"If you are teaching intolerance, we WILL shut you down!" English Prime Minister David Cameron

by stuckinarut2 51 Replies latest social current

  • Simon
    Simon
    you don't believe scientific facts are subject to change? Of course they are! Stephen Fry mentioned on QI the other week that something like 20% of scientific facts are discarded per decade. It's got a technical term, "factual slippage" or something. Some facts (4.5 billion years as age of the earth) are obviously more vulnerable than others (roughly spherical) to "slippage", but nothing is entirely, 100%, absolutely, positively, immune to revision. That's the point. To preach otherwise is indoctrination.

    That's just semantics over the definition of the word "facts".

    Scientific theories are revised based on the currently known facts and some assumptions to fill the missing facts we don't yet have or can't get. We check that theories fit other know facts and that helps us know which ones are likely to be correct or not.

    The facts don't change unless some measurement is found to be defective or a better one comes along (in which case the facts are better described as being refined).

    It all depends on how things are communicated too. It would be wrong to interpret "the earth is 4.5 billion years old" as meaning "to the day". But it's a fact that the earth is more likely in the 4.5 billion year age range vs 6,000 years based on all the evidence (the facts) available through the filter of current theory and knowledge.

    If further learning and discovery shows us that 5 billion is a better number I hardly think we've abandoned a fact.

    Also, the earth is flat. I have a picture of it in a book by a guy called Atlas. It is as flat as a piece of paper and also has am underwater canyon that spells out "copyright" somewhere in the south china seas.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    I didn't say pansychism is true, I said is gaining popularity over materialism. It also happens to be true but that is a separate issue. It's illogical to say something is true because it is popular, unless there is a positive relationship between popularity and truth that we haven't discovered yet. But I doubt many people would hold that there is such a relationship between popularity of a belief and truth, which is either evidence for or against the view, depending on the outcome of the original conundrum. Maybe.
  • cofty
    cofty
    I didn't say pansychism is true, I said is gaining popularity over materialism

    So?

    It's bullshit. It's popular. So is astrology.

    Science works.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    How do we know for sure that a human is any more qualified to distinguish a "fact" about the world from a convenient construct of his own mind than an ant is qualified to distinguish a Mercedes from a Volkswagen?
  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Serious philosophers consider pansychism a reasonable explanation, can't say same for astrology. Like I say check out Thomas Nagel it's a pure revelation.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

  • cofty
    cofty

    Not doing this. Couldn't give a shit. Goodnight

    "there is no such thing as a fact and that's a fact" - SBF

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    Indeed, "doubt everything, including this", the wisest words spoken.
  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    Night Cofty, just remember we are stardust, and that's a fact!
  • Simon
    Simon
    It's illogical to say something is true because it is popular

    That is a fact that will always be a fact. In the same way that it's illogical to say something is a cabbage because it is disliked.

    How do we know for sure that a human is any more qualified to distinguish a "fact" about the world from a convenient construct of his own mind than an ant is qualified to distinguish a Mercedes from a Volkswagen?

    Because we have intelligence. We can reason about the universe and observe rules and build instruments to measure things, look at things and check our theories.

    We can believe what we want, even bullshit like pansychism ... but I like my beliefs to align with the known facts and evidence. By all means though, believe some new-age nonsense. It's the same as putting a Pineapple on a stick and calling it god.

    It may be god ... but the chances of it don't look good.

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    @slimboyfat

    This thread was originally about intolerance being taught in schools. Recently (over the past few years) in the UK, there have been issues/claims concerning intolerance being taught in religious schools. There were concerns that Saudi-funded text books taught that Jews are descended from pigs, and that homosexuality should be punished according to Sharia law.

    Yes, unfortunately some scientists have little time for religious beliefs, even showing mockery and seeming intolerance. But my senior lecturer at uni was remarkably tolerant for an atheist. She even told our class it's ok if you have religious belief or choose not to accept evolution, but you must understand evolution to be scientists.

    Are you really attempting to draw a moral equivalence between religious intolerance and intolerance for religion that exists among scientists?!

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