"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:473fcbf7$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
> >> While mocking people is indeed rude (even tho I don't rule it out), how
> >> do you feel about mocking ideas?
> >
> >   I think you are resorting to a technicality of definitions.
>
> I'm really not. I spent quite some time developing a separation between
> my sense of self and the ideas I currently hold. If you read what I type
> carefully, you can often even see it in the way I frame statements.
:snip:
> They've already been debunked. If one still wishes to believe that in
> spite of debunking, it seems obvious that only an irrational approach
> has a possibility of changing your mind. Hence the mocking.
>

Warp hates the mocking and has yet to offer a viable option to it other than
"Continue to try to convince by presenting the facts." Yet this has failed,
and failed, and failed. Rather than continue the insanity loop, what should
one do?

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Wow wow hold on...

You wrote:
> For example if
> I say that we should not make fun of the head of state of another country,
> people opposed me like mad. No rational explanation for that came up in
> the lengthy flamewar. I still can't understand this.

Then Ross wrote:
> Are you the authority on rational explanations? As a participant of the
> argument, I don't think you are suited to be that judge.

to which you replied:
> Perhaps you didn't see words like "my guess is that" in my text?
> Does that kind of wording sound like I'm stating a fact or does it sound
> like I'm simply speculating?

Your previous sentences sure look like stating a fact to me... And the 
"my guess is that" in another paragrah is not changing that.

-- 
Vincent

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:47421093@news.povray.org...
> Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet> wrote:
> > For shame. Now you're just mocking him for the sake of mocking.
>
>   How unimaginative to reuse the same old joke someone else already used.
>
>   What next? Some incomprehensive allusion to rabbits?
>
> -- 
>                                                           - Warp

Sorry to dissapoint you then, for I was reading the thread top down and
replying as I came to them.

here, accept this carrot as a token of my unimaginitive apology.

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:47421c44@news.povray.org...
> Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet> wrote:
> > Are you the authority on rational explanations? As a participant of the
> > argument, I don't think you are suited to be that judge.
>
>   Perhaps you didn't see words like "my guess is that" in my text?
> Does that kind of wording sound like I'm stating a fact or does it sound
> like I'm simply speculating?

I don't see the connection of your speculation to the paragraph I was
referencing... the "making fun of a head of a foreign state". You say, "In
other cases, however, I just can't understand it." With "It" being the
opposition, right? Let me be clear, I am saying you may be unable to have
realized a rational explanation because of your emotinal involvement in the
argument.

I don't see your point in bringing the "And my guess..." into it. What does
that have to do with it?

>
>   Well, this just confirms that people only see what they want to see,
> not what it's written.
>
>   I suppose it's Murphy's law applied to internet forums: If a message can
> be interpreted in more than one way, someone will interpret it in the
worst
> possible way. (Which is especially true if they *want* to interpret it in
> the worst possible way because of who is writing.)
>

That's true. We form opinions of people and are baised by those opinions no
doubt. I don't think that's a new revelation really.

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Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet> wrote:
> Warp hates the mocking and has yet to offer a viable option to it other than
> "Continue to try to convince by presenting the facts." Yet this has failed,
> and failed, and failed. Rather than continue the insanity loop, what should
> one do?

  Are you saying that making fun of other people is a viable and acceptable
solution?
  Well, that's exactly what I don't understand. In my opinion making fun
of people is not civilized nor acceptable. I'm not exactly sure how should
I think of people who disagree with this. It just doesn't make sense.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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In article <47415705@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> > Are you *still* thinking Warp was arguing against evolution?
> 
>   In that post he answered I was certainly not. The only thing I did was
> to question the notion of evidence being proof (of anything in general).
> 
>   He proceeded to write a lengthy novel about evidence pro evolution,
> which is not what I was talking about, so he seems to think that I was
> saying "evolution is not true". Whatever.
> 
Oh, gosh, sorry. Assuming that you might still be on about the thing 
that 90% of the entire thread was about was obviously completely silly 
of me. Or even trying to use an explanation of some things you might not 
know about it, to show how sometimes the gaps people complain about are 
not a big, or may not even exist, at least in the sense they talk about 
them.

