There are groupthinks of mainstream society who are quick to dismiss anything they consider “unscientific” only because it doesn’t come from a mainstream source. These groupthink folks don’t have any valid counter arguments except for a barrage of fallacies yet still resort to using the simple word “unscientific” to dismiss something without even giving a valid reason why they are skeptical.
You often see this in debates, a lot of these pseudo-intellectuals like to argue from authority by citing all sorts of “credible sources” but whenever an alternative source that contradicts the pseudo intellectual’s source is proposed, the pseudo-intellectual is quick to label it “unscientific”.
Furthermore, people like to attach the “unscientific” label to anything they don’t understand or can’t be explained at the moment. Only for their skepticism to be debunked as more information on the subject is gradually acquired.
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🤔 It seems I struck a nerve. But then again the truth is a hard pill to swallow.
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I think the biggest misconception about this is how people assume that experts only come from the mainstream, while disregarding the fact that there are plenty of experts with valid credentials that aren’t mainstream.
Do you think the label “unscientific” has become an overused word that has had it’s original meaning distorted?
Atheist: "show me scientific proof that God exists."
Me: shows scientific proof.
Me: "show me scientific proof of 1) how everything came from nothing and also 2) how lgbt is genetic."
Atheist: 1) "A very very long period of time and a lot of randomness!" 2) "How dare you say that! They feel trapped inside the wrong body!" "There is scientific evidence!"(proceeds to provide none)
1. (a) We don't know exactly, we may, one day, but we can look back at what happened and try and work it out, and learn more every day - some of that knowledge allows you to post your claims all over the world. 1. (b) There's a lot more evidence for people lying for their own benefit than there is for a God who cares about what religions tell you they do. 2. (a) Some things you may not know about Transgenderism! ↗ 2. (b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRIO4tz2gA
You again? Didn't I wreck you last time we had a conversation on this app? Or you haven't had enough?
Fact: There is no genetic link to homosexuality.
Fact: Transgenderism is a mental disorder not a physical one. It is not genetic but rather acquired based on the environment the person lives in.
For example your son and daughter will probably have some sort of issue like that cuz you provide a fucked up environment for them.
Atheists like Richard Dawkins have stated that they'd love to taste human meat.
That's the type of morality you have buddy.
Your role models are cannibals.
You don't even believe in moral absolutism, so why is rape bad? Why is stealing bad? Why is killing bad? Is it just bad because it has consequences?
Now for the bs link you sent me let me show you the fallacy and delusion you have right now.
"Although more research is needed, we now have evidence that sexual differentiation of the brain differs in young people with GD, as they show functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender."
They said it's a functional difference not a physical one.
Which shows that it's a mental disorder as I told you. And as I said, it's NOT genetic, it's not predetermined.
It happens when a child grows up in a dysfunctional environment.
When something isn't genetic and causes suicide rates to be 48% or more than this means it's a mental issue that was caused by the environment the patient lived in as a child.
This is why there was almost no transgenderism in history except in the modern times.
This is why you'll never find a transgender (person with gender dysphoria) in a tribe that doesn't have contact with the west.
You think that study helped you? It proved exactly what I said.
Functional differences in the brain can be anything. For example if my son likes to play with dolls or likes some stuff girls like that means he's functionally different from a boy who likes cars.
Your political views or anything you think of or process in your brain is a matter of brain function.
The summary of the study is: "transgenders think a little similar to their desired gender at a young age (conveniently unspecified age)"
Here's a scenario: I see my son playing with dolls i say he'll grow out of it and let him enjoy his childhood in whatever way he wants, he then grows up to be a normal healthy man like any other.
In the same situation you'd cut your sons balls and dick off cuz you think he's a girl in a boy's body. Your son ends up committing suicide like the rest of the 48% who do because of the hormones and the fact that you took away his ability to reproduce and his manhood.
Scientific facts: Transgenderism and homosexuality are not genetic. They're environmentally acquired. 48% attempt to kill themselves and that number is deflated because not all who attempted reported.
It is a mental problem caused by your media and living environment.
If you can prove that being gay is genetic and not influenced by the environment then I'll apologize to you and admit that I was wrong.
Do whatever research you can. You won't be able to prove me wrong, because what I told you is a fact.
You seem to have an interesting view of what "wrecking" someone looks like.
You just posted a ridiculous video then practically went away. God exists? Do you believe in God? ↗ Did you watch the Royal Institution lecture on evolution to see what an informative lecture sounds like? Hint: it's not a self-satisfied person dismissing reality with distracting lights and annoying music.
Anyway.
I don't see your "scientific proof of God"?
You clearly don't understand what LGBT stands for, since you're conflating homosexuality with transgenderism; they're different groups of people.
I didn't make a claim there was a genetic link to homosexuality or transgenderism, as far as I am aware, so that assertion is a straw man argument; natural and genetic aren't interchangable. You also don't understand what environment means in this context. It's not just upbringing, it's biological effects in the womb.
Personal insults really don't help your case.
And then, you go off at a tangent. Wondering what human meat tastes like does not make someone a cannibal, and having to eat your fellow passengers who had already died to stay alive does not make someone a bad person.
"Why is... bad?" Because it hurts someone else, and I have a thing called empathy. I wouldn't like it to happen to me, so I wouldn't do it to anyone else.
"... a functional difference not a physical one." Except the differences are in the physical structure of the brain. I hesitate to make this comparison, you'll probably go on about how they are defective or something, but it's not unlike a cleft palate; it happens, you're (probably) born with it, and surgery can help. It doesn't make it unnatural.
I already told you, I'm in the medical field. I studied all these things.
I will be a doctor very soon, I'm almost done with med school and my grades are very good.
Yet you somehow feel qualified to tell me that I don't believe in science.
Who are you? What are your credentials? Lol
I've had deep discussions with evolutionary biology professors about these topics and they weren't as confident as you are.
Cuz they know who they're dealing with. You don't seem to understand how limited your knowledge is on these topics.
That video I sent you was just for you to understand cuz it's simplified for you.
Empathy? So anything that doesn't hurt anyone isn't bad right?
So if you have sex with your mother or sister or daughter is that bad? What if you eat the meat of a dead human? What about bestiality? Technically you're not hurting anyone but you're doing something extremely immoral.
As for transgenders and homosexuals, you can't possibly say that it isn't more common in the recent years and in the west.
Everytime you send me something I disprove your arguments. But the problem is that nothing will convince you that you're wrong.
Until now you haven't discredited a single sentence I said.
Like the one about morality. It's not a tangent, it's the same topic, it's all interconnected.
LGBT poses a moral issue just like the other things I mentioned. They're not different at all.
You'll see how they'll normalize all the things I mentioned just like they normalized lgbt.
Your morality will shift with the winds like it always does with "atheists".
I didn't know Liberty University had a medical school! You'll be a doctor of what, exactly?
You forgot your scientific proof for God, again. Or was it the video Ad_Quid_Orator totally dismantled on purplepoppy's opinion on this question? He has a lot more patience with nonsense than I do.
There's a reason the RI lecture I posted was one of the Christmas lectures for children.
You asked, why rape, stealing, and killing were bad. I answered: empathy. Is the only reason you don't do those things because you're scared of Judgement? Isn't the bible full of incest?
"As for transgenders and homosexuals, you can't possibly say that it isn't more common in the recent years and in the west." You sound like the guy in your video. Sneering at reality. We see more in the west today because people like you shamed, or worse, anyone who didn't conform in the past. As for other cultures, many accepted it, going back to early civilizations.
I don't like to boast but yes I will be a doctor very soon. I didn't specialize yet so I'd be a general practitioner then I'd study a bit more years for a PHD.
Yet you somehow think you can send me a wikipedia link to beat me in an argument in my field of study.
Not that I expect that from someone who's so uneducated on these matters that he's swimming in his own delusions.
I'm not christian so I don't believe the bible is completely true.
I always find it interesting how "atheists" defend these perversions and societal abnormalities.
Maybe that's why they're "atheists". Cuz they fear judgement therefore they try to convince themselves that there is no judgment.
It makes total sense considering how emotional they get about such topics.
You're clearly more passionate about this than the average religious person.
"Atheists" know God exists that's why in an experiment in Finland on brain scans of "atheists" the mere mention of the word "God" made the "atheists" feel fear.
Who are you kidding, stop trying to prove something to yourself, it won't save you.
Only repentance will. I'm not here to educate you on religious matters, I'm not that religious anyway, I just know that atheism is an irrational belief, assuming it exists.
You pretend you have a scientific proof of God. You don't.
You said: "Transgenderism and homosexuality are not genetic. They're environmentally acquired." Even if that were true (I haven't checked), natural doesn't just mean genetic; biology in the mother's womb is more important in development than how the child is brought up once they're born.
I'm passionate about the truth, and I'm just as disgusted by people like you calling people who have no choice about how they feel "perversions and societal abnormalities" as I would be by a racist's rantings.
What does your religion say about lying?
I looked up the Finnish study, it says nothing about "fear", it just talks about atheists showing more stress while reading statements asking "God" to do something terrible than when they just wish for that terrible thing to happen. I get stressed when my computer loses a reply, like it just did; nothing to do with fear.
My immediate thought was that they hadn't controlled for asking other third parties to do the terrible things, and that invoking something you know doesn't exist could be stressful, too. At least a couple of other people came up with similar criticisms.
The current state of intellectualism is abysmal! Politics and predominately liberal bias have infused almost all areas of thought and critical analysis has fallen into disfavor. It appears that academia has consented to surrendering it's autonomy and being used as a weapon of those with a social-political agenda. That is why I am skeptical of everything that politicians advance as "supported by science."
Actually, especially right now, the problem is that society is too quick to lean on science. To expect science to deliver more than it can and to push it into spheres well beyond its ambit. If, in that sense, you mean that "unscientific" is overused, then yes. However, this is not a recent problem.
Faith in science as the solution to society's problems traces it origins to the Enlightenment and the "scientific revolution." The argument was that if there were natural laws that can be discerned by reason, then a value free analysis rooted in hypothesis and testable propositions could discern these natural laws. Then law could be made in conformance with natural law and peace and harmony would follow.
This to replace the model of moral exploration and philosophical speculation that was begun in ancient Jerusalem and ancient Athens. Speculative theology and philosophy, rooted in the study of history, practical experience and the consequences of human conduct, would be replaced by the scientific method - value free and absent any presuppositions but relying on the presumption that there are universal laws - like those is Newtonian physics - to be discerned and harnessed.
This - and this is skipping a lot of territory - in the extreme, led to National Socialism and Communism in its most virulent forms. Once it became possible to discern the laws of history, it became possible to reorder society according to the scientific model.
Thus, religion - to use an obvious example - became "unscientific." Not seen as a source of moral truths discerned by man across time, but mere superstition and therefore inherently flawed and thus to lead man to no good end.
Even more recently, on a smaller but not unimportant scale, we have Dr, Fauci advocating the abolition of the handshake. As a means to stop the spread of all sorts of contagious diseases it makes a great deal of sense. The problem is that the handshake, small as it seems, is a gesture of connectedness and trust in our fellows that has developed over thousands of years to grease the skids of social interaction and social cohesion.
Particularly in a society where media and technology increasingly reinforce the habit of people to live in their own heads, to think in terms of themselves as solitary beings, Dr, Fauci's proposal may stop the spread of disease. However, its unintended effect will be to further reinforce the tendency to social disintegration that has, among other things, made contemporary politics so rancid and shrill.
The problem then with labeling things as "unscientific" is not so much that its suggests an undervaluing of what science can do. Rather, because it gives to science a wider ambit than it ought be assigned.
Science is great for exploring Mars or curing cancer. It is less good as a mechanism for ordering society and mapping out the nature of a just social order. In that sense, the word "unscientific" has not been overused. Rather it has been misused, suggesting the application of science where moral speculation and philosophy rooted in historical studies might be the wiser course.
