The lyrics are amazing!!!

it perfectly frames the entire genre in 1 word so eloquently.

it's a masterpiece of linguistic inflections that drip onto your ears as honey doth on the tongue.

in other words

Dem Niggas be gettin' dere fryd shicken pwning swaggah on like a mahfuckah nigga!

tumbs up yo.

1. You're still using your subjective experience to prove Premise Two.

It's all subjective experience; again, if you want to claim that subjective determinations cannot lead to objective truths, then you can throw out any claim of an objective world and we can drown in relativism. Care to take another stab at it?

2. In the other threads you quoted one Wikipedia page at me without even reading the other one (Check the second paragraph of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical to see the difference). You ignore the fact that empiricism as a philosophy is an unscientific world view on its face due to its unverifiable claims of where information can and cannot come from.

What? What do you think empiricism is based on?

Definition of EMPIRICAL
1: originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical data>
2: relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory <an empirical basis for the theory>
3: capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical laws>
4: of or relating to empiricism

It's clear now you have no idea what you're talking about. Yes, empiricism is a philosophy, and yes, it was one of my major points that you cannot verify empiricism without engaging in tautologies. You're just proving my point here. Yet, you show complete ignorance here as empiricism is a major foundation for the scientific method. The fact that I would have to prove this to you says it all..

http://davies-linguistics.byu.edu/elang273/notes/empirical.htm

"Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation."

I also guess you missed this:

"The standard positivist view of empirically acquired information has been that observation, experience, and experiment serve as neutral arbiters between competing theories. However, since the 1960s, Thomas Kuhn [2] has promoted the concept that these methods are influenced by prior beliefs and experiences. Consequently it cannot be expected that two scientists when observing, experiencing, or experimenting on the same event will make the same theory-neutral observations. The role of observation as a theory-neutral arbiter may not be possible. Theory-dependence of observation means that, even if there were agreed methods of inference and interpretation, scientists may still disagree on the nature of empirical data."

Meaning, the interpretation of data is philosophical.

3. You quoted people who haven't even graduated university at me???

The OP said he had not yet graduated, it doesn't mean all the participants have not. Did you even read it?

4. You equate spectators at a football game who are there to support their team with scientists collecting data (Scientists at that match would have been making a record of each foul), and on and on with analogies that all demonstrate a sad lack of understanding of how science works, or, in one case, modelling it somewhat accurately, but presenting it as if bias was something scientists didn't openly acknowledge, and didn't have processes to mitigate impact. If religion ever acknowledged its bias, it would cease to exist instantly, because its bias is the entire religion. At the very least, this makes science more mature and credible in the objective world.

Nothing you said here refutes any of the data provided, but is rather just you stating your opinion that it is wrong without backing it up. You also pass off the (now admitted) bias as being mitigated without explaining how. And then you create a false dichotomy by constrasting science and religion, and then attacking religion as "biased" and saying science is superior. If anything it just shows your religious devotion to science and your faith in the secular humanist worldview. Religion and science aren't in a competition, and science has no data on the existence of God. You may believe certain "discoveries" disprove things in the bible, but that is a different conversation. On the essential question, does God exist, science is deaf dumb and blind.

5. You go on with your, "There is plenty of evidence which suggests that God created the universe" spiel which is always countered with "Religion just catalogues things we cannot explain nor ever prove and ascribe them to a deity, knowing (hoping, hoping, please!!!) it will never be possible to disprove them, and all the while ignoring former claims for God that have been shown not to be God, but a newly understood and measurable force.

There are many lines of evidence which show it is reasonable to conclude that the Universe has an intelligent causation. There is evidence from logic, from morality, from design, from biology and cosmology, personal experience, culture, etc. It is not just appealing to some gaps, because special creation, as in the example of DNA, is a superior explanation to random chance. You're also going on about mechanisms which doesn't rule out Agency. You seem very overconfident and this is unwarrented, because there isn't much positive evidence on your side.

6. You are still conflating your "God" (I'm going to start calling him "Yahweh" to prevent this in the future) with any old god. The Big Bang Theory, which you alternately endorse and claim is bunk, could point to a creator, but by no means a god with any of the properties of Yahweh, except the singular property of the ability to create the universe as we know it.

Since time, space, matter and energy began at the big bang, the cause of the Universe would be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, unimaginably powerful and transcendent. You can also make a case for a personal God from these conclusions. Before you go on about how no one says the Universe was created from nothing:

In the realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear, but also space and time. However, physicists theorize that from this state of nothingness, the universe began in a gigantic explosion about 16.5 billion years ago.

