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Hawking says there are no gods

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David Mo said:
My question is very strange because the previous JayUtah's assumption of how science works was.
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We don't understand science and you do? :sdl:

David Mo said:
My position is not that all scientific process is reflected in peer review editions. It would be absurd. My position is that specific published papers are significant to search whether a particular question has been subjected to scientific enquiry.
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Ooouu, backpedaling.

I suggest you don't know how to search for relevant scientific data if you believe everything relevant is published. What a small world you live in.
 
LarryS said:
suggesting something is the case because 'what else is there?' is not doing science.
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“What else is there” is exactly doing science. You need to show evidence that something else is happening in order for there to be an investigation of that something. A thought experiment might be a good starting place (see Einstein), but it can never be an end in itself. If your thought experiment leads you to believe that the mind is independent of the body, then you need to devise a real world experiment that can demonstrate such. If you find it impossible to do so, then maybe you need to redo your thought experiment.

There have been countless attempts to show that the mind is independent of the body. None of them have worked out. I refer you to the Annals of Woo. What would you propose in order to demonstrate mind-body duality? I’m going to guess your answer is along the lines of “philosophy,” in which case it is you who aren’t doing science. This will inevitably lead back to “science can’t investigate everything,” and now we are back into mental masturbation fantasies.

Science can investigate everything that is demonstrable. If it isn’t demonstrable, that is ample evidence that it isn’t real.


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Skeptic Ginger said:
You can't be serious.

I call drug manufacturers on occasion to see if there is anything relevant to a drug I'm prescribing that has not yet been published. A lot of their research isn't ever published. You might be interested in Ben Goldacre's work on unpublished papers skewing results of meta-analyses. The book is Big Pharma. The science is not bad, rather negative results don't get published.

Beyond that example to humor you, I'm sorry but your assertion is just too laughable to address.
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I am quite sure Apple, Google and Samsung do their own unpublished science all the time - I mean every single day.

Most hi tech companies have an R and D department. Not all will be doing actual science, but I am sure plenty do.

There is a huge amount of science going on within manufacturing companies around production line technology and process. I would bet the science and subsequent technology innovations behind smart phone mass production is more involved than the science behind the phone itself.

I suspect when Larry talks about feelings, he is really talking about how an individual experiences feelings - IOW consciousness itself - which is being studies scientifically, but as far as I am aware still has a long way to go.
 
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Belz... said:
You certainly implied it when you denied that we can detect feelings with it.
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Science as a methodology can detect feelings, but science as a methodology can't do feelings. To do feelings as a human is not science as a methodology.
You can learn about feelings by studying, what science can say about feelings, but you can't do feelings using science. You can learn to do feelings differently, but that you so, is not science. It is informed by science, but not science in itself.

That is this:
Science doesn't make moral judgments.
When is euthanasia the right thing to do? What universal rights should humans have? Should other animals have rights? Questions like these are important, but scientific research will not answer them. Science can help us learn about terminal illnesses and the history of human and animal rights — and that knowledge can inform our opinions and decisions. But ultimately, individual people must make moral judgments. Science helps us describe how the world is, but it cannot make any judgments about whether that state of affairs is right, wrong, good, or bad.

People make aesthetic judgments, not science. Science doesn't make aesthetic judgments.
Science can reveal the frequency of a G-flat and how our eyes relay information about color to our brains, but science cannot tell us whether a Beethoven symphony, a Kabuki performance, or a Jackson Pollock painting is beautiful or dreadful. Individuals make those decisions for themselves based on their own aesthetic criteria.

Science doesn't tell you how to use scientific knowledge.
Although scientists often care deeply about how their discoveries are used, science itself doesn't indicate what should be done with scientific knowledge. Science, for example, can tell you how to recombine DNA in new ways, but it doesn't specify whether you should use that knowledge to correct a genetic disease, develop a bruise-resistant apple, or construct a new bacterium. For almost any important scientific advance, one can imagine both positive and negative ways that knowledge could be used. Again, science helps us describe how the world is, and then we have to decide how to use that knowledge.
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Now if you claim differently, please site something else than just claiming that science can do that.
You know, evidence for the claim and not just that you can claim so.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Science as a methodology can detect feelings, but science as a methodology can't do feelings. To do feelings as a human is not science as a methodology.
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Of course it can do feelings. If we know how feelings are generated, we can generate them. Pluck the right neuron, send the right signal, and voilà. How do you think psychotropic drugs work?

It is informed by science, but not science in itself.
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That's a distinction without a difference. I'd say you're desperate to avoid admitting being in the wrong, here.

You know, evidence for the claim and not just that you can claim so.
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You are in no position to say that.
 
I guess "God/Soul/Woo of the Gaps" was too intellectual and meaningful for some people so it has to be "God/Soul/Woo of the Distinction Without Difference."

Science can explain ketchup, but can never hope to explain catsup. When we point out that ketchup and catsup are the same thing they'll argue not they aren't catsup is ketchup with all the stuff science can't explain added to it.
 
JayUtah said:
For the statement in question, your argument was exactly that since no such statement appeared in an academic journal, it could not be considered science. If you reject examples and arguments from a position of ad hoc foisted criteria, then you are simply pleading specially. And also trying to reverse the burden of proof.
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No.
I have said that some proposal of scientific article was not sicence and was not published in a scientific paper. My criterion for science is the hypotetico-deductive method.


On criterios for an issue, I have repeated the same about a criterion of recognizing whether a subject is or not scientific. Along months.