"Then law could be made in conformance with natural law and peace and harmony would follow" Are you saying people in age of Enlightenment want legal laws to be derived from natural laws? This is simply misinterpreting what notable thinkers of this period said about science.
Virtually all people I know who talk about age of Enlightenment also knew and understood Hume's Is/Ought problem in which he showed there is no "value free analysis" of morality en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem : "... intended to refute any identification of moral properties with natural properties" so no they are not proposing to replace morality, laws about consequence of human conducts with something derived from Newtonian laws lol I dont know which is more absurd, to think this or to think people like Hume and Kant thought this.
The problem of induction, and Kant's A priori vs A posteriori truths and analytic/synthetic distinction, and many others, are all about the scope and limit of scientific method and reasoning. These people are very well aware of the ambit of scientific method, or the broader metaphysics. I mean one of them literally titled their book "The critique of pure reason". Whoever believed scientific method can solve all of society's problems weren't the two major figures of this period. Tbh I have no idea where you get all these ideas about the Enlightenment era.
Also, in the scientific revolution that started with Galileo, the Aristotle model of the universe was replaced by Newtonian physics. Science became more practical and less theoretical: en.wikipedia.org/.../Scientific_Revolution "the qualitative book-reading philosophers had been changed into a mechanical, mathematical world to be known through experimental research" "the only true knowledge that could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience". To prioritize real world experience instead of dogmas and speculation is a step forward, it's more practical, to go the other way is a step backward, into the dark age. Religious dogmas are unscientific and flawed when they impose rules on physical objects, that's all. Other domains of religion are untouched. The A priori knowledge is a very basic topic from Age of Enlightenment but how come people of this site don't understand it? (I've talked to another person who also doesn't understand A priori vs A posteriori, thus complaining about science) it's like you have a lane for bikes and you went into the lane for trucks then complain the trucks are taking your road lol. Natural science does not touch morality or A priori knowledge. This should be obvious since natural philosophers/scientists of Enlightenment period are religious!
@IlyaTheImpaler Hume and Kant did not. The ideas were derived primarily from Locke and eventually applied, wrongly in some cases, by the likes of Marx and in Social Dawinism in the more extreme examples.
This was NOT, in any case, please note, a "value free analysis." Rather, it was the idea that the moral law was inherent in nature and could be discerned by reason alone.
Frankly, I am having a little bit of difficulty following what you wrote in any case. My point being that this is how the ideas of the Enlightenment played out - especially in the progressive era and as early as the French Revolution. See also Burke's critiques for example. My point was not to characterize the Enlightenment per se but where the ideas of the Enlightenment has taken Western thinking.
P. S. Quick clarification on the "value free analysis" point. MY point was that the analysis began with the belief that morals could be found inherent in nature - hence, natural law./natural rights. These were "self-evident" to use the language of the Declaration of Independence. That is, evident to minds unclouded by prejudice or bias and in that sense, "value free."
It was, in effect, to oversimplify a bit, the scientific method applied to discerning the truth of moral philosophy.
Value free = free of moral value. Statements about moral values [X ought to be done] are of interest in laws, ethics etc. A logical derivation of [X ought to be done] from factual observations [X is Y] is called value free analysis of [X ought to be done]. According to Hume, such derivation is not possible so moral theories are necessarily axiomatic. You need to assume some values to get some values. It's that simple.
Kant just bypasses the issue by replacing factual observations [X is Y] with the categorical imperative, which is a different abstraction from knowledge of empirical observation like [X is Y]. So he derives moral values from rationality, so according to Kant [X ought to be done] is knowable a priori, kinda like a mathematical theorem.
Neither of them says moral statements are derivable from physical laws which are tied to empirical evidence. I really don't think Locke had that idea either, because then Locke would have solved Hume's problem 🤔
lol I just realized Hume and Kant were both born decades after Locke died, so it is possible that Locke made the assumption along the line of "as more natural laws are found, the true moral and political order will be revealed with it". Then this assumption was trashed by Hume a generation later. This order makes sense.
@IlyaTheImpaler It is good that you have nailed Hume and Kant, however, I am dealing in the totality of where Western civilization ended up. The idea that the past was biased and unenlightened and that we need to be emancipated from its burdens and biases has its origins in the Enlightenment. (In fact, hence the name.)
Further, I am not sure if you are quite understanding what I mean by "value free." Not that the outcomes are "value free," but rather that natural rights are discerned by minds unclouded by biases and old ideas. That these rights are rooted in nature and can be discerned by reason and are not, rather, to be found through custom, tradition, history and so on.
Unfortunately, as you have written your replies in response to particular statements I have made in the context of my arguments rather the explaining your own thesis, (i. e. "You are wrong, in fact the ideas of the Enlightenment are...") I am not sure if I am missing what you are trying to say.
So let me try something simple. Define the "natural" as that term was used by the Ancients, i. e. Aristotle, Plato, etc. as against as used by the "Moderns," i. e. Locke, Rousseau, etc. Define what each meant when they used that word.
This may give me a better sense of the point you are trying to convey. I am clear that you disagree with some of what I wrote. What I am unclear about is the degree to which you are defining how we got to where we are on the basis of merely two - grant it, important - thinkers, or if your analysis is based on an understanding of how we got to where Western civilization finds itself.
My sense, no offense intended, is that your analysis of the totality is based on an extrapolation of just two men.
I didn't write "outcomes are "value free" " This is what I wrote:
A logical derivation of [X ought to be done] from factual observations [X is Y] is called value free analysis of [X ought to be done].
I'm not sure what you interpret as outcome? I mean: if you can start from observations in nature [X is Y] and end up at [X ought to be done] - statements with moral value - what you call 'rights'. Then I'd call it value free, and it satisfies your idea of value free : "rights are rooted in nature and can be discerned by reason and are not, rather, to be found through custom, tradition, history and so on."
The thing is your idea is not clear enough so it's kinda both Kant and Hume: "rights rooted in nature" how? If you start from an observation/fact? then you're an empiricist, this is Hume's is/ought problem. If you start from a priori principle, then you're a rationalist, it means you need this en.wikipedia.org/.../Categorical_imperative and you belong to this group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rationalism
Yes I only talked about two main schools of thoughts when it comes to meta ethics en.wikipedia.org/.../Meta-ethics in Enlightenment era. I think Kant and Hume sort of got it covered in that era, you are either an empiricist or a rationalist, there's also the skeptics which says no one can have any moral knowledge, so I ignore them lol.
@IlyaTheImpaler This is my point, I am not finding reading you any easier than you are finding reading me. You are not writing out a schematic viewpoint, but are making episodic observations - throwing in postings from Wikipedia - from which I am expected to ferret out your viewpoint. While then attempting to guess at what you seem to be missing from me and thereby attempting to clarify that.
Go back to the questions I asked you in my last posting. Answer it specifically and directly - without falling back on Wikipedia - and then we can proceed from there. As it is, this is a dialogue of the deaf and I would hasten to add that if one wishes to be understood, one must make oneself understandable.
Suffice to add, random responses to certain sentences augmented by links to Wikipedia do not facilitate that end.
What are you talking about, We're talking about what we call "value free analysis" yes? The links to Wikipedia just mean my claims have sources, and also for further information since I think you don't know the concepts. What I wrote already contained my viewpoint, here, without Wikipedia, if you insist, I just copy paste: --- I didn't write "outcomes are "value free" ". This is what I wrote:
A logical derivation of [X ought to be done] from factual observations [X is Y] is called value free analysis of [X ought to be done].
I'm not sure what you interpret as outcome? I mean: if you can start from observations in nature: [X is Y] and end up at [X ought to be done] - statements with moral value - what you call 'rights'. Then I'd call it value free, and it satisfies your idea of value free : "rights are rooted in nature and can be discerned by reason and are not, rather, to be found through custom, tradition, history and so on."
The thing is your idea is not clear enough so it's kinda both Kant and Hume: "rights rooted in nature" how? If you start from an observation/fact? then you're an empiricist, this is Hume's is/ought problem. If you start from a priori principle, then you're a rationalist, it means you need the concept of Categorical imperative. and you belong to the school Moral rationalism
Yes I only talked about two main schools of thoughts when it comes to meta ethics in Enlightenment era. I think Kant and Hume sort of got it covered in that era, you are either an empiricist or a rationalist, there's also the skeptic which says no one can have any moral knowledge, so I ignore them lol.
@IlyaTheImpaler No, I was talking about my overall thesis. You talked about several different points I made, referencing Hume and such.
We do seem to be talking past each other and my point in asking my question is to get a sense of where you are coming from. At the moment, it is clear as mud and not getting better.
Start with the basics and work our way forward. In any case, we clearly are discussing different things when we are use the phrase "value free analysis." Hence why I asked my question to get some sense of the pedigree of the ideas from which you proceed.
My last 5 posts above have been about your idea of "value free analysis" and about whether someone said "moral statements are derivable from physical laws" in Enlightenment era. I think I understood your idea of value free analysis, "natural rights are discerned by minds unclouded by biases and old ideas. That these rights are rooted in nature and can be discerned by reason and are not, rather, to be found through custom, tradition, history and so on." In my last post I could see it in relation to Hume and Kant's views, and I could fill the gap to make it either Hume or Kant. Neither Hume or Kant believed "moral statements are derivable from physical laws", in fact Hume refuted it with his is/ought problem.
About your overall thesis, I don't really have a problem with saying faith in science originated from Enlightenment era, but a major part of that faith, specifically the idea that laws about human conducts can be derived from natural science was refuted in Enlightenment era. That refutation and the scope and limit of science were the introductory ideas of the philosophy of Enlightenment era. The idea that science became more practical, more logical and less dogmatic, less speculative, was also an introductory idea of the philosophy of Enlightenment era. This is Bacon and Newton's scientific method. The idea that science (in the age of Enlightenment) doesn't affect religion's moral truths was also an introductory idea of the philosophy of Enlightenment era. It's a concept in the Critique of Pure Reason by Kant. Religion was perhaps considered superstition and flawed when it claimed things about physical model of the universe (e. g Geocentrism), but that's it. It still has an important place.
(no Wikipedia links since you dont like it)
So all of my posts are about introductory ideas of the philosophy of Enlightenment era.
@IlyaTheImpaler The idea that science (in the age of Enlightenment) doesn't affect religion's moral truths was also an introductory idea of the philosophy of Enlightenment era.
Explain that. Newton discerned laws in nature and from that was extrapolated the idea that culture and society had similar inherent laws. (Please note, by the way, Galileo fell afoul not just of the faith of his day but the science. The belief was that as God made man the center of the universe, so he placed the Earth.)
Along came Newton and later Darwin - as an example - and they knocked man from his pedestal and he has never full recovered his equilibrium. Quite one thing to be told that you are the center of all things and the intentional creation of a loving God. Quite another the product of the statistical probabilities of physical laws and an evolutionary mutation in the transmission of the genetic code.
At any rate, I would still be interested in hearing your understanding of the word "natural" as used by the Ancients as against the Moderns.
>Newton discerned laws in nature and from that was extrapolated the idea that culture and society had similar inherent laws.
But this says nothing about whether these inherent laws about society come from experiments and observations, or they are independent of experience. The introductory idea of Enlightenment is that there is a separation, introduced by Kant, it's the A priori vs A posteriori distinction I mentioned in my first post. Scientific laws belong to the A posteriori knowledge, they rely on empirical evidence (example: gravity bends light), Religious moral truths belong to A priori knowledge, they are independent of empirical evidence (example of A priori knowledge: "all bachelors are unmarried"). Only religious dogmas about A posteriori knowledge were considered superstitious. People back then were cool with religious dogmas within A priori knowledge, such as moral principles.
"Natural" for ancient: start from first principles, derive statements about observable phenomena. The first principles are known independent of experience: One of Aristotle's principles is objects move because of their "nature", different sorts of material have different natural motions, from there he derived different laws to explain movement of different elements: rock moves downward, planets move in perfect circle etc.
