baddog1 wrote:Diest TKO wrote:baddog1 wrote:rosborne979 wrote: I would say so. But in my original quote I wasn't talking about the possible and the impossible, I was talking about the probable and the improbable, and what science should spend time researching.
And therein lies the issue. Who decides what is probable and improbable? There was a day when personal flight, communication by wire, underwater welding, teaching via interconnected computers, hair replacement, bone fusing, etc. etc. etc. were all considered impossible. The impossible then became improbable, which then became possible by imagination, then possible by science...
It simply astounds me that
anyone with a science background would so casually discount the possibility of a topic that approximately 1/3 of the world population believes in (Christianity). And nearly 85% of the world believes in some sort of God.
Given those facts; deductively it can only come down to an emotion-based decision to be totally closed to the possibility of something that billions of others believe.
How are emotion-based decisions viewed in the science-community?
BD1 - Let's say that all we have is probability and statistics to work with. Let's say that probability of one event is 99.9999%, while the probability of all other alternative events
combined is 0.0001%.
The only emotion-based decision is to disregard the overwelming probability of one event for one other alternate which is only arbitrarily different than the other alternatives.
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Deist:
I have to ask you as well. Who is determining these probabilities?
For instance:
Long before man utilized any form of transportation other than walking; what was the probability of personal flight? Who determined that science should do the related research?
Before communication by any means other than face-to-face began; what was the probability of today's forms of communication? Who determined that science should do the related research?
And so on...
Hi baddog1.
In probability and statistics, we can evaluate things in a number of ways. Take flight for instance. The probability of flight being possible is the same now as it was in the stone age. That is constant. This probability of a event happening is evaluated such that the actual answer may only be approximate with limited info. I.e. - I'm sure cavemen thought flight was impossible (zero probability) but their analysis was based on what information was available to them at the time. Not really a fault of theirs.
Looking at evolution, you see that it started out with a lower amount of probability due to a lack of information, and since has had an asymptotic trend towards absolute as science continued to make new finds. Many finds which might I add were NOT in effort to actually prove evolution.
I'm sure most of us are familiar with pascals wager. This approach to P&S would say that there is a 50-50 chance there is a God. Unfortunately, even with this approach, the 50% that says there is god must be divided into thousands to account for the incontinuities of who/what/where. Certainly the side with no god must be divided to in this approach, but even the most creative mind won't be able to divide it into thousands of naturalistic possibilities. In addition to that, natural events have continuity.
If you want to believe that God created the universe, fine. But do so knowing that this belief defies scientific, statistical and logical analysis. Additionally, acknowledge that others prefer to base their beliefs on what is concrete.
I'm sure their are people who make emotional based desicions to believe in evolution, however...
1) I don't think they represent a majority
2) Being right for the wrong reasons still has some merit
3) The scientific community at large actively seeks out to test it's conclusions, and validate it's claims. No emotional decisions needed, if we look at the facts, we can make an educated opinion.
In Stein's movie he should have had a control subject to validate scientific suppression. He should have found one (as in a single) person in academia who was doing scientific research on...
Magic
Unicorns
Elves
Dragons
etc
To see if these ideas were unfairly being suppressed, and to have something to evaluate against the scientists he was pushing forth. I think that if you are honest, you'll see immediately that using the same criteria you'd deny a researcher money to study dragons, you'd disqualify the researchers in Stein's movie.
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