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Comments by epeeist


651. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #174308 by epeeist on May 2, 2008 at 5:01 am

It doesn't end. More here on the loathsomeness of Ben Stein - http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRmOTU2YzZlN2RhMzhjNzEwNzQ3MzFiZDE2NjM3NWE=

652. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #174296 by epeeist on May 2, 2008 at 3:11 am

Comment #174291 by riandouglas

How so? Are you claiming that Jesus wasn't European? Guess you think he looked like an Arab or something. Pffft :-)
Next thing you'll be telling us is that he didn't speak English. Blasphemer!

653. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #174283 by epeeist on May 2, 2008 at 2:06 am

Comment #174282 by riandouglas

Perhaps cave paintings don't count.
Of course they don't count. They don't show pictures of Jesus.

654. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174277 by epeeist on May 2, 2008 at 12:56 am

Comment #174268 by robotaholic


Epeeist I looked up your name the other day and found out what it means and it was interesting and I wonder if you fence electrafied :D
Personally no, I am too old, slow and fat to fence at all these days. However, all competitions apart from tiny school ones are fenced electric.

I was serious about the epilepsy thing by the way.

655. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174267 by epeeist on May 2, 2008 at 12:24 am

Comment #174259 by MPhil

Whoa, robotaholic - that avatar is making me nauseous... IT'S TOO FAAAAAAST!!! :)
I just hope there is nobody reading who is subject to epilepsy.

656. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173913 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 10:52 am

Comment #173899 by seeker_of_truth


And with that... I'm going to lunch
Time of death 18:32 UTC, cause "I have to go now", complicated by "I don't have answers to your hard questions".

So how many times have we seen this before?

And just in case he does come back

seeker - answer mesomodel in #173889

657. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173887 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 10:16 am

Comment #173881 by seeker_of_truth


Your list of rules would be fine if I were only debating only one individual who was writing from a majority account of experience and intrinsic knowledge.
Fine, then respond to Mesomodel or Geraint if you want to limit your responses.

658. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173884 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 10:14 am

Comment #173876 by seeker_of_truth


Only so much time in a day, my friend. Please understand this.
So go away until you have some answers and then come back and post them.

At the moment all I can see is a time-wasting creotard.

659. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173878 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 10:12 am

Comment #173872 by seeker_of_truth


Do you find it interesting the speed of gravity measured here on earth matches the exact speed of light? It seems an almost impossible coincidence, or one apparently controls the other.
Irrelevant argument.

Your questions have been answered. Please respond to comment #173870 by mesomodel.

660. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173868 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 10:01 am

In http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2484,Interviews-with-Richard-Dawkins-and-Michael-Shermer,Skepticality-Richard-Dawkins-Michael-Shermer,page3#165735 I gave some of the things that one should not do in critical dialogue. Included in these are

  1. Unlicenced attempts to change the agenda are not allowed
  2. Not making a serious attempt to fulfill an obligation is a bad strategy. Notable here are failures to meet a burden of proof or to defend a commitment when challenged.
  3. Trying to shift the burden of proof or alter the burden of proof is illicitly is not allowed.
  4. Purporting to carry out an internal proof using premises that have not been conceded is not allowed.
  5. Appealing to external sources of proof without backing up your argument properly can be subject to objection.
  6. Failures of relevance including providing the wrong thesis, wandering away from the point to be proved or answering the wrong question in a dialogue are not allowed
  7. Failing to ask questions that are appropriate for a given stage of dialogue should be prohibited, along with asking questions that are inappropriate.
  8. Failing to reply appropriately to questions should not be allowed, including replies that are unduly evasive.
  9. Failing to define, clarify or justify the meaning of a definition in accord with standards of precision appropriate to the discussion is a violation if the use is challenged by another participant
So what are seeker's scores? I think I would be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on number 7, all the rest he definitely seems to have committed.

661. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173810 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 9:01 am

Comment #173805 by riandouglas


You're trying to redirect the argument again. Naughty naughty. So, how many refutations of evidence for your lower bound of the age of the universe - 4500, will you have to be presented with before you reject it?
And how many times is he going to present material as his own when he got the idea from a YEC site?

662. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173786 by epeeist on May 1, 2008 at 8:45 am

Just a quick response, since I am in an audio at the moment.

Your use of supernova for dating is incomplete.

  1. There will be a period after the Big Bang before stars are formed.
  2. There will then be a mean lifetime for the stars that do go supernova
  3. Once this is past then you might be able to use this as a statistical method for dating
EDIT: Your method seems to ignore the first two parts.

663. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173149 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 12:40 pm

Comment #173147 by annabanana 

Will it work if you blockquote it?


No, but it should if you put it inside < pre > tags, i.e. replace "blockquote" by "pre".

664. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173006 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 8:25 am

Comment #172985 by Ajuydog

Serious peer review there!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v10/i3/argon.asp

If so talk origins has some responses.
And there is also this - http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/mt_st_helens_dacite_kh.htm

665. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172972 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 8:07 am

Comment #172965 by seeker_of_truth

Since I believe I may be in the 99% majority on this one, I believe the impetus would be on you to provide papers to the contrary.
Oh no you don't.

Firstly you commit an "ad populum" fallacy. Secondly, all the empirical data points to an age of the earth as around 4.5 billion years and an age of the universe of 13.7 billion years.

If you want to claim otherwise then the burden is on you.

Standard tactics by someone who has no arguments, only rhetoric.

666. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172953 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 7:47 am

Comment #172940 by seeker_of_truth

I think this is where he seems to be indicating a desire for a link-war instead of personal, intelligent debate.
You will note that wherever possible I try to provide references to peer-reviewed papers, ideally with a high citation count.

If you want to supply references to show that there are problems with dating then I would expect you to do the same.

667. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172926 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 7:15 am

Comment #172919 by riandouglas

What is this "comparable quality of evidence"?
My thought too.

I think this is where he needs to be pressed. We have provided links to a variety of evidence. As yet he has provided nothing at all. He needs to be pressed to provide references to empirical data.

668. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172900 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 6:50 am

Comment #172887 by seeker_of_truth


These evidence based theories abound on both sides of the dating issue. Would you honestly ask me to consider one valid and the other 'forced' despite comparable quality of evidence presented?
If you note I used the word "consilience", one that is always ignored by people trying to discredit a single method.

Not only are you going to have to show that each of the dating methods are wrong, but you will also have to show why they are all wrong by the same amount.

Quite honestly with all the evasions, criticisms without offering anything that sounds like a postive theory I am beginning to think you are just another creationist.

669. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172886 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 6:38 am

Comment #172879 by Quetzalcoatl

Er, because the proponents of Intelligent Design think the Designer is God. Dembski admitted as much recently.
Did you mean this document?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/04/richard_dawkins_misrepresents.html

670. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172866 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 6:20 am

Comment #172853 by seeker_of_truth

Can you paraphrase the jist of these sites for me please?
I am not here to educate you, that is your job.

However, you should note that one can date things simply by counting, tree rings, lake varves and ice cores. There is consilience between all of these once you add in effects from known natural events, e.g. tree rings are thinner in years with poor weather, as are varves, but ice cores are thicker.

14C gives reasonable results but needs calibration because of the variability of atmospheric carbon concentration. The above may be used for calibration, as may ocean sediments, coral samples and cave deposits.

Note that 14C has a half-life of 5730 years and so cannot be used for samples whose age is greater than around 50,000 years. 40K has a half-life of approximately 1.26x109 years and is used for dating minerals and rocks older than 100,000 years.

671. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172838 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 5:59 am

Comment #172811 by Podaar

I would truly like to read these logs. Can you point me in the right direction?
Have a glance on the fora here at the formal debates, particularly at the ones that AFDave participated in. Note how he gets his arse handed to him on a plate.

Wander over to http://www.rantsnraves.org and look for posts by Dave Hawkins and Guzman. Similarly http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/

Again notice how the YEC posts and the responses.

672. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172823 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 5:47 am

Comment #172805 by seeker_of_truth


I don't think radiocarbon C-14 dating is used for fossilized bones anymore. The results always come up less than 50,000 years old. We've moved to more 'advanced' methods since like Potassium-Argon dating, though I find the latter more questionable myself.
You might care to look at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4G65VG2-2&_user=3962339&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000061901&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=3962339&md5=73d62d4875b7eaa88f6e1f5ed2bca5c4 and http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2462040 before you make comments like that.