"Natural" for enlightenment philosophers: Start from observable phenomena, infer a general pattern by induction, so you have a mathematical model, use this model to derive statements about observable phenomena. The result is Newton's laws, one of them is: every body remains in its state of rest or uniform linear motion, unless acted on by force. This law governs every body: stone, planets, apples. This already overthrew Aristotle. Movement of things is not decided by their intrinsic nature, but external force.
So they just rely on experimentation more to find their model. I hope you don't ask about Natural in some literary/aesthetic sense, then I have no idea.
@IlyaTheImpaler We do seem to be talking past each other a bit. You write - "But this says nothing about whether these inherent laws about society come from experiments and observations, or they are independent of experience."
The laws do NOT "come from experience and observation" but are DERIVED and discerned from it. This then where science has tended to come into play. Indeed, how did we get from political philosophy to political science?
You are RIGHT about Kant, wrong about where the culture has gone with that idea. Indeed, the Constitution has often been referred to as "the application of Newtonian physics to politics," with its artfully balanced checking and balancing institutions and structures. Not unlike the artful laws of physics that conduce to a stable universe. This having its predicate in the extant theories of nature and natural laws and rights to that time.
It is in this sense that the Enlightenment conduced to what - it is fair to say - was not what Kant may have had in mind. I speak of the culture as we find it in the light of experience. To repeat, in this context, we find the culture relying on science to do things that science cannot do. Kant would agree. He lost.
As to your definition of the natural, yup. Note however, that the natural in the modern usage conduced to that which happens spontaneously. In the ancient, that which a thing tends toward being.
The spontaneous natural man is, in the Enlightenment understanding, spontaneously social and is corrupted where laws do not conform to natural right.
The "natural" in the ancient usage, was what can could be. It was his nature. Raise a baby wolf to be the best wolf it can be. Raise a human baby to be the best man it can be and it may cure cancer or write sonnets. Of its nature it transcends its instincts in a way the wolf cannot. Of its nature it is more than the sum of its parts, so to speak. Nature, however, must be nurtured, else the man and the wolf will be no different.
You are right that Aristotle got knocked off the pedestal, and thus you have the start of the modern conflation of science and morals. This leading in extremis to Social Darwinism, National Socialism and Marx's "scientific socialism."
Okay, stopping here as we have gone all over the board and I am still not clear on your point - and I am almost sure I have muddled mine as I am trying to chase down your central point.
Nearest I can tell is that you think I have mishandled the ideas of the Enlightenment when it was my purpose to define its effects and not its theory. Suffice to add that I suspect you missed mine. That probably to be expected when we are confined to 2,000 character snippets.
Oh, one last quick thing. You seem, nearest I can tell, to be saying that I am saying that the Enlightenment caused the current attitude.
When what I am saying is that it set the predicates for how we got to where we are. Frankly, I rather am glad we had the Enlightenment, but am dubious about its ideas of natural rights in some respects. As Burke said, such rights do exist, "but their abstract perfection is their practical defect."
Here where I think the inheritors of the Enlightenment went wrong. Here I think being the predicate for the West currently finds itself.
>The laws do NOT "come from experience and observation" but are DERIVED and discerned from it. This then where science has tended to come into play
my point remains the same if I had written "the laws are derived from experience and observation."
>Newton discerned laws in nature and from that was extrapolated the idea that culture and society had similar inherent laws
so Newton said culture and society had inherent laws, my point is he could be talking about A priori laws, like Law of noncontradiction, which is not science, it's unrelated to experience or observation. That's the first paragraph of my previous post. This makes sense to me, as legal systems use Deontic logic. Indeed the Constitution is influenced by Newtonian physics, but through metaphors and building an analogous model, it's not actually derived from natural laws lol which means you don't start from F = ma to derive the First Amendment
The way I see it, either:
1. you consider applying scientific methods to social issues and politics "conflating science and morals"/"relying on science to do things that science cannot do" if so you are saying the foundations of social science and political science are misguided.
Or
2. you just consider deriving legal laws from laws of natural science "conflating science and morals"/"relying on science to do things that science cannot do" . In this case, it's taken care of by the is ought problem. But maybe people still make that mistake.
So I'm pondering which of these two cases is the effect of Enlightenment which you're associating with Kant's rise and Aristotle's fall?
I've read that the consensus around Social Darwinism is that it's scientifically groundless so it's not the 1st case. Creationists would put social Darwinism as logical consequence of Darwinism, thus belong to 2nd case. But this is refuted by Hume's Is Ought problem (Darwinism = is statement, Social Darwinism = ought statement 🤔)
You are right, this has been a bit longer than expected.
VERY briefly, we derive moral law from philosophical inquiry and historical experience. There are no morals that can be empirically proven by the scientific method. So option 1 comes closest.
Yes, by the way, I do consider political science, at a foundational level, to be mistaken. Although it provides useful tools, it is not a substitute for moral speculation and historical experience.
In the broader category of social science, the same generally applies. It provides useful tools, but it cannot substitute for historical experience and the kinds of moral speculation in which the likes of Aristotle and Aquinas engaged.
The error of political science and the social sciences generally is that it leaps to the conclusion that we know what the problems are, we have the wisdom to correct them and all we have to do is pull the right levers and push the right buttons.
Man is a more complex being than that, and for all its pretenses, the flaw in the social sciences is that they greatly oversimplify a complex being in a complex culture. "Science" suggesting that so complex a thing can be boiled down to measurable formulas and predictable outcomes.
Now, NONE of that was where this question began, but it is, at the most fundamental level, the very root of the problem.
Yeah I agree the root of these posts is your criticism of social science (or some of its branches like political science) and I can sympathize. I'm just not sure about the alternative.
The Enlightenment did make it very difficult to go back to ancient authorities and their doctrines when it comes to issues of society and politics. This is a side effect of the Scientific Revolution that you dislike, I get it. It led to what Bertrand Russell said "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Poor Aristotle.
My point in the first post is: the Enlightenment actually provided other paths too, you don't have to pick between scientific method or speculative philosophy. Very commonly known is probably rationalism.
"we derive moral law from philosophical inquiry and historical experience. There are no morals that can be empirically proven by the scientific method"
There are a lot of overlap between philosophical inquiry, historical experience and scientific method. For example if you examine what philosophical inquiry means exactly, you might find empiricism as an option, then something resembles scientific method. Another option for philosophical inquiry is rationalism, like above. When you want to integrate historical experience into it, you might find empiricism again. Or you can pick the doctrines that had dominated ancient society, maybe they got their politics right, though, maybe not lol. I think this is risky. (A minor point: Scientific method doesn't "prove" things empirically. This is the problem of induction. It helps you infer conclusion and make decision in a rational way, but it never guarantees your conclusion like a proof: all men are mortal. I am a man. Therefore I am mortal. That's a proof.)
@IlyaTheImpaler Don't disagree with your last point, but I was not discussing what you COULD do. I was discussing what HAS happened in Western thought, how we got to where we are and specifically as it relates to the current siuation.
Suffice to say, there is not enough space on this site - let alone in the context of this question - to address the broader question.
On the other hand, look into methodology of social science, it's quite diverse and complex. Social science still retains its differences from natural science. What you describe:
>it leaps to the conclusion that we know what the problems are, we have the wisdom to correct them and all we have to do is pull the right levers and push the right buttons.
This is a philosophical conviction, Aquinas or Aristotle also need this conviction to lay down their Moral Doctrines too. Before we find some rule you must believe there is a rule, right? Only difference I can see is the (social) sciences don't base their principles purely on speculation of old texts or divine sources, but rather experimentation.
> "Science" suggesting that so complex a thing can be boiled down to measurable formulas and predictable outcomes.
This is a very common misunderstanding about science. Science when applied to other fields does not actually suggest:
X can be boiled down to Y
rather:
Assume something about X, you can say something about Y.
If you make assumptions, put it in model, then you can say something precise, quantifiable. If you want to conclude something, you need to assume something. This is simply "You can't have something from nothing" rather than a reduction of complex human into formulas.
I find it difficult to reconcile my experience with your view of what (social?) sciences do. Your view might be due to a lost in translation in going from the actual science to what the politicians/government experts tell the people. You build statistical model to help choose a policy, ultimately you have to decide on a policy, and then the probabilistic aspect/the context/the assumptions are completely lost in laymen's interpretation.
@IlyaTheImpaler Well, yes, as I was saying, if we wanted to go into that discussion we could write whole books. That was not the point of my answer - other than to illustrate as a supporting point how we got to where we are in the current context.
Another thing to note is, a scientist's opinion is not always science, like if your boss ask your opinion because you're a scientist, then what you said might not be science but often conflated as science by many people because as far as they know that's what some scientist said.
All these misunderstandings used to bug me but now I have come to terms with them. To end on a positive note, there's a resurgence of interest in Aristotle in 21st century, mostly in academia, and Hollywood. Maybe one day his virtue ethics will make it back to mainstream politics
@IlyaTheImpaler Sir, at this point, if I might, you really need to re-read our whole discussion. One other point I was making that science ends up straying outside its ambit as well.
Dr. Fauci is trying to abolish the handshake, suggested creating travel documents for the un-infected and othe things that fall into the realm of politics, government and law. Suffice to say, it may be good scientific principle but it is lousy public policy with implications he does not seem to fully grasp.
Bottom line, we just seem to plowing old ground over and over. This within the confines of the 2,000 character replies and outside the bounds of the question - and to some extent even my initial reply. I am not sure how helpful that is.
You're right, a summary would be nice: we discussed some introductory ideas in philosophy of Enlightenment: Hume's is/ought problem, how the assumption that laws about human conducts can be derived from natural science was abandoned in the Enlightenment. The scope and limit of science. The idea that science became more practical, more logical and less dogmatic, less speculative. The idea that science (in the age of Enlightenment) doesn't overlap religion's moral domain, but religion no longer has influence over science's domain.
Most of my replies were just further elaborations: Some clarifications on Value free analysis and Hume's is ought problem. Hume vs Kant theme. A clarification on how science (in the age of Enlightenment) doesn't overlap religion's moral truths: A priori vs A posteriori knowledge. Finally narrowed down the root: your criticism of social science. Then my further clarification on what science does.
Okay I don't really know what Dr Fauci said, but he didn't publish a scientific research on the handshake right? I'm looking at his Google Scholar page scholar.google.com/citations
Okay after spending some time reading his papers I think there's no handshake. So at this point science hasn't touched this issue yet. I expect if he publishes such paper there will be other papers from social scientists making objections similar to yours. That's usually how science makes progresses, like Bohr vs Einstein. Plus, telling people to abandon any tradition has never been easy, traditions usually have good reasons for existing. It's always a gamble, maybe it's positive progress, maybe it leads to dystopia. Science can help tilting the odds, but it will never be 100:0, there will always be downsides that can be amplified with time.
@IlyaTheImpaler Sir, I hope you don't mind. I have a job at home, three children and a girlfriend and I try to write three to six essays here per day. You have been very interesting to talk to and are obviously well informed.
However, I really don't to rehash old ground - especially since some of this is really only tangential to the original question. I have already had some of my responses to a question on this site deleted because they were deemed not pertinent to the question.
It really has been a pleasure. However, I am going to have to let this drop. I just don't want to re-plow the half dozen detours - some more relevant than others - that this discussion has taken. particularly as it relates to a topic - the pandemic - of which I must confess that I have grown indescribably bored. (Watching the news these days is like being trapped in an endless re-run of Marcus Wellby.)
Anyhow, I am sure that we will meet up again at some point. You are certainly well informed above the average. For now though, I hope you do not mind, I think that I will desist on any further discussion on this question.
