religion

[paulgiamatti]

No scientific claims are made from experiments that yield a 100% success rate. A 100% success rate means that claim is unfasifiable. However, as I mentioned earlier, when an experiment is conducted properly the margin of error accounting for simple human discrepancy is very, very small. Every scientific claim is predicated on experimentation that yields a success rate of in the percentile of 99.9 with a bunch of numbers repeating afterwards.

[paulgiamatti]

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

let us assume God did exist, and he had some sort of expectation to help out our fellow man, would it really rely on him so much to heal the sick when there is the technology to heal the sick?

I'd be happy to repeat the experiment for you without involving the healing of the sick, if you so desire. This isn't about what prayer is used for, but if prayer itself is testable, which it is.

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

A majority of scientific minds could believe one thing to be so, therefore it is so. It works kind of like a majority vote you could say. It's also one reason science is always evolving, because things in life may later point out something wrong in previous conclusions.

No one is denying this. This is the entire basis on which the groundwork of scientific methodology is predicated.

[RobotElvis]

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

i don't know about evolution or intelligent design but better question:

who is dumber, the guy with no reading comprehension or the guy who has written 30,000 words to a guy who allegedly can't comprehend what he's reading?

HA! I get it

[Eliseus]

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

I'd be happy to repeat the experiment for you without involving the healing of the sick, if you so desire. This isn't about what prayer is used for, but if prayer itself is testable, which it is.



No one is denying this. This is the entire basis on which the groundwork of scientific methodology is predicated.

You are opening yourself into an entirely different ballpark. There is more to prayer than just committing the act. You can try though, doesn't matter to me. It's irrelevant to the criteria leewrong gave though. Again, he didn't ask for 100% certainty, and no scientist would even ask for 100%, because they know they would be shooting themselves in the foot to claim any theory is ever 100%. He asked for people to have the same results, which people have. Also considering prayer requires some sort of faith rather than doing it out of proof. I'm sure if God does exist, he doesn't sit up there following your demands. This is entirely a different topic though not relevant to the current discussion, at least in my opinion.

The second part, you can somewhat see the issue that arises. I don't want to say people would skew results, or vote for some kind of majority thing that is wrong (we will ignore Obama being in office), but basically, this could imply everything in life is fake, even religion etc. When 10 idiots gang up against 1 person for the info he gives, doesn't make the 10 idiots correct. Well, with the idea present, it actually does. It just make them misinformed, but what do you base things in life off of? Usually if the majority views it as correct, it usually is correct.

To give more examples, and this is just off of googling.

Geocentric Universe

Miasmatic theory of disease

there is a bunch more, but I don't really feel there is a need to post so many.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superse...tific_theories

is a good read to give an example of what I'm talking about. It also supports the evolving idea that you have present on scientific theories. The issue arises is when theories are presented which actually have a lot of wholes, and scientists who believe we should accept such theories because they say so, what do you believe. Evolution may not be right, it may not be wrong, but truly, there is a lot of wholes and contradictions in the theory when examined thoroughly (just like you would claim with religion). Hell, I just read an article during this debate about scientists being baffled on the origin of some random creatures they are discovering and plants that don't hold true at all to the evolutionary theory (yes, as much as you guys don't think I read on this stuff, I do, I actually find this stuff very enlightening and entertaining).

[Eliseus]

And I mean holes, sorry, really wish we could edit

[Eliseus]

Something that just popped into my head is I think the issue I personally have is you can almost never claim science to be false, because science claims it is always evolving and since we don't know everything, we must accept the knowledge we have till a later date. For example, evolution could be completely 100% fabricated, but we have to accept that is what it is that this time, even more so if you don't believe in God. Maybe the belief in God extends to that people need something else to believe in because science is false at time.

[RobotElvis]

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

Something that just popped into my head is I think the issue I personally have is you can almost never claim science to be false, because science claims it is always evolving and since we don't know everything, we must accept the knowledge we have till a later date. For example, evolution could be completely 100% fabricated, but we have to accept that is what it is that this time, even more so if you don't believe in God. Maybe the belief in God extends to that people need something else to believe in because science is false at time.

In many ways, epistemology is like an economic system. With all the right theoreticians in all the right places, one can arbitrarily bestow epistemological primacy upon those paradigms that are most socially and politically expedient. In such a climate of epistemological suppression, academic and institutional barriers prevent competitors from accessing the ideational marketplace. Meanwhile, a self-proclaimed cognitive elite monopolizes the economy of popular thought. This oligopoly of knowledge, in short, amounts to an epistemological cartel, promoting its anointed ideologues and squelching cognitive dissenters.

[paulgiamatti]

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

You are opening yourself into an entirely different ballpark. There is more to prayer than just committing the act. You can try though, doesn't matter to me.

Ah yes, the unfaithful will not have their prayers answered, so in this case we would simply adjust the experiment to make sure the one doing the praying is committed to whichever deity it is that's being prayed to. I can assure you though, this is actually a testable subject. I don't need to try to do it, because it's already been done and repeated by real scientists. And just in case you're wondering, the success rate doesn't get any better than the mock-results I gave. In fact it gets much, much worse.

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

no scientist would even ask for 100%, because they know they would be shooting themselves in the foot to claim any theory is ever 100%.

I'm not denying this, and no one who understands anything about scientific methodology would either.

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

When 10 idiots gang up against 1 person for the info he gives, doesn't make the 10 idiots correct.

Again, I don't know why this needs to be pointed out. I'm not denying this, and this is not an accurate representation of the scientific method.

[Eliseus]

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

In many ways, epistemology is like an economic system. With all the right theoreticians in all the right places, one can arbitrarily bestow epistemological primacy upon those paradigms that are most socially and politically expedient. In such a climate of epistemological suppression, academic and institutional barriers prevent competitors from accessing the ideational marketplace. Meanwhile, a self-proclaimed cognitive elite monopolizes the economy of popular thought. This oligopoly of knowledge, in short, amounts to an epistemological cartel, promoting its anointed ideologues and squelching cognitive dissenters.

Here's a question, if God doesn't exist, do you think man would create him? This might need to be explained further.

[iruinedyourday]

If you guys keep it up the energy produced in the rapped page numbers increasing on this thread it will create a second big bang and all our DNA will be imprinted into a norrathian/earthlike planet and all shall live in harmony, except for some of the more serious raiding guilds.