HBJ General Science 1983 Page 362

the universe burst into something from absolutely nothing - zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.

discover April 2002

7. You quote scientists' opinions on religious issues like I think they're infallible prophets or something. Science doesn't work that way. Only religion does.

You seem to believe everything they say when their statements agree with your preconceived notions of reality. How about these statements?

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geologoy assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

Well we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. ..ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwins time.

By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as the result of more detailed information.

David M. Raup Chicago Field Museum of Natural History
F.M.O.N.H.B v.50 p.35

8. There's nothing we are "interpreting differently". You are interpreting everything as "Yahweh did it", and I'm not interpreting anything: There observably is CMBR, and it points to a Big Bang billions of years ago. That is all. You leap from this "suggestion" to "therefore it was Yahweh a few thousand years ago".

You're interpreting the evidence as pointing to random chance, I am interpreting it as being the result of intelligent causation.

And actually, without the hypothetical inflation, the smoothness of the CMBR contradicts the predictions of the theory. The CMBR should also all be moving away from the big bang but it is actually going in different directions.

9. I would never scoff at infallibility in anything that can be tested. I scoff only at claims of infallibility where by definition there is no possibility of failure only because there lacks any measure of success, just like every piece of dogma in the Bible, except for the ones that have been proven false, like the shape of the Earth, the orbit of the planets, and so on. Every scientific hypothesis has a measure of success or failure, and when one is disproven, that hypothesis is discarded, except to keep a record of how it was proven false.

Yet billions of people have tested the claims of Jesus and found them to be true. You believe because you fooled yourself with an elaborate delusion that any claim that disagrees with your naturalistic worldview is also an elaborate delusion that people have fallen into. I'm sorry but this does not follow. You're also wrong about your interpretation of the bible; it never claimed the Earth is flat or anything else you are suggesting.

10. I like your story of the scientist who climbs to find a bunch of theologians who have been sitting on a mountain of ignorance for centuries. Apt image. And I don't get the intent anyway. It suggests both that science could one day arrive at total knowledge (doubtful), and that religion has ever produced a shred of useful knowledge (it hasn't).

This is the problem with atheists, is that they are incapable of seeing the other side of the issue. Are you honestly this close-minded that you can't see the implications that Gods existence has for our knowledge? Or are you so pathological in your beliefs that you can't even allow for it hypothetically?

If God has revealed Himself, then obviously this is the most important piece of knowledge there is, and it is only through that revelation that we could understand anything about the world. It is only through that lens that any piece of information could be interpreted, or the truth of it sussed out. So, anyone having that knowledge, would instantly be at the top of the mountain of knowledge. The scientist only reached the top when he became aware of Gods existence by observing the obvious design in the Universe.

In short, I'm through talking about anything logical with you, or attempting to prove anything. You really, really do not understand the essential (or useless) elements of a logical discussion of proof. If you knew them, I would enjoy this debate. If you acknowledged this weakness and were keen to learn them, I would enjoy showing you how they work -- you seem keen. But neither seems the case. [edit -- This may be due to the fact that you're connected to both the objective world and the God world, and you're having trouble only using input from the one stream and not the other, like using input you received from your right eye, but not your left, as our memories are not stored that way. Either way, it is a weakness.]

Your arrogance knows no bounds. You've made it clear from your confusion about empiricism that you really don't know what you're talking about, and you tried to use that as a platform to condescend to me the entire reply. This isn't a logical discussion, this is an exposition of your obvious prejudice. You have no basis for judging my intelligence or capabilities..it's clear that your trite analysis is founded upon a bloated ego and nothing else.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Proverbs 11:2

>> ^messenger

Tags for this video have been changed from 'the, English, Language, is, funny' to 'the, English, Language, is, funny, etymology, linguistics' - edited by therealblankman

@messenger

If you wish to dispute mainstream economists regarding straight-forward issues, please provide other sources.


So now 99% doesn't mean 99%. Brilliant. You would equally support Republicans saying "We are the 99%. We represent the 99% of the population that suffers from the importing of long-term poverty via open borders. Any references to 99% are no longer a numerical reference, although we'll pretend they are when it's convenient."

Such sophistry is embarrassing. If it was so easy to not be fooled by this linguistic trickery, you yourself wouldn't have been fooled when you titled this video in a misleading way. I know from your past comments that you're one of the most mature and intelligent people on the sift, so I can only imagine the mental states of the rest of the sift.

