Phi for All

My friend, your signal to noise ratio is WAAAAY off. I think you need to take a break for a while, and think about your behavior towards a volunteer staff of people looking to share science knowledge. Your behavior behind the scenes is equally appalling. Please, everyone is frazzled at the present, and nobody needs you adding to the stress load.

Let's be clear. You're posting like it's not allowed, but we're talking about sub-forum headings here. Why not post some threads about Logic, and if enough of the members think it needs to be it's own section, we'll do it. And then staff will move past conversations into the new section, and have to start policing the new Logic subsection, where people go to post about the stuff that makes sense to them. We're not saying we won't add a new header if the membership wants it, but know that it's not a decision you're going to make for us with your browbeating and petulance.

Mandlbaur has been banned for repeatedly bringing up non-mainstream topics they're unable to support, and are now being foul and hateful about it.

This statement is extremely hypocritical, uncivil, and reflects poorly on your reasoning skills, imo.

Beware Skitt's Law. An ellipsis is three dots, not two. Also, there should be commas before "at" and "not", and you should be using double quote marks, not single.

I didn't say faith was the benchmark. You use "degrees of certainty", and the folks I know who claim to be the most religious all believe in their god using faith. It's supposed to represent 100% certainty that the Christian god of the Bible exists, no matter what anyone or anything else says. In the US, a great many profess enough faith to say they're absolutely certain the god of the Bible exists. The details may vary, and some claims aren't as deeply held as others, but the idea of believing "with all your heart" that there is a god is common in the States. I would think that at least would hold true even for the CoE. When you add Jesus into the mix, you lose some folks in the US, but others are just as 100% certain that Jesus is watching them to see if they have enough faith in him to get into heaven. This doesn't seem wrong to you? Faith is usually defined as accepting a truth or proposition that has no evidence to support it. I acknowledge a difference between having faith in something (the old car will get me through another winter), and having religious faith in something you believe will ensure an eternal afterlife. Perhaps that's where we aren't agreeing?

But the faith-driven believer is 100% certain, and you'll never be more than 99.9%, so that's not a good benchmark. I think how you arrive at your certainty is the key here. Do you just have a gut-feeling about it that won't go away, or have you rigorously researched, observed, tested, discussed, and predicted enough about the subject that you've come to trust the explanation?

Believing anything based on faith alone is antithetical to a methodology that needs to trust only empirical evidence. That's always been a sticking point for me. The religious folks I know are joyously proud that they believe using just their faith. They claim it's strong and abiding, and the more blasphemers claim there is no God, the stronger their faith and certainty becomes. To me, if we aren't using our reasoning powers to explain things, then we're using our emotions to convince ourselves we're right. I think it's easier but less intelligent to let ourselves be led like that. Using our brains to move beyond our primitive reactions is always harder, but it's always our best long-term investment.

Actually, a tick can sense a LOT, mostly body heat and smell (I believe they're attracted to ammonia in sweat). They try to latch on to you with their front legs, then crawl towards skin. I suppose they might have different behavior when on a flat surface, but since they need to latch on to their dinner, it doesn't seem likely they're trying to flea. 😁

Strange: Yes, and they're all impeckable.

michel123456: I don't know, and since the chicken doesn't know either, it doesn't have to account for the signal delay.

Ed Witten: To get to the dimensions compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold on the other side.

The canals were debunked well over a hundred years ago. The sightings involved no instrument readings, just antique telescopes with no photography. You should study up, they've stopped using orreries at NASA.

We're upgrading the suspension on drumbo to a full ban due to repeated bad faith arguments. If you're trying only to prove a point, write a blog or submit a paper. Discussion is for those open to learning.

Many folks are literally switching to overusing the word "actually" now. As in, "They actually look exactly the same", and "You can actually change that in the pulldown menu", and "That water actually had my retainer in it". Both words can literally mean the same thing while actually being slightly different. Actually, I prefer actually. There's an air of surprise involved, like I can't believe you just said that. "We were actually going to take pictures, but if you want to actually pet the hippo, there's actually not much we can do."

Thank you, studiot. I'm pinning this one up on the Science Education fridge with a magnet in the shape of a bulging brain.

Maestro99 has been banned for a foul-mouthed rant which he chose in lieu of reasoning us through his anti-evolution stance. Apparently, Jesus doesn't love us AT ALL!

fredreload has been suspended for two weeks for soapboxing about speculative topics. If you can't support your ideas, you aren't doing science.

drumbo has been suspended for 2 weeks for trolling and abuse of the reputation system.

! Moderator Note Except you give away this lie by also abusing the reputation system, voting down a particular person's posts no matter what they said. Your disagreements ring hollow, and your stance is very personal and belligerent. Take a couple of weeks off and decide whether it will be worth it for you to be more civil if/when you return.

yes.

Part of the problem is that science uses very specific definitions for most things. You've found it easier to make up some of your own, to describe what's in your head, because what you were reading didn't make immediate sense to you. It's a bad habit, that's all, like using too much slang that others don't know. Instead of making stuff up, you should be learning the definitions science uses, so you can better communicate what you're thinking. As Strange said, you should stick around and get involved in other discussions. It's a great way to learn.

dana_turner is being banned for wasting all of their first five posts on misinformation, rule-breaking, and blatantly incorrect assertions. We're going to take a page out of table tennis rules and call that a "skunk".

! Moderator Note They don't post in this thread, and are therefore outside my purview.

I would have told dimreepr to stop putting words in my mouth, and let him know that I don't appreciate being strawmanned. That way, if he does it again, you can report him for arguing in a persistently fallacious manner.