Once you get that under your belt you might start to look at things like tree ring and ice core data and the consilience between these, C14 data an known natural catastrophes.

673. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172810 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 5:40 am

Comment #172786 by seeker_of_truth

If ID were junk science, then why do so many educated and professional naturalists find themselves stretched in debate with those who hold to intelligent design? An answer would be appreciated.
Don't give yourself airs. ID isn't "junk science", to quote Wolfgang Pauli "it isn't even wrong".

As you can see in http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf the aim is "the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies". It has little to do with science qua science.

674. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #172710 by epeeist on April 30, 2008 at 1:05 am

Comment #172644 by Goldy

(research strongly suggests any ID theory is wrong).
Personally I would object to the word "theory" being associated with ID. At best it is a conjecture, it has no body of evidence associated with it, it makes no predictions that can be tested or falsified.

As Behe was forced to admit at the Kitzmiller-Dover trial any definition of science wide enough to include ID would also have to admit astrology.

675. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172150 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 9:16 am

Comment #172148 by seeker_of_truth

Before the telescope, it was believed there were no more than three thousand stars in the universe. Why? That's all that could be seen.
Sounds like a theory that was falsified to me. I don't see the problem.
And gtg for now. Be back tomorrow.
With some answers to the questions that have been put to you I hope.

676. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172149 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 9:15 am

Comment #172100 by Kardashovel

But if you measure the spectrum of helium atoms, they always come out the same.
Really? All of them? They always have and always will?

677. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172124 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 8:51 am

Comment #172118 by seeker_of_truth

So - we have been answering your questions. Now it is time to answer some of ours:

  1. How old do you think the Earth is?
  2. How old do you think the Universe is?
  3. Do you think that ID is actually science?

678. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172112 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 8:43 am

Comment #172106 by seeker_of_truth

Although Humphreys makes a huge assumption by using Yahweh as his stated source
Seeker - you obviously didn't pick up on my post about the requirements of science. Putting in a supposedly omnipotent being into a theory tends to rather throw out the idea of parsimony.

EDIT: And we seem to be getting into the standard YEC attack on logic. Scientific theories don't explain X (as yet) therefore god.

679. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172109 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 8:39 am

Comment #172096 by seeker_of_truth

Does self-delusion have no bounds?
I don't know, you are the theist. You tell me.

What are your views on Einstein and the cosmological constant by the way? Are we to discard the whole of relativity because of the "biggest blunder" in his life.

Are we to discard quantum mechanics because he thought it was "spooky"?

680. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172063 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 7:42 am

Comment #172047 by seeker_of_truth


Also notable is that the majority of scientists on that list are in unrelated fields to Darwinian biology.
Somewhat irrelevant.

You should note that until 1866 one had to become a clergyman to graduate from Oxford and University College, London and that a Natural Sciences tripos wasn't established at Cambridge until 1851.

It is hardly surprising that you see scientists who also have some element of Christianity associated with them. Obviously one would accept people like Lemaitre and Mendel were strong faith holders, but you have to wonder about others who were constrained by the university system.

After the religious requirements were dropped and more universities become established then it is notable that more scientists do not express a religious conviction. One should also add in philosophers, musicians and writers too.

681. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172037 by epeeist on April 29, 2008 at 7:09 am

Comment #172024 by seeker_of_truth

What do we do with the scientists of old who claimed that they began their search for truth with the assumption that God exists, the bible is true, and that God had created an orderly universe that reveals himself? It is upon these shoulders that many devout naturalists/atheists stand, apparently disregarding the historicity of the men who brought advances within their respective fields.
Your list contains a number of scientists who were faith-holders.

What does it prove? That a number of scientists were faith-holders (why did you only choose Christians by the way? Why not Ramunjan or Chandresekhar. Why not Abd Allah ibn Sina). Does it show that a deity exists? Or does it just that one should not commit the argument from authority fallacy?

682. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171436 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Any how this isn't getting the job done.

