Intelligent Design vs. Casino Universe

Herald has got to be one of the biggest deniers on a2k, and totally ignorant about science and technology.

The Big Bang best explains what we have now.

Where is your theory that shows the Big Bang is not the best explanation?

How can you assign belief of 95% to s.th. that explains no more than 4% of the visible and known Universe? What is the justification standing behind such double blind belief in the status quo?

parados wrote:

The Big Bang best explains what we have now.

     Can you explain in plain English what exactly the Quantum Field Theory is claiming ... and how is that related to the Big Bang 'theory'?

I thought it was quite clear that my opinion was directed to Herald.

Published on May 28, 2014

Michael Specter's new book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, dives into a worrisome strain of modern life -- a vocal anti-science bias that may prevent us from making the right choices for our future. Specter studies how the active movements against vaccines, genetically engineered food, science-based medicine and biotechnological solutions to climate change may actually put the world at risk. (For instance, anti-vaccination activists could soon trigger the US return of polio, not to mention the continuing rise of measles.) More insidiously, the chilling effect caused by the new denialism may prevent useful science from being accomplished.

Cosmos talks about these issues and their relation to the continued existence of the human species.

When our beliefs are threatened by facts, we turn to unfalsifiable justifications

It's great to have facts on your side. The fundamentalist is delighted by the archaeological find that tallies with scripture, just as the atheist seizes on the evidence that contradicts it. But when the evidence goes against us, we're less likely to change a belief than to criticise the validity or provenance of the evidence. Now, research suggests that the mere prospect of a factual threat leads us to downplay how much our belief depends on such evidence at all. We become attracted to other, less falsifiable reasons for believing.

Justin Friesen and his colleagues conducted a series of studies each with a hundred or more participants. The first presented participants with a summary statement from a conference on science and God. When it suggested that science could one day settle the question of God's existence, religious participants wavered in their religious conviction, rating it significantly lower than those told that science was not armed to answer such questions. The very possibility that the religious belief was falsifiable made it vulnerable.

A subsequent study presented the discovery of the Higgs Boson as either a threat to or unlikely to affect matters of religion. Asked what reasons underpinned their belief, religious participants gave more importance to unfalsifiable statements such as "living a moral life would be impossible without God" when told the particle was a threat, and relatively less to evidence-linked statements such as "historical and archaeological evidence shows how God intervened in the world."

This effect wasn't restricted to religious belief. In another study, supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage were shown data on life outcomes of children raised by same-sex couples; by presenting these outcomes as either positive or troubled, participants were exposed to data that either supported or undermined their position. When the facts were on their side, they rated the issues of same-sex marriage and child-rearing as a matter for evidence to decide; when the facts were against them, they saw it as more a matter of opinion.

The authors speculate that this tendency to revert to unfalsifiable justifications may mean that many beliefs, over time, shear off their evidential component and become increasingly unchallengeable. But they also note that unfalsifiability may have important psychological value, for instance in making inviolable beliefs such as "love is real" or "genocide is wrong", whose compromise could otherwise be deeply distressing and disorientating. Cherish or bemoan it, our belief systems are laced with unfalsifiable aspects that won't be budged by evidence alone.

Friesen, J., Campbell, T., & Kay, A. (2014). The Psychological Advantage of Unfalsifiability: The Appeal of Untestable Religious and Political Ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000018

Herald wrote:

parados wrote:

The Big Bang best explains what we have now.

     Can you explain in plain English what exactly the Quantum Field Theory is claiming ... and how is that related to the Big Bang 'theory'?

First you demand the math because you don't like the plain English then you demand plain English when given the math. Could you be any more circular?

Do you always make up numbers?

When did I assign a belief of 95% to anything?

Your argument that you don't believe in something if you haven't seen it is ridiculous.

Clearly you believe in some things you have never seen and know 0% about.

First you demand the math because you don't like the plain English then you demand plain English when given the math. Could you be any more circular?

Actually you haven't. Your fellow-atheists here have published a fake video with fake statements claiming that 95% of the scientists accept without any notes the Big Bang theory.

Straw-man.

I doubt he can, but I don't doubt that he'll keep trying to be. If he couldn't post a logical fallacy, he wouldn't be able to post at all.