General > RANT
Why do otherwise bright people beleive stupid things?
Numsgil:
--- Quote ---"Because god wants it that way" is an easy, convienent answer.
--- End quote ---
"Why does God want it that way?" is a far better question to ask Why did God put dinosaur bones in the ground to fool people in to thinking the earth is older than it is?
EricL:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---
--- Quote ---"Because god wants it that way" is an easy, convienent answer.
--- End quote ---
"Why does God want it that way?" is a far better question to ask Why did God put dinosaur bones in the ground to fool people in to thinking the earth is older than it is?
--- End quote ---
Why indeed. But Nums, questioning God's intent? Blasphomy!
I love memes. When I first read Dawkin's meme theory, I though it was silly. But now I find it obvious that for memes to survive and reproduce, most must contain a prohibition on questioning it's foundations....
Moonfisher:
It sounds like we basicaly agree then, since what you're mentioning on the right side of the spectrum are examples of people believing what other people are telling them to believe.
As long as people form their own opinions.
Ofcourse faith can be used as an excuse, not just for lazyness but for anything realy.
But all humans have an ego and too few are aware of it and able to seperate their rational thoughts from it (To some extent atleast).
So religion or no religion, people will always find a way to justify the most horrible of actions.
But as an atheist I would speculate that religion is the result of our egoes.
Ofcourse religious or not, everyone should try to be aware of their ego, that litle voice in your head that convinces you that you're always right and that everything you do is right, no matter how wrong it is.
abyaly:
I don't like the way science is often treated as infallible and sensible in religious debates. Science is basically the practice of repeated guess-and-check, where you keep refining the guesses. once you've refined them to a certian point, you assume you've controlled for all the variables that are likely to change and treat your result as if it was a fact. This reasoning doesn't work. The assumptions that you need in order to make it work are analogous to the following:
- The sun rose on monday.
- The sun rose on tuesday.
[snip]
- The sun rose on friday.
- Therefore the sun will rise on saturday.
This doesn't seem silly because we all believe the sun will rise on saturday. We know it will rise on saturday is because it has risen every day of our lives.
However, this type of reasoning is bogus. Let me demonstrate.
- Last month I turned on the shower and water came out.
[snip]
- Last week I turned on the shower and water came out.
- Therefore whenever I turn on the shower, water will come out.
As we know, this depends on whether or not I pay the water bill. It may very well stop flowing at some point. In order to reach that conclusion, I assumed that I was controlling for all variables that might affect the experiment—even though I wasn't.
There is no way to tell for sure whether or not something you haven't seen before may influence your outcome. The scientific method does not yield any conclusions without this completely absurd jump of logic.
Science is a study of doubt and plausibility; not conviction. If I make up something completely absurd and you give me mountains of evidence against it, you will not have disproven it.
This is why I can believe things you think are stupid. This is why I can doubt things you are certian of. Math is the only domain for universal truths.
EricL:
--- Quote from: abyaly ---I don't like the way science is often treated as infallible and sensible in religious debates.
--- End quote ---
I am certainly not arguing that science is infallible. Afterall, scientists are people and prone to errors, misjudgements, corruption, greed and so on like the rest of us. But unlike any other method of increasing knowledge (there arn't any others really) the checks and balances involved, from peer review to the practice of publication and experimental reproduction tend to catch and correct these things over time.
But sensible? You have a very uphill battle my friend arguing that the scientific method is not sensible. The very definition of the scientific method (formulating a question, proposing a hypothesis for answerring that question and then testing that hypothesis) is about as sensical a process as it gets. What other path would you suggest for gaining knowledge? Sitting on a mountain top waiting for enlightenment? Frankly, no others come to my mind.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---Science is basically the practice of repeated guess-and-check, where you keep refining the guesses.
--- End quote ---
Well, okay. Most hypothesis are much more than guesses - often finding the right question to ask is much of the battle - but okay....