Dick Dawkins - which do you think is better for theory explanation where probabilistic reasoning is involved, Hempel's inductive-statistical model or Railton's deductive-nomological-probabilistic model?

683. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171417 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Comment #171408 by al-rawandi

The Stalin face is the best of emoticons. It can go either way. Stoic is the best.
I thought Anna had the Stalinicon? How did you get it off her? Something you're not telling us?

684. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171402 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Comment #171390 by al-rawandi

|>:-{o
Nice moustache

685. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171381 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Comment #171351 by sentient

Have you never watched Last Night of the Proms? ;)
Watched it? I have been there. Quite honestly it is largely a piss-take. You don't think there are recruiting sergeants standing outside waiting to sign people up as they stride out puffed up with patriotic pride do you?

686. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #171374 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Seeker - when I asked you how much you knew about the philosophy of science the other day you came back with some basic answers.

Do you understand that something does not become a theory until it has a significant weight of evidence to support it? Now unless someone can point me to some evidence for ID then I would claim that at best it is a conjecture, whereas there is significant evidential support for the ToE.

Even if there were some evidence for ID this still does not put it on the same footing as the ToE. There are several ways of deciding between theories, Kuhn gives things like accuracy, broadness of scope, consistency with itself and other theories, parsimony and fruitfulness of further research programmes, Popper would add empirical strength, testability and falsifiability. If you were a Bayesian of some kind you might want to add in a posteriori probabilities.

I would suggest that in all of these ID simply does not match the ToE.

687. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171338 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Comment #171317 by Cartomancer

Only stuffy old retired colonels would talk like that over here. British people have seaside beach towels with the union flag on them.
Unfortunately the other set of people who aggressively use the Union flag is the fascist BNP.

By and large the British don't do patriotism, there may be more of it in the Celtic nations but even there it doesn't seem to play a large part.

When the former PM Tony Blair played the religion or patriotism cards it was seen as either embarrassing or a joke.

688. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171185 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 10:57 am

Comment #171182 by Kardashovel

Holy crap. If there is one thing for certain it is that RD.net loves a troll.
He ought to think himself lucky there is nobody from the forum here, they are always on the look out for a new chew toy.

689. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171179 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 10:54 am

Comment #171167 by DickDawkins


@epeeist: My reasons are mine and mine alone.
I only wanted to know whether it was something simple, like extra toes or something similar.

690. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171159 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 10:42 am

Comment #171144 by DickDawkins

I would've served, but due to personal reasons wasn't qualified.
Care to tell us exactly why you didn't qualify Bubba?

691. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #170980 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 7:59 am

Comment #169341 by clearmind


We cannot limit God's creation into a bottle of or glass of water. All creations and creatures are all wisely connected to each other from sun and and sunlight to plants and vegetables or from soil to rain.
Wooter - you were mildly amusing to start with but after a while the constant inability to make any answers and the production of random verbiage just becomes banal and dull.

I for one will not be making any more responses to you, on the basis that you are either a wind-up or terminally stupid.

However, as a final sign off here is a small video for you. I hope you enjoy it, it shows a watch evolving - no watchmaker required.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

692. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170971 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 7:41 am

Comment #170967 by BillySands

Dr Benway, although that is undoubtably true, atheists (about 8-16% of the US population) only represent 0.21% of the prison population.
Unless a lot of them are declaring they have a religious affiliation in order to be more eligible for parole.

The other thing is that the people in the survey I linked to are claiming a religious affiliation, they are not claiming to be followers of the religion. Not dissimilar to those who put themselves (or are put down as) CofE in England.

693. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170959 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 7:25 am

Comment #170955 by Dr Benway

To be fair, I don't think this suggests that Christians are more likely to commit crimes than others. I would guess that the appearance of Christian repentance and belief scores a lot of points with probation officers and parole boards.
Agreed, however just for completion here are the simple statistics - http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

They aren't worth a great deal. Personally I would want to be able to create a model that contained things like educational achievement, demographic class, ethnicity and location as well. This would allow correlation with the general population.

694. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170943 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 6:57 am

How is it that rates of depression, violent crimes, teenage pregnancies, and STI/STD's have risen dramatically since prayer was taken out of school?
Sigh, why is that people can't tell the difference between correlation and causality.