The US is entering a prolonged period of economic decline because liberals practiced population replacement by importing 80 million permanently poor and less educable people in the last 40 years --precisely when unskilled labor has been rendered useless by global labor arbitrage and ever increasing automation. If you want to import people, import them from north-east Asia next time, and they'll be contributing more to society per capita than white people within a generation. All statistics are bunk when they don't take this population replacement into account.



Everything you hope to happen is going to fail, just as your ideology destroyed the California economy (which you'll never be honest about) despite it's ultra-high taxes and liberal policies. There is no reform movement within liberalism from the perspective of intelligence, so we can safely assume liberalism will remain frozen in time as it has been for the last 40 years.

I should probably stop commenting on videosift. Compared to the Silicon Valley people I spend my time with, videosift culture appears to be permanently anti-success. That's why they need income redistribution in the first place. There are never enough talented 21st century workers in Silicon Valley because it's so on the right side of history. People should learn from the culture here.

From the language and the name of the restaurant, this is not Japan, probably China/Taiwan.
/linguistic nitpicking


I hope she's getting extra pay, cuz it's clear the line is for her, not necessarily the buns.

The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science.

I'll have to disagree with you here. To say the evidence for a creator is just filling in the gaps isn't true when it is a better explanation for the evidence. Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds. The medium doesn't matter. Just as a message transcends the paper and ink it is written in, and just as you can write that message in the sand and has no loss of data, DNA is transcendent of its medium. A designer is a better explanation for the existence of DNA. Check out this article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3040594/The-Linguistics-of-DNA-Words-Sentences-Grammar-Phonetics-and-Semantics

What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

That is just a fallacy, though. Just because people used "God did it" as an explanation for things we know understand in more detail is not evidence against the existence of God. It is just evidence for the ignorance of people. Christians aren't against science. I am against things which aren't science, like things which have never been observed and are untestable, like macro evolution.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

Science does a lot of guessing. This is why theories have changed so many times in the last few centuries. Not too long ago, science was certain the Universe was static and eternal. It was one of the evidences that atheists would use against Creationists. Now, we know the Universe had a definitive beginning. The scientist who discovered said that there is no other theory which lends itself so well to the creation account in Genesis.

My main point is that science has nothing to say about the existence of God. It is not anything it can prove or disprove. God is a spirit, and a spirit is an immaterial being. There is no empirical evidence for something immaterial.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

Again, intelligent design is a better explanation than natural selection by random mutation for a number of things. When darwinian theory was created, the cell was thought to be a simple ball of protoplasm. We now know the cell is more complex than the space shuttle, by an order of magnitude. There is no naturalistic process which can account for the existence of this complex and intricate nano-machinery. Just because you consider it "bullshit" doesn't make it so. The Universe has the appearance of design. There are 30 or so factors in physics which have to be precisely calibrated for the Universe to even form correct, let alone for life to develop. The odds of this happeneing by chance are beyond calculation. Instead of admitting that and changing the theory, scientists then postulate multiple Universes to make the design features in this one seem plausible as happenstance.

Here is a nice video on the complexity of the cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSasTS-n_gM&feature=related

If you want to talk about radiocarbon dating, this again is something which is an interpretation of evidence based on a number of unprovable assumptions. It presumes that radioactive decay rates have remained constant in the past and that there was no contamination over periods of millions or billions of years. Check out this article:

http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/fatal-flaw-radioactive-dating/

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

I am relying on my own experience, and in my experience I have observed that the material reality is a veil, and behind that veil is a spiritual reality which encompasses it. I have seen the evidence of a higher power working in the world, who relates to us on a personal level. I believe the bible because my experience confirms it, not because I just assume it is true.

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

When you have faith in metaphysical claims, and that faith informs your entire worldview, that is indeed like a religion. What you are seeing is through the lens of that worldview..

>> ^Quboid:
I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.
Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.
However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.
I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?
Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Stephen Fry, Planet Word, Episode, Laguage, Words, Speech, Linguistics' to 'Stephen Fry, Planet Word, Episode, Language, Words, Speech, Linguistics' - edited by calvados

Do you have an "Even Dawkins admitted" macro button?

Dawkins isn't even a historian. Why should anyone care about his opinion on this? Dawkins is a pretty prominent atheist, so I can understand why you'd make that mistake, but atheists don't receive beliefs from a single infallible godhead figure. Until seeing the David Fitzgerald video @hpqp just referenced, I assumed Jesus was a real guy too. But it's OK, because as I'm a linguist, not a historian, nobody was quoting me on that.

