Phi for All

The number of people who misunderstand "theory" and "truth" are absolutely astounding.

None of this crap is fact. There's no evidence for anything you've asserted. Nobody wants to hear you preach or soapbox. This is a discussion forum, not your blog. Please go away if you can't follow the rules.

I'd like to point out that you've made some version of this claim every time someone brings up ways to avoid bias. Individually, these points may be insufficient, but the way your argument works, the whole is never taken into consideration. And I think you're also making the mistake of thinking that we need to "totally arrest" anything bad about a system or it's no good to us at all.

Your objection seems less about bias and more about too much rigor, that the gatekeepers are holding those trying to get through to standards they can't meet. I've seen this argument a LOT in the last 20 years here, always from people whose ideas can't be supported by evidence. They usually want us to look past the mistakes we see and embrace the core concept, to give it a chance, to not be so hidebound and biased. As others have said, science isn't immune to bias, but not all rejection is biased. Individuals make mistakes, and we hope that peer review and the rest of the process can weed those out. Even mistakes in objectivity.

I'm sure you have examples you can cite, but your statement infers that this happens frequently. Are you assuming that "the science process" does this automatically and with no real parameters or reasons? If this starting gate selection process requires that all ideas presented must be falsifiable, is this a bad thing?

I'm hoping someone in the media can do a better job of pointing out that this case was a complete slam dunk, and similar cases almost always end the same way. This was no witch hunt, it was pretty boiler plate legal methodology. The fact that the Republicans are making more claims about unfairness needs to be offset by the reality of the court system. The evidence made this a foregone conclusion, and the jury was unanimous about that. I have a feeling they're making this stink because eventually TFG is going to be sentenced without facing jail time, which is also typical with these types of first-time crimes, but they want it to seem like the judge waved prison because it's so unfair. I think many in the GOP will look at big fines as no big deal.

The assumption is that ideas are discarded without really looking into them, correct? Then how did they know the ideas didn't meet with the prevailing line of thinking (also known as theory)? You have to look into an idea in order to falsify any part of it. And your assumption doesn't take into account that many people (here at least) have ideas with real stumbling blocks that are unphysical or violate well-known observations. We bring them to their attention, and guess what? They don't amend their ideas at all, but instead claim we didn't really look into it because it doesn't meet with the prevailing line of thinking. There's a big difference between hidebound denial and favoring our current best explanations.

That's exactly what I thought when I read that Luc's contention is "biasness taking on the form of selective 'rational-reasoning' in scientific enquiry". Isn't he basically saying that it's biased to reject a new idea using mainstream knowledge and reasoning?

We were hoping for a yes or no reply to a question about whether you're in an office today or not. My feeling, at least, is that you shouldn't use your own phone or Skype accounts at all if you want to remain anonymous. If you aren't at work, can you go to a hotel? The bigger ones have phones in the lobby.

! Moderator Note Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited here. I'm inviting you to change your tone when posting here or leave with the utmost haste. Frankly, you sound like you're using AI to post in the most racist, offensive manner possible for a forum such as this. You're a caricature of modern male toxicity and prejudice, and none of your recent posts seem crafted in good faith.

I thought we were attacking straw men instead of addressing the real issue here. You claimed we're OK with an infinite population. Also, I'm pretty sure if your perspective gains traction, it will be called a "cleansing" or a "reduction" rather than "the murder of innocent persons". How else do we get where you want to be within your lifetime? Not making so many babies is a generational strategy.

I'm opposed to your plan to exterminate any groups of humans you don't like.

My apologies to all Canadians!

I'm sure science HAS studied this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5897168/ Although this paper doesn't go back to the 1950s, I think it supports your idea.