The existence of God is not studied in the faculties of physics, astronomy, biology, etc. It is studied in the faculties of theology and in some chairs of philosophy.
There is not a single respectable journal of science that has published a single article dedicated to prove or refute the existence of God. Do you know any? Can you say any theorem or physical law that talks about this subject?
A strange scientific subject that is not studied in science faculties or specialized journals. (22nd October 2018, 06:36 AM #115)

I am not asking for "literature about beliefs in gods" (this is an issue for ethnology or psychology of religions). I am asking the positivists of this forum to provide scientific literature about gods' existence. Because if you say that science has a positive statement about an issue X it should be reflected in scientific literature. (25th October 2018, 10:47 AM #511)

My question is the same yet: If science proves that gods don't exist where is the scientific bibliography about the issue? No answer.

Don't you understand that if a subject is scientific it will be presented to the scientific community in scientific books and papers? Where are they?(28th October 2018, 08:36 AM #760)

First, no one is talking about a science summary - whatever that is to you. It's about a subject that is or is not scientific. (8th December 2018, 06:18 PM #3699)​

I give my argument. Then I've asked that if there's any other way, it be said here. Nobody has said anything except vague references to being "reasonable" that obviously cannot be the only criterion of scientific thought.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I call drug manufacturers on occasion to see if there is anything relevant to a drug I'm prescribing that has not yet been published. A lot of their research isn't ever published. You might be interested in Ben Goldacre's work on unpublished papers skewing results of meta-analyses. The book is Big Pharma. The science is not bad, rather negative results don't get published.
.
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Drug manfacturers make drugs scientifically tested. The efficacity of the drug is usually comented in medical journals or registered in medical institutions.

I don't know what account of Goldrace's book is science and what is philosophy because he is expert in both things and usually he do both. I suppose that some items in the Goldacre's books are scientific because you can find them in scientific papers. For ore precision we should read the book.
 
David Mo said:
No.
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Yes. Do you need to have the relevant post quoted for you, or can you find it on your own?

I give my argument. Then I've asked that if there's any other way, it be said here.
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No, that's not quite accurate. Under the pretense of expertise, you foist the criteria by which others must refute some claim. To wit:

Don't you understand that if a subject is scientific it will be presented to the scientific community in scientific books and papers?
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When those criteria are challenged, you bluster and reverse the burden of proof, apparently hoping people will back down. Your statement above is simply not agreed to by actual scientists, and it does not reflect their practice. When you are told how scientists actually work, you "dig in" and insist that you must still somehow be right and that everyone else is offering only vagueness. At some point your threads need to be about something more than frantically avoiding the consequences of your own error.

Finally, you don't seem to take into account that not a single actual scientist in this thread views your gesticulatory attempts to define for them the practice of their profession with anything more than amusement. Your inability to appeal to people with deep and lengthy experience in relevant pursuit leaves you with very little credibility.
 
David Mo expects us to just go "Well scientist so and so says this..." the same way he is incapable of arguing on a level beyond "Well this philosopher so and so says this" that way this isn't a discussion but people just trying to shot down each others creative writing, a game he's sure he can win.
 
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I know that in philosophy -- and for that matter, theology, homeopathy, acupuncture, spiritism, and really any other domain where checking against reality is not really needed -- the best value you can argue for something is that some other bearded men with funny titles said it was good. But, as the others have already repeatedly said, that's not how science works.

Science is a method, not some arbitrary establishment that decides what's right and wrong.

I'll whip out that Vince Ebert definition again: "The Scientific Method is, simply put, just a way to test suppositions. If I supposed for example 'there might be beer in the fridge' and go look in the fridge, I'm already doing science. Big difference from Theology. There they don't usually test suppositions. If I just assume 'There is beer in the fridge' then I'm a theologian. If I go look, I'm a scientist. And if I go look, find nothing inside, and still insist that there's beer in the fridge, that's esoteric."

For reference, he IS a physicist turned comedian.

Anyway, you CAN use journals and peer review to basically rest assured that someone actually checked the result and methodology, so you don't have to. But to insist that basically the publishing step is the whole science part, is just bloody stupid.
 
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Sure, science can conclude that every testable claim about gods is wrong, and that there has never been any evidence for the existence of gods, but how dare they infer anything about the existence of gods based on that?
Only wizards theologians can do that!
 
And on that note, I don't see why even religion or anything else, can't be tested against reality. Because, you know, that's what science is.

And a lot of claims by various sects fall squarely into the testable territory.

E.g., a lot at least imply that praying actually works. But then why not do a study to check just that? You know, rather than doing idiotic non-sequiturs like "ah, but science doesn't have all the answers, therefore X must be the answer because I just pulled it out of the butt."

E.g., a lot of the "faith in faith" arguments for religion, and I've seen them rehashed even on this board, quite overtly claim that it might keep people from committing crimes. Well, how about checking that against reality, then? Because quite symptomatically I'm always just asked to take that on faith and copious handwaving.

Etc.

You want to show that science is wrong? Sure. Welcome to the club, in fact. Every single scientist who ever lived, pretty much all they were trying to do is prove that some other scientist before them was wrong. Einstein proved Newton wrong, Planck proved Wien and Boltzmann wrong, Rutherford proved J. J. Thomson wrong, etc. It's like fight club, except you can talk about it.

But the keyword is: "proved." At the very least, you have to show your data, and what part of it doesn't fit the other guy's model.

But just droning on the canard that "but science doesn't know everything!!!111eleventeen" is not it.
 
Again stripped of all language baggage, semantics, categorization, and all that jazz what is being talked about on the most basic and purest of levels is standards vs non-standards.

Certain people who shall remain nameless want everything to stay in a standard-less void so who ever is "right" is whoever can make up craziest sounding stuff and yell the longest and loudest about it.

It's why they are all fatally allergic to being concise or ever actually getting to a point.
 
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