Posts by Caedes

58

UK "shoot to kill" - mixed up justice

by Simon in

how stupid is this .... the police execute an innocent man going about his lawful business ... no charges.

someone exposes the information showing the police lied and covered up facts about the killing ... arrest her !!.

what a pathetic excuse for a justice system we have.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4280238.stm.

Caedes

Robdar,

I did spend some time abroad when Thatcher was in power and had my ear bent many a time regarding her policies, As a guest in someone elses country I didn't feel I should have criticised those people, they were expressing their own opinions in their own country. Why should a scotsman not express his opinions in his own country, he wasn't the foreigner you were.

In much the same way my experience of America was that people were more than willing to argue with me regarding europeans all hating bush.

So although you say you dont object to people expressing their opinion that's as long as it's not to you. Unfortunately the impression given by most Americans is that "hey we don't care what you think about us and we don't care about your little country". I think until America reigns in it's foreign policy and military spending, people will continue to have a problem with Americans generally, however unfair that is.

In the meantime I still think it's hypocritical to express an opinion publicly on british domestic security issues without accepting that people are entitled to express their opinions to you on similar theme. I don't think I have made any assumptions here I just have an opinion based on your previous posts on the subject.

87

Why Fundyism is Irrational

by jgnat in

lately i've been putting a lot of thought in to what is rational and what must be relegated to faith alone.

ever since the scientific method was discovered, humanity has attempted to put it to work in so many areas.

after all, discoveries exploded once we were set free from the shackles of tradition.

Caedes

Old soul the point isn't that any of the probabilities approach one, each of the individual probabilities can be very low (some of them probably aren't low but we will assume that they are) once you add them you will have a figure that tells you what the likelihood is of there being intelligent life in a particular solar system. By any reasonable estimate that figure will be extremely low but not zero. You would then multiply by the large number of stars in the universe which would then give you a figure approaching 1. It doesn't matter what the variables are set at since the number of stars is such a large number.

You are right to say however that this isn't science as such, it's probability, and the mathematical solution doesn't really prove anything it just means that there probably are aliens out there, but as you say that knowledge doesn't really help us.

As for consensus science I agree, until we have hard evidence then speculation is just that. However I don't think you'll find too many astro-physicists willing to lay their funding on the line without evidence, planets have been found - the fact that we started finding them as soon as we had instuments sensitive enough to find them would suggest that they are common.

Obviously you dont have to go back too far to find all kinds of pseudoscientific quackery spouted by scientists (medicine being a prime example) but i don't think that undermines scientific progress or methodology or suggests that consensus has an iron grip on the scientific community. The fact that there is change in scientific thinking shows that that isn't so.

As I said I'm not a biochemist but I understand that there is strong evidence that carbon is more suited to being the basis for organic life than any other molecule, It is your assumption that that means it would be something we would understand or even recognise as life.

87

Why Fundyism is Irrational

by jgnat in

lately i've been putting a lot of thought in to what is rational and what must be relegated to faith alone.

ever since the scientific method was discovered, humanity has attempted to put it to work in so many areas.

after all, discoveries exploded once we were set free from the shackles of tradition.

Caedes

Old soul said

If you meant, "So that we can finally start viewing the probabilities realistically," sadly, no. The variables have all had values assigned, but the values are utter guesses. You can easily understand why there would be no "educated" guess available for how many stars there are, how many planets per solar system, how many of those planets are capable of sustaining carbon-based life (that assumption has always makes me laugh), of those how many actually would have developed life, of those that have developed life, how many would have developed intelligent life...

A couple of other points to answer here, there are some very good estimates for the number of stars in the universe and many different ways to calculate a figure. The important thing is not the accuracy of the variable but that it gives an idea of the magnitude of that side of the equation. Even the most conservative estimates give a figure of around 10 to the power 20 (22).

Current astophysicists think that planets are a common feature of most solar systems and Carbon based life is the most likely because carbon is a very versatile building block (I'm not a bio-chemist but I believe it has something to do with how readily carbon forms bonds with other molecules compared with anything else)

Looks like you might have to brush up on your Martian after all!

58

UK "shoot to kill" - mixed up justice

by Simon in

how stupid is this .... the police execute an innocent man going about his lawful business ... no charges.

someone exposes the information showing the police lied and covered up facts about the killing ... arrest her !!.

what a pathetic excuse for a justice system we have.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4280238.stm.