Normally, when I see people debating about whether or not a claim is scientific or unscientific, things go pear shaped when someone violates one of the numerous criteria the scientific community depends on to determine which evidence is valid for rigorous inquiry, versus which evidence is on shaky footing. Here's a list, off the top of my head:
- Conflicting studies that aren't peer reviewed. It needs to have been critically analyzed by multiple people who are experts in the field. Those people need to not be working together and they need to minimize the amount of bias they might have (e. g., they don't have a financial or political interest in a specific outcome, they aren't related to or in a relationship with someone who has an interest in a specific outcome, etc)
- Studies that are reviewed by multiple experts, but not in a field that is relevant to the area of scientific inquiry. Time and time again, proponents of unpopular lines of thinking offer support for their claims provided by people with doctorates in fields that have nothing to do with the topic of discussion. For example, what would a medical doctor know about economics? What would somebody with a PhD in Sociology know about medicine? Keep it relevant.
- No follow through on new developments or subsequent critiques of a study and/or evidence. If that study you just presented as evidence from five years ago was thoroughly discredited two years ago, then it isn't worth much when it comes to supporting your argument.
- Not directly citing the source. Most of the time when I see people here on GAG arguing about some scientific thing, they're arguing about what some journalist said about a study or collection of studies - not what the studies themselves had to say on the issue. It's usually very different.
- Not following the rules for Burden of Proof. In scientific discourse, if you make a claim, it's your responsibility to prove it. After you've done so, if someone makes a counter point, the responsibility shifts to them. In most cases here on GAG, people make a claim and then expect everyone else to prove or disprove it.
- Not understanding the concept of falsifiability. For something to be falsified, there must exist some proof or evidence that will render a claim against it false. Most things in science are falsifiable, but some things are not. The existence of God and Abiogenesis (the idea that life started by itself, without help from any external actor) are both non-falsifiable; there is no proof that anyone can ever produce, in any possible scenario, regardless of our level of technological sophistication, that will ever be sufficient to prove or disprove either of these claims or their negations. For example, another comment on this question suggests there exists scientific proof that God exists. Being a non-falsifiable question, there can be no proof that God exists or does not exist; it's outside the realm of science. Therefore, it's trivially false that anyone has ever or could ever produce "scientific proof" of God (or not God).
- Ignorance of scientific principles. The vast, vast majority of arguments against science here on GAG and in the general public are born out of gross ignorance about what science is, what it does, and even the most basic of principles of the various scientific disciplines. People on GAG and in the general public constantly misunderstand basic principles and then make logically valid conclusions from that flawed understanding of said principles. For example, the claim that Evolution is wrong because it's impossible for something to instantly spring into life one day. That might be a valid logical conclusion... if that's what the Theory of Evolution said in the first place. Unfortunately, it isn't so that's not a scientifically valid argument.
Nah man, there are plenty of others who think all kinds of ridiculous things about science, or whoa re skeptics for demonstrably false reasons. I mean, right here on this question there are comments about science trying to prove/disprove the existence of God, about the Theory of Evolution and other things for which the "evidence" against commonly held scientific consensus is shady at best.
The anti science folks I’ve come across believe broccoli has more protein than steak which has been debunked already. Then there are also those clowns who believe nobody is 100% straight.
As for evolution, it’s still just a theory. Or more accurately “fact and theory”. It’s widely accepted but there still isn’t enough evidence to call it a certain fact. Although in a sense, certain religious texts can be interpreted as supporting the theory of evolution.
Well, see right there is a good example. Saying "it's just a theory" isn't something a person who is scientifically literate would ever say. It's like proclaiming to the world you fundamentally don't understand what a scientific theory actually is. It's not just some idea that gradually gets closer and closer to fact as evidence mounts; it's a description of a natural phenomenon AND how it works. It's proven to be true, supported by a large volume of evidence and makes verifiable predictions. In short, theories in science literally are facts.
So, if you don't understand something as basic as this - something we teach middle schoolers - then how are you going to be able make scientifically valid arguments to refute widely held beliefs that are supported by science?
As for the broccoli bit, I dunno. I've never heard anyone say this, but I mean you can just go look up how much protein each one has. It's not like we had to gather a team of world renown scientists to study it for years to figure that one out. If someone did say that broccoli has more protein than steak, they'd just be wrong. End of story.
It’s actually commonly used within the scientific community when there is some level of uncertainty. “A science literate person would never say that” is almost like a no true Scotsman and implies that science is some sort of groupthink, which it isn’t. Within the scientific communities there’s a lot of disagreements.
No, the word "theory" is not used like that within the scientific community - especially not something along the lines of "evolution is just a theory". And yes, there is a lot of disagreement within the scientific community, but theories like evolution see disagreements over the minutia of how, not if. Again, a scientist or someone who is just scientifically literate would _never_ say evolution is "just a theory".
It's not a No True Scotsman issue, either. We're talking about a fundamental misapplication of a basic scientific concept. It's like saying no auto mechanic would ever call a carburetor an alternator. Would you call someone a mechanic if they couldn't tell those two things apart?
The Beef/steak broccoli is a complete straw-man. The claim is that beef (which can include pretty much any part of the cow) has a smaller percentage of the calories coming from protein than beef but the counter-claim is that steak (the leanest part of the cow) has a greater percentage of calories coming from protein broccoli. Maybe instead of broccoli or steak the asker should pick some cherries instead.
Buzzwords are usually overused. I think there are very few users on this thread who actually understand the basics of scientific method (the basics, I'm not even talking about finer philosophical points such as Quine Duhem thesis), but everyone wants to make judgement on science, lol.
From what I've seen, people from mainstream academia don't immediately dismiss alternative theories: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-alternative-science-respectability-checklist. If you look into history, this hasn't really happened since the 1900s. Remember that Einstein was accepted, and he was an outsider to academia when he published Special Relativity theory, he was a clerk in some Swiss patent office.
It is those with alternative theory that tend to quickly dismiss mainstream beliefs with labels such as "pseudo intellectual groupthink sheep etc." regardless of how little they actually understand the field they are talking about, or the scientific method. So then it's just mudslinging. But the irony is they behave in the same `groupthink` manner: they only promote the sources that agree with their political/religious bias. I remember reading an anti SR thread on Research Gate and it was hilarious. The OP would agree and "like" anyone's post as long as that person trashes Einstein (lol), the critics united under a dude who genuinely believes Einstein's theories are wrong because of Marxism (I kid you not) and that mainstream physics is the evil tools of the "regressive world monopoly capitalism" ... these people are all dead serious. Anyway I'm seeing the same thing here, well, on this site in general.
One funny thing I notice about critics of mainstream science: they are typically only skeptical in one direction. It is their default mode of thinking that they already have the "truth", as opposed to a "hypothesis". Another observation about critics of mainstream science: the fact that they are a minority only invigorates their beliefs, this is why flat earth society is still going strong.
Yes, there are people who argue from authority, I agree they are pseudo-intellectuals, but they are by far less harmful than dishonest crackpots fooling uneducated laymen, considering: - the "authority" is established through empiricism: a peer review system that leads to constant improvements and innovations in research and industries vs - the "alternative" science only offers "alternative" explanations but produces no testable prediction.
Why testable prediction? the answer is falsifiability: good scientists do not throw out frameworks that have been empirically successful for centuries without making any new testable prediction, the crackpots do exactly that: throwing out frameworks that have been empirically successful while making zero testable prediction. All they do is "offering alternative explanation for existing data", that's a red flag, because you can fit countless curves into a fixed number of existing data points. The value of testable prediction is to select one from those countless models and falsify others.
So you should always ask yourself "how can this theory be falsified? does it make testable prediction?". If it doesn't pass this first check, it's just demagogy, stories and rhetoric to tell you you are not a sheep, while you are probably one of the biggest ones. In contrast, the accepted mainstream physical sciences have crystal clear falsification criteria (though if you can falsify any current physics theory, you deserve the Nobel prize). In the case of climate science deniers, they did produce many testable predictions which turned out to be wrong:
Did they change their mind? nope, they just stopped making predictions altogether and instead focus on criticizing mainstream climate models and gathering support from lay audience whose political beliefs align with themselves. I did read their research and I find very few of them are actually doing science, mostly just mudslinging mainstream academia.
So, how to not be dismissed when you have alternative sources?
The article Sean Carroll wrote applies here. You guys will never be dismissed by a real scientist if you show honest efforts in doing these things:
1. Acquire basic competency in whatever field of science you're talking about. For example if you criticize climate models or epidemic models but can't solve textbook exercises in differential equations or statistical inference, you should learn those things first, they are often taught in high school, this is the easy part. On the other hand if you have to explain science to someone who claims they are victims of mainstream science and so much injustice etc, the first question you should ask is "can you solve textbook exercises of this field"? if someone starts their argument with how scientists are corrupt, radical, evil etc etc but answers negative to this question, it's gonna be a pointless discussion. This makes sense, yes? if you can't do basic physics/statistics textbook exercises how do you tell the difference between: - The guys who actually propose something alternative and original (Roger Penrose, David Deutsch, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Gerard 't Hooft etc. ) vs - The guys who propose the earth is flat or that COVID 19 is on par with the flu
This is how the system works in modern days: it's easy to go against the majority when you're a brilliant scientist like Einstein, while it's extremely difficult to go against the majority in academia when you're a crackpot. That is why the crackpots and academic rejects always seek out the laymen to promote their theory.
2. Understand, at least make a good-faith effort to confront the fundamental objections to your claims within established science. Make testable predictions. Testable prediction is the essential part of a scientific theory, however if you have no theory and only grievance about mainstream science you can skip this.
3. Present your claims in a way that is complete, transparent, and unambiguous. Good scientists always provide open qualifiers for their models and interpretations of data, make their assumptions clear, with proper disclaimers (e. g Roger Penrose a critic of Quantum Physics made very clear that his idea about gravity and state reduction is speculative). They always tell you what they are not sure about, and make their method, data, references unambiguous and reproducible (this applies to modelling). This is easier than point 1, you just need honesty. The crackpots usually don't make their assumptions clear, they might not even be fully aware of the assumptions they made. If you look into references of conspiracy theorists you often find yourself entering a rabbit hole, sometimes after going around the links you find yourself at some youtube channels or some blog post full of colorful, flashy pictures with no clear data and models. Why is this often dismissed? because the lack of transparency! If you have a good theory why do you have to hide your models and data and make a video or blogpost to promote your theory? science is not journalism. Why not just type everything into a pdf, with data and figures then submit it to https://arxiv.org/ to make it open to criticism from people who actually know the field?
The world would be a much better place if people at least consider the criteria above before they start making noises on social media. Sean Carroll made a very good point that it is simply irrational to spend equal time to evaluate all alternative theories people on this planet come up with. Civilization will come to a halt, if everything can be accepted it means the knowledge is zero. Again you need basic statistical inference, when you live in a box disconnected from the outside world, receiving no data, all possibilities are equal. When you receive data, you gain some prior knowledge, then some possibilities must become much less likely, I have just explained Bayesian priors Carroll wrote about. The 3 items above is the filter to form prior beliefs for a rational person. I hope this discussion has not been too abstract.
The problem for modern science is not the groupthink. I can easily give examples of nonconformists in mainstream science, in fact that's the default starting position of those who graduated from their PhD program: you are no longer a student when you don't do the same thing your professor do, that's how original research are conducted.
The problem for modern science is more about populism. From outside looking in and without basic education, some laymen dislike mainstream academia because they don't want the common beliefs from their political party to be wrong. Social media and the internet make it easier for crackpots to spread their theories, which can be much more "agreeable" than the arcane knowledge of academics. Many crackpots are joined by carpetbaggers who know how to make use of public's negative reactions towards official sources of information and profit from the unknowns (e. g this new virus). These are typical tricks to promote their political careers.
However, it has never been easier in history for laymen to learn mainstream academic knowledge (edX, Coursera, wikipedia etc), this is the era of MOOCs. There is really no excuse to not learn the basics and be fooled by crackpot theories. So then there is a reality: some people just don't actually want to learn and step out of their bubble.
Anyway I dont really care about politics. This post has been mostly about introductory philosophy of science. Good luck navigating through the misinformation on the internet, hope this helps. I will only reply to specific objections about mainstream physics, mathematics, statistics (currently hot topic is epidemic modeling) or computer science.
