1. Subscribersonhouse
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    20 Aug '14 13:22
    http://phys.org/news/2014-08-debating-science-withtrolls.html#firstCmt

    Some of the tricks trolls pull trying to get their ideologue POV's across.

    This article doesn't even go into the lies YEC's make about evolution but the MO is the same.
  2. Subscriberjosephw
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    20 Aug '14 17:44
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    This article doesn't even go into the lies YEC's make about evolution but the MO is the same.
    Strikes me as obtuse sonhouse. If evolution is a lie, then how can one tell lies about it?

    Evolution is not a fact. The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real.
  3. Subscribersonhouse
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    20 Aug '14 18:48
    Originally posted by josephw
    Strikes me as obtuse sonhouse. If evolution is a lie, then how can one tell lies about it?

    Evolution is not a fact. The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real.
    I beg to differ with you! Why, just last week I saw the flying spaghetti monster myself with my own 4 eyes! Jeez, the noive!
  4. Standard memberAgerg
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    20 Aug '14 20:231 edit
    Originally posted by josephw
    Strikes me as obtuse sonhouse. If evolution is a lie, then how can one tell lies about it?

    Evolution is not a fact. The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real.
    Strikes me as obtuse sonhouse. If evolution is a lie, then how can one tell lies about it?
    Moot question given that evolution isn't a lie. Moreover, whatever strikes you as obtuse has a very good probability of being profound! 🙂
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    20 Aug '14 20:51
    Originally posted by josephw
    If evolution is a lie, then how can one tell lies about it?
    You didn't know that you can tell lies about lies? Do you ever think before you post?
  6. Standard memberDeepThought
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    21 Aug '14 00:03
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    http://phys.org/news/2014-08-debating-science-withtrolls.html#firstCmt

    Some of the tricks trolls pull trying to get their ideologue POV's across.

    This article doesn't even go into the lies YEC's make about evolution but the MO is the same.
    I read the article, most of the tricks listed are a little dull and are just the kind of informal fallacies one gets in all debates. The interesting one was the question about whether science is a religion. There are a lot of features that they have in common:

    A Priesthood - where religions have priests of some form or other science has professors and so forth.
    Policy - both science and religion have been used and misused to justify policies.
    Why we exist - Both religion and science seek to explain the origins of the world.

    There is even a similarity at the metaphysical level. Religions are based on the existence of a supernatural order, normally a God or gods whose existence is asserted, but unprovable. Science is based on a sentence such as: "Only empirically verified statements are true.". The catch is that that statement is not empirically verifiable. One can do what Popper did and reverse it, but then all statements which cannot be empirically ruled out are true, at least provisionally. So we believe results because they have been empirically tested, but the basis for this belief is untestable. This is the same as Hume's point about inference - really one cannot justify it, but we may as well believe it as we can get nowhere without it.

    The error that these people make in their statements about trusting scientific results is to equate this metaphysical problem (Is the sentence: "Only empirically tested statements true" true?) with the actual testable statements made (humans evolved from apes, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, etc.). Unless one is actually going to adopt a level of scepticism where one doubts causation then attempting to use this argument in the context of specific results is obviously ludicrous.

    The difference between science and religion is that science can provide results that do not require prior belief. It matters if a scientific theory is wrong in a practical way. If a religion is wrong then it does not matter in this world.
  7. SubscriberSuzianne
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    21 Aug '14 00:55
    Originally posted by josephw
    Evolution is not a fact. The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't real.
    You know the two aren't related, yeah?
  8. SubscriberSuzianne
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    21 Aug '14 01:00
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    You didn't know that you can tell lies about lies? Do you ever think before you post?
    "Do you ever think before you post?"

    You forgot the little ® sign.

    What? You guys haven't registered this yet? Someone might steal it from you, if you don't.

    Or maybe © is more appropriate.
  9. SubscriberSuzianne
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    21 Aug '14 01:08
    Originally posted by DeepThought
    I read the article, most of the tricks listed are a little dull and are just the kind of informal fallacies one gets in all debates. The interesting one was the question about whether science is a religion. There are a lot of features that they have in common:

    A Priesthood - where religions have priests of some form or other science has professors a ...[text shortened]... eory is wrong in a practical way. If a religion is wrong then it does not matter in this world.
    "If a religion is wrong then it does not matter in this world."

    This is not true. Religion, and man's observance of it, has many practical effects in this world, too. It has an effect on how many live their lives, for good and for bad. Religion is not just for the afterlife.

    Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Truly, a "more abundant life" is the aim.
  10. Standard memberDeepThought
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    21 Aug '14 01:482 edits
    Originally posted by Suzianne
    "If a religion is wrong then it does not matter in this world."

    This is not true. Religion, and man's observance of it, has many practical effects in this world, too. It has an effect on how many live their lives, for good and for bad. Religion is not just for the afterlife.

    Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Truly, a "more abundant life" is the aim.
    The point is that it doesn't matter a fig if the religion is true or not to the effect it has in this world, assuming a non-interventionist god or no god. That it has an effect on how people live their lives is undeniable, but that doesn't tell us if it is true or not. Note that I specified prior belief - a true religion with a somewhat interventionist god who only reveals himself to believers may have a practical effect, but not a universal one as non-believers don't see the effect. Also there's the case of a very interventionist god, but we clearly don't have one of those.

    If our theory of gravity is wrong then we make incorrect predictions of orbits, which has an immediate and universally observable effect. All one has to do is some maths and to track a satellite, belief in the theory is not required.
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    21 Aug '14 01:491 edit
    Originally posted by sonhouse
    http://phys.org/news/2014-08-debating-science-withtrolls.html#firstCmt

    Some of the tricks trolls pull trying to get their ideologue POV's across.

    This article doesn't even go into the lies YEC's make about evolution but the MO is the same.
    How to build a better bridge? 🙂 (what i learned debating trolls)
  12. Subscriberjosephw
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    21 Aug '14 01:501 edit
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    You didn't know that you can tell lies about lies? Do you ever think before you post?
    What a tangled web we weave...

    I think you're wrong. I think we can tell lies upon lies, but not lies about lies.
  13. Subscriberjosephw
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    21 Aug '14 01:51
    Originally posted by Suzianne
    You know the two aren't related, yeah?
    And you know they are?
  14. Subscribersonhouse
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    21 Aug '14 02:06
    Originally posted by josephw
    And you know they are?
    One point he made in the article is he knows he only covered a small portion of the problem, that it would take a lot more pages to fully cover all the ways people misuse logic to get across their POV.

    I hope he expands on what he just wrote with further articles.

    Like the 'were you there' argument when presenting evidence for dating organic material or other techniques saying the Earth is more than the age specified by YEC's.

    Or denying or debasing an entire scientific discipline when that discipline uses the exact same underlying principles of science like the Popper method and such but other sciences not crossing YEC's are fine upstanding works.

    So under that guise, any dating technique is poo poo'd but nuclear science is fine.

    Geology is ok up to a point, like when it points to an ancient Earth, then Geology is forbidden, to be ridiculed.

    Followed by a number of other sciences, like DNA research is fine until such a time as it enables a life form that never existed or if we ever create life from non-living material, even the possibility is totally denied since only a god or er, Intelligent designer, could create life.
  15. Standard memberBigDogg
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    21 Aug '14 04:48
    Originally posted by josephw
    What a tangled web we weave...

    I think you're wrong. I think we can tell lies upon lies, but not lies about lies.
    All squares are circles.

    The statement above is true.

    There. I just told a lie about a lie. QED
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