Comments on: A to Z of science suppression http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/ I am an astronomer, writer, and skeptic. I likes reality the way it is, and I aims to keep it that way. My real name is Phil Plait, and I run the Bad Astronomy blog. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:47:16 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jay Crawford http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29257 Jay Crawford Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:45:37 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29257 Please amend in third to last sentence, "Especially since the insurgents attack and kill 20+ times as many Iraqis as they do Americans, AND RADICALS HAVE MADE 6% OF THE POPULATION REFUGEES, a fact not lost on the pragmatic Iraqi people." Please amend in third to last sentence, “Especially since the insurgents attack and kill 20+ times as many Iraqis as they do Americans, AND RADICALS HAVE MADE 6% OF THE POPULATION REFUGEES, a fact not lost on the pragmatic Iraqi people.”

]]> By: Jay Crawford http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29256 Jay Crawford Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:17:17 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29256 Skeptigirl, One thing more for you to consider: Based on the obvious intelligence of your comments, I have to believe that your parents must have been intelligent people too. While your parents didn't notice the magnitude or scale of the Iranian Islamist revolution going on around them, their obliviousness was facilitated by their not being in combat units which would have been in contact with the Islamist radicals. If your folks HAD actually been charged with the tasks of combat, I can guarantee that they would have noticed! My friends and acquaintances in Iraq ALL tell of frustration with journalists who ignore the calm in the majority of the country, the improvements in the lives of ordinary Iraqis, and (most importantly to good people everywhere) the willingness of the vast majority Iraqis to oppose the radicals who are their enemies as much as ours. (Especially since the insurgents attack and kill 20+ times as many Iraqis as they kill Americans, a fact not lost on the pragmatic Iraqi people.) And, since those friends and acquaintances (American and Iraqi) are in the actual lines of fire, they would definitely know! -Still with encouragement to you, Jay Crawford Skeptigirl,
One thing more for you to consider: Based on the obvious intelligence of your comments, I have to believe that your parents must have been intelligent people too. While your parents didn’t notice the magnitude or scale of the Iranian Islamist revolution going on around them, their obliviousness was facilitated by their not being in combat units which would have been in contact with the Islamist radicals. If your folks HAD actually been charged with the tasks of combat, I can guarantee that they would have noticed!
My friends and acquaintances in Iraq ALL tell of frustration with journalists who ignore the calm in the majority of the country, the improvements in the lives of ordinary Iraqis, and (most importantly to good people everywhere) the willingness of the vast majority Iraqis to oppose the radicals who are their enemies as much as ours. (Especially since the insurgents attack and kill 20+ times as many Iraqis as they kill Americans, a fact not lost on the pragmatic Iraqi people.)
And, since those friends and acquaintances (American and Iraqi) are in the actual lines of fire, they would definitely know!
-Still with encouragement to you, Jay Crawford

]]> By: Jay Crawford http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29255 Jay Crawford Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:56:44 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29255 Irishman, I certainly agree with you about definitions of God often being contradictory. I would dare say that there are as many variations on the theme of a higher being as there are people. I often find that many people who, by rote, assert His total omnipotence, in fact subtly limit His ascribed power to a level which THEY can comprehend. It's the old "God made Man in His image...and then Man returned the favor!" problem. As human beings we find the idea of a Universe-transcending being truly incomprehensible; therefore we must try to accept or deny Him on the levels which we can comprehend or, at least, the levels which our vanities (whether we are scientists or theologians) allow us to pretend we can comprehend. But what we believe will not affect the existence (or not) of such a Being...only our personal relationships with Him and, be extension, all life in His Universe, with all of its wonderful processes which (I hope) we all strive to comprehend more each day. Onward Science, Truth, and (let's not forget!) decency!!! (I think I must have just sounded like Superman paraphrasing Lenin!) Adding a bit to my last post: I'm just just aware of my own limitations (and if my own pride, arrogance, or sophistry shows up, I'm grateful for people like you, Skeptigirl, Trogdor, or Christian Burnham being there to slap it down). -Humble thanks, Jay Crawford Irishman,
I certainly agree with you about definitions of God often being contradictory. I would dare say that there are as many variations on the theme of a higher being as there are people. I often find that many people who, by rote, assert His total omnipotence, in fact subtly limit His ascribed power to a level which THEY can comprehend. It’s the old “God made Man in His image…and then Man returned the favor!” problem. As human beings we find the idea of a Universe-transcending being truly incomprehensible; therefore we must try to accept or deny Him on the levels which we can comprehend or, at least, the levels which our vanities (whether we are scientists or theologians) allow us to pretend we can comprehend.
But what we believe will not affect the existence (or not) of such a Being…only our personal relationships with Him and, be extension, all life in His Universe, with all of its wonderful processes which (I hope) we all strive to comprehend more each day. Onward Science, Truth, and (let’s not forget!) decency!!!
(I think I must have just sounded like Superman paraphrasing Lenin!)
Adding a bit to my last post: I’m just just aware of my own limitations (and if my own pride, arrogance, or sophistry shows up, I’m grateful for people like you, Skeptigirl, Trogdor, or Christian Burnham being there to slap it down).
-Humble thanks, Jay Crawford