As a research scientist by training, my experience is that people generally don't have a very good idea of how science works. As such, there are many people who misuse the word "scientific" and there are many people that misuse the word "unscientific". Publication of work in a journal does not always indicate "good science". For instance, there are people that latch onto a single idea that have some ongoing research behind them but fail to appreciate if the research is complete, if it is well performed, or how it fits into the existing body of literature. There are also a subset of these people that don't update their understanding as new research comes to light, instead clinging to outdated, discredited or poorly performed studies. A classic case of this is the belief that the MMR vaccine increases the chances of developing autism in children. It is understood that this particular belief came from a single research paper (Wakefield et al., 1998) that has been disproven by numerous other studies since and no further research has since been able to show a link[1]. If there was such a link, the study should be repeatable; but it is not.
[1] https://onlinelibrary. wiley. com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01425. x
To much human bios involved even on research level have I noticed that comes and goes depending on society climate at the moment 😉
The funny thing with that example you gave is that kind of vaccine isn't the problem especially in a research environment. It's what they put in it on commercial level when produced or distributed. not always knowingly.
Personal do I have little problem with buying you develop it after a certain age after birth. You need to have certain genes in place that get to get triggered to activate something that wasn't active yet. that most likely doesn't develop after gotten active after a certain development stage (age). On other hand it could most likely make it worse if you already have it just like with chemo therapy that is well known within psychology and doctors usually mention to their parents. amongst other factors that also tends to make it work like pregnancy, geting old and life style.
People in general are little to naive and understand little to little how our nerve system works and develop.
Lets put aside people who misuse the term. Tell me why I should give any credence to something that is unscientific? The whole point of science is that it is inherently trustworthy, I can trust the system and therefore I can trust the results. Of course it can still be wrong but at least actual effort was made to ensure it was as correct as possible.
Contrast that to what you propose which is that I should trust "Research" that someone else has done where I dont have the assurance that they have done it properly and that I have to trust it on the word of an unknown source because I should inherently trust someone I dont know on their words right?
The "Alternative" to credible sources are uncredible. The "Alternative" to scientific research is inherently not trustworthy. I dont have to believe anything you say or put forward for the sake of it which is different from Science because not only do they come from sources that have proven themselves time and time again but they also contain the information required for me to do my own test and confirm that they are indeed correct.
There is a VAST difference between actual scientific stuff and unscientific stuff.
To many over use their position to get their shit through no matter how accurate or inaccurate it is. For the past 4 years can't many well renominated universities be trusted because of infected with people with ideologies and personal agendas fo influence how people should see on thing's with their opinions not neutral one to create your own. even research that are geting promoted that shouldn't exist that happens to be just like under nazi/marxistsic controlled schools in the past.
(to much political ideology from some people who has influential positions with power within the system at those institutions)
No you shouldn't trust it just like that. you should question it. fool proof it to see if it lies something in what they comes with or are gibberish. People that has problems with that others question them when they comes with something are untrustworthy by default. Especially if they are from within a acknowledged community.
Honestly wrong doesn't even exist. Wrong is wrong. right is right. Wrong isn't honestly.
Narrative is a bliz. even people that adopt thing without question it or for that matter tries to prove it wrong to see if it's right and applied in the right place 😉
@crazy8000 That is literally impossible. If there is someone more ruthless than a capitalist its a scientist when it comes to a research paper. Part of the scientific method means you are providing the nose to hang yourself alongside your research paper. If you are wrong, even by a little bit and someone notices you are going to be demolished. Its brutality is legendary and also gives very funny jokes:
Point is that if you are not honest then you are not going to get very far. Your bullshit is going to have to survive scrutiny from the best minds in those fields and you even NEED to provide them with the method to disprove yourself as a sort of proof that you are not bullshitting them. Not that they will believe you regardless but all this is why even when science is wrong you at least did everything you could to be correct.
Isn't always the researchers in itself that is the problem. They usually do what they get assigned to do and what frame are allowed to use. (controlled research that will give controlled results on forehand. have been little to comon in the past. most likely still going on. just to get a favorable result)
Everything has little to do what field it is. some fields is it hard to mess with it. Within areas like psychology. behavior. communication is a total different story in itself since it's extremely hard to prove in the same way as physics or any other area there we can touch it.
To many doesn't understand what the different papers have on them and interpret it to something else. even get deliberately mis used by someone to gain something since people have problems to understand the papers that get referred to.
@crazy8000 If you can't prove it, and by extension if you can't DISprove it its not science. You can always argue about misusing science but the science itself is always just science.
Depending on how you personally want to define "mainstream experts" that can be true but the way I define experts is by how scientifically credible they are in their given field.
When I say “experts” I’m usually referring to those radical liberals who frequently claim there are over a 100 genders. How they can they expect to be credible?
When people start to talk about "more than 100 genders" they are no longer even implying that the term "gender" is even the correct term to use anymore. Human gender as well as sexuality is incredibly complicated and also unique to every individual on earth. In essence every human is of a "unique" gender and trying to define them as a "male" or "female" much less all the other combinations is an intentional oversimplification for the sake of convenience and understanding.
Basically you have no idea what you are talking about and trying to explain this requires a lot of explanations to even begin talking about the actual subject.
@Soteris Sorry but imaginary genders are pseudoscience, it’s actually you who doesn’t know what you are talking about if you really think a person can identify as something that isn’t biological in nature.
Genders is pseudoscience. Biology does not give a single flying fuck about what your "gender" even is much less what you think about it as long as its "compatible".
Humans or other animals makes little difference, genders is something very fundamental to life on earth so we all share the same basic structure. Humans are not unique or handcrafted by some godly entity and as such there is nothing that says gender is a binary feature. Gender is just as suceptible to the randomness of evolution as every other part of us is and after millions of years do you SERIOUSLY think it is ANYWHERE that simple?
"Sexes" is the physical aspects, gender is the social construct of what we "identify" as. If you are going to argue that "Sexes" is not "Genders" then there is nothing on a person you can point to and say "This is a woman because she has boobs and a vagina as well as a YY chromosome."
I am completely fine with you wanting to abandon the argument on Sexes and instead focus on gender but I doubt that is what you meant so either you accept the fungus or I get a carte blanche because you misinterpret facts.
Also yes, there are plenty of differences in all species but that also implies that gender (and I am going to stick to using gender because sexes sounds stupid) has a lot of variability in it. Variability that would make it VERY VERY VEEEEEERY hard to boil it down to just a "woman" and a "man".
Nope, does not mean it does not exist though, especially as it manifest as an identity rather than a physical feature. The same reason there is not a physical difference between someone who learned how to draw there is not a physical difference to what identity you adopt.
I am not talking about the wavelengths or even the photo-receptors in your eye here but the mental image you have of "green" or "blue" or any other color. Those are completely made up.
No it can't. We can't explain why you chose the color of blue to represent the signals correlating to that wavelength in your minds representation of your vision. There is even a good argument that we see different colors completely unique to us because again, they dont exist. Reality is not colored and that is perfectly demonstrated by for example the color purple, as in the mixture of red and blue. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum and as such can't ACTUALLY be mixed.
You can confirm this if you want by looking at a rainbow or a spectrum broken up by a prism. There is no such thing as "purple" except for what we cobble together in our heads. But again, that is true for every color.
Awesome question and I think I agree with the frustration in but I humbly disagree with the prompt overall.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you think is the original meaning of "unscientific"? If anyone is going to judge the use and merit of this word they should well acquainted with its definition. So far I have not seen it here in the post or responses. On a more practical level, if you are debating and using this word without knowing the definition you are just contributing to the confusion regardless of whether or not you are right.
Also, careful with the word "pseudo-intellectual". It is a strong indicator that you are placing too much weight on the value of your understanding of the topic. It is a good ad hominem word to put your opponent on the defensive and it gives them an in to dismantle your arrogance. A great way to derail any intellectual debate into unintelligible non-sense. We have had enough of that right? I know I can't stand it.
So where are we at? Here are my questions to the poster 1) What does Unscientific mean to you? Is that meaning shared with its actual definition? 2) How can you tell if a source is credible or not? What are your criteria for credibility? What should it be? 3) What do you mean by alternative source? What is the source here? Is it science in general, popular science, a different scientist or organization?
As a last note, some science is well established but there is a lot that is not. Having more to cite is a plus but not a guarantee to being correct. How do you expect a proper intellectual to tackle this problem?
Well, following your thinking. If we don't try to keep scientific debates in the realm of commonly accepted academic sources, where is the line where we already step on the flat earth? That's why. From two bad options one rational person chooses the one that is less bad. And in this case it is to dismiss non-mainstream sources if the debate is of some importance.
A very direct example I could publish my own theories on some site that connect science and supernatural using some pseudonym and then come to you quoting this "one trustworthy and very educated author" who yet hasn't reached popularity. Would you accept it as an argument in a scientific debate about the nature of dark matter for example? 😀
They can coduct. But their research has to be peer reviewed right? If it isn't there could be mistakes. The probability is much lower there are in accepted papers
The commies think that if they can take over respected institutions through subverting the young they can then use those institutions as a mouth piece to push their ideas. What's so surprising is how asinine their ideas are. So asinine that the institutions will no longer be respected but laughed at.
Yes. Those words get mis used very often by people to get their way with their point of view and discredit those that doesn't fallow in line with them. They behaves just like mental ill people that has severe depression and anxiety or for that matter are in panic state.
The funny thing is with human psychology is. The more you try to do that the more do people tend to stay with their beliefs and take it like a justification that they are right. (stronger belief afterwards that they was right from the start)
To me "unscientific" means an assertion or belief that is incompatible with well-established scientific knowledge.
For example, Reiki, Telepathy, Homepathy, Retinopathy, and many other "alternative healing" systems are beliefs that are unscientific because they are incompatible with well-established science.
There is zero evidence to support them, and they are incompatible with all known physics. They cannot possibly work. Reiki -- waving hands around someone without touching them cannot cure disease of have any effect except for whatever benefit accrues from the presence of another person. Homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredients -- if they are water based, then they are just nothing but water (of whatever purity was used in the process).
Of course I'm familiar with the placebo effect. That's how Reiki supposedly "works". A 12-year-old won a science fair competition by proving that Reiki didn't work in a controlled test. The subjects were prevented from seeing whether or not they received Reiki and consequently were unable to report any benefit.
It doesn’t change the fact that just because something is unconventional or isn’t used by the mainstream, that it’s “unscientific” or “anti science”.
Many people prefer herbal remedies instead of pharmaceutical antibiotics to cure common colds. Herbal remedies like certain teas actually work and are supported by actual scientific studies.
yes... pseudo intellectuals tends to focus on credibility of the person/source that reveals an opinion than plausibility of the subject itself. If you turn it around, it means that credible source according to their standards can tell them white is black and black is white and they will buy it. Common sense and empirical evidences are worthless unless they fit desired dogma. "unscientific" is one of these silencing terms among all those pseudo "phobias".
By a "mainstream source" do you mean the peer-reviewed literature? Pseudo intellectuals often use alternative sources that appeal to common sense but they don't realize that making sense and being fact aren't always the same thing.
As for the "appeal to authority", unless you're a trained scientists it's hard to understand the intricacies of a given field so when someone makes a claim that isn't supported by the peer-reviewed literature, I can't really fault a layman for dismissing it as being "unscientific" because it's not from a peer reviewed source without being able to explain why it's wrong.
For example, many mainstream media outlets have talked about how global warming was contradicted by the growing ice shelf around Antarctica. This was of course complete nonsense because the continent of Antarctica had been losing ice over the course of the century and all of the cold melt water had been flowing into the Southern Ocean, cancelling any heating impact that warmer waters coming from the North had. It also dropped the salinity of the Southern Ocean, raising the freezing temperature and causing the ice shelf to expand.
Mainstream sources that often have a political agenda that tarnishes their credibility because their biases cloud their analysis of various topics, leading to a faulty conclusion. Peer reviewing is pointless if the people doing the peer reviewing are part of the same sycophantic groupthink.
