I think discussing the merits of an argument and motivated reasoning to some degree turn out to be mutually exclusive concepts. It's very likely that a "motivated reasoner" will not discuss the merits of an opposing argument. On the other hand some arguments are so asinine that one may not be, well, motivated to bother.
cognisonance
JoinedPosts by cognisonance
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Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences
by slimboyfat ini thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.
i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.
i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.
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Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences
by slimboyfat ini thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.
i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.
i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.
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cognisonance
slimboyfat,
I updated my previous post in the last 30 minutes. You might want to (re)read it. Also please at least check out the last link and the one about Motivated Reasoning.
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Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences
by slimboyfat ini thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.
i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.
i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.
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cognisonance
I read the abstract to the dating the flood pdf. I'll ask one question:
Why bother trying to date an event that has little (if any) evidence for its existence? If the evidence is the bible, well we have a circular problem (evidence for an event is the source claiming the event happened). For such an extraordinary claim, the existence of flood myth stories is nowhere near being extraordinary evidence (and is also subject to circular reasoning). Due to a faulty (or weak) premise (assuming a global flood was real), attacking C14 dating thus makes little sense without first establishing the claimed event actually happened. A much better approach would be to examine geological evidence to see if there is any that supports a global deluge.
Examining the evidence showing evolution happened and that no global flood existed was the key to me leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses. I read a lot of material on the topic of scientific dating, the flood, and evolution. The latter interested me more and I remember that topic more compared to a global flood, but I do have the general impression that the evidence for a global flood was severely underwhelming, nonexistent even. Of course the two topics are related and the evidence for evolution is so strong that it alone shows the idea of a global flood to be nonsense. For the relationship between the two I'd highly suggest reading the book Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne (page 88-96 regarding biogeography in particular).
The JW's incompetence at research at best, or lies at worst, showed they could not be trusted. They argued about topics like a global flood and against Evolution from a perspective not of intellectual honesty, but one of Motivated Reasoning. Gertoux is doing the same thing.
I would suggest that instead of searching out material that confirms your own beliefs that you critically analyze the evidence for a global flood and evolution yourself. Beware of self-deception (or self-bias depending if you are pedantic academically). I talked about the problem here on this forum. -
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Director of XYZ Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, Inc.
by cognisonance ini googled my childhood best friend that i grew up with in the cult.
he's my age and has shunned me for the past 4 years despite my efforts to reach out to him.today, i noticed a listing online that states he is a director of his congregation.
i suppose only elders can fill this position (he wasn't an elder when i was a jw).
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cognisonance
The google results was to a website "BusinessProfiles.com" and the congregation was listed as a corporation with directors, incorporators, treasurer, president, ect. -
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Director of XYZ Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, Inc.
by cognisonance ini googled my childhood best friend that i grew up with in the cult.
he's my age and has shunned me for the past 4 years despite my efforts to reach out to him.today, i noticed a listing online that states he is a director of his congregation.
i suppose only elders can fill this position (he wasn't an elder when i was a jw).
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cognisonance
I googled my childhood best friend that I grew up with in the cult. He's my age and has shunned me for the past 4 years despite my efforts to reach out to him.
Today, I noticed a listing online that states he is a Director of his congregation. What does this mean? I suppose only elders can fill this position (he wasn't an elder when I was a jw). -
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August Awake on DNA... A (probably somewhat informal) proof of incorrect logic
by cognisonance ini sometimes look at articles still to see what my parents are learning and how that frames their view of me (former member, atheist, computational evolutionary researcher).. anyway for the proof using propositional logic:.
p = information.
q = attributed to intelligence and not mindless processes..
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cognisonance
I would simply say that while it is true people often attribute information to intelligence when we are taking about archeological digs or possible messages from space, it isn't the case that people will always attribute information to intelligence in other situations, for example, snowflakes, tree rings, sand on the ocean floor, ice core samples, and so on. What is happening here is the Awake is making an hasty generalization, which simply is wrong (like so many other types of over generalizations [think about racism]). It's easy to disprove by simply providing a counter example[s].
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August Awake on DNA... A (probably somewhat informal) proof of incorrect logic
by cognisonance ini sometimes look at articles still to see what my parents are learning and how that frames their view of me (former member, atheist, computational evolutionary researcher).. anyway for the proof using propositional logic:.
p = information.
q = attributed to intelligence and not mindless processes..
