NOVA program: Judgement Day, Intelligent Design on Trial

[articulett]

With over 11,000 posts, he must be the most successful troll on the Interwebs.

What is success to a troll? He's managed to convince himself that he's an expert on something? He has more people on ignore than anyone else? He agitates the most people? He's a good mascot troll who manages to stay afloat without being banned?

 

[lenny]

Imagine if Galileo had said "the planets don't move in the way we would expect if the universe was geocentric, therefore GOD must be moving the planets in crazy ways!". Case closed.
haha

anyone know enough history to say whether or not Galileo did indeed think "
GOD must be moving the planets in crazy ways"?

Galileo argued on the basis if shadows, and it does not feel like the Earth is going around the sun. in the context of the time, putting the sun at the centre of the universe meant the planets were moving in crazy ways. no? did he think God was moving them?

 

[tomwaits]

anyone know enough history to say whether or not Galileo did indeed think "
GOD must be moving the planets in crazy ways"?

Galileo argued on the basis if shadows, and it does not feel like the Earth is going around the sun. in the context of the time, putting the sun at the centre of the universe meant the planets were moving in crazy ways. no? did he think God was moving them?

My point is that instead of just saying "god is moving them in funny ways. end of story" he actually figured out what exactly the planets were doing. i'm sure he believed that god was involved in this process, just like i'm sure he believed god was involved in all processes. but he knew you can't just end a discrepency by saying "god did it". god did WHAT, exactly?

this is what ID is saying. not only do they have no evidence for their claims, but they seem to be trying to END discussion of any kind of evolution by just saying "god/ET/creator did it". that's not a reasonable assumption to make. they did WHAT, exactly?

 

[lenny]

My point is that instead of just saying "god is moving them in funny ways. end of story" he actually figured out what exactly the planets were doing. i'm sure he believed that god was involved in this process, just like i'm sure he believed god was involved in all processes. but he knew you can't just end a discrepency by saying "god did it".

i do not disagree with the aim of your main argument.

i'm not sure if i fear your argument doesn't get there, or if i just nitpick regarding (a) whether or not "he actually figured out what exactly the planets were doing" and even (b) if he woudl have been happy with a Newtonian picture which lost not only circles, but even ellipses in practice, and lastly (c) if he might have even accepted 'saying "god did it"' as long as the "it" was consistent with the obs (which a geocentric theory was not).

 

[T'ai Chi]

Yet Galileo was wrong about the tides. So not mentioning 'god' (as you say a designer must be) doesn't make someone right by default. They have to show it to work too. Galileo most definitely didn't show it to work with his tide theory. He tried to plug the holes by also saying that 'oh the 1 tide per day is probably caused by wind, geography, etc.' That is, he just assigned it to a 'science of the gaps' argument which is probably just as bad.

 

[Tumblehome]

What is success to a troll? He's managed to convince himself that he's an expert on something? He has more people on ignore than anyone else? He agitates the most people? He's a good mascot troll who manages to stay afloat without being banned?

I see your contempt, and raise you impotent outrage.

If he's an attention seeker just looking for a reaction, I'd say he's wildly successful. Ever since I replied to him (#139), that's all this thread has been about. It even evolved into talking just about him. I'd guess he's feeling pretty satisfied about that.

I was going to put him on ignore, but that would deprive me of seeing him in action, so I didn't. I just won't take his bait anymore. I'm trying to cut back on worms, anyway.

ETA: Never mind, I just read his post above this one, and I apparently gave him more credit than I should have.

 

[articulett]

I see your contempt, and raise you impotent outrage.

He has that effect on many. He's omnipresent but not representative of the forum in general. Consider him decent repartee practice... it's been years and I've never seen him exhibit any grasping of a clue. He has most older members on ignore, so as to concentrate his preaching on the new and unsuspecting. Your assessment of him is one many share.

 

[Tumblehome]

I hope he puts me on ignore; I want to be a member of that honourable club.

 

[CFLarsen]

Yet Galileo was wrong about the tides. So not mentioning 'god' (as you say a designer must be) doesn't make someone right by default. They have to show it to work too. Galileo most definitely didn't show it to work with his tide theory. He tried to plug the holes by also saying that 'oh the 1 tide per day is probably caused by wind, geography, etc.' That is, he just assigned it to a 'science of the gaps' argument which is probably just as bad.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong.

Galileo included natural explanations, which turned out to be the wrong ones. Science does that all the time: Scientists try to explain phenomena by natural explanations. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.

But it is nowhere near the religiously founded "god of the gaps". "God of the gaps" is an appeal to ignorance (and religious dogma): What we don't understand, we attribute to a supernatural force.

The "Science of the gaps" you talk about is the scientific method. Sometimes, it turns out scientists are right, but it doesn't invalidate the scientific method when they point to the wrong natural explanations.

You have this idealistic view of a scientist as someone who gets it right in the first try. Science doesn't work that way, on the contrary. Science progresses primarily through errors - because we learn much more from them.

 

[lenny]

Science progresses primarily through errors - because we learn much more from them.

exactly.

as john wheeler would say, the key is to "make mistakes as quickly as possible."

framing scientific theory as "right"/"wrong" casts it in a less clear light than "consistent"/"not consistent".

science which has achieved "consistent" (both internally and with observations of the real world) would find it hard to progress.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I hope he puts me on ignore; I want to be a member of that honourable club.

I'm not sure T'roll Chi puts anyone on ignore because it would cut down on his chances to interject enigmatic comments or leading questions (as opposed to offering sincere contributions to a discussion).