Hawking says there are no gods
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Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
The science involved in looking for a chair in the room is trivial, but it is science all the same. As is the science involved in looking for a jelly bean in your hand.
Both objects have specific characteristics - say, tangibility, mass, the reflection of light. In both cases, it is trivially easy to demonstrate that no object with such characteristics exists in the room (or hand).
Your continued obtuseness in this regard really is just making you look insane, I'm afraid.
I really should have seen this act sooner. You're one of those people with the strawman "You have to test your bathwater via a double blind, placebo controlled published study before you say 'water is wet'" views of science, so you can reject its use outside of beakers and labcoats.
I still notice in all of this what tests why exactly we're supposed to even think God exists in the first place to even know to taste for him, to say nothing of how we're supposed to do that since we can't use your strawman version of what science is.
You've collected a mighty fan display case full of bad excuses why big, bad science can't disprove your God. Not seeing a lot of effort on your part trying to convince any of us why we should even be asking the question in the first place.
If you can pretend there's still maybe a chair in a room with no chair you can do anything, I believe in you.
Continuing to dig isn't going to get you out of a hole.
Hint - Read words in context with the overall message, not individually and out of context.
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kellyb
Penultimate Amazing
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Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, actual scientists write scientific papers with phrases like "The subject was placed in an empty room" without ridiculous, pseudo-philosophical over-qualifications of every aspect of their descriptions of their experiments.
Scientists observe no furniture in the room - that's good enough to report as "no furniture in the room."
BTW, do you also have issues with saying homeopathy "doesn't work beyond placebo effect"?
Scientists observe no furniture in the room - that's good enough to report as "no furniture in the room."
BTW, do you also have issues with saying homeopathy "doesn't work beyond placebo effect"?
Ideas are tested and verified by observation and experimentation. That is the core of science. Everything else is just bookkeeping and organizing and labeling the parts.
Creating a strawman version of science so overly exact and pedantic that you intentionally exclude it from the real world for its lack of rigor is anti-intellectual nonsense.
Creating a strawman version of science so overly exact and pedantic that you intentionally exclude it from the real world for its lack of rigor is anti-intellectual nonsense.
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psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
If you are telling me that you made it up then that is additional information and pretty conclusive. That's why nobody argues about whether Harry Potter or Superman are real.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
The only person digging a hole for themselves is you.
The "overall message" was that you were quite happy to chastise me for using the word "visible" but then I pointed out that it was Darat's word and you have been backtracking ever since.
Okay I seriously don't know how much further I can follow you on the question to figure out the Planck Hairsplit.
I'm gonna blow your mind here... if the room had a chair in it... I would have mentioned that when describing the room.
If you were waiting me to specifically tell you that the room without a chair in it... didn't have a chair in it... I don't know how to help you.
You really have proven my point better than I could have. You're so obviously straining so hard to come up with excuses to maintain the "I doubt everything, no really I do serious for realzies guys" persona it's become its own parody.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
That is the one. I don't know if the same symbol with an oblique line through it (meaning "does not imply") is in official use though.
Because we aren't being insufferably pedantic to maintain a house of cards of apologetics.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
That's because you are too busy addressing me instead of reading my argument.
Skeptic Ginger
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You're still acting like the rest of us don't understand the principles of not being able to test the negative.
Give it up. More than a few people in this thread understand scientific principles just fine thank you.
Edited to add, after reading more of your posts, you may not understand the concept of proving the negative as well as you think you do. We don't have to prove the negative about every single thing. No chair in the room is easily observable.
I also posted the times where not proving the negative did not apply. IIRC, you ignored that post.
If you would just get over your assumption that you understand the scientific process and the rest of us just need your imparted knowledge, you might actually move your own understanding of the scientific process forward.
We get it. We get what you are asserting. We don't lack the knowledge you believe you need to impart.
There is the standard position, one can't prove there are no gods. That standard position has been around for at least a century, probably much longer.
Then there is the modern position, the one that takes approaching an old inquiry with a different question, a paradigm shift on how one investigates the god question. That is to stop asking if gods exist and ask instead, what best explains god beliefs.
The old POV starts with the assumption gods do or might exist. Yet there isn't a shred of evidence supporting that default position.
The modern POV starts with what the evidence actually supports: people have god beliefs. One can look at how those beliefs exist and not find actual gods have anything to do with it.
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Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
It's something of a running theme, about now.
You don't have an argument. You have a collection of excuses.
When your "argument" is "A room with no chair in it might still have a chair" I can't even tell you to take a seat before you hurt yourself in the confusion.
You've latched on to a handful of science-y terms and concepts you half understand so you can convince yourself that "science" says you have to apply them with full rigor 100% of the time to create a strawman of science that nobody could ever use in the normal life to hide behind so when people tell you there's no God you can stick your fingers in your ears and go "La la la I can't hear you."
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Skeptic Ginger
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kellyb
Penultimate Amazing
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I still think this ("Maybe there IS a magic bean in my hand and an undetectable chair in the room! Science says nothing on the topic, according to my philosophy!") is taking the deity debate into the realm of "paranormal bigfoot".
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2004/03/02
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2004/03/02
The "believer" side of the "deity debate" IS in the realm of the paranormal/supernatural/magical.
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