Anglicans exclude the US Episcopalians over gay bishops

[Hope]

Hope,

Doesn't help you: one provides its facts based on objective data with a method to test them; the other provides facts based on its opinions.

It's simple enough isn't it?

'Objective data' moderated through a single lens isn't automatically 'objective'.  Remember, scientific findings are always explained through science itself - not through some other independent means.  That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

[Hope]

Well, you are getting close to nihilism, i.e. that all experiences are equal.   This is clearly not correct.   For example, you could cite alien abduction, and you could cite the theory of gravity.   Which one would you find useful if you were on the space station and wanted to return to earth?

Well, I can think of somethoing beyond those two that I'd find useful if I wanted to get back to earth in a decent time period.

[wigginhall]

Well, I can think of somethoing beyond those two that I'd find useful if I wanted to get back to earth in a decent time period.

That doesn't answer the question.   I would suggest that the theory of gravity would be crucial to getting back to earth in one piece, alien abduction would not be. 

[Shaker]

That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

Lock the thread Gordon, we have a winner!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

'Objective data' moderated through a single lens isn't automatically 'objective'.  Remember, scientific findings are always explained through science itself - not through some other independent means.  That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

Fantastic stupidity there Hoppity, just fantastic. So science is very little different from religion is it - tell me, if someone dear to you were to be diagnosed with cancer, would you send her to an oncologist for chemotherapy or to a Hopi Indian for some burning sage leaves? 

Surely even you can at least dimly grasp the qualitative difference between "light travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum" and, "dragons fly at 200 mph" can't you?

Can't you? 

[Owlswing]

Scientific 'facts' were facts well before humans evolved (even though we might not have been present to recognise them as so) and they will remain so long after we are gone. That the earth moved around the sun every (give or take) 365 days was just as much fact millions of years ago, prior to humans evolving and if all humans suddenly vanished tomorrow that 'fact' would remain.

And it is another fact that the Christian Church denied this fact to the point of executing those who dared to state that it was not, as the Church demaded that everyone believe, the other way round!

[Gordon]

'Objective data' moderated through a single lens isn't automatically 'objective'.  Remember, scientific findings are always explained through science itself - not through some other independent means.

Science comes with a methodology that allows the gathering, classification and gathering of evidence, along with testable hypothesis and theories, and also a disciplined approach to making conclusions - it doesn't need any secondary 'independent means', although I'd be interested to know what you mean by this. In contrast religion has nothing that is even remotely comparable, which is why it is beyond reason and rationality. 

That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

This again demonstrates, along with your deplorable statement on the CP/SSM thread, that you are both utterly clueless and hopelessly misguided.

[Shaker]

Science comes with a methodology that allows the gathering, classification and gathering of evidence, along with testable hypothesis and theories, and also a disciplined approach to making conclusions - it doesn't need any secondary 'independent means', although I'd be interested to know what you mean by this.

Since he keeps wittering on about an "external" factor, I assume he means that we can't really ever know anything to be the case unless God says so

[Owlswing]

Since he keeps wittering on about an "external" factor, I assume he means that we can't really ever know anything to be the case unless God says so

So, if my Goddess tells me that Hope is a hopeless wanker, it must be true?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Owls,

So, if my Goddess tells me that Hope is a hopeless wanker, it must be true?

Apparently - that's as good as science he says!

[jeremyp]

One is based on human experience, the other is based on ... human experience.

One is based on observations of the real World, the other is based on people making things up. I grant that both of these are human experiences, but there is a fundamental difference.

[Owlswing]

Owls,

Apparently - that's as good as science he says!

So he is a hopelessly unscientific wanker?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Owls,

So he is a hopelessly unscientific wanker?

Well...

[Outrider]

'Objective data' moderated through a single lens isn't automatically 'objective'.

The data is objective, because it's measured by equipment that is not subject to opinion. The interpretation - the information - is perhaps subjective, but that data itself is not.

Remember, scientific findings are always explained through science itself - not through some other independent means.

Tautologies demonstrate nothing - of course scientific findings are always explained through science, that's what makes them scientific findings. Otherwise they'd be meaningless. They are explained through a tested and refined methodology, something that religion lacks, which brings us on to...

That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

Utter, utter shite. As has been repeatedly and exhaustively explained, science does not rest on faith, but on trust. On the repeatedly validated and demonstrated principle that reality is consistent in its behaviour, and that having repeatedly observed that consistent behaviour and constructed a model based upon it, you can make predictions which can the be tested to further validate the model. This is science. This is a methodology.

Faith is claiming in the absence of phenomena, or in defiance of the phenomena. It's the polar opposite of science.

Scientism - Vlad's eternally misrepresented 'Philosophical Materialism' - could be a faith position, if the presumption initially is 'that which can be measured is all there is', but it could also be a provisional conclusion from the fact that science works, and continues to work, whereas no other philosophies have an accompanying and validating methodology.

O.

[Owlswing]

'Objective data' moderated through a single lens isn't automatically 'objective'.  Remember, scientific findings are always explained through science itself - not through some other independent means.  That is why science is very little different from religion - it depends, as you like to accuse religion, on someone's faith in it as the source of all answers.

You have stated that you were a teacher, Hope!

