jamest wrote:

Weaver wrote:For fuck's sake, can't we keep the philosophowibble bullshit confined to the philosophowibble forum, where practitioners can masturbate to their hearts' content that "there is no reality" and "The real world is simply a figment of my imagination - preferably with huge fucking tits." and so forth?

Take the bullshit elsewhere - actual people are talking about the actual world, not some philosophowibble construct.

I experience the same world as you. So if there's any bollocks spoken here, as there is, then I'll remain to cut them off.

The fact is that you're all using science to undermine and belittle what are seemingly Xian beliefs. This isn't just wrong, it's primitively wrong. The consequence of entertaining a false dichotomy and of having little if any ontological education.

The issues here are entirely philosophical. If you want to pretend that your tribalism entitles you and your ilk from intellectual challenge, then think again. If you and your ilk are essentially talking philosophy - and you all are, even without knowing it - then be prepared for a storm.

Oh, spare me the bullshit. I've had ontological education - it's mental masturbation, disconnected from actuality by deliberate processes.

The simple fact is that Christianity is wrong in its entirety, that the Bible is worthless as an educational guide, and that science, flawed though it may be in some details, remains the single best method of determining what is actually happening in the world and separating it from myth, superstition and magical thinking.

The sort of magical thinking which leads people to believe there is some kind of deeper reality to the world only accessible via logical argument and deep thought - AKA mental masturbation. Or, as I like to call it, philosophowibble.

jamest wrote:
Abiogenesis and evolution are coupled at the onset of life...

Utter twaddle!.
Evolution is the response of life to environmental change whether it be extinction or adapt to survive. It does not depend or has any link to how the life was created in the first place (whether it be by abiogenesis or some mystical magical Sky Daddy or some other method as yet unknown or postulated).

Alan B wrote:

jamest wrote:
Abiogenesis and evolution are coupled at the onset of life...

Utter twaddle!.
Evolution is the response of life to environmental change whether it be extinction or adapt to survive. It does not depend or has any link to how the life was created in the first place (whether it be by abiogenesis or some mystical magical Sky Daddy or some other method as yet unknown or postulated).

Abiogenesis is the theory that physical processes sufficed to constitute the onset of life, though the environment had a factor in all of this. Evolutionary theory places a greater emphasis upon the environment, but again any changes in a species are purported to have come about via physical processes, even from the onset of life. Hence the theories are coupled in that they necessarily shake hands at the onset and progress in a similar vein.

jamest wrote:

nunnington wrote:I didn't think that science is taught in schools with a leavening of 'naive realism'. Is it? It would certainly be difficult to combine the teaching of science, with a course in philosophy, which might introduce the topic of philosophical idealism.

Nobody has suggested that kids should be taught idealism, but at the very least they should understand why science is divorced from materialism.

Do you think that physics teachers start teaching atomic structure by saying, 'listen, kids, all this stuff is real'? Maybe they do, but I think that kids who become interested in stuff like this can go on and study philosophy of science. The teachers are more likely to say that science works, aren't they, which is correct.

But this argument goes back to Bacon at least, who in some of his books, e.g. Novum Organum, argued that scientists should stop deliberating about Aristotle and use their senses to make observations. Well, it worked quite well!

Oh dear, more elementary fail.

jamest wrote:

Fallible wrote:As for the headteacher, sadly the British education system is full of ostensibly educated individuals who can't keep their beliefs out of the classroom.

Do you think the dictum "Life arose entirely via matter and physical processes" is not a belief?

When we have a vast body of evidence, pointing to the fact that life is chemistry writ large, including the fact that millions of chemical reactions are taking place in your body every second, and that if some of those chemical reactions stop, you die, we're dealing with something more substantive than unsupported mythological assertion.

Oh, and while we're at it, how many of the 273 peer reviewed scientific papers from the abiogenesis literature do I have to bring here, demonstrating that the chemical reactions postulated to be implicated in the origin of life work, do I have to bring here to reinforce the point?

That's before we address the fact that confusing evolution, which deals with what happens once life exists, with abiogenesis, is a well-known and utterly destroyed creationist canard.

jamest wrote:Where the schools actually go wrong is in not explaining why the question of life is an open-ended issue.

