Atheism and autism

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You didn't. But then what exactly were you arguing with this exchange?






He never argued that what we know is the totality of what will be known. Nobody who understands science ever argues that. But you, like so many religious people, made an argument against the arrogant straw man scientist who doesn't realize that knowledge changes. Why did you make that argument?

trust can also be derived by observing a person over a period of time. Unless someone undergoes a traumatic event, it's unlikely that their personality and their mannerisms will change significantly, thus patterns can be observed that will help you in the area of character judgement.

there aren't any people in the solidly black portion, as they would either believe in a god or not believe in a god, bringing them to either the area where the black and yellow circles intersect, or the area where the black and red circles intersect. you can't claim that proof exists without stating a position of belief.

That phrase is a comment on foxholes, not on atheism.

Last edited by Fugu on 21 Jul 2015, 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In short, you're wrong. Francesco Redi, the founder of experimental biology, took the first steps towards a germ theory in 1668. The reasons for this idea not taking root might have had some small thing to do with what happened to his contemporary, a man called Galileo Galilei...

Also, you mean that our providing an environment for germs in which a mechanism for descent with inherited modifications has enabled them to adapt to our antibiotics over time? Curious. It's almost as if this is the very essence of modern evolutionary theory, a model more precise and well-understood than the theory of gravity. Yet no one contests that because a theory might be changed or replaced, what it describes must not happen. Just like the theory of gravity was replaced by the theory of general relativity, "Darwinian evolution" was fused with Mendelian genetics in the 1930's to form the modern incarnation of the theory of evolution (Mendel provided the mechanism for Darwins observations).

Also, the distinction between micro and macro evolution is entirely irrelevant. They describe the same mechanism. Accepting one but not the other is tantamount to accepting that you can walk across a room, but vehemently denying that you could walk downtown.

What she said. Also, it is a virtual guarantee that science will change. There is a zero chance of it changing ALL the way back to creationism...

My only point is that what we "know" is only what we think we know. I believe I explained myself in the remainder of my post, including the part at the end which you quoted here, where I said I have as much chance of being wrong as anyone else. I made this point because pcuser said that it is necessary to a good education to include what we know. That is a strong word that implies certainty. But the fact is no one knows anything for certain, and at the end of understanding, the gap is filled in by "belief." You do not know for certain that evolution has occurred. You believe that it provides the best explanation for the evidence we have. To say that any other interpretation of the evidence is invalid is to make a claim that the evolutionary interpretation *IS* for certain the only correct one.

This is why I can only say, "This is what I believe, and this is why", but I cannot prove that I am correct. Neither can you prove that evolution occurred or that God does not exist. You can only say "based on this evidence, this is why I believe I am correct." Someone else may look at the evidence and disagree. This is not due (necessarily) to stupidity or ignorance or illogical thinking.

science can't /prove/ anything, it can only show what is accurate and reproducible. Biological evolution has been shown to be both of these via experiments on fruit flies.

On page 4, sly said "mean like forcing people to pay for abortion, forcing people to bake a cake for something that is against their religion, forcing people to learn evolution even though they disagree with it and don't believe it. everything you said can be flipped right back at you for how they attack religious people. but its ok if its religious people being attacked."
This exchange is what started this...

What he said...

Do you know many people whose spouse walked out on them and the kids one day? I know about 10 off the top of my head. Some after more than a decade or two of marriage. And it wasn't a sudden "traumatic event" that caused it. Perhaps there was a habit of cheating before marriage...but guess what? The cheaters know how to hide. So, it's not always the fault of the spouse for making a bad judgment of character.

How about a positive change? How about someone who quits smoking, drinking, or using drugs or some other bad habit "cold turkey"? Or someone who one day decided to do whatever it took to lose weight? Know anyone? I probably know at least 20. No "traumatic event" preceded it...just finally getting fed up with it and wanted a change.

How about all the people here on WP who work to "pass" in the NT world and then decide one day that they're tired of trying and let their "real" personality show through. I bet to others they sure look like their personality changed.

How long do you think people need to observe another to "be sure" about their character. People can be unpredictable. We place our trust in people. Yes, we do our best in making careful observations and judgments. But, our best will only get us so far.

was refering to trying to force companies who are christain to pay for abortion in part of insurance coverage. not state insureance

ok then why can gay business refuse to serve anti gay people? discrimination works both ways. so if Christians can't refuse gays then gays can't refuse Christians. but the left is a hypocrite and wants it only their way.
so its either close up shop and starve or violate your morals and go to hell? or you could do as you do with muslims which is respect Christians religious beliefs. there's plenty of cake shops that aren't christian based, they could go to one of them. just as its ok for people to refuse me service because I am a gun owner. that's discrimination but its their right to so i go to another shop. the laws were made to stop racism which has not religious backing.
use to be you as a business could refuse service to anyone. why should you be forced to sell your product? its your's to sell or not sell. they can't actually refusing to write a pro gay message on a cake gets them into trouble because its not political correct according to the left. its why Muslims get away with discrimination because after 9/11 its not political correct to say bad stuff about Muslims.

no its not. you could take evolution out and people would still get educated. its indoctrination to what atheist believe. stop imposing yours on use. we want equality. leave us alone we leave you alone. give people options and freedom to do as they want. all that s**t almost made me hate school and science. you're only going to drive Christians away from science by imposing your beliefs on them by force.