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cognisonance
Funny, since most of the "information" in DNA is apparently "junk", i.e. gibberish.
Most of my current research is on "junk dna." Science is showing that a great deal of the non-protein-coding sections of dna are highly conserved, such as sections that involve transposable elements (TEs). For example, about 20% of the junk dna in the mustard plant are TEs.
I bring this up because that assertion is not a good one to use in argumentation regarding creationist claims.
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August Awake on DNA... A (probably somewhat informal) proof of incorrect logic
by cognisonance ini sometimes look at articles still to see what my parents are learning and how that frames their view of me (former member, atheist, computational evolutionary researcher).. anyway for the proof using propositional logic:.
p = information.
q = attributed to intelligence and not mindless processes..
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cognisonance
From 2015 Awake, bold for emphasis:
As is often the case, when scientists explain one mystery, they open a door to another. That was true regarding the discovery of DNA. When it was understood that DNA contains coded information, thoughtful people asked, ‘How did the information get there?’ Of course, no human observed the formation of the first DNA molecule. So we have to draw our own conclusions. Even so, these conclusions need not be speculative. Consider the following comparisons.
In 1999, fragments of very ancient pottery with unusual markings, or symbols, were found in Pakistan. The marks still remain undeciphered. Nevertheless, they are considered man-made.
A few years after Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, two physicists proposed searching for coded radio signals from space. Thus began the modern-day search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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August Awake on DNA... A (probably somewhat informal) proof of incorrect logic
by cognisonance ini sometimes look at articles still to see what my parents are learning and how that frames their view of me (former member, atheist, computational evolutionary researcher).. anyway for the proof using propositional logic:.
p = information.
q = attributed to intelligence and not mindless processes..
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cognisonance
I sometimes look at articles still to see what my parents are learning and how that frames their view of me (former member, atheist, computational evolutionary researcher).
Anyway for the proof using propositional logic:
p -> q (if we have p, then also have q)
p = information
q = attributed to intelligence and not mindless processes.
So the proposition is if there is information in something then it must be attributed to intelligence.
We can provide proof that this proposition is false. To do so all we need to do is provide a counter example where we have p, but do not have q. In fact I'll provide three for overkill.
1. Snowflakes. The exact structure of each snowflake contains information, information about the environment in which it forms. In fact this information can be said to have come about by "mindless processes," in that it is a form of order that was achieved by stochastic mechanisms. This example shows no intelligent agent was needed to encode a snowflake
2. Tree rings. Each ring of a tree contains information not just about the age of the tree, but also its growth each year (and probably other things). There is no need to attribute this information to some intelligent agent, as the mindless processes of the growth of a tree are sufficient to generate the information.
3. Ocean Floor. The layers sand on the ocean floor contains information about the environment of the sea over multiple years. There was not intelligence to the creation of this information. Rather it was generated by once again the stochastic mechanisms that are at play in ocean.
So here are three examples of "information" where people don't attribute to God or aliens. Clearly, then the Awake article is making a generalization where such is not warranted. The logic is clearly incorrect.
Of course there is the other problem of the examples they provide being weak analogies (comparing man-made, not living things to DNA). There is also the problem of incorrectly applying information theory (no sender/receiver, no predetermined alphabet, etc).
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Campbell Biology - An Awesome Textbook!
by cognisonance ini just finished a general biology course at my university (covering cellular/molecular biology, function, and structure).
also, received an a+ too!
:) our textbook was campbell biology.
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cognisonance
I wasn't aware Campbell died. That's too bad. The 10th edition (2013) is the most current, but my professor said the 9th (2011) would be sufficient.
By the way, I find it very time consuming reading this book with all the diagrams to look at and compare, the questions to think about after each section [usually these are interesting critical thinking questions, though I'll admit to skipping many of them]. I averaged about 6 minutes per page, which is about 85 WPM for this text. I'm not the fastest reader anyway, but normally read at about 200-250 WPM. For me I was reading this text not to merely memorize for the exams, but rather to learn. I found the material so well presented and interesting that it was almost as fun as binge watching Netflix.