As for questioning whether evidence constitutes truth. I supposed you 
have to come up with some definition for "truth" specific to how and who 
uses it. The dictionary definitions would tend to imply that a thing be 
true, just because its true. In the real world **nothing** works like 
that, not even the assertions made by the kinds of people making 
statements like, "Its absolutely true that Shiva exists." At some point 
someone is going to ask the rather embarrassing questions, "How do you 
know?", or, "What evidence do you have?" You are then stuck with either 
a) just killing the stupid fool that asked the question, or backing it 
with "some sort" of evidence. The questioner has to then make either a 
qualitative, a quantitative, or both, judgment about the veracity of 
that evidence. Most people don't know the difference between an allele 
and and Aunt Lelle, so make a purely quantitative judgment. Some make 
bullshit qualitative judgments, based solely on what they *want* to be 
true. ID tries to claim that *both* are valid by first insisting that 
you only get to be called a true believer *if* you agree with them, then 
making the even more stupid claim that being that "true" believers 
believe it, the fact that all true believers do believe it, and there 
are millions of them, means a damn thing either. So what. Lots of stupid 
stuff lots of people believed, and it didn't matter how *true* they 
where to that belief, they where still wrong, and better evidence proved 
it.

So, what does truth mean precisely? For most people *true* means that 
their belief and/or acceptance of it is based on what **they** consider 
reasonable qualitative and quantitative evidence. We saw in the Dover 
trial what *scientists* consider quantitative and qualitative evidence, 
thousands of papers, all supporting each others and prior conclusions, 
based on decades of people actually asking questions and looking for 
answers by doing research to test their theories. Ken Ham's museum is 
base on the *other* sides idea of what qualifies as "quantitative and 
qualitative": assertions that the other sides version can't be true, 
complaints about stuff they don't understand, references to the 
authority of scripture that the vast majority of Christians don't take 
literally, declarations that **those** people, unlike the small minority 
that do take it literally, can't be Christians, and lots and lots of 
claims that any day now they will pull *research* out of their ass that 
tests a hypothesis that even they say a) doesn't need to be tested, 
because, "qed: its the truth", and which they can't even describe 
*anything* about sufficiently to invent any sort of test of it. Their 
sole line of "research" is entirely based on coming up with an endless 
stream of questions they don't think scientists can answer, ignoring the 
answers, and asking the same questions again, while *once in a while* 
coming up with yet another mechanism or body part that they can call 
"irreducible", as though proving that *anything* can't be proven 
sufficiently by evolution automatically means their own hypothesis wins 
by default, instead of dozens of other similar ones, most of which are 
just as nonreligious as evolution.

In other words, you have scientist saying, "There is no valid grounds at 
this point to deny that evolution, by any reasonable definition, is 
**true**, even if some parts of it are still uncertain.", and a lot of 
goobers whining about how if "any" part of it is ever not explainable, 
they win, and calling their constant stream of pseudoscience and 
debunked questions "research". This is what *they* think is truth, "If 
we defeat the great monster we don't like, then everything we believe 
must, automatically, by default, be true, evidence be damned, and so 
will all the stupid fools that show up asking for things like facts, 
evidence or, you know, lab work, to prove we asking tested anything."

I am not sure what your definition of truth is, but if it comes even 
close to what these people are using, you have a huge problem. If its 
**at all** based on something closer to the scientific definition, then 
your only problem is that you are even less qualified than I am to 
complain about them using it (being as I actually understand some of the 
stuff you don't get about the subject).

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <47421b76$1@news.povray.org>, rli### [at] speakeasynet says...
> "Gilles Tran" <gitran_nospam_@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
> news:473d776e$1@news.povray.org...
> > layed out by Claude Bernard in 1865. Here are some quotes:
> >
> > "When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must acc
ept
> > the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by
> great
> > names and generally accepted"
> >
> > "Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numero
us
> > facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then the
y
> are
> > never final, never to be absolutely believed."
> >
> > If you haven't read his book "An introduction to the study of experimen
tal
> > medicine" you should, it's a fantastic read.
> >
> > G.
> >
> >
> 
> So we should stop talking of Creationism as a Theory, right? Are there an
y
> facts supporting it's Hypothesis? If not, we should begin calling it the
> Hypothesis of Creationism.
> 
> They have stolen our words and weakened them.
> 
No, they are just using the layman's definition of theory, which means 
"guess". Scientific ones require they first be "possible", as suggested 
by actual evidence, before making the leap from guess to theory.

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <47422be6@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet> wrote:
> > Warp hates the mocking and has yet to offer a viable option to it other
 than
> > "Continue to try to convince by presenting the facts." Yet this has fai
led,
> > and failed, and failed. Rather than continue the insanity loop, what sh
ould
> > one do?
> 
>   Are you saying that making fun of other people is a viable and acceptab
le
> solution?