Correction, it's a subject of active research. As those 273 papers I have in my collection testify eloquently. Which are but a small fraction of the several thousand papers on the subject in the literature. Since those papers, as I've already stated, demonstrate that the requisite chemical reactions work, I think those of us who paid attention in science classes may perfectly and properly regard testable natural processes as being responsible.

jamest wrote:This would require a basic education in philosophy, of course

Correction, it requires a proper education in biochemistry.

jamest wrote:which amongst other things teaches people critical thinking.

Oh, you mean critical thinking such as learning how to conduct experiments that verify postulates? Somehow I don't think you had that in mind, given the precedents you've set here with respect to your preference for wibble over empirically established fact.

Moving on ...

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:

jamest wrote:Do you think the dictum "Life arose entirely via matter and physical processes" is not a belief?

No. It's supported by evidence.

There is, nor can there be due to ontological distinctions between observation and reality, no observational evidence to suggest that life arose from matter and physical processes.

Those several thousand peer reviewed papers from the abiogenesis literature are pointing and laughing at your assertion.

jamest wrote: A basic philosophical lesson in ontology would (should) suffice to explain why.

Those several thousand peer reviewed scientific papers, demonstrating that the requisite chemical reactions [b[]work[/b], count for rather more than your wibble about "ontology".

jamest wrote:

jamest wrote:Where the schools actually go wrong is in not explaining why the question of life is an open-ended issue.

It's not.

Given that most of our schools seem to be teaching the false dichotomy of Xianity or science as explanations of life, you should review your response.

Oh, do please point to genuine evidence that the assertions of mythology are something other than made up shit. I'm going to have so much fun watching you fail on this one.

In the meantime, I suggst you start learning some biochemistry, and find out how far scientists have progressed with respect to this matter. Indeed, people like you were asserting blindly that they wouildn't get past first base with respect to this question, and those assertions have been roundly tossed into the bin.

jamest wrote:

jamest wrote:This would require a basic education in philosophy, of course, which amongst other things teaches people critical thinking.

I agree. Critical thinking is the death of religious belief. So I welcome it.

Critical thinking also divorces science from materialism

Critical thinking doesn't provide a shred of support for immaterialism. Game over.

jamest wrote:so you should review your response.

You might want to review your manifest knowlege deficits first.

Let's see what other drivel you have to offer here shall we?

jamest wrote:

Briton wrote:

jamest wrote:

Fallible wrote:As for the headteacher, sadly the British education system is full of ostensibly educated individuals who can't keep their beliefs out of the classroom.

Do you think the dictum "Life arose entirely via matter and physical processes" is not a belief?

As others have stated, no, it's not a belief; in any case, how 'life arose' is a different issue from (the) evolution (of species), for which there is an overwhelming amount of evidence from varying scientific disciplines.

Abiogenesis and evolution are coupled at the onset of life

Oh wait, what was it I said above? Oh that;s right, evolution comes into play once life exists. It has to wait for that to happen first.

jamest wrote:and both are physical theories seeking to explain the origin and development of life without recourse to any other ontological explanation.

Which they succeed in doing without the need to introduce superfluous and irrelevant asserted magic entities. Next?

jamest wrote:The reason why it's a belief is that there is ZERO evidence within observation/experience to claim that there is a physical reality with actual agency.

Please explain to us all how the vast, consilient classes of observation known to science could occur in the manner they do, without an underlying physical reality being in place. Without a consistently behaving set of entities and interactions existing, they would not be possible. Unless of course, you want to try and build a complete alternative physics, and win a Nobel Prize with it.

jamest wrote: Not many people seem to understand that our observations/experiences/knowledge are mere representations of things; and that representations-of-things are utterly devoid of any agency.

Except of course, that all that is needed, is for a consistent set of entities and interactions to exist. Science has a fair amount of evidence for many of these. Or do you think the people responsible for the LHC are making shit up?

jamest wrote:Like Tom & Jerry, they merely have the illusory appearance of being agents. In actual fact, there is nothing but correlative order between represented entities - and the agency underpinning the whole shebang is actually the thing(s) fundamentally responsible for generating the representational system as a whole.

