will be like the past. What is the evidence that the future will be like the past? It's in the past, and thus the presupposition is based upon circular reasoning, a logical fallacy.

The NRA talking points are an excellent vehicle for the study of logical fallacy in political propaganda. Let me know if I left any out.

1. Strawman - Banning ALL guns is not the answer.

2. False Dichotomy - Instead of talking about gun regulation, let's talk about mental health.

3. Appeal to Authority - Check out this study I didn't read or verify that was written by two conservative think tank employees in a private student published newsletter with "Harvard" in it's name that is not sanctioned by Harvard University proper. http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/about/

4. Argument from ignorance - if only the teachers had been armed, this tragedy would have been averted.

5. Denying the Antecedent - Existing laws did not prevent this tragedy, therefore, new laws cannot prevent future tragedies.

6. Fallacy of Composition: You will never be able to stop all gun crime, therefore we shouldn't try to stop some gun crime.

7. Red Herring: More people are killed in automobile accidents than are killed by gun enthusiasts. Should we ban cars too?

Wow. A boggling number of logical fallacies in that piece. It reminds me why I refuse to watch political "debates".

But you haven't understood the argument @shveddy. The argument is, that without God you don't know anything. The proof that God exists is the impossibility of the contrary, since we do actually know things. During our discussion, you've been unable to justify a single knowledge claim without using logical fallacies, and you don't argue this. What you've said is that you're willing to live according to what you acknowledge as fallacious reasoning, because it works. So, rather than acknowledge the obvious, which is that you need God to make any sense out of the world, you prefer to live contrary to reason itself. This admission means you no longer have any leg to stand on in the argument. It is also, I will note, what you have accused me of doing many times.

My justification is simply that it has a good track record. If you are really trying to say that I am unreasonable to assume that all physical laws will remain more or less unchanged for the next five seconds then you demonstrate your own stupidity.

The main problem with your justification is that it is logically fallacious. You're still using circular reasoning. Your evidence that the future will be like the past is the past. Is it correct reasoning to use logical fallacies?

You haven't demonstrated that we need to know anything with absolute certainty. Is there any practical value to it?

Can you show me one instance where knowing that something has been the case in every conceivable instance since the dawn of time is just too vague for you?

Things seem to hum along just fine under the crazy assumption that breathing in and out is the way to go.

Well, the thing is, we live in a world of certainty, not uncertainty. What this means is that you are living a double life of sorts. You are uncertain about everything in theory, but of course you never live that way in practice; you expect everything to continue as it has from the beginning of the Creation. You expect that when you jump up you will come back down again. You expect when you say the words "juniper tree" that the sound waves will carry those words to the other persons ear, and they, using universal rules of logic, will comprehend what you're talking about. You are living according to the ideals of a Christian worldview, but simultaneously denying it with your atheism.

Did you know, for instance, that the idea in science of nature being lawfully ordered is a Christian one? It was supposed by 12 century Christians who believed that the Universe was governed by Gods laws, and that we could suss out these universal laws by investigating secondary causes. Here is some of the history of all of that:

http://bede.org.uk/sciencehistory.htm#introduction

So this world of certainty we live in is based in no small way off of Christian ideals and principles. You could not actually justify any of it unless you invoke an omnipotent God who created and maintains all of these things, and will continue to do so. So, the argument is the impossibility of the contrary, which is not only a denial of the world of certainty that we live in, but also the loss of any basis for rational thought.

@enoch The argument he is making is this:

Without being omnipotent, you cannot know anything for certain. If you don't know anything for certain, you don't really know anything, period. For example, any claim to knowledge that you make, such as that you exist, that 2 + 2 = 4, or that the sky is blue, is based on what your senses and reasoning are telling you. When asked to justify how you know your senses and reasoning are valid, you could only reply that you know that by your senses and reasoning. This is of course a viciously circular argument, and logically fallacious.

So because of this problem, which is really the problem of induction, you couldn't name even one thing you are absolutely certain of. You could only say that you think it is true, but that is a big difference from knowing it for certain. For example, if you asked someone what the speed limit of the road you're on is, and they answered "i think it is 60 miles an hour", do they know it ? No they don't.

So, there is only one other way to know something for certain, which is revelation for an omnipotent being, someone who does know everything. So therefore, his argument is that without God, you can't know anything.

So, although it sounded quite awkward, the kid didnt understand what Eric was talking about, and he actually lost the argument by making an absolute knowledge claim that he couldn't justify. Although I also tend to agree with @rottenseed.

>> ^VoodooV:

And here's Exhibit B: @shinyblurry: Quoting a book supposedly from a creator which is "proof" of a creator, thereby committing one of the oldest logical fallacies in history.
suppressing the message? you've had 2000+ years of your message being dominant and it's only historically recently that more and more people are agreeing that the message is irrelevant.
and no Shiny, I don't read the bulk of your posts because you continue to use the bible as an authoritative source without justification. You, and neither has anyone else haven't ever given any halfway plausible reason to take it seriously. That's what happens when you take a fictional story and treat it as fact.


I'm not sure where you get this idea that Christianity is declining. Do you know that about 80000 people give their lives to Christ every day, and that 1/3 of the entire human population professes to be Christian? It is actually the most relevant message on the planet, whether you believe in it or not.

I'm not quoting the bible to prove there is a God; God works through personal revelation. I could not prove there is a God to you, but God reveals His existence to all men. That is why you cannot say there is no God, because you have received that evidence. You can say I don't know, but God says you do know what He expects of you, and He has reinforced that and warned you many times.

And here's Exhibit B: @shinyblurry: Quoting a book supposedly from a creator which is "proof" of a creator, thereby committing one of the oldest logical fallacies in history.

Universal agreement on Christianity? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You just don't pay attention very well do you.

suppressing the message? you've had 2000+ years of your message being dominant and it's only historically recently that more and more people are agreeing that the message is irrelevant.

and no Shiny, I don't read the bulk of your posts because you continue to use the bible as an authoritative source without justification. You, and neither has anyone else haven't ever given any halfway plausible reason to take it seriously. That's what happens when you take a fictional story and treat it as fact.

>> ^griefer_queafer:

smug overload


Indeed, Dawkins appears smug. I attribute that as a commonly perceived side effect of being correct.

I need to brush up on my logical fallacies. What's it called when one attacks the delivery of the message while ignoring the content?