As you your second bit, I don't know if anybody with historical chops had questioned the existence of the man named Jesus of Nazareth, and it was generally accepted that he did exist and that he was a well attested figure. Now someone is casting doubt on that with evidence, and smart people will at least consider this new possibility before deciding either way.>> ^shinyblurry:
Even Dawkins admitted Jesus is a historical figure. There are virtually no historians who support that view, so scratch probably and insert "extremely unlikely".

>> ^charliem:

What language are they speaking?
Certainly doesnt sound like Chinese....sounds more like Japanese.


The Mongolian language is one of its own; wiki says: As for the classification of the Mongolic family relative to other languages, the Altaic theory (which is increasingly less well received among linguists[28]) proposes that the Mongolic family is a member of a larger Altaic family that would also include the Turkic and Tungusic, and usually Korean and Japonic languages as well.

There are more Chinese languages/dialects than Mandarin, which is regarded as THE Chinese language to most people. Mandarin became the standard language in 1924, but the other dialects and variants are still spoken today.

>> ^budzos:
It's also a compound term. Gorillas are now well-known to create their own compound term from two previously unrelated concepts, which is fairly definitive example of linguistic cognition. Funnily enough the compound terms created for things the gorillas dislike usually involve feces.


Note to the keepers, no German porn DVDs

>> ^acidSpine:

[drunken sidenote] What are peoples' opinions on the de-capitalisation of of common internet acronyms such as lol, wtf etc


Acronyms are a means of reducing the amount of effort required to convey something, right? Being lazy enough to say lolomgwtfroflwaffle, but interested enough in linguistic convention to capitalize, seems inconsistent. Does that matter? IDGaF

>> ^bareboards2:

My favorite Koko story....
"They" say that gorillas don't actually use language, they are mimics and learn "make this sign, get this".
The scientists were concerned about Koko's mental health, so they put a rhesus monkey in with her, for company. Koko did NOT like the monkey -- loud, stole her food, etc. She would sign "feces monkey" when she saw it -- in other words, called the monkey a "shit." She made that up to describe her feelings.
We are an egocentric species, thinking we are so different....


It's also a compound term. Gorillas are now well-known to create their own compound term from two previously unrelated concepts, which is fairly definitive example of linguistic cognition. Funnily enough the compound terms created for things the gorillas dislike usually involve feces.

You are a cunning linguist.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Sharon is Karen. But I don't share, because I like to have my Kate and Edith too.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Sharing is caring.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
It is. I just thought you'd enjoy a nice intellectual conversation with Stephen Molyneux.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
30 minutes of my life is a lot to ask.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
http://videosift.com/video/Adam-Vs-The-Man-Super-Congress-Ma
kes-Oligarchy-Official

Stephen Molyneux makes an appearance.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

A very cunning linguist. This guy needs to write a musical.


He's written Matilda: A Musical, adapted from the Roald Dahl book. Definitely going to be going to see that with the kids!

@messenger

QM and I are arguing it was good that previous immigrant groups learned the language and assimilated into successful culture, but it seems like your argument is that it's fine for Americans to be divided up into multiple mutually incomprehensible linguistic/cultural groups, just as Switzerland and Canada are.

I was raised liberal and I was liberal until I began to study the human sciences, so I understand liberalism pretty well.



1. Liberalism doesn't prefer decay, but it does prefer the conditions that cause decay.

1a. I don't think anybody's arguing liberalism didn't cause California's decay. We have some of the highest taxes and most liberal policies in the country, but we're still bankrupt because liberalism advocates decay-causing conditions. For example, liberalism advocates endless immigration from less skilled societies, indeed, from the least-skilled tier of the less skilled societies, then encourages immigrants to not learn the language that leads to success.

1b. Once things begin to decay, liberalism then complains that employers aren't willing to pay more for jobs that we don't even need to be done. California doesn't automate jobs in e.g. agriculture that other societies automate because liberalism brought us enough unskilled labor to last for hundreds of years. Automation is getting better every year, but the skill-level of the population is going to stay at the same low level, so know that underemployment and poverty are probably going to steadily get worse, just as they've done since when California was one of the best places in the world.


This mess has nothing to do with the smart fraction, and they're right to excuse themselves from it.


Sources:
• Immigration decreases farm automation
• Immigrants' descendants on average show little improvement in educational attainment even after 4 generations.