Isn't this what I've just stated above? In which case, how the hell does the existence of a consistent set of entities and interactions facilitating observed entities and phenomena, in any way invalidate those entities and phenomena that they facilitate?

jamest wrote:Given that the identity/ontology of the reality underpinning experience/observation/knowledge is not a given, then the 'substance'/agency behind it all is (or should be) an open-ended issue... as opposed to a mere mud-slinging contest between Xians and materialists who think that science supports their biased yet unfounded metaphysics.

Except that biochemistry isn't a matter of "metaphysics". You can find this out for yourself quite simply, by swallowing 30g of potassium cyanide. Not that I recommend you do this, as the lesson will be useless to you within about five minutes of your doing so. Taking note of the DATA here isn't "biased".

jamest wrote:This false dichotomy, this primitive metaphysics, should not be perpetuated.

Except that the dichotomy here, is between the business of treating made up shit as fact, and the business of demonstrating that postulates are in accord with DATA. Do learn the elementary difference.

jamest wrote:The only way to achieve this is to teach philosophy to our kids.

Oh,, please, the last thing we need is more assertionist wibble. If philosophy is to be taught properly, then doing so does not consist of throwing yet more unsupported assertions into the ring.

jamest wrote: But philosophy is a danger to any status quo, including the founding principles underpinning any political entity and/or culture, not least the establishments thereof.

Funny how it's never been a "danger" to all those research scientists.

jamest wrote:This is why it will probably never happen. Whole nations filled with a populace able to question such values - heaven forbid!

Oh, you mean questioning assertionist wibble? Somehow I don't think this is what you had in mind.

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:
Utter shit talk.

This is the sort of response one often receives from the uneducated. Let's blame your school.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

If you want to believe we live in the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit that's quite up to you. Don't expect anyone to start believing the completely discordant idea that none of this is real.

Don't be a hypocrite. Stop asserting your beliefs when they are devoid of all evidence. And stop making judgements and pronouncements which you are evidently not qualified to make.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Coming from you, this is rich.

What part of "the chemical reactions WORK" do you not understand?

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

If you want to believe we live in the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit that's quite up to you. Don't expect anyone to start believing the completely discordant idea that none of this is real.

Don't be a hypocrite. Stop asserting your beliefs when they are devoid of all evidence. And stop making judgements and pronouncements which you are evidently not qualified to make.

Lol. What qualifications do you think I need to tell a person who thinks we are nothing but cartoons that they are full of shite?

One in which you would comprehend that your observation/experience/knowledge of a world is ontologically equivalent to a cartoon, obviously.

And in which assertionist wibble is ontologically equivalent to fiction.

jamest wrote:Or, at the very least, one in which you did not ontologically confuse your observations of a world with a world itself - something which the philosophically educated call naive realism. Then you would stop talking shit, finally.

So do please explain to us all, in detail, how those observations can occur in the manner observed, without a consistently behaving set of entities and interactions in place facilitating them? Or are you going to claim it's the magical product of some blindly asserted "über-mind"?

jamest wrote:

Weaver wrote:For fuck's sake, can't we keep the philosophowibble bullshit confined to the philosophowibble forum, where practitioners can masturbate to their hearts' content that "there is no reality" and "The real world is simply a figment of my imagination - preferably with huge fucking tits." and so forth?

Take the bullshit elsewhere - actual people are talking about the actual world, not some philosophowibble construct.

I experience the same world as you. So if there's any bollocks spoken here, as there is, then I'll remain to cut them off.

Ah, self-aggrandisement as a subsitute for substantive knowledge. Quelle surprise.

jamest wrote:The fact is that you're all using science to undermine and belittle what are seemingly Xian beliefs.

Oh wait, scientific postulates destroy mythological assertions wholesale. Courtesy of demonstrating that they're wrong, or worse still, not even competent enough to be worthy of a point of view. Was this another elementary concept that flew past you as you gazed at your "ontological" hologram?

jamest wrote:This isn't just wrong, it's primitively wrong. The consequence of entertaining a false dichotomy and of having little if any ontological education.

To quote the song, "We didn't start the fire".

jamest wrote:The issues here are entirely philosophical.

I'm sure Jack Szostak and the other authors of those papers are so grateful to you for your assertion. Not.

jamest wrote:If you want to pretend that your tribalism entitles you and your ilk from intellectual challenge, then think again. If you and your ilk are essentially talking philosophy - and you all are, even without knowing it - then be prepared for a storm.

