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Look, I haven't mentioned Zeus, Buddah, or some religion.

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Probability of life.

Started by zorkan, November 05, 2023, 03:26:42 PM

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Tank

Quote from: zorkan on November 26, 2023, 12:37:00 PM
Quote from: Tank on November 11, 2023, 05:14:23 PMThere is no such thing as a natural miracle. A miracle is by definition supernatural. It's use in a natural context is misuse of the word.
Re-reading the opening chapter of The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us by Prof. Alice Roberts, I found where I had read the term natural miracle.
Apart from being a famous biologist and anthropologist she is also the former president of the British Humanists.



Yes I know her. Still doesn't mean she's right. And appeals to authority hold no weight here. :)
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

zorkan

But have you read the book?
The first chapter takes my breath away.

I don't like authority either.
If someone says I am right and you are wrong, I turn my back.

Asmodean

#47
It's not a matter of antiauthoritarianism - just that an argument of "Well, this here smart person *point* thinks so" is unpersuasive.

Look at it this way; Let's say I approve of Brexit while Tank can't stand it. (By the way, this is an example. Actual opinions may vary and are not that relevant to this discussion) Is the validity (as opposed to quality or eloquence) of our arguments for and against it dependent on our respective IQs? What happens when two for all intents and purposes equally "smart" people come to mutuially-exclusive conclusions about the same issue, based on the same data?

"Yes, but Einstein/Jesus/my mother said so!"

Well, so what? They may think that their conclusions are accurate, as may you - but what does that mean to me?

What I would like, is something akin to this, for instance, "Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics were inaccurate/incomplete because they would not organically conform to explaining and sufficiently predicting the motion of certain celestial objects. I agree with that line of thinking because Mercury."

Now we can discuss whether or not you have a point, using Einstein's body of work as reference. Otherwise, you need not have invoked his name at all, except perhaps to credit him for what you "copy/paste" into your argument.

EDIT: revised a little for clarity between citing sources and arguments from authority.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

zorkan

I like the football crowd analogy.
Ask each individual to write down what they saw after the game and you are going to get any number of different accounts.
Might be able to explain this by reference to Einstein's famous theory.
So who do you trust? No one.
There is no authority.
Can you even describe what that life form is? You can't.
You can only label it as a human, a cat, or whatever your language allows.
You can conclude it's an arrangement of atoms done in a certain way which is successful in surviving its environment.
But why?