As is noted by Pastafarians - there is an extremely good correlation between the decrease in the number of pirates and the increase in global warming.

695. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170934 by epeeist on April 28, 2008 at 6:40 am

Comment #170891 by el Heffe

The question being asked in the movie is where did the first cell come from. By moving the cell to another planet, he has not answered the question. It is clear that the cell is extremely complex, moreso than Darwin could have known. I am here looking for answers and RD didn't have them. By taking God off the table, clearly you all must have a more simple explanation as Steve has suggested.
I would suggest that you are making a number of mistakes here:
  • If you read what RD said about this then what apparently happened was that he was trying to give the best possibility for ID. This was edited somewhat in the film. And of course, as you note an alien designer is subject to regress.
  • The cell is complex and would not have been formed fully fledged in an "ultimate 747" incident. What would have almost certainly come first would have been simple replicating molecules. These could have been formed on an underlying substrate such as a zeolite clay or ice crystals.
  • This is currently the subject of research but nobody really knows at the moment. At this juncture the normal ID response is to invoke bifurcation, i.e. a designer, but this is logically invalid.
    • Pick the simplest explanation when you have several alternatives.
    Parsimony is fine, and nobody who has heard of the Duhem-Quine thesis would have any problems with alternate hypotheses. However, this assumes that the multiple hypotheses have the same explanatory power. This is plainly untrue for ID.
    Be prepared to give up a belief when a simpler one comes along, and there is evidence for it.
    "Belief" perhaps isn't the right word. One should be prepared to give up a theory if it is falsified by a critical experiment or another theory comes along that is empirically stronger.

    696. Lying for Jesus?

    Comment #170179 by epeeist on April 27, 2008 at 1:10 pm

    Comment #170160 by ThoughtsonCommonToad

    What special reason has irate?
    His own to impart, not ours to divulge.

    697. Lying for Jesus?

    Comment #169967 by epeeist on April 27, 2008 at 6:55 am

    Comment #169966 by Demotruk

    Why have people told melissajoy to fuck off, or that she's a fucktard?
    Let's just say that those of who know irate_atheist's circumstances allow us some additional understanding on this front.

    698. Lying for Jesus?

    Comment #169945 by epeeist on April 27, 2008 at 5:34 am

    Just before I go off to make some fishcakes for lunch (with home made bread) a (final) quick note on fencing.

    I mostly coach sabre these days which has its own etiquette. Only hits above the waist count (below this is supposedly horse, which doesn't count) and one has to take turns. If I am attacking you then you have to make a successful defence before you get the chance to riposte.

    Competitively I used to fence epee, no restrictions on target or when you can hit your opponent. I have no qualms about hitting people in the nether regions, nor when they have fallen over their shoe laces or stood on their sword, and to repeat something I say to the youngsters "There is no shame in beating your opponent 5-0."

    699. Lying for Jesus?

    Comment #169932 by epeeist on April 27, 2008 at 5:16 am

    Comment #169923 by Steve Zara

    Not at all. You made a comment a while back about how I dealt with Vox Day, and it took me ages to finally see what you meant.
    That would be a failing on my part as much as yours.
    If I understand you right, does this mean that we keep them talking about religion?
    As Quetz says (genuflecting several times in his direction) perhaps the areas where their beliefs inform their opinions is probably the most generic way of putting it, though I still think is probably too limited.

    I and 5keptic pushed TTID in terms of evidence for ID, he wasn't able to supply any and retreated to invective (which a number of people responded to initially to give a fairly unpleasant display on both sides. The second time he did and was treated with derision was much more satisfactory).

    Remnant was forced to defend on the terms of bible literalism and was unable to do so, with the subsequent regression into scripture quotations and threats.

    Thisisme I think will be more interesting, an intellectual challenge more in MPhil's line. I am not sure about seeker_for_truth as yet.

    700. Lying for Jesus?

    Comment #169920 by epeeist on April 27, 2008 at 4:52 am

    Comment #169919 by Quetzalcoatl


    You're a FENCER? I thought you were a milkman!


    Q: What's an actuary?
    A: A dead mathematician

    Q: What's an accountant
    A: A dead actuary

    :-{)

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