I truly hope (no pun intended) that you did not teach science - if you did - goddess help your students!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Scientism - Vlad's eternally misrepresented 'Philosophical Materialism' - could be a faith position, if the presumption initially is 'that which can be measured is all there is', but it could also be a provisional conclusion from the fact that science works, and continues to work, whereas no other philosophies have an accompanying and validating methodology.

So far you have failed to show how you get from science works to the conclusion that matter is all there is.

Science works is the conclusion.......but hey, so does Brobat shithouse cleaner.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

So far you have failed to show how you get from science works to the conclusion that matter is all there is.

Science works is the conclusion.......but hey, so does Brobat shithouse cleaner.

Presumably because "the conclusion that matter is all there is" is just your straw man. Why would anyone want to "get" there when it's just a definition you've invented to prop up a spurious argument about "philosophical materialism" rather than something anyone actually claims? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlunderer,

Presumably because "the conclusion that matter is all there is" is just your straw man. Why would anyone want to "get" there when it's just a definition you've invented to prop up a spurious argument about "philosophical materialism" rather than something anyone actually claims?

you have failed to read what Outrider is proposing.
Science works and that's it. That does not support any further speculation.

Have a nice day and so glad you have dropped materialism.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunderer,

you have failed to read what Outrider is proposing.
Science works and that's it. That does not support any further speculation.

Have a nice day and so glad you have dropped materialism.

It seems that I have and you haven't. Yes science works and that's all science claims to do. That's why materialism confines itself to the conclusion that the material is that which is reliably accessible and susceptible to a method of validation. The rest is all your invention to support a hopeless argument.

Glad you've seen the light now and become a materialist at last.   

[Outrider]

So far you have failed to show how you get from science works to the conclusion that matter is all there is.

I haven't gone from 'science works' to 'therefore that's all there is'. I've gone from 'science works' and validates the idea that material is therefore justified, coupled with you have no methodology to validate anything else to 'we'll work on material as if it were all there were until you can come up with something else'.

Science doesn't disprove the immaterial. Your lack of any reason to suppose the immaterial means that we can discount it and work with what we can demonstrate until you find a methodology.

Science works is the conclusion.......but hey, so does Brobat shithouse cleaner.

Tellingly, though, it does so because of chemistry, not prayer.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I haven't gone from 'science works' to 'therefore that's all there is'. I've gone from 'science works' and validates the idea that material is therefore justified, coupled with you have no methodology to validate anything else to 'we'll work on material as if it were all there were until you can come up with something else'.

Science doesn't disprove the immaterial. Your lack of any reason to suppose the immaterial means that we can discount it and work with what we can demonstrate until you find a methodology.

Tellingly, though, it does so because of chemistry, not prayer.

O.

That's a chemistry given to us by the uncaused cause.

[Hope]

I truly hope (no pun intended) that you did not teach science - if you did - goddess help your students!

Why?  I know of some extremely good RE teachers who are atheists.  One of the best arguments for climate change I ever heard in a classroom was given by someone I know disagreed with the concept. You seem to think that teachers teach their own opinions - perhaps that is what your teachers did?

Incidentally, just to set your mind at rest, and as I've said on a number of occasions over the years, I originally qualified as an English teacher, studying RE and Drama as additional subjects at teaching college.  About 10 years after I first qualified I added Teaching English as a Foreign Language to my portfolio.  In the latter capacity, I have often been involved in teaching science in secondary schools - either as support teacher in mainstream classrooms, or on a one2one basis when I've been asked to extract a pupil and give them intensive support work following the syllabus that the class they should have been in were following (usually, this involved an intensive 2-4 week process whereby I would teach the student or a small group of them a limited number of subjects in order that they learned the vocab and language of those subjects and got somewhat closer to the level that the mainstream group were already at.)

[Nearly Sane]

Of course after all, it's not as if it was a 'real' marriage.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-35368067

[ProfessorDavey]

One of the best arguments for climate change I ever heard in a classroom was given by someone I know disagreed with the concept. You seem to think that teachers teach their own opinions - perhaps that is what your teachers did?

In which case you are completely misunderstanding science (yet again).

Scientists do not base their scientific conclusions on their subjective opinions - they base them on objective scientific evidence. So a science teacher who says 'in my opinion climate change is true' or 'in my opinion climate change is false' is a poor teacher - they should be saying 'lets look at the objective scientific evidence and consider whether that evidence is consistent with their being climate change' - next if we conclude there is climate change (i.e. significant alterations in, for example, global temperature over the past 100 years) then lets look further at the objective scientific evidence to try to understand what might be causing that climate change.

By the way the worst approach is someone who selectively uses evidence merely as a tool to justify their own prejudged opinion.

[Hope]

In which case you are completely misunderstanding science (yet again).

The guy I referred to is a scientist who was speaking to a group pg Yera 11 students. 

Scientists do not base their scientific conclusions on their subjective opinions - they base them on objective scientific evidence.

I'm glad that you agree with what i was saying in my post, PD.  If you re-read the post concerned, you'll see that it was in response to a post from Matt who seemed to imply that he thought that teachers taught according to their personal opinions.

By the way the worst approach is someone who selectively uses evidence merely as a tool to justify their own prejudged opinion.

Couldn't agree more.