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Hawking says there are no gods

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Belz... said:
The other poster will invariably ignore everything else and pretend to be either confused or offended to the off-hand reference to Rocky IV. Any sort of flourish, or even typos, are an excuse for them to distract.
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I imagine this comes naturally to someone who's already built a straw-Vulcan strawman of their opponent in their head. Cold, emotionless science can never make a quip or be sarcastic.
 
See? He's gonna refuse to address any points made until we discuss my horrible bit of sarcasm.
 
JayUtah said:
Because it's a straw man, although now you're trying to change the subject. "Those statements do not appear in the scientific literature" presumes what kind of statements should and do appear in the scientific literature. I'm sure you're right that her statements as she wrote them aren't in the literature. The question is what that means. You assert that they don't appear because they are false, or perhaps more properly, that they are not the product of proper science. A better explanation is that they don't appear in that form because the form, regardless of topic, is not customary for journals. Conclusions drawn on a breadth of research are scientific conclusions in the same way that the conclusions in individual journal articles are scientific conclusions. It is the goal of science to accumulate such a breadth that generalizations such as Skeptic Ginger's become possible.



I'm not talking about the malaria vaccine. Skeptic Ginger summarized the relevant literature as showing that some beliefs in gods clearly evolved as myths. She noted the absence of any findings in the literature that beliefs in gods arose because there was evidence the gods were themselves real. She then defensibly drew a conclusion from the one-sided state of the evidence. That is science, whether you agree it is or not.



Can you stop swerving all over the map in your haste to escape?
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Do you really believe that there are scientific subjects that science is not accustomed(????) to dealing with? This doesn't make sense. If a subject is scientific it will be dealt with in the places where science is done and published. That is, in scientific journals.

Do you think Ginger's analysis would be published in a scientific journal? That's as much of a science as an apple pie, regardless of what you say is uninteligible. Could you say that more clearly, please? What you think science is?

Of course you're not talking about malaria. It is the question that I ask you and that you avoid because you know that I have caught you or because you suspect it. So I will answer: If you want to know the effects of a malaria vaccine you will have to go to a scientific journal, medical in this case. It's the normal procedure when you want to know about a particular problem: go to the scientific literature on the case.
(By the way, I think you're wrong about what "scientific literature" means, not "literature" as you say).
 
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Belz... said:
Which is odd, since sarcasm is the Vulcan's default communication mode.
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//Hijack// That's why I've always had this "head canon" as much as I hate the term that the entire "Emotionless" thing is just something the Vulcans made up so they could just be super-sarcastic (and oddly vaguely xenophobic dicks a lot of the time) to everyone and not get called on it.
 
And this is why we need to stop using the word "science." It sets off the "old wise men on the mountain" groupies and all we get is a bunch passive aggressive "Oh I thought science was about this..." snarking.

Forget science. Forget philosophy. Forget epstimologies of all kinds.

Would you rather questions have answers and face the possibility of being wrong or pretend everything is just some subjective opinion and sacrifice your intellectual growth as an individual and our intellectual growth as a species so you never have to face up to ever maybe be wrong about something?

That's what sucks about "science." Sometimes it tells you stuff you don't hear and some people just can't cope with that. Sorry.
 
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David Mo said:
If your poor understanding does not allow you to see it, I have ceased to respond to your provocations. For me you can dance and say mass. They were stupid enough already, I suppose they will remain the same.
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I'm perfectly fine talking at you instead of with you then. And plenty of other people you haven't decided to ignore yet will make the same arguments.
 
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I leave typos in my post on purpose to leave people who don't have any rational points to argue something to do. *Grins*
 
That's the other issue with the internet's Philosophy Cosplayers, they just can't not assume the "Wise Old Learned Teacher to Everyone's Naive Student" role in every conversation and get huffy and pissy when they get called out for coming across as rude and condescending because they are incapable of not talking down to people.

Being told 2+2 = a potato is one thing. Being told 2+2 = a potato from someone who's acting like they are the smartest person in the room and wants everyone to know it is another.
 
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David Mo said:
No. The statement "There is a skyscraper built with toothpicks" does not need science to be refuted. Common sense and our daily experience are enough.
But this is not our problem. Here it is stated that it is science that proves that "God does not exist".

So the same as "There is a skyscraper built with toothpicks", "God does not exist" is not a matter of science. But I don't think this is a question that can be resolved with common sense and our everyday experience. If it were so, there would be no believers in the world. The same as no one builds skyscrapers with chopsticks.

So who is dealing with the problem of God's existence? And I beg you to go to a library and ask what category are the books that deal with God's existence. Can you guess? I don't guess. I know.
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Only because God has the tendency to retreat into ever greater vagueness when questioned.
Ah yes, of course the creation story in Genesis/Popol Vuh/Enuma Elish isn't literal... But it's still true from a certain point of view.
Ah yes, of course the stories of divine intervention where gods move mountains with their hands, show themselves to entire armies and raise the dead didn't literally happen...
Of course God doesn't really live on a mountain/above the sky dome/in a cave... But that's not important.
Ah, well, how about an abstract principle of creation that only interacts with us in a way that is indistinguishable from random chance?

God is placed beyond the scope of, as you say, common sense and our daily experience, on basis of nothing but the say-so of his believers, who simultaneously claim that no claim about God has to be literally true for God himself to be real anyway.
 
David Mo said:
If a subject is scientific it will be dealt with in the places where science is done and published. That is, in scientific journals.
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You ignored pretty much all my line of reasoning and just restated your assertions in different words. You disputed Skeptic Ginger's summary. But among all the ways such a summary could be correctly considered valid, you limited her to only one course of action -- one I imagine you were pretty sure would be impossible to carry out.

Now to hide that, you're falling back to imprecise language. Perhaps you hope to equivocate what you actually demanded with some other thing that seems more reasonable. Science "deals with" things in a number of ways. And no, scientific journals do not have the all-encompassing role you've foisted upon them. If "dealing with" a subject means conducting a specific, well-focused research exercise, then it would be appropriate to report the findings in a journal. If "dealing with" a subject means only summarizing research to date and drawing a reasonable conclusion from the totality of it, then no, that activity is not appropriate for a journal contribution.

Your caricature of scientific practice and custom is simply not how it works.

Of course you're not talking about malaria. It is the question that I ask you and that you avoid because you know that I have caught you or because you suspect it.
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No, it's a question I avoid because it has nothing to do with what we were talking about and was probably asked only to create a diversion.
 
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