]]> By: Irishman http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29254 Irishman Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:09:10 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29254 Jay, not to be too contradictory, because your post is fairly even-handed, but there are some logical arguments that use believers' definitions of God and show they are self-contradictory. As you say, God can't be disproven, mostly because the claim is not stated falsifiably - any attempt to falsify the claim can be dismissed by reinterpreting the claim. There's no solid ground. And logically you can't prove a negative, but you can disprove a positive if you can filter the search finely enough. The problem with the God claim is the inherent coarseness of the filter compared to the possible places for Him to hide. ;-) Jay, not to be too contradictory, because your post is fairly even-handed, but there are some logical arguments that use believers’ definitions of God and show they are self-contradictory. As you say, God can’t be disproven, mostly because the claim is not stated falsifiably – any attempt to falsify the claim can be dismissed by reinterpreting the claim. There’s no solid ground. And logically you can’t prove a negative, but you can disprove a positive if you can filter the search finely enough. The problem with the God claim is the inherent coarseness of the filter compared to the possible places for Him to hide. ;-)

]]> By: Jay Crawford http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29253 Jay Crawford Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:42:47 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29253 Skeptigirl, I agree that many people "cherry pick" details from other people's arguments to support their own arguments. Respectfully though, this fault is shared by the religious and irreligious, those who assert God's existence and those who deny that same existence. What I (and others far greater, such as Francis Collins) strive to do is to remain intellectually honest by NOT looking to buttress our arguments with some isolated examples of the Universe's complexity cited as "evidence" of a Creator's existence. Consistently rational human beings cannot believe in a "God of the Gaps (in our understanding)". Rather, they must assume that what is not understood now may very well be understood in the future. Indeed, the only limit to our understanding is the limit imposed by scale: We shall never understand the totality of the Universe at any given moment because we are constrained by the Universe not having enough material within it to build all the sensors and computers needed to study itself in real time. It is on that basis that we identify the central characteristic of a possible Creator: It must be greator than Its creation. In other words, God must be transcendent of the Universe to be the Creator of said Universe. Heavy, man! Or not. Kinda depends on your intellectual perspective. Truly, because we can't test it. While I see order in the Universe that I believe indicates an extant Creator, I can't definitively prove this Creator's existence because all my arguments must be built up inductively...and inductive reasoning always leads to more possible answers until its "tower of logic" becomes so much sophistry and collapses into uncertainty. Only deductive reasoning ever leads to just one possible answer and certainty. Similarly, the atheist cannot definitively disprove a Creator's existence because he can't show that anything in the Universe is in violation of what a Creator intends it to be. To do that would require total comprehension of a being that, by its very nature, is even more incomprehensible in its totality than the Universe itself. And comprehending the total Universe, as we've already seen, can't be done. Philosophically, the latter is called "proving a negative" and it's impossible. So what underlies the huge gulf of misunderstanding between two unprovable propositions? Why the difference? The difference lies is in a difference of opinion. Sounds simple, but opinion results from the subjective perceptions of each of us. (Side note: The vast majority of religious believers acknowledge human free will, and therefore acknowledge differences in the experiences of our lives. They may be more understanding of your reasons for your OWN beliefs than you might expect!) What this pracically means is that I'm not you and so I can't know why you proceed from a perspective of skepticism. Maybe your broad brushstrokes against evangelical Christians are because some irrational Christians tried to persuade you that the Bible says something it doesn't really say...or at least they failed to properly explain the logic behind their ideas. Or maybe they were just wrong. I can't say because I'm not them or you. But neither are you me, so it's going to be pretty hard for you to make any accurate assumptions about me...or people like me. To do so would require a lot of inductive logic and even more suppositions. Yet (based on your writing) allow me to make a few little inductive suppositions about you: 1. You're knowlegeable and have great analytical ability due to a high order of fluid intelligence. 2. You seek truth and can acknowledge the same quality in others. 3. You hate ignorance, superstition, and casual blindness to facts...perhaps even as much as I DO. And one more: 4. You don't encounter many strangers who are willing to acknowledge (or maybe even appreciate and encourage!) your perspective EVEN when they may have some major difference of opinion from your own. My point, you see, was that difference of opinion on proof/disproof of a Creator is where the majority of the rest of differences start. Yet despite those differences, we may have more in common than you normally think. I write this to try to point out the intellectual disservice (especially to yourself) of painting all "evangelicals" with the same paint brush used to paint Torqemada and Elmer Gantry. Evangelical Christians are not some neanderthalic throwback to prehistory (well, not most of us anyway :-) . There are intellectuals (who study potential meanings) and pragmatists (who put Christ's love into action). There are literates (who know when the Bible is written poetically, especially in the Old Testament) and literalists (who can't always distinguish between what we learn and what God intended for us to learn). There are the cognizant (aware of others) and the cognitive (aware only of their own interests). Perhaps you only encountered the latter. My key point about science and religion remains the same as in my previous post's fifth sentence: "...science is the process of thinking about things we can observe and test...while religion is the process of thinking about things that are too big to test." To which I might add: "...and just because something hasn't yet been tested, doesn't reflect its existence or its non-existence." Of course there's only one definitive test for my Creator and I'll conduct it probably sometime in the next 50 years...though it may be hard to get my results published! No cognative dissonance is required here either...because I'm aware of my limitations. -Encouragement to you, from Jay Crawford Skeptigirl,