Here’s a trivial example: some vegan zealots claim that broccoli has more protein than steak, that has been debunked already. www.christopherjamesclark.com/.../
Also, the link you posted is a cherry picked straw-man. He claimed that steak has a greater percentage of the calories coming from protein than broccoli while the vegan claim is that broccoli has fewer calories per gram of protein than beef. Steak refers to one part of the cow (probably the leanest) while beef can refer to any.
It’s not a strawman because that’s not the only vegan who made a claim like that. There’s plenty more vegan zealots (for a lack of a better term) who actually try argue that broccoli has more calories than steaks www.beefmagazine.com/.../are-vegetable-proteins-equal-protein-beef
The article you posted was talking about the quality of proteins not how many calories were in broccoli versus beef. But the study the article mentioned didn't tease out cause and effect. For example, it cited that vegetarians had a higher occurrence of chronic diseases BUT it was a cross sectional study so it didn't tease out cause and effect; it didn't take into account how many people adopt a vegetarian diet BECAUSE they had a chronic illness and adopted a vegetarian diet to remedy it. Yeah, so there's going to be a serious sampling bias when you interpret the results the way that the link you posted did. Well now we can see vegan zealots aren't the only ones who like to distort information; carnist zealots do so as well; case in point, right here.
We are specifically talking about the differences in protein levels between broccoli and meat. Pointing out the illnesses of vegans is pretty much a red herring.
You posted the link that discussed the health issues, not me. But I thought we're talking about the difference in protein between broccoli and beef on a per calorie basis, not meat as a whole. Now broccoli has an AA score of 83. Broccoli has 11.1 grams of protein per 100 calories and beef (not steak) has 6.4 grams per 100 calories. So if we account for the differences in protein quality we get that broccoli has 9.2 grams per 100 calories.
A serving of broccoli has 2.6 grams of protein and 31 calories so it's approximately 8.4 grams per 100 calories. nutritiondata.self.com/.../2 But even in the leanest beef you're going to get 13.5 grams per 100 calories (which is not to say that some beef cuts won't have a lower protein content on a per calorie basis than broccoli.
@Ad_Quid_Orator I didn’t mix up anything, Ironically I’m pointing out the faulty measurements these vegans use to claim that broccoli has more protein than beef.
Some people are required to have a lot of weight because of their professions. Professional strongmen for example, they must consume a lot of protein to maintain their body mass.
Keep your eating habits to yourself and don't force animals to die for them because you like the way that they taste.
Protein isn't the only thing you need to build muscle, you need carbohydrates to fuel your workout as well and many plants such as beans have a 50/50 carb to protein calorie ration (and some of those are complete protein).
And that right there is why I also call vegan zealots a proto totalitarian groupthink. You want to be vegan that’s fine but you have no right in trying to dictate what someone else chooses to eat, they aren’t breaking any laws. But fortunately artificial meat will soon become mainstream and then hopefully vegan zealots will finally shut up for good. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjSe-0vSRMY
You can call it a "proto-Totalitarian group-think" but as long as your dietary choice has a victim it said claim doesn't mean anything. Also, you would be breaking laws if you killed and ate a protected species so do you consider the endangered species act "proto-totalitarian"? And trying to use anecdotal claims to make a case while complaining about pseudo-intellectualism; seriously.
More strawman arguments? When did I ever say any about “eating protected species”. You folks sure like to distort points just to make your arguments sound credible.
After you fudged calories and grams and conflated steak and beef, you're in no position to talk about misrepresenting information. You said you have no right dictating what someone else chooses to eat (a blanket statement like that would include endangered species) so nos you're just claiming a straw-man to weasel your way out of it.
There you go distorting my points and acting like a pseudo intellectual. Your tu quoque is also invalid.
“ (a blanket statement like that would include endangered species)”
Yeah we call that ambush listening in communication studies. Not to mention that you are taking things way out of context.
“ You belong to the same group of people who support contradictory ideas. What are you talking about“
There you go again with the unwarranted labeling and projecting since you belong the same group who is full of hypocrites and is oblivious to the proto totalitarian elements within their movement.
The first example you gave in this thread was a distortion of an argument and you're saying I'm acting like a pseudo intellectual LMAO; someone doesn't like his reflection so he's projecting it on others. In this context, we're talking about dietary choices impacting others and not being a personal choice which applies to factory farming and hunting endangered species and to call that a tu quo que, you'd also have to posit that hunting endangered species is worse than our system of animal agriculture. Also, I was asking what you were talking about and then you say I'm mislabeling and projecting? And you say I'm distorting your claims?
Now you are using circular reasoning to argue just for the sake of arguing. You clearly didn’t read my newest links or watched the videos which poke holes in your arguments. It doesn’t matter how many new sources I’ll show you, you’ll just find a new way to distort them to fit your narrative or ignore them to keep this argument going. Plus you keep using red herrings like bringing up the concept of protected species which I didn’t even mention in the first place.
Actually I did and as for the first one where the strongman discusses how Patrick would be in last place in many of the strongman competitions we have here in the US: he left out tiny co-founding variable: they don't drug test the competitors. As for the second one: any number of things could have caused the ailments listed.
This is why the term "unscientific" is NOT overused. You have pseudo intellectuals posting links that distort information such as the ones you posted which is why it's useful to have trained scientists who are familiar with the nuances of analyzing information call them out on it.
Many athletes use “enhancers” of some sort. Your point is?
Right... because only links that contradict your claims “distort” information. While links that validate your claims are “100%” accurate. Ain’t that a coincidence.
My point is that there are other reasons why Patrick wouldn't be competitive in those contests besides his diet.
No, it's not a coincidence because the ones you posted were written by authors that subscribe to the same "pseudo-intellectual group think" that you do so there's going to be a serious sampling bias.
You see a key difference between the pseudo intellectuals and the intellectuals is that the pseudo intellectuals just cry "partisan bias" when presented with contradicting information while I actually pointed out how the links you posted distorted information from a scientific standpoint.
It doesn’t change the fact he’s an exception to the rule. How many vegan strongmen are there?
You claim my links “distort information from a scientific point of view” yet I still refuted your point on broccoli vs beef. Which you then tried distort until I quoted an excerpt from the article that proves my point. What you are putting forth is a no true Scotsman by saying that the folks who published those articles aren’t “scientifically literate” just because they provided information that contradicts your claims. You then used a red herring by using the ethics debate of eating animals or livestock which I then refuted by pointing out that artificial meat will soon become widely available in the market.
Not many but then again only 1 in 200 people in the US are vegan in the first place (see what I mean about the nuances of analyzing information).
You stated that broccoli had more protein on a per calorie basis than beef and I said that it depends on what cut of beef you're talking about; some have more while some have less. But then you misquoted the article by conflating protein per calories with protein per gram. Also, I didn't say they were scientifically illiterate because they contradicted my claims, I showed how they distorted information so no it's not a "no true Scotsman"; you're misusing terms to make yourself sound more sophisticated (a favorite tactic of the pseudo intellectuals).
Also, if you're not eating synthetic meat bringing up the ethics isn't a red herring because the reason the majority of vegans oppose eating meat is because of the suffering that the current system of animal farming imposes on the animals; it's NOT that they think eating meat is inherently evil (which is the strawman carnists use to falsely equate vegan activists to religious extremists). Talk about "misrepresenting" LOL.
Well, they're probably against all forms of animal agriculture but that's due to the treatment of the animals, not because the act of eating meat is inherently evil.
It’s a red herring because it has nothing to do with the previous topic. We were literally talking about the differences in protein between beef and broccoli until you decided to abruptly change the topic to the ethics of eating animals.
Zealots like “PETA” have a bad reputation, they are always finding issues with any little thing they consider animal abuse. They’ll even go as far as to compare factory farming to the holocaust. Or compare “Speciesism” to racism.
Other “Western” animal rights groups even exhibit xenophobia against Asians based on stereotypes that all Asians mistreat animals. Not to mention that these animal rights groups often exhibit misanthropy as well.
But let’s address the elephant in the room. If you have a issue with people eating meat then why don’t you try tell carnivorous animals (big cats, bears, certain reptiles etc) to stop eating other animals, let’s see if they’ll listen to you.
-You brought that into the argument when you said "to each their own" as if it's a personal choice. -Actions speak louder than words and if you're going to put satisfying your taste buds above the life of a sentient animal, you're in no position to complain about the comparisons PETA makes. In 2012 the worlds' leading neuroscientists issued the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in non-human animals and said that at the very least, birds mammals and cephalopods are conscious in the same sense that we are. So as for whether animal suffering is comparable to human suffering: science says it's governed by the same neurological processes so the answer is an unequivocal YES. -I asked the elephant and he said they have to or else they'll die and other animals do many things we wouldn't consider acceptable.
Because it’s a personal choice, it’s that simple. Don’t try to distort what I said to suit your skewed narrative.
“ In 2012 the worlds' leading neuroscientists issued the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in non-human animals and said that at the very least, birds mammals and cephalopods are conscious in the same sense that we are. So as for whether animal suffering is comparable to human suffering: science says it's governed by the same neurological processes so the answer is an unequivocal YES.”
When did I say animals don’t have a conscience or are incapable of suffering? Yet another strawman.
“-I asked the elephant and he said they have to or else they'll die and other animals do many things we wouldn't consider acceptable.”
English please. But from what I can understand of what your saying is that non human animals can eat what they want but humans can’t, despite adhering to all the legal restrictions. A bit of a double standard don’t you think?
-Any choice that has a victim isn't a personal one; that simple.
-You didn't, but that actions still speak louder than words and if you're going to compare the importance of satisfying your taste buds to the life of an animal that can feel pain and suffering you're in no position to complain about the comparisons PETA makes.
-What I'm saying is that it's a false comparison because carnivores will die if they don't eat other animals and if you're going to say that eating meat is OK because other animals do it, why stop there? Other animals do many things we wouldn't consider acceptable (rape, murder, cannibalsim etc...) and that you think that one thing they do justifies your actions (albeit under a completely different set of circumstances) but not other actions considered reprehensible is the only double standard here. Appeal to nature fallacy; a classic pseudo intellectual tactic.
But if you want to get off the ethics tract fine, lets go back to the issue: the vegans claimed broccoli had more protein per calorie (which is true for certain cuts of beef) and you straw manned their argument with steak.
1.) moral high ground fallacy: But didn’t you say you like to eat insects?
2.) circular reasoning: Still hypocritical for a guy who eats insects like skittles
3.) Because human on human crime is pure evil. Humans and non human animals abide by much different rules. If a wasp stings you and flies away, do you think the police or animal control are going to conduct an investigation to track down that specific wasp?
1. No, I don't eat insects. 2. Again, I don't eat insects (and you complain about me making "straw man arguments"). 3. "Humans and non human animals abide by much different rules." Which is exactly why there isn't a double standard when vegan condemn humans for eating meat but not other animals.
Mixing up per calorie and per gram isn't pointing out the flaws in the argument; it's just showing your scientific illiteracy. And no it's not "vague" it's just saying that different parts of the cow have higher fat content than others.
If you said the vegan claim about broccoli versus beef wasn't ENTIRELY true, you'd have a point but that's not what happened. But when you have internet cranks going around misrepresenting information it's pretty important to have terms like "unscientific" to counter it.
3.) Right... because it’s not like meat has always been a part of human diet.
4.) There you go trying to find issues where there aren’t any issues. If anyone is scientifically illiterate it’s you considering that even after I directly quoted the part of one of the articles that proved my point, you continued to distort my points via straw man arguments.
5.) Again, you only doubt the credibility because it contradicts your stances not because you actually think it’s flawed.
1. The case for ostroveganism is that an animal would be OK to eat if it lacked a CNS which it needs to suffer (and the ability to suffer is what the ethical argument is based off of) so there's no contradiction.