Well... Lets put it this way. If you know that the odds of doing 
nothing, or doing the same things you have done all along, having an 
impact is 0%, then if there is even a 1% chance that mocking someone 
would work instead, why not do it? Mind you, a valid alternative would 
be a lot nicer, like better education. However, we are living in a world 
where some moron can spend $30 billion to send troops to a country they 
don't belong in, *and* screw up the entire plan while there, but will 
then veto a bill adding $1 billion in funding to the NIH, to help find 
cures for things like cancer (and in this case also torpedo a bill that 
would have **required** all research published in various journals to be 
released to the public via PubMed within two years of publication, 
instead of burying it on some research labs basement, where 50 people on 
the verge of curing some disease might not see it for 20 years, if ever. 
A tiny fraction of the research we do in this country is available via 
PubMed, and its the ***most*** important source of data on existing 
research and discoveries for 90% of all doctors and researchers in the 
US, and much of the rest of the western world. His reason? Because he 
couldn't allow congress to go on a "spending spree"... And he had his 
own rider on there too, which got vetoed with it. Something involving 
faith based medical programs, or some similar BS.

When the nuts that won't listen to facts, reason, etc. **are** actively 
trying to pull the rug out from under your feet, you have to do 
something. If you are not allowed to get pissed off and shoot them, they 
won't see "any" reason, and your lack of effect/response is seen as 
defense of the idea that they **might** actually be right, damn right 
its reasonable to instead get people to laugh at them. You can't make 
them uncomfortable by calling them fools, since they will just shout the 
same accusation back. But if even a small percentage of people are 
actively pointing out how much they look like the village idiot, some of 
them *might* be embarrassed enough by the association to question their 
perspective.

This does not, by any means, suggest that "everyone" should do so, or 
that we should all give up on every other path. That wouldn't work 
either. If you want to prove that someone is the village idiot, you have 
to point out what *not* being the village idiot means, and that takes 
all those things that mostly don't work on these people. Fact is, its 
not the people that have had an ethical, social and logical lobotomy 
such joking and farce is targeted at. Its the guy that doesn't know a 
damn thing about the subject, and might have reacted to us treating 
these people like they are honest challengers, instead of a bloody clown 
car full of circus performers, as a sign that *both* sides actually have 
valid arguments. Right now, in this country, you won't get shot for 
showing a picture of Jesus holding a machine gun, the way you will if 
you did the same with Mohammad in the ME, but just try to go on the TV, 
on *any* news show, on *any* network, or write a book, or film a 
documentary, or do "anything" that tries to suggest that one side has no 
answers, while the other has, at least, most of them, and watch them a) 
edit it to look like the other side has an equally valid argument, write 
a review of your book calling it all nonsense, then presenting the 
"other" side as if its all truthful, refuse to show your documentary at 
all, and or send you masses of hate mail, death threats and talk at 
length about you on their televangelist programs, saying that you are 
the worst thing since the anti-christ. And watch as the **only** people 
that actively defend you against this BS are other people who received 
the same treatment.

Its not possible in this environment to get anything in the news or news 
papers, without some idiot thinking *equal time* has to be given to some 
nut case that knows nothing about the subject at all, and does nothing 
but complain about how some crazy strawman version of your views is the 
cause of everything from the fall or western civilization to graphetti 
and AIDS. And in some papers/news programs, no one is either allowed, 
given the opportunity to, and/or bothers to refute any of it. But, such 
people are not only allowed to, but actually paid and encouraged, to do 
precisely what you think we shouldn't, make scientists look like idiots 
and buffoons. And they have been doing that for at least 40 years. In 
the 1950s, you might have seen a lot of literature, comics and TV about 
mad scientists and the risks of abusing knowledge, but science was 
*respected* and not at least pretending to comprehend some of it was a 
sign of brain damage (or nearly so), now the trend has been reversed in 
some segments of the population, and groups like DI are *actively* 
trying to replace science and *any* material explanation for the world, 
with faith and magic.

I just don't get why you think they should be allowed to make any idiot 
argument they like, be impervious to "any" argument, and continue to use 
our *fair* treatment of them as evidence of their supposed "superior" 
position, instead of us, for once, being decidedly unfair, and **very** 
clear exactly how nuts we think they actually are. Since they will hate 
us anyway, it doesn't matter if they like us less after laughing our 
asses off at them than before, back when we acted like they where worth 
taking seriously in the first place, and lended them unjustified 
credibility by doing so.

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Warp nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/11/19 17:39:
> Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet> wrote:
>> For shame. Now you're just mocking him for the sake of mocking.
> 
>   How unimaginative to reuse the same old joke someone else already used.
> 
>   What next? Some incomprehensive allusion to rabbits?
> 
Vorpal rabbits?

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Gone crazy, be back later, leave message.

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> DI is claiming that this: "Q: Can you accept evolution and still believe 
> in religion? A: Yes. The common view that evolution is inherently anti-
> religious is simply false." 

That's correct. Nothing is inherently anti-religious, because religion 
is illogical and irrational. Truth is not inherently anti-religious, 
falseness is not inherently anti-religious. Religion is a contradictory 
logical system within which anything can be proven, disproven, and 
change on a whim.

So evolution has nothing to say about religion, no. They're orthogonal.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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