I agree that many people “cherry pick” details from other people’s arguments to support their own arguments. Respectfully though, this fault is shared by the religious and irreligious, those who assert God’s existence and those who deny that same existence. What I (and others far greater, such as Francis Collins) strive to do is to remain intellectually honest by NOT looking to buttress our arguments with some isolated examples of the Universe’s complexity cited as “evidence” of a Creator’s existence. Consistently rational human beings cannot believe in a “God of the Gaps (in our understanding)”. Rather, they must assume that what is not understood now may very well be understood in the future. Indeed, the only limit to our understanding is the limit imposed by scale: We shall never understand the totality of the Universe at any given moment because we are constrained by the Universe not having enough material within it to build all the sensors and computers needed to study itself in real time.
It is on that basis that we identify the central characteristic of a possible Creator: It must be greator than Its creation. In other words, God must be transcendent of the Universe to be the Creator of said Universe.
Heavy, man!
Or not. Kinda depends on your intellectual perspective. Truly, because we can’t test it.
While I see order in the Universe that I believe indicates an extant Creator, I can’t definitively prove this Creator’s existence because all my arguments must be built up inductively…and inductive reasoning always leads to more possible answers until its “tower of logic” becomes so much sophistry and collapses into uncertainty. Only deductive reasoning ever leads to just one possible answer and certainty.
Similarly, the atheist cannot definitively disprove a Creator’s existence because he can’t show that anything in the Universe is in violation of what a Creator intends it to be. To do that would require total comprehension of a being that, by its very nature, is even more incomprehensible in its totality than the Universe itself. And comprehending the total Universe, as we’ve already seen, can’t be done.
Philosophically, the latter is called “proving a negative” and it’s impossible.
So what underlies the huge gulf of misunderstanding between two unprovable propositions? Why the difference?
The difference lies is in a difference of opinion. Sounds simple, but opinion results from the subjective perceptions of each of us. (Side note: The vast majority of religious believers acknowledge human free will, and therefore acknowledge differences in the experiences of our lives. They may be more understanding of your reasons for your OWN beliefs than you might expect!) What this pracically means is that I’m not you and so I can’t know why you proceed from a perspective of skepticism. Maybe your broad brushstrokes against evangelical Christians are because some irrational Christians tried to persuade you that the Bible says something it doesn’t really say…or at least they failed to properly explain the logic behind their ideas. Or maybe they were just wrong. I can’t say because I’m not them or you.
But neither are you me, so it’s going to be pretty hard for you to make any accurate assumptions about me…or people like me. To do so would require a lot of inductive logic and even more suppositions.
Yet (based on your writing) allow me to make a few little inductive suppositions about you:
1. You’re knowlegeable and have great analytical ability due to a high order of fluid intelligence.
2. You seek truth and can acknowledge the same quality in others.
3. You hate ignorance, superstition, and casual blindness to facts…perhaps even as much as I DO.
And one more:
4. You don’t encounter many strangers who are willing to acknowledge (or maybe even appreciate and encourage!) your perspective EVEN when they may have some major difference of opinion from your own.
My point, you see, was that difference of opinion on proof/disproof of a Creator is where the majority of the rest of differences start. Yet despite those differences, we may have more in common than you normally think. I write this to try to point out the intellectual disservice (especially to yourself) of painting all “evangelicals” with the same paint brush used to paint Torqemada and Elmer Gantry.
Evangelical Christians are not some neanderthalic throwback to prehistory (well, not most of us anyway :-) . There are intellectuals (who study potential meanings) and pragmatists (who put Christ’s love into action). There are literates (who know when the Bible is written poetically, especially in the Old Testament) and literalists (who can’t always distinguish between what we learn and what God intended for us to learn). There are the cognizant (aware of others) and the cognitive (aware only of their own interests). Perhaps you only encountered the latter.
My key point about science and religion remains the same as in my previous post’s fifth sentence: “…science is the process of thinking about things we can observe and test…while religion is the process of thinking about things that are too big to test.” To which I might add: “…and just because something hasn’t yet been tested, doesn’t reflect its existence or its non-existence.”
Of course there’s only one definitive test for my Creator and I’ll conduct it probably sometime in the next 50 years…though it may be hard to get my results published!
No cognative dissonance is required here either…because I’m aware of my limitations.
-Encouragement to you, from Jay Crawford