3. Ah, the appeal to nature fallacy didn't work so now I see you're using the appeal to history fallacy.
4. You said broccoli had 3 grams of protein per 100 calories while beef had 21 grams per 100 calories. What the article said was that broccoli had 3 grams of protein per 100 grams while beef had 21 grams per 100 grams.
5. Except I pointed out where the reasoning they used was flawed so no, it's not because it contradicts my point of view.
A favorite tactic of the pseudo intellectual internet crank: complain about how "you just don't agree with my sources because they don't fit your narrative" when you call them out on their BS. But hey weren't you the one who said you shouldn't trust a source because of it came from a certain perspective?
1.) That’s debatable as shown by various sources including the link.
2.) You’re delusional aren’t you. You don’t even know how to properly call out fallacies. There is no appeal to nature or history, I’m just pointing out the obvious which you seem to have trouble comprehending
3.)*sighs* “You would need to eat 3 1/2 cups of broccoli in order to get the same amount of protein in just 2 ounces of beef”-excerpt from sustainabledish. com
4.) You think you did but you actually didn’t
5.) Look in the mirror instead of projecting. This question clearly struck a nerve
1. As for the articles cases A) The ability to respond to noxious stimuli is observed in single celled organisms B) Pain receptors don't cause us to feel the sensation of pain, they activate the part of the brain responsible for it. C) Mussels have a need to respond to predators to not get eaten (as do single celled organisms). This doesn't mean they have anything resembling a conscious. D) Wow, now she's using studies done on mollusks as a whole versus bivalves to make her point? E) Decision making at the level they're talking about wouldn't imply consciousness; our INVOLUNTARY nervous system makes decisions more complicated than that (at least that's true with bivalves, sea urchins are debatable but I don't eat them).
2. What's obvious was that in this context you were implying that because we've been eating meat throughout history, that makes it OK so it is an appeal to history fallacy; unlike you I don't just throw out "fallacy" accusations when called out like some internet crank.
3. But the vegan claim was talking about a per calorie basis (context is everything). But given that someone can eat more to get the same amount of calories, that's just some more egg free icing on the dairy free cake for vegans.
4. Yes I did and conjecturing otherwise doesn't change that.
5. You blatantly misrepresented information; straw manned from the beginning and complain about "pseudo-intellectualism" then accuse me of "projecting". No, I just make you see your reflection and clearly you don't like it.
But speaking of this question, what are some things you did sufficient research into but when you presented your thesis, people called you "unscientific" on it?
“ You blatantly misrepresented information; straw manned from the beginning and complain about "pseudo-intellectualism" then accuse me of "projecting". No, I just make you see your reflection and clearly you don't like it.”
That’s BS and you know it, you immediately tried to change the subject (red herring) when you knew that my points regarding beef and broccoli are valid. You then resorted to ad hominems and using the “guilty by association” fallacy.
“ But speaking of this question, what are some things you did sufficient research into but when you presented your thesis, people called you "unscientific" on it?”
Oh so you are going to change the subject once again, fair enough, how about the fact that makes and females have thousands of biological differences yet the groups you seem to associate with like spouting off wishful thinking by saying there are no biological differences between males and females. Need more examples?
Here’s a less political example: Simply saying that I prefer natural remedies over pharmaceutical medication to cure common colds is enough for pseudo intellectuals to scream “unscientific!”. Even though there have been plenty studies done that prove many herbal teas have medicinal effects.
The article you posted also said: "I don't think anyone can possibly claim that oysters are conscious, that they have awareness like higher mammals (not just ourselves but other creatures like dolphins and things)." But we know what neurological processes cause us to experience the sensation of pain and we've identified analogous ones in mollusks and we know oysters don't have them.
Misrepresenting the vegan argument as saying steak has more protein per calorie than broccoli when that wasn't the claim doesn't make your straw-man valid nor does using a red herring by switching it to a per mass unit versus per calorie basis.
"yet the groups you seem to associate with like spouting off wishful thinking by saying there are no biological differences between males and females." And you say I'm using the guilt by association fallacy LMAO talk about projecting. But if you want to use that argument, do you ever associate with climate deniers or creationists?
Well it would be unscientific to argue that herbal medicines would be better to treat a cold than pharmaceuticals (even if there is evidence that they help it doesn't mean it would work better than pharmaceuticals). But if it's what you prefer to treat your cold and you're not hurting anyone else in doing so, it's not a question of it being "unscientific" it's a matter of "mind your own damn business".
And I must say I find it ironic that you claim I'm 'blinded' by my partisan views when you couldn't SEE the first link you posted was a straw-man (literally, the author posted the image circulated by vegans that shows they were referring to beef while he showed a picture of a piece of steak).
More circular reasoning, I’ve already refuted all that yet here you continuing to repeat the same arguments. And in case you didn’t read the article completely, it specifically said that whether or not oysters, clams etc feel pain is still not known for certain.
“ But speaking of unscientific views of sexual biology didn't you (not someone you associated with, you) claim that you're either male or female?”
Ah yes, more pseudoscience. I had a feeling you were going to try to bring up more pseudoscientific claims. It’s already well established that you are either male or female, nothing else. Not sure what you’re trying to prove but you can’t just identify as a lizard and expect you biology to become more reptilian in nature. Common sense.
-I did read the article and I already pointed out why that claim was unfounded. -Except there are intersex (not inter-gender; intersex) conditions hermaphrodites and mosaicism/chimerism (if you're going to just break it down to X and Y chromosomes) and 1 in 50 people are intersex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0HJkr1jj4&t=332s
But you're using the common sense argument; a favorite unscientific tactic of the pseudo intellectual movement that has emerged from the Anti-SJW mud-hole. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60uJ7sOx_1A
There you go again with your denial and argument from authority, you really think your words and the words of some YouTube video with questionable credibility are enough to disprove the findings of a group of actual researchers? Think again. People with your political leanings sure like to pretend people born with chromosomal disorders is the equivalent of there being more than two sexes but fail to understand that chromosomal disorders are just that “disorders”. Just because someone is born with both male and female traits doesn’t mean they are a third sex. They are still raised as either male or female.
And it’s funny how you keep copying everything I say just to make yourself seem more credible than you actually are, especially after you openly said that you wish people who have different political views than yourself would be banned from this website.
I actually read the paper that the article you posted cited and it looked at the genes expressed differently in men and women and it was talking about genes that are expressed in individuals that are male or female. It didn't rule out intersex individuals having a mixed transcriptomes so if you're going to argue from authority at least make sure you know what the authority is arguing. But there are criteria besides chromosomes by which someone's sex is determined (hormones, anatomy etc.) which don't fall within binary bracket and that is a FACT. "They are still raised as either male or female." How we raise them makes biological sex binary? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha well now we know how "scientific" your perspective on the matter is.
I'm not copying you (unless I'm quoting you so you know what point you made that I was referring to) I'm just calling you out on your projection. And where did I say that I want people who disagree with me banned from this site? Was it the same place where I said I chow down insects like skittles?
*sighs* Once again you distort my points, promote exceptions as being much more common than they really are and you don’t understand the true nature of those exceptions.
There is no point in replying to your comment on this post anymore since you are simply going to continue changing the subject to suit your narrative and use fallacious arguments to make it seem that you have valid points. And before you say I’m “admitting defeat” I’m not, I’m simply being the bigger man.
But you are the one who started it with a straw-man and when you have internet cranks contorting scientific information as you did to fit their world view it's important to have umbrella terms like "unscientific" to call them out on it so others don't fall for their shit. There, I brought the discussion back to the original topic of the post.
How do you expect any rebuttal when you don't argue at all and just conjecture that you won. Oh wait you didn't you were just trying to get the last word to pull a victory out of your ass.
Now you're distorting things again; I called out your BS on multiple crank claims at once (I didn't change the subject, I expanded it which apparently was too much for you to handle) and showed how you accused me of doing exactly what you were doing (talk about projection) and only "repeated" when you started baseless conjecturing about how you won (even after you said you were done arguing).
Admit it, you're just trying to claim the term "unscientific" is overused so when someone uses it to call you out on your garbage, you can just say "that term is overused" to dismiss the accusation. And if you're going to whine about how I'm repeating this argument, it's pretty much all you can say to someone who tries to claim that they won an argument that they made an ass of themselves on by re-wrapping their BS claim with a new combination of hollow words.
It’s very obvious that you’re trying to annoy me so much with your stubbornness that I stop replying and you can have the latest reply on this post, making you look like you won the debate. It’s a very common strategy used on online debates.
Even after I directly quoted from the articles you continue to distort my points and change the subject, showing that you didn’t bother reading the articles.
Except you kept replying so that strategy would apply to you as well and the information you quoted would only support your straw-man and red herring arguments.
I've seen soooooo many people quoting scientific articles and spinning it to fit their interpretation. Seriously, you complain about me using the same argument about why we need the term unscientific in our vocabulary but you keep reinforcing it. But I've said all I need to say and you're just going to keep to your baseless conjecturing that you've won so I'll let you have the last word; how about that ;)
If you're debating science, then your sources matter. If your sources are crackpot, pseudo science, extremist, conspiracy theory forums, without peer review, and a history of lying, then it's fair to question their legitimacy. Questioning dubious sources isn't groupthink, it's what any legitimate scientist or intelligent person would do this.
If you're not debating science, then calling something "unscientific" doesn't make much sense.
Yes. The slur "anti-science" among the climate activists and progressives is utterly ironic. Just like "anti-facist" is the perfect label to hide behind as an authoritarian jackboot, you can pick out the 5% of scientists that agree with you and declare your opposition "anti-science" and then peddled whatever bullshit you want.
Actually, your arguments are an excellent example of the very nature of unscientific. For example, thinking that ideas lacking evidence are valid until a scientist proves them wrong. Or that commonly held understanding based on facts cannot be true because many people believe them. Since you haven't the slightest notion of how science works, how can you imagine yourself qualified to talk about what is unscientific?
I make no argument. But I will point out that your anti-science believes, (along with your cult leader) have caused tens of thousands of Americans to die needlessly along with potentially hundreds of thousands more, making the US the most backwards country on the planet.
You will have the "scientific " the "unscientific" and the underground scientific proof that an alternative either natural or unnatural approach will work. You talk about curtain parts of science you are talking politics and money. Alternatives talks mainly about results not about business.
I'd be suspicious of something that was rejected by mainstream scientific journals and only accepted on "alternative websites" it's too easy to write a bullshit paper just so people have something to quote.
I'm not arguing that all scientific claims are correct or of equal merit. Howeever it is possible to logically and objectively weigh up the evidence on both sides. There'll always be debate within science that doesn't mean we should dismiss it all or give every hypothesis equal merit.
Certainly. I didn't mean that in like a "gotcha" way. I was simply curious to whether there were any recent claims specifically, allegedly scientific, that you're sceptical of, rather than broadly implying the the claims can't always be trusted.
To say that the theory of evolution is scientific is testament to the group think ideology that you are under.
Just because it's being pushed as science doesn't make it scientific.
Watch the first 10-15 minutes of this video and you'll see how evolution contradicts most of the laws of physics and biology.
A simple question like: why doesn't any human have a tail like "our ancestors" are claimed to have had and no atheist in the world can answer that.
I asked this to a biology professor and he got visibly annoyed and asked me: "how will you become a doctor if you don't believe in evolution?"
I said: professor, you didn't answer my question so I'll answer yours with a question: imagine I'm a heart surgeon operating on a patient. What do I need to know about evolution to perform the operation?
He then made an excuse to go and he left.
This video was made by a Christian, even though I'm a Muslim I vouch for his knowledge on evolution and I agree with everything he said about it.