I'm pro gay, I'm just also pro freedom of choice and religion. I don't think gays should be forced to do something against their morals just as I don't' think Christians should. why I may not view gay as a sin, there are those who do. their right of freedom of religion is just as valid as others rights. if a business does something you don't approve of, boycott them and get others to.

I would point out that they've probably always been like that. also I can't believe that there was zero warning and they just walked out apropos of nothing.you're conflating personality with health and eating habitsthere would have probably been some sort of event(not necessarily trauma) that tipped the balance from wanting to appear normal vs giving up.that's why honesty is a thing.

We do know, in the very strongest sense you can know anything in, what the results of experiments carried out so far were, especially those reproduced countless times. Any new theory "overturning" the current paradigm will have to account for that evidence, too, so, in the domain covered by those experiments, it will have to match the predictions of current theories, just like general relativity matches Newtonian mechanics when all the speeds involved are much smaller than the speed of light. We won't suddenly "discover" that the fossil record or the DNA evidence for evolution don't exist, or that a stone you let go of in mid air will accelerate upwards, rather than downwards.

how about you just leave us alone in our stupidity then or make good on your war and come try to kill us all, but we'll fight back and there's more religious people currently then atheists. also most atheist are anti gun so good luck.

why can't you just leave us alone and let us believe what we want. why does everyone have to live and think like you. why must everyone be the same. we aren't clones. so tired of bigoted atheists.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh. Now I think I see the origin of the popular "arrogant scientist who thinks he knows everything" strawman. "what we know" does not imply certainty. Nobody who understands science is under the illusion that we have learned everything there is to learn and no paradigm-shifting knowledge will be discovered. It's just that they/we don't put the disclaimer "what we know (at this point in time with the understanding that future discoveries will bring new and possibly paradigm shifting knowledge)" unless writing a book (or a really, really long post).

I never thought that disclaimer necessary and neither do so many other people. But now reflecting on it, I guess this was an inevitable misunderstanding. Scientifically minded people are used to having knowledge be in flux. It is the norm. And so the phrase "what we know" is understood (or so I thought) to have the implied disclaimer that this knowledge is subject to change with future discoveries. In fact, that's pretty much the point of chasing discoveries....to update the knowledge.

But religious people are not used to having knowledge be in flux. Religious knowledge is intended to be unchangeable. So its rate of change is over timescales so large as to be imperceptible to all but those who actively study these changes as part of their scholarly work or who read from a broad swath of primary religious texts for fun and self education.

Thus the two wildly different uses of the term "know".



No. It is to say that the non-evolutionary interpretations of the evidence don't fit the evidence. If somebody makes a discovery that ties the evidence together in a non-evolutionary way, the scientific world will be all over that.

I have noticed that Creationist think tanks (as opposed to youtube cranks who haven't actually read any scientific works) never actually try to tie the evidence together in a non-evolutionary way. They know that's a losing battle. Instead, they poke holes in the previous incarnations of evolutionary theory, something they can easily do because ironically the groundwork was already done for them by scientists who made discoveries that updated the theory.

An example:

http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/tis2/index.php/evidence-for-evolution-mainmenu-65/48-the-fossil-record.html


Scientists having disagreements amongst themselves isn't a "gotcha". It's the norm. It's how science works. When scientists say "know" they aren't using it as an absolute. The inter-discipline disagreements merely show that knowledge isn't static.






"Based on the evidence" is exactly what scientists say.


edited to add: about 5 million posts popped up while I was writing this so some of what I say may already be outdated. But that's ok I am ok with knowledge changing.

Did you know that only 2.99% of all procedures done at Planned Parenthood(as an example) are abortions? railing against such procedures is well and good, but the organizations the provide said services also provide a bunch of other things that aren't related to abortions.

source:http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/4013/9611/7243/Planned_Parenthood_Services.pdf

327,166 / 10,933,675 = 0.029923 * 100 = 2.99%you can't be refused service for being a gun owner, but you can for carrying a gun into a private business. this isn't a violation of your rights.if they took evolution out, it wouldn't be accurate and thus not really education.why should people get to dictate what other people can and can't do based upon what is pretty much a collection of Bronze-age morality tales. Religion and business shouldn't mix, just like government and religion shouldn't.