]]> By: Gerrsun http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29252 Gerrsun Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:05:41 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29252 It wasn't my goal to defend Bush or his policies, I wanted to look at a few of the UCS links and see if what they said was factual. He may be slightly evil, 99.44% evil, misunderstood, ignorant, or a saint among us but then I'm no saint so I can't say. The UCS' web links of the few that I read were written with a sort of righteous indignation that didn't seem to match what I was reading on their own links. But of the ones I looked at, one seeemd to be appealing to tragedy as an argument while presenting the issue as a factual threat when it does not appear to be the settled matter and the other seemed overblown given the size of the incident. If I misunderstood the links I posted, I am willing to listen to counter-arguments since I am no expert on hurricanes OR abstinence-only programs. It wasn’t my goal to defend Bush or his policies, I wanted to look at a few of the UCS links and see if what they said was factual.

He may be slightly evil, 99.44% evil, misunderstood, ignorant, or a saint among us but then I’m no saint so I can’t say.

The UCS’ web links of the few that I read were written with a sort of righteous indignation that didn’t seem to match what I was reading on their own links.

But of the ones I looked at, one seeemd to be appealing to tragedy as an argument while presenting the issue as a factual threat when it does not appear to be the settled matter and the other seemed overblown given the size of the incident.

If I misunderstood the links I posted, I am willing to listen to counter-arguments since I am no expert on hurricanes OR abstinence-only programs.

]]> By: skeptigirl http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/comment-page-1/#comment-29251 skeptigirl Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:18:51 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/05/a-to-z-of-science-suppression/#comment-29251 errata: last sentence, 5th paragraph from the bottom: and as they [invested in] the science The link near the top should be after Jay says, not before. errata:

last sentence, 5th paragraph from the bottom:
and as they [invested in] the science

The link near the top should be after Jay says, not before.

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