2:00 If it was slightly more different WE wouldn't exist but that doesn't mean that life wouldn't adapt to other sets of conditions (that's the part of the "Anthropic principal") 2:40 That's the odds of the Earth forming where it is in its' present State, not a planet that could support life. For example, the odds that a planet would fall into the position where it gets as much sunlight as the Earth is very small but the habitable zone of the Sun is a lot bigger than the range of distances the Earth covers. 2:55 The second law of Thermodynamics says that a system moves to a NET entropy. The second law of thermodynamics permits entropy to decrease in parts of the system at the expense of increasing it in other parts. For example, life needs an energy gradient to utilize metabolism and while that will decrease entropy in the structure of the organism, it will increase the entropy in the energy of the system (because it's now closer to a chemical equilibrium). So no evolution doesn't violate the second law. 3:00 evolution.berkeley.edu/.../100201_speciation 3:20 An organism evolving into a new clade would violate the law of monophyly and in accordance with the principal of evolution, everything is a modified version of what came before it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ-DawQKPr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNrt90MJL08 3:46: That's only under present conditions. We don't have as abundant serpentinization reactions or a plentiful supply of Schriebersite as we did 4.3 billion years ago. 4:00 The development of the first cells wasn't driven by chance but by chemistry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGxAB4Weq0U 4:30: But RNA can self polymerize in wet and dry cycles in montmorillonite clay.
5:30: The DNA sequence of any organism could easily be stored on a CD. 4:45 WTF is this guy on? 75% of our DNA is junk DNA; they even removed 8% of the DNA from a mouse with no discernible side effects. 6:00 A DNA stores information in the form of a nucleotide sequence; it's 1 dimensional. 7:30 It wasn't "accidents" it was a step-wise process with each step building on the next after it was selected for. 8:40 Evolution explains the diversity of life; not the beginning. 9:10 Because a symbiont is essential now doesn't mean it was always so. Many organisms have facultative symbionts whos' presence is advantageous but not essential but they could become essential down the road and this can happen sequentially vs simultaneously. 11:00 many organisms can survive without oxygen; it's that the ones that require oxygen evolved after oxygenic photosynthesis began. 11:40 Actually many plants (such as ferns and mosses) don't use seeds. This guy should have taken a botany class. 13:30 No it's making it from an embryo; hardly "scratch". 14:10 Because that would have been selected for 14:40 Evolution by natural SELECTION isn't a stochastic process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZZvQdJuTRM
17:45 There is trial and error; that's why heart disease (apart from this year given the pandemic) is the number 1 killer. 18:00 Factories only had ~250 years of trial and error; not +4 billion. 18:30 and it's subject to mutation 19:00 Yes there is junk DNA 18:20 Misrepresentation of micro vs macro evolution. 20:50 That would violate the law of monophyly 21:20: Because we're in a mass extinction so of course extinction will outpace speciation. 22:10: It gets new information when the information changes. 22:40 Beneficial mutations have been observed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-7d06HJSs 23:30: Depending on how you look at it, mammalian and sauropsid DNA is 60-75% identical and we use the same molecular machinery to read the DNA. [https://www. genome. gov/12514316/2004-release-researchers-compare-chicken-human-genomes]
24:30 And if you isolate two populations of a given species with enough time, the genetics will be incompatible and they won't be able to interbreed (they've speciated/macroevolved). 25:50 Giraffes are more closely related to Okapis than horses and we know how the genes evolved to produce long necks www.genomeweb.com/.../giraffe-okapi-genomes-reveal-clues-height-other-differences 26:30 Many animals can survive with genetic defects 27:30 We already have valves in our circulatory system (in our veins) so all that would need to happen is that the genes that turn on the valves be activated in the neck arteries. 29:50 Elephants are heterotrophs (they consume organic materials). 31:30 We see the cause (evolution) in many experiments and observations. 31:50 Actually it's not exactly unheard of for a device to be able to store more information than the information needed to make it. The blueprints for a hard drive are a few gigabytes while it can store terabytes of information.
33:30: Neurologists haven't found any evidence of a force acting on our nervous system besides electricity and chemistry. 35:20: We know what parts of the brain are responsible for conscious experience; there is no paradox.
40:00 And? All chemicals absorb light at different wavelengths. 41:40: A series of physiochemical interactions needed to transmit visual information to the part of the brain that carries out thought doesn't imply a metaphysical entity. 46:20: Mendelian genetics don't account for mutations. 47:00: Modern cells can't generate without a precursor but that doesn't the earliest cells couldn't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxtbcOEtpoE&t=584s 47:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtmbcfb_rdc
Your statements make no sense. For example look at your last sentence.
If modern cells aren't generating from precursors then what makes you think they did before?
Do you really believe the bs you replied to me with?
Evolutionary biology professors couldn't disprove the points of that video. I've sent it to them personally.
I hate text because you can say anything you want without precautions.
For example I can just list many ideas here and watch as you start trying to disprove them meanwhile I'd be researching and thinking of a way to respond to you well.
Face to face or on the phone you wouldn't stand a chance. Even now you don't but you don't realize that cuz it's just text and responses aren't immediate like verbal communication.
I've asked professors, why don't we have tails now like our ancestors did?
No one gave me a convincing answer.
Here, let me help you.
If you want to answer that you'd have to prove that tails are not only bad for human survival and reproduction but they are so bad that no human today has a tail and that tails pose an extraordinarily powerful selection pressure against humans.
@Desire-for-Greatness Well apparently you didn't look at the video I linked providing an explanation for why that argument is BS. The mere existence of an irreversible reaction doesn't disprove abiogenesis. Scientists aren't arguing that anything close to modern cells came about spontaneously but that the first organisms came from a series of self replicating reactions. These would later evolve the level of complexity that we see in modern cells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
@Desire-for-Greatness As for tails, you wouldn't need a powerful selective pressure against it, the tail would just have to no longer be necessary because the resources needed to grow it would be wasted so our ancestors with smaller and smaller tails would be selected for. But we've retained the genetic machinery for tails but that gene was switched off but in some people it gets switched back on which is why they're born with tails.
48:20 Specified complexity refers to patterns unlikely to emerge by chance but natural SELECTION isn't a stochastic process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0 48:30 A system being irreducibly complex now doesn't mean that it couldn't have evolved because even though it's irreducibly complex now doesn't mean that its' precursor system was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZdCxk0CnN4 49:10 That's assuming it's a stochastic process; it's not. 49:40 And we see adaptive radiations after mass extinction events 49:50 Funny because we see a shit ton of mammals in the Paleocene/Eocene that weren't present in the Cretaceous rocks. www.smithsonianmag.com/.../ 51:10 But not simultaneously and without traces of ancestors (while there were far more mammals in the Paleocene we do see early members of the major groups of mammals such as placentals and marsupials in the Mesozoic). 52:20 : LMAO [https://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Evolutionary_computation] 53:00 Just because we can't replicate a process doesn't mean it can't happen naturally. For example our best technology can't fuse elements into iron but that doesn't mean it can't occur in nature (in the cores of supermassive star). 54:30: As mentioned before, beneficial mutations have been observed. 54:40: As mentioned before, we have many observed instances of speciation. 55:30: You can edit parts of a computer program and it will still work (albeit a bit differently) and if the new way you edited it makes it work better, you'd probably stick with it.
58:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU 60:00: That's because evolution follows a mix of gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. 61:00: As mentioned before speciation has occurred. 62:00 You'd need something to evolve a lot faster than a fruit fly to get a novel protein, but alas, the emergence of new proteins from scrambled sequences has been observed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183728 63:30 Actually Lenski saw many adaptive improvements in the bacteria [https://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment]
64:50: Or if the mutation is beneficial, help the cell and as stated, this has been observed multiple times. 65:20: We've seen multicellular organisms evolve from single celled ones, [https://www. youtube. com/watch? v=JVqxyYBuI_U] 67:00 Novel proteins evolving in less than a year have been documented 67:20: Given the number of star systems in the universe, odds are some would have Earth like planets in their habitable zone. 67:40 Because natural SELECTION isn't a stochastic process. 69:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myfifz3C0mI 71:10 The sun could have lost angular momentum when it threw objects out of the protoplanetary disk. 71:40 The nebular hypothesis doesn't preclude wandering objects from being captured by the solar system once it formed. 71:50 Because it would have been blown away by the solar wind.
The simplest idea in biology is natural selection.
We don't lose tails or anything else because we don't need them.
It works by killing those who have a seriously disadvantageous trait.
What the fuck is seriously disadvantageous about having a tail?
Do you see what's happening here? There is no logic in your argument.
We don't lose any traits whether they're useful or not, we die if we have seriously disadvantageous traits and those who don't would survive and reproduce.
Natural selection decreases variety.
It disproves evolution.
There is no proof for evolution. You can't scientifically prove that a rat or some other animal can become a different animal after generations.
Cats never become dogs. A staphylococcus aureus bacterium will never become a hemophilus influenzae bacterium.
A monkey or ape will never become a human, you cannot show me an example of evolution which we can observe.
Adaptation exists but it's not the same as evolution.
In adaptation the organism remains the same kind of organism.
Online if you look for "microevolution" you'll find examples like: enterocci becoming drug resistant.
But that isn't evolution! It's just adaptation!
It's still the same organism.
If you get infected with a virus you you can become immune to it: did you evolve and become a new organism? Or did you adapt?
Enough bs.
I'm done here. If you wanna talk you can DM me your phone number.
I'm not gonna waste my time here writing.
No one gets convinced over text, you just look up another confirmation to your beliefs and I'd have to disprove that and then the cycle repeats.
Guys pls dont type anymore... I don't know how to turn off notifications... Dna doesn't change its core code which is specific for every species... No evolution... Credible sources disproved evolution... Believe if you want if no be idiot... Story over... No need for copying whole Internet... Or tell me how to unfollow this...
It amazes me how in this day and age there are still people who don't believe in evolution. The simple truth is life evolves because the vast majority fail to reach breeding age, dying in a wide range of painful agonising ways. Imagine the suffering of being eaten alive by a lion or digested alive inside a snake. Then there's the multitude of diseases that cause slow painful deaths. Do we believe that evolution is a natural process or that god creates life just to watch the suffering
@Desire-for-Greatness -Bachelor's in Biology but I'm currently in graduate school. -And it's the most fundamental -If we had a tail but didn't need it, it would be a liability because a predator or competitor could grab onto it. -To be weeded out, a trait doesn't have to kill you, it just has to decrease the chances that the organisms the possess it will reproduce and over time, it will become less and less common until it is gone. -Mutations and mating (mix-matching DNA) increases the diversity that selection can act on. -Actually, I provided a link that shows that speciation events occur but for an organism to evolve into a clade separate from its' parent clade would violate the laws of evolution (Look at the Caniform and Feliforme videos I posted for a full explanation; they actually talk about cats and dogs). -We've also seen populations of organisms being separated long enough that they can no longer interbreed with one another (that's MACROevolution). -In microevolution different populations can still interbreed but in macroevolution, different populations lose the ability to do so and both have been observed. -An individual developing and immunity to a virus is neither adaptation or speciation; it's acclimation. -Can you talk sometime next week?
Ok i like this... My one comment to trigger dozen of retards... There are two types... One are those who still think evolution is a valid theory which was debunked by showing DNA traits and how we actually devolve as species and countless other researches... Other kind are people stupid enough to think there is a point in throwing pearls to swines...
Whenever a sophisticated sounding term becomes popular it's watered down and abused by people who want to add weight to their statements in whatever they're debating. Just look at, "racism".
Yeah, but that is true of most things. If I wrote a paper that didn't conform to your biases, you would question it too, even it was based on strong research. Also, what makes something scientific? Even scientists disagree about that.
18.6K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
In this case, “mainstream source” in science means consensus. Which is the gold standard for facts. I will hear out unscientific claims but they will remain unscientific until they use science.
I think it's people understanding of science. Skepticism is the foundational thought in the scientific method. The goal is to prove the hypothesis wrong.
I think the word pseudo-intellectual has become overused. Please stop using it to describe everyone who doesn't buy into your crackpot conspiracy theories.
You know, more and more police officers in civilized nations are learning to ignore calls from anti-vaxxers who are assaulted. Very soon it will be practically legal to literally beat your flock of oxygen-wasting filth to death :)
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