Fair enough. My only point is that you shouldn't feel any attack on Hovind is in any way an attack on you. He is a liar and a moron. That is obvious no matter if you happen to agree with him on god.

Not at all (excluding freud - I'm not convinced he was much of a scientist). I think science is a process - so these fields are works in progress. Within that context you can be confident - they have measurable effects, postulated explanations for those effects, weaknesses, strengths, all subject to revision.

You can't make scientific claims about empirically inaccessible objects (if such things exist). I'm not claiming science is "finished" - even physics is under revision. Nonetheless, within the bounds of uncertainty outlined within the scientific papers themselves - you can be confident of what they are saying. Any errors eventually get caught. Any puzzles eventually get resolved.

No - however it does contribute to the general aura in RGT. Theists are morons - look, here's another one.

Personally I dont really mind it - I wasnt going to comment on it the only reason I did is to perhaps clarify for Arouet why it might have been taken as insulting or childish. He seemed to not understand why it would even be an issue. The "I'm just sharing a joke with some friends" is something atheists can do here by weight of numbers - I wouldnt publically post something just because I thought Jib, Stu, NR, et al might find amusing since this isnt a relaxing place to chill out as a theist. You need to come armed.

No big issue. Merely a perspecive.

Fair enough. I think the thread was more of joke since the thesis is laughable bad. And the big thing about hovind is not that he is a theist, its that he is a YEC which i think is fair to say almost certainly makes him a moron right off the bat

While I am sorry that some have found offence from my post (you guys know I generally try to be respectful) I don't think this is just a case of - look, there's another stupid theist, ha ha. This is a popular leader who has made millions fleecing Christians. While not many regs ascribe to his views, who knows how many lurkers do? Bringing attention to the ludicrousness of his arguments is fair. He's not some random theist to point fingers act.

Again, I think its fair game to launch whatever attacks you guys want against Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al. I even agree with some of the critiques. These are very public figures and are open to criticism and even ridicule. As long as its justified, which, in this case I believe it is.

I won't make a habit of these kinds of post, though. This was an exception!

Derail imminent, but yeah, IMO Freud was basically a poet pretending to be a philosopher, pretending to be a scientist.


Sub: do you have any background information on Jaynes, specifically why he never published anything else (ie, the promised 'Consequences of Consciousness')? I plan on starting a thread on 'Origin'/bicamerality in SMP once I've re-read the book.

Oh, if you only meant that science is distinguished by an ambition to establish criteria for confidence, I retract my post. I just disagree that scientific theories are, in practice, restricted to what is well-defined and measurable. (In any strong sense of those words.)

If nothing else, the technological limits of modern science guarantee that many of its theories will be not-even-wrong at the resolution enabled by future technology.

Hmm. I don't know what you put in the category of "empirically inaccessible". But if you skim, for example, C.S. Peirce's influential-to-this-day semiotic theory...and then remember that we can't even explain how bees communicate...you will probably feel that the objects of this theory are not so very accessible to empirical use!

No. But it seemed his theory depended heavily on the existence of right-brain/left-brain specialization. IIRC, later research discredited that notion. So I wouldn't be surprised to find that Jaynes had mounting trouble with neurological plausibility in the years after Origin.

Just a wild guess, though.

That's the odd thing, though - the wiki and julianjaynes.com both maintain that neurological research has in fact presented evidence to support Jaynes. But I guess julianjaynes.com might be considered a little biased, and the wiki maybe not too reliable.


Edit: At any rate, some of the things presented in the book, if accurate, make it difficult to think he wasn't at least on to something.

I agree with you really. Your follow up posts are exactly what I would expect in this sort of forum. Your OP was the only one which irked me (and that irking I consider to be my problem not yours). I'd never heard of the guy and didnt really see any argument or point to what you posted.

Sloppy posting on my part, however I think they have to be well-defined and measurable in theory - even if never in practise, no?

I think any theory about what happens in an area which is theorised to be forever inaccessible is not science. (Eg speculation about how physics works at sub planck scales - scientific? Apologies to Max Raker and others for the probable mangling in that example)

Well I put subjective experience there, but I can acknowledge I could well be wrong about that.