You can't even muster a fart in a paper bag, let alone a fucking storm.

jamest wrote:

Alan B wrote:

jamest wrote:
Abiogenesis and evolution are coupled at the onset of life...

Utter twaddle!.
Evolution is the response of life to environmental change whether it be extinction or adapt to survive. It does not depend or has any link to how the life was created in the first place (whether it be by abiogenesis or some mystical magical Sky Daddy or some other method as yet unknown or postulated).

Abiogenesis is the theory that physical processes sufficed to constitute the onset of life, though the environment had a factor in all of this.

And once again, the chemical reactions postulated to be responsible WORK. What part of this elementary concept do you not understand?

jamest wrote:Evolutionary theory places a greater emphasis upon the environment, but again any changes in a species are purported to have come about via physical processes, even from the onset of life.

But NOT before the onset of life. Elementary concept failure, much?

jamest wrote:Hence the theories are coupled in that they necessarily shake hands at the onset and progress in a similar vein.

But NOT before that onset. Once again, elementary concept fail, much?

But of course, if you'd actually bothered to learn about the science, instead of wasting time with your "ontological" holograms, you'd know why your posts here constitute epic fail.

Weaver wrote:

jamest wrote:

Weaver wrote:For fuck's sake, can't we keep the philosophowibble bullshit confined to the philosophowibble forum, where practitioners can masturbate to their hearts' content that "there is no reality" and "The real world is simply a figment of my imagination - preferably with huge fucking tits." and so forth?

Take the bullshit elsewhere - actual people are talking about the actual world, not some philosophowibble construct.

I experience the same world as you. So if there's any bollocks spoken here, as there is, then I'll remain to cut them off.

The fact is that you're all using science to undermine and belittle what are seemingly Xian beliefs. This isn't just wrong, it's primitively wrong. The consequence of entertaining a false dichotomy and of having little if any ontological education.

The issues here are entirely philosophical. If you want to pretend that your tribalism entitles you and your ilk from intellectual challenge, then think again. If you and your ilk are essentially talking philosophy - and you all are, even without knowing it - then be prepared for a storm.

Oh, spare me the bullshit. I've had ontological education - it's mental masturbation, disconnected from actuality by deliberate processes.

That's a metaphysical mantra, delivered via the rectum - in the sense that it's entirely unfounded.

The simple fact is that Christianity is wrong in its entirety, that the Bible is worthless as an educational guide,

The simple fact is that there are no scientific reasons to state that Xianity is wrong except where the bible has made empirical claims therein which can be proven to be wrong. The problem with this, however, is that one has to behave like a biblical literalist in one's approach to biblical text; whereas many if not most scholars will tell you that the bible is largely metaphorical and/or allegorical, such that said approach would be inherently wrong and a waste of one's time - except as a counter to any Xians who are also biblical literalists.

and that science, flawed though it may be in some details, remains the single best method of determining what is actually happening in the world and separating it from myth, superstition and magical thinking.

I explained before why everything within our observations/experience/knowledge is devoid of agency. Hence, the only way to state that science can explain the observed world with purely physical explanations is if there is a belief - even an unwritten one - that what we are observing is a reflection of an actual physical reality whereby actual physical entities do possess agency. Otherwise, science can hope to do little more than correlate one observed event with another.

The sort of magical thinking which leads people to believe there is some kind of deeper reality to the world only accessible via logical argument and deep thought - AKA mental masturbation. Or, as I like to call it, philosophowibble.

Then you need to explain to the members here how it was that you came to acquire your own beliefs in a material reality. Though you may mock those who have used intellectual effort to construct their metaphysics, the alternative is that you've simply plucked your beliefs from a rather smelly orifice.

jamest wrote:
I explained before why everything within our observations/experience/knowledge is devoid of agency. Hence, the only way to state that science can explain the observed world with purely physical explanations is if there is a belief - even an unwritten one - that what we are observing is a reflection of an actual physical reality whereby actual physical entities do possess agency. Otherwise, science can hope to do little more than correlate one observed event with another.

Basically science can't explain this shit I've made up with the very deliberate intention of science being not able to explain it.