Caedes

The police and security services have always had a shoot to kill policy, if someone is dangerous enough that the police have to open fire then the aim is always to kill, there is no such thing as shooting to wound, thats just luck if you survive.

Robdar, I thought you didn't feel that foreigners should have a critical opinion on domestic politics in America? Or is it differant when it comes to you criticising UK politics? After all your country had a terrorist attack and invaded two countries, we have a terrorist attack and shoot one innocent man. Obviously I have no problem with you criticising the UK but don't complain when people have something to say on your country's own imperialistic warmongering in return. In answer to your question, no a bullet is not likely to set off any explosive but of course that doesn't explain why the officer decided to shoot him eight times rather than the normal two or three, I rather suspect (and hope) that the officer had his weapon set to full auto by mistake.

Should it turn out that the security services had faulty intelligence that gave them reason to suspect Mr menezes was a terrorist then they were probably right to shoot him, better that than another underground bomb going off. At the moment it looks like that wasn't the case and that the police just bungled it.

58

Did Noahs Ark drift about aimlessly in the Great Flood?

by EliJah in

no where does it mention that noah traveled around the world in his big boat.

in fact, is says that the ark was floating "high above the earth".

also, what does matthew mean about "just like in the days of noah?

Caedes

I would have thought it would sink due to the weight of all the manure from the millions of animals on board.

29

Are you living your life fully knowing that you will one day die?

by JH in

jw
friends

as jw's it was out of the question to die.

the end was too close for that to happen, unless you had a bad accident or sickness.

most of us believed that we wouldn't die, and on top of that we were about to become young again.. since we will all die, do you make it a priority in your life right now to live it fully, and to love fully the ones you care for because every day you skip, its lost and won't come back..

Caedes

professor said

Thanks for reminding me [edit]. You just trashed three years of therapy.

Your therapist told you that you aren't going to die?! sheesh, I'd ask for a refund.

87

Why Fundyism is Irrational

by jgnat in

lately i've been putting a lot of thought in to what is rational and what must be relegated to faith alone.

ever since the scientific method was discovered, humanity has attempted to put it to work in so many areas.

after all, discoveries exploded once we were set free from the shackles of tradition.

Caedes

Old Soul said

Drake's Equation is couched in scientific terms, it is strung together prettily on paper, and in the end we have only one value that we can reliably plug into any variable in such an equation. We know of 1 planet with intelligent life. Mathmeticians, help me out here. Can you determine the probability of intelligent life on other planets from such an equation? Plainly, the answer is no.

I'm afraid the answer to the question might be no but ultimately the question you have posed isn't the right one. Since the variables in the equation can't be known to any degree of accuracy worth considering we will have to assume all the variables are going to be extremely low however the important point is that when you multiply that extremely low probability by the huge number of stars in the universe then you get a figure that is very close to 1 i.e. one hundred percent probability. It makes no difference what figures you plug into the equation as long as they aren't zero. So, no you can't calculate the probability as such since we don't have any reliable way of knowing what the variables are but what you can predict that the answer approaches 1 even with a vanishingly small probability of life on any one particular planet.

Not that it matters since we are too far away to do anything about it though.

23

Why do tragedies happen....

by Shining One in

...the answer is in genesis.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0923rita.asp .

rex

Caedes

In this case It was probably climate change caused by people

44

Ridicolous JW folklore

by Hellrider in

the thread about this one, had k.i.s.s in the title.

that reminded me about something funny.

when i was a kid, the biggest rockband in the world was kiss.

Caedes

You all must remember the famous one with the young pioneer "sister" calling on the door of a serial killer all by herself, and finding out later that the reason she hadnt been attacked was because there were 2 tall, burly men standing behind her, as observed by the potential killer? Two bad-ass angels standing behind her!! yeah !!!

I remember hearing that one and thinking did someone go back and ask the serial killer? and why weren't they attacked.

I also remember my sister having to get rid of her troll figures for being demonic and I wasn't allowed to play d&d because It would take over my life or some other nonsense, i was also not allowed to read sci-fi books for a similar reason.

30

Do men want to get married?

by ApagaLaLuz in

do men still believe in the sanctity of marriage?

or is teh saying "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free" really true.

call me cynical, i guess just because i've had so many guy friends.

Caedes

I would like to get married, all i'm looking for is a woman who isn't totally insane, doesn't want to shag around behind my back and doesn't have a face like a bag of chisels, surely that's not asking too much?

it is? oh well never mind, i'll have to make do with mrs palm and her five lovely daughters instead