The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction and the fault is ours

[Bazia]

u guys must have good weed

[Ersuvus]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lollllllll

[Glenzig]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In the same sense that I have faith in my ability to observe and make note of something, yes.

So you only believe what you can see?

[paulgiamatti]

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So you only believe what you can see?

From the "Why?" thread:

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Fundamentally and scientifically, this is true. I mean, I highly suspect that this is true, as have many other philosophers, intellectuals, and scientists. No scientific study that answers important questions about the universe is 100% conclusive, but we still go ahead and say that something is a fact or that something is true.

And the reason we do this is because it would be really frustrating to have to say, "The likelihood of x being true falls within the percentile of 99.9-repeating." Just as it would be really frustrating to have to say, "I highly suspect that Uzbekistan is a real place. I've never been there, and I don't know anyone who's been there, but I think it is very likely that this place exists." We don't say that for a good reason - we just say Uzbekistan is a real place and that this is a fact. It is a part of human knowledge. It has transcended opinion and graduated to truth.

First of all, Shakespeare never said this. This is a quote from a character in Tim Minchin's beat poem Storm who references Shakespeare. The original quote from Hamlet is as follows:

Shakespeare was right about philosophy, certainly. As Arthur Eddington said, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we *can* imagine."

Things like love, spirituality, and the idea of a soul become more explainable at the level of the brain every single day. These things are being explained by neuroscience at this very moment while we sit here and play ForumQuest. Science doesn't have every single answer to everything in the universe yet, but this fact alone doesn't have anything to say about how successful it's been in explaining reality to us so far. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for science. We owe everything to it, which is why it's our best indicator of truth. We can never know truth, but we can and must chase after it, and science simply provides us with the best compass for doing so. It is our true north, regardless of whether or not you or anyone else likes it.

[Glenzig]

Is that your round about way of saying that you believe what scientists tell you to believe? Cause if that isn't your point, could you maybe express it a little more concisely?

[DetroitVelvetSmooth]

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is that your round about way of saying that you believe what scientists tell you to believe? Cause if that isn't your point, could you maybe express it a little more concisely?

It's more often something like, "I trust that the scientific community is a sufficiently critical and competent body when it comes to understanding several complex and non-intuitive features of the natural world."

[paulgiamatti]

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is that your round about way of saying that you believe what scientists tell you to believe?

No, but it is my roundabout way of saying that "So you only believe what you can see?" is an incredibly stupid question.

Science doesn't tell anyone what to believe. Science tells us we should question beliefs and treat them with skepticism because, as Krauss often elucidates, the universe simply doesn't care what we believe. Something is either true, or it isn't, and science is simply the best method that we have for telling us what is true, or what isn't. If you refuse to acknowledge this, then you refuse to acknowledge that you're living in the 21st century.

This message board exists because of science. The fact that our average life expectancy is now inching toward 80 years is because of science. All of our buildings, our cars, our technology, our entertainment, our food - everything we love and take for granted in our lives - is because of science. So if you refuse to acknowledge it, and if you refuse to "have faith" in science - as you stupidly put it - like the rest of us do, then that's your problem and not ours.

[Tradesonred]

Your discussion makes me think of something, that sometimes scientists act like priests.

Say when the female amateur anthropologist Elaine Morgan presented her case for the aquatic ape theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis some of the critique laid against her was that she was an outsider, that if "serious" anthropologists didnt figure this out on their own, how could she? Or the initial resistance upon cave paintings discovery of accepting that they might genuinely be from prehistoric times.

I had the same feeling hearing Frank Drake talk about long distance space travel (he was talking of it in general, not just the ability of the human race to do so), which he says is most likely impossible because of tiny pebbles in space that will make so much energy upon contact with a fast traveling ship that it will create nuclear explosions.

I couldnt beleive that this guy, who is responsible for the birth of the SETI program, wasnt able to conceive that a civilization who knows how electricity works for millions of years, not a century and a half, might have solved this problem a million years ago. Not being able to conceive that at the exponential rate technology is progressing, in 500 years if we didnt eradicate ourselves this might be a trivial space travel problem.

Thats what i was talking about in the OP, scientists in love with their own proficiency, humility about possibilities goes out the window.

Technology is another thing that terrifies me, not in itself but what unconscienable people will do with it. Like the terminator seed patent from Monsanto, which prevents a plant from creating seeds. This is some Dr. Death bullshit right there.

[Glenzig]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No, but it is my roundabout way of saying that "So you only believe what you can see?" is an incredibly stupid question.

Science doesn't tell anyone what to believe. Science tells us we should question beliefs and treat them with skepticism because, as Krauss often elucidates, the universe simply doesn't care what we believe. Something is either true, or it isn't, and science is simply the best method that we have for telling us what is true, or what isn't. If you refuse to acknowledge this, then you refuse to acknowledge that you're living in the 21st century.

This message board exists because of science. The fact that our average life expectancy is now inching toward 80 years is because of science. All of our buildings, our cars, our technology, our entertainment, our food - everything we love and take for granted in our lives - is because of science. So if you refuse to acknowledge it, and if you refuse to "have faith" in science - as you stupidly put it - like the rest of us do, then that's your problem and not ours.

Why would I deny the good science has done? We have access to some very remarkable technology thanks to scientific advancement. Medical science has come a long way in just the past hundred years, and has all but done away with some of the diseases that may have killed a lot of people.
However, science is still done by humans. Therefore it's has had some very disastrous consequences also.

The fact that science is done by humans also opens it up for bias. That bias is plainly seen with frequency if you aren't plugging your ears. Name a scientist that believes in intelligent design and listen to the cries of "he isn't a real scientist".
To flatly insist that there is no bias in science is to hold a very shallow view of human nature, not to mention history.

[Glenzig]

[QUOTE=Tradesonred;1961731]Your discussion makes me think of something, that sometimes scientists act like priests./QUOTE]

True. And some of them would literally like to be viewed as such.

Michael Shermer. From his book The Shamans of Scientism:
"First, cosmology and evolutionary theory ask the ultimate origin questions that have traditionally been the province of religion and theology. Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and in the process is providing spiritual sustenance for those whose needs are not being met by these ancient cultural traditions. Second, we are, at base, a socially hierarchical primate species. We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scientism’s
shamans who command our veneration. Third, because of language we are also storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier mythmakers of our time."