I disagree completely. The problem is more with current infrastructure, which is weirdly and disproportionately aimed at profit rather than continuing to find new ways to make resources more efficient and readily available. Look at human history, we've gotten very good at improving production and yield in almost everything, and we continue to innovate. Our problem isn't diminishing resources or overpopulation. It's a social problem, where some righteous folks don't think some other folks deserve access to resources. Those righteous folks loudly proclaim that the problem lies with those who have too many children rather than those who are hogging all the resources. The problem isn't human overpopulation, it's that we don't care that we're displacing other species as we look for habitable land. It's that we don't support each other socially, so families need to have more members to handle all the work. It's that we're breaking up extended families so everybody has to buy everything and live independently. Our biggest problem is that we're ignoring our cooperative nature in favor of our competitive nature, and letting greedy people convince us we're the problem. Remember when the plastics industry started suffering major backlashes because so many well-known logos were part of pictures of heaps of trash in every major city? Did they try to fix the problem they created? No, they made a commercial with a Native American (who was really an Italian from Canada) crying because We the People created all this litter, and we better start throwing it away properly. IOW, it was a scam, and I think all this BS about overpopulation is more scam trying to divert attention away from the scammers.

None of this story has anything to do with logic, especially mathematical logic, which is a formal study of its own. This is more of a psychological example, where a child sees more pieces of currency and assumes it represents more money. My brother-in-law used to offer young kids a $5 bill OR a handful of nickels, about 20 of them, and most took the coins. Don't forget the shiny factor here, too. Coins glitter where paper does not.

In one instance you're doing math, dividing 1 by 2 to get .5, and in the other instance you're slicing a line down the middle of a pie. Both instances are NOT examples of mathematical division. All of your arguments are weak in this thread, especially your Arguments from Incredulity (How is this possible? and I can't believe it's true!). You've misunderstood quite a bit, so you need to study more, and perhaps listen to the folks here who are trying to help you see.

Citation? All my studies blame the belief and not the believer. Do you feel personally attacked, is that why you leap to fallacy? Can't you separate the stance from those who hold it?

It seems like the tolerance of those who know the social part of their "stance" will never be funded. You can claim to be socially liberal because the fiscal conservative part of you votes it down. Major studies found the cause of traffic is brake lights. My study found the cause of the rest of our problems is religion, and religion also affects the way people brake while driving.

Isaac Newton kept his occult studies from the Church. He was into alchemy, and his mystic pursuits convinced him that seven was a more important number than five, so in his color theory he added orange and split purple into indigo and violet. So you might be able to be a scientist and still believe in this mystic garbage, but I think you're negatively affecting your objectivity when it comes to theory.

"No, no, I said I wanted 'room to rest' on every landing!"

I used to think I thought this way. It seemed like a compassionate stance with a common sense foundation. But then I found out that, in the US at least, fiscal conservatism is the noose around our necks. Socially liberal means nothing if you can't appropriate the funding for it. I guess my worldview right now is that we need what we've needed since we started societies, an economic system that allows everyone to live well instead of a few living fabulously while most suffer. I'd like to see a real change in thinking, a modern Renaissance. We all need to remember that the band of atmosphere around this planet, the one that keeps every living thing we know of in the universe alive, is something we can destroy or maintain, and we should stop choosing, over and over again, to destroy it. Most of us want to exist in peace with each other, and stop doing harmful things so some can have more than their share. Of course, I think this concept of allowing your "betters" to pillage the village so they can have the nicest house is based in religion, so if we could figure out how to unwash a bunch of brains, that'd be great.

! Moderator Note You're the opening poster, so the thread would make no sense without you, and waste the contributions of others.

I PMd Dave to see if the settings were changed on us.

What a ridiculous assessment! How hard did you look for evidence that shows they're "better"? If you want to be taken seriously, use some meaningful parameters. Assumptions aren't evidence. Please get a clue. NASA admins have ALWAYS used foreign space agencies as motivation for further exploration. Your point here is nothing special. Going to be?! Seriously, you can't make assumptions like this and expect it to be taken as evidence. After all, Boeing could suddenly focus on a better design. See how easy it is to assume? The capacity?! More assumptions that they will build them. And when measured nominally, it's not. < yawn > And frankly, the rest of your points are equally meaningless when used as comparisons. It's easy to list accomplishments of one country while ignoring the accomplishments of the other. And your title question lacks meaning as well. Replace? As the number one economy, perhaps, but you imply so much more by bringing up battles from 80 years ago. Your anti-West mindset always taints your arguments. You may have some valid points, but they're lost in your prejudice and discrimination. I get it, you hate the USA, but your points don't resonate much with me. I know China makes cheap electric cars, but I don't know if that's a good thing in the long run. We have many problems on this planet because of cheap Chinese products choking the air, water, and minerals from us.