--- Quote from: abyaly ---once you've refined them to a certian point, you assume you've controlled for all the variables that are likely to change and treat your result as if it was a fact. This reasoning doesn't work.
--- End quote ---
I disagree strongly. Part of the problem may be the word " fact". Laymen usage of the term generally means something irrefutable. A good scientist on the otherhand uses the term to mean "something for which there is a strong, well tested and broadly excepted hypothesis with experimental confirmation, no evidence against and no reason to think evidence against will emerge." It's shorthand. It does not mean something irrefutable (only religon deals in such absolutes).
It happens of course that hypothesises get usurped. It happens, but it is incredibly rare for a well-tested hypothesis to be shown to be patently incorrect (I challenge you to find one). Rather what happens is as you say, hypothesis get refined. Newtons laws of gravitation were refined by Einstien's Theory of Special Relativity. This doesn't mean Newton was wrong - his equations still work just fine to many decimal places as long as the speeds involved arn't close to that of light. It just means that Einstien's theory is broader and more encompassing.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---This doesn't seem silly because we all believe the sun will rise on saturday. We know it will rise on saturday is because it has risen every day of our lives.
However, this type of reasoning is bogus. Let me demonstrate.
- Last month I turned on the shower and water came out.
[snip]
- Last week I turned on the shower and water came out.
- Therefore whenever I turn on the shower, water will come out.
As we know, this depends on whether or not I pay the water bill. It may very well stop flowing at some point. In order to reach that conclusion, I assumed that I was controlling for all variables that might affect the experiment—even though I wasn't.
--- End quote ---
Your being simplisitic. Let's apply the scientific method shall we? As above, asking ther right question is much of the battle. The question your asking is "will the water come out tomorrow?" But in formulating this question, it becomes immediatly obvious that you can't asnwer it without asking another: "Why does the water come out in the first place?" Investigation of this question would obviously lead to a hypothesis and model which could make predictions, including the one that if you don't pay your water bill, the water will stop flowing.
Science isn't about making blind predicitons of the future (the water will come on tomorrow ) based on the past (the water came out yesturday). It's about understanding the actual underlying causes (why the water comes on at all) and what things influence that.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---There is no way to tell for sure whether or not something you haven't seen before may influence your outcome. The scientific method does not yield any conclusions without this completely absurd jump of logic.
--- End quote ---
If you really beleive this, then you should not not fly in airplanes or ride in cars. You never know what might influence the underlying science and cause the plane to plummet from the sky or the tires to stop adhereing to the road.
While I'll agree that controlling all variables is an impossibility, part of what formulating a good hypothesis is all about is determining which variables are the important ones. The scientific process is very good at this. Imagine a scientist who published a theory which did not take not into account an important variable that could impact the results. How long do you think it would take for another scientist in the same field to point this out? Not long.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---Science is a study of doubt and plausibility; not conviction. If I make up something completely absurd and you give me mountains of evidence against it, you will not have disproven it.
--- End quote ---
You are mistaken. It's called Disproof by Example. If you make a claim and I give you evidence of something that violates your claim, you have a choice. You can either modify your claim or show that my evidence is incorrect. Proof by example is unscientific, as you point out above with your water example. (Just because the water came on yesturday does not prove it will come on today). But Disproof by Example is a very strong scientific method.
There is a third option I suppose. You can continue to hold to your claim without attempting to demonstrate that my evidence is incorrect. But in so doing, you are not only irrational, but I calim you are exhibiting arrogance, which was my original point in this topic.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---This is why I can believe things you think are stupid. This is why I can doubt things you are certian of.
--- End quote ---
You've given no examples of your beliefs in the supernatural, so I have no way to know whether what you believe is (IMHO) stupid or not. If you beleive that the lines in your palm can foretell your future or that you can find water undergound using a Y shaped stick, then yup, I'm going to argue that's stupid.
--- Quote from: abyaly ---Math is the only domain for universal truths.
--- End quote ---
If by universal truths you mean provable assertions, then I agree.
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