I may have a look (though in all honesty will probably not overcome my wiki-aversion). However, not being scientific does not mean without value. One of my philosphy lecturers used to define philosophy as "what we do before we know enough to do science". The dualism-materialism debate was not scientific in Descartes day - it may soon become so if cognitive science progresses far enough.

Similarly - freud may be influential within science even if my judgement of his work as unscientific holds up.

I don't know of anyone here who would defend Hovind on much outside of the basic doctrines we all share. From his wiki, even YECs separated from him because he insisted on using arguments that are completely discredited - to their credit, sites like The Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis do sometimes give up on arguments and inform their followers to do so as well.

There just doesn't seem to be much reason to attack YECs here - I could be wrong but I don't know of any regulars who are, and if there are, I don't think they post on it much or try to promote it.

That said, I may have overreacted, but as I mentioned, part of the reason was it surprised me coming from you.

I think there's growing momentum among evangelicals to rethink age issues. That is what I see as RTB's major contribution to current Christianity. Craig is also an OEC, and though it doesn't form part of his normal presentation, he does tend to teach it in his doctrinal classes.

You have to understand that it's hard for a committed Christian to change his mind on that issue for several reasons. I think the changes will come slowly and somewhat silently, but I truly believe the truth will win out eventually.

Edit: Let me give you a contrast. There are people here who love Dawkins and the other New Atheists. I mean there are plenty of atheistic positions I could gratuitously attack and who are silly, etc., but I focus on Dawkins a lot not just because he has general influence, but a lot of people here, including you I believe, think very highly of him. Had you made a legitimate attack on a theist that represents us well, my reaction would have been different. I just saw it as irrelevant to anything that is usually discussed here seriously, and, as I say, reacted a bit strongly.

ldo, you don't have a Craig quotes to use for those threads.

teh atheists are on the attack again! attack! attack! attack!

can i read this as you admitting you could one day become an atheist?

please do...


shouldn't it be the other way around?

Why hold back? Why should theists be the only ones under attack here? While "atheism" is not a movement (and so is hard to attack for silly positions (there is only one position) New Atheism I believe can be called a movement. It basically builds from atheism into an anti-theism (which obviously goes way beyond atheism). Why shouldn't there be more focus on that? Will make for some really interesting debate.

By the way, while I do like Dawkins, you'll find that I almost exclusively refer to his evolution stuff, which is his forte. I haven't read God Delusion yet, though I have a copy, will be getting to it. As well as the Hitchens stuff, etc.

So NR: don't hold back, drop the gloves, and let's get it on!

Now this is a Kent Hovind interview not to be missed!

I won't do it regularly but I've been longing to post about Dennett's statement that the universe causes itself - gotta be worse than anything Hovind has ever said.

I don't think dennett's statement has to be wrong or nonsensical. I think most people who study cosmology would say that the word cause probably doesn't even make sense there.

It sure doesn't after Dennett gets through with it.

Anybody that thinks he is wrong obviously is probably making a mistake. Whether you know it or not the notion of causality in the universe is strictly tied in with Lorentz invariance and a smooth spacetime manifold. Either one of which (or both) could be broken by quantum gravity. We can't even define space like and time like intervals so there isn't much we can even talk about. I would be very surprised if you can find something that has to be wrong in what Dennett says.

It's a simple logical contradiction - it's meaningless to say something can cause itself - it would have to exist and not exist at the same time in the same respect. It may be incomprehensible that something contingent can be uncaused, but that isn't logically contradictory - something causing itself is logically impossible.

This isn't really correct and you are assuming some form of causality (ie Lorentz invariance) without knowing it. If we relax Lorentz invariance the phrases cause and effect can become meaningless. Like in frame 1, A causes B and in frame 2, B causes A. Your simple "logic" is irrelevant.

I don't know how you can even do science if you reject logic and causality. What can science even mean?

I don't know how to do physics in non Lorentz invariant space times. Nobody does. You are the one making claims about what happens in those regimes without knowing how little you know about what you are talking about. I know enough to know that I can't really say anything.

except for god

Hey man, "The Infidel Guy" has a nice show on this where they rip it apart. I think it's www.infidelguy.com it's one of the newer ones. I'm a subscriber so if you cant get it for free i can link ur or pm it to u.