Bravo.

jamest wrote:
The simple fact is that there are no scientific reasons to state that Xianity is wrong except where the bible has made empirical claims therein which can be proven to be wrong. The problem with this, however, is that one has to behave like a biblical literalist in one's approach to biblical text; whereas many if not most scholars will tell you that the bible is largely metaphorical and/or allegorical, such that said approach would be inherently wrong and a waste of one's time - except as a counter to any Xians who are also biblical literalists.

Science relies on evidence I thought and given there is no evidence supporting the bible;'s claims, you can use your sentence for any book ever written.

"The simple fact is that there are no scientific reasons to state that "Dennis the Menace" is wrong...."

jamest wrote:The simple fact is that there are no scientific reasons to state that Xianity is wrong except where the bible has made empirical claims therein which can be proven to be wrong. The problem with this, however, is that one has to behave like a biblical literalist in one's approach to biblical text; whereas many if not most scholars will tell you that the bible is largely metaphorical and/or allegorical, such that said approach would be inherently wrong and a waste of one's time - except as a counter to any Xians who are also biblical literalists.

The vast majority of Biblical scholars believe the central claim that Jesus actually rose, miraculously, from the dead, to atone for the sins of everyone else, and floated off into the heavens. There are only a minority who accept this as allegory or metaphor. It is the central claim of Christianity and most would argue if this claim were false then Christianity is screwed.

So pointing to other parts of the Bible which are completely unbelievable as real life stories as just allegory or metaphor doesn't help the Christian cause when it hinges on a particular set of beliefs which are said to be true and are every bit as unbelievable as the ones scholars have arbitrarily discounted as being just stories, often only after science has shown the stories to be wrong.

Why am I always reminded of Mr Logic from the old Viz comic when threads descend into this sort of crap?

You can have a Christianity which is completely metaphoric, but most Christians have some element of the supernatural in their beliefs, whether the resurrection, or that some people are 'saved' and others not saved. I don't think that science can invalidate the supernatural, but then nobody can say very much about it either. For example, there is no method whereby different supernatural claims can be assessed, as far as I can see. As the saying goes, they are not even wrong.

If Christianity is entirely metaphorical and allegorical, then it is, BY DEFINITION, entirely FUCKING WRONG.

monkeyboy wrote:Why am I always reminded of Mr Logic from the old Viz comic when threads descend into this sort of crap?

Heh... that's funny, because he's a cartoon character, just like you and me.

jamest wrote:Hence the theories are coupled in that they necessarily shake hands at the onset and progress in a similar vein.

You just don't get it, do you?
Evolution is only 'coupled' to the product of the process that was responsible for starting life regardless of whatever process was involved.
Evolution may not even happen even if life is present. This is particularly so if there are NO CHANGES in the life's environment that would impinge on that life's ability to survive in it's present state.

Alan B wrote:

jamest wrote:Hence the theories are coupled in that they necessarily shake hands at the onset and progress in a similar vein.

You just don't get it, do you?
Evolution is only 'coupled' to the product of the process that was responsible for starting life regardless of whatever process was involved.
Evolution may not even happen even if life is present. This is particularly so if there are NO CHANGES in the life's environment that would impinge on that life's ability to survive in it's present state.

I would have thought that there would be still be mutations of which some would maybe not benefit them but give them other ways to survive.

jamest wrote:Abiogenesis is the theory that physical processes sufficed to constitute the onset of life, though the environment had a factor in all of this.

That usage of "theory" is the same stupid usage that the headteacher is guilty of. Say "thesis" for clarity. And then don't, because abiogenesis isn't simply a thesis. It's also all the experiments and proposed mechanisms that attempt to demonstrate ways that you can get the building blocks of biochemistry and genetics spontaneously out of an environment that is plausibly similar to that of the early Earth's. As far as science goes, I'm led to believe it's pretty speculative and otherwise shit, which is the main reason it shouldn't be "coupled" in any way with the theory of evolution, which is a shit-kicking concrete edifice.

VazScep wrote:As far as science goes, I'm led to believe it's pretty speculative and otherwise shit, which is the main reason it shouldn't be "coupled" in any way with the theory of evolution, which is a shit-kicking concrete edifice.

As comparions go, its not a terrible one, but the research on abiogenesis is decidedly stronger than "pretty speculative and otherwise shit."