Activate the Mechanism!

On respecting beliefs…

abaldwin360:

Why do people who constantly deny scientific data always demand that they be respected?

Of course you aren’t going to be respected, just in the same way your opinion wouldn’t be respected if a 1968 Dodge Charger was sitting right in front of you and you kept insisting it was a 1968 Camaro because that’s what you initially thought it was, even though you have been shown otherwise, had it compared to other Chargers and Camaros of the same year and had the difference between the two cars pointed out to you.

People wold think you’re nuts because you would keep holding on to an idea you had despite the data sitting there looking you in the face.

No one would say, “Oh, you believe it’s a completely different make and model of car, you hold on to this belief so strongly, so I respect your belief.”

More than likely they would look at you and think, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

Reblogging myself because I was talking to Brittany last night about people freaking out over their opinion not being respected. The same thing that applies to beliefs can be applied to opinions people hold.

On respecting beliefs…

Why do people who constantly deny scientific data always demand that they be respected?

Of course you aren’t going to be respected, just in the same way your opinion wouldn’t be respected if a 1968 Dodge Charger was sitting right in front of you and you kept insisting it was a 1968 Camaro because that’s what you initially thought it was, even though you have been shown otherwise, had it compared to other Chargers and Camaros of the same year and had the difference between the two cars pointed out to you.

People wold think you’re nuts because you would keep holding on to an idea you had despite the data sitting there looking you in the face.

No one would say, “Oh, you believe it’s a completely different make and model of car, you hold on to this belief so strongly, so I respect your belief.”

More than likely they would look at you and think, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

Dear Creationist.

abaldwin360:

Creationism is not science.

Let me repeat that; CREATIONISM IS NOT FUCKING SCIENCE.

Creationism is religion, plain and simple, there is no way to argue around this, it’s nothing more than a bunch of shit you can’t test.

Please show me how you can test your theories (and they are just theories, not scientific theories, please stop using this fucking argument, it makes anyone who says it look like a fucking fool because you obviously don’t know what the fuck you are talking about).

Maybe we should focus on that, you guys say, “Evolution is just a theory” - just a theory - do you people even understand what a scientific theory is?

Let me lay it out for you, first, the word “theory”, as in the non scientific kind; since it seems to be where the confusion lies.

• Theory: a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

Okay, so in this regard, a theory is not a fact, it’s conjecture, it’s something you might think is true. I could theorize that when I flush my toilet, the contents of it go down the pipes and into an underground cavern beneath my apartment building. Lets say someone presented this to me as a fact, lets say everyone living in, or who have ever lived my apartment building has been told the same thing. Everyone would go on believing that there was a huge cavern under the building filled with sewage.

So, lets say, one day I start thinking to myself, “That must be a pretty big cavern, this apartment building is 40 years old, 40 years of flushing toilets, and I don’t smell a thing, the pipes leading down to it haven’t ever backed up, I flush my toilet and everything goes down just like it always has.” and I go to the owner of the apartment building and ask them about this, ask them how it is that this cavern under the apartment building has not completely filled up with sewage in the last 40 years, or why can’t I smell anything coming from this cavern full of sewage.

They might say, “Oh well, it’s a very big cavern, it can hold hundreds of years worth of sewage.” and “The cavern is very far underground, almost a mile in fact.”

So, I would ask them, “Have you ever seen this cavern?” and say they answered, “No, there was another building here when we bought the land, we demolished it and built this apartment building where the old one stood, we used the existing pipes that lead to the cavern.”

If I asked them, “How do you know the cavern is even there?” they might say “The previous owners told us.”

So, right now, this cavern is theoretical, we have no proof it’s there other than second hand “knowledge” passed from person to person.
This is where science comes in;

A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.-Wikipedia

In other words, a scientific theory isn’t just something that someone pulled out of their ass and called a cherry plumb.

In other words, in a scientific theory you make observations, you collect data, you find proof and come to the best possible explanation for what it is you have observed.

So, lets go back to our cavern of sewage analogy, I now want to prove that there is a cavern under my apartment building that all the contents of flushed toilets go to.

The first thing I may do, is look at the geological survey data for the area, within this collection of information about the plot of land that the apartment building is on, I see no reverences to caverns or caves in the area. It could be that the cave is so deep they didn’t know about it when they did the survey, but this is just one piece of information against the cavern, if I were to stop there, I really wouldn’t have my answer, just like if I had taken the owners of the building at their word.

So, next, I can find the civil engineering information about the neighborhood the building is located in, in this collection of data, I find schematics and information about the building’s plumbing.

It shows that all the drains in the building run to a larger pipe underneath the building, is this the pipe that leads to the cavern? 

In studying the data for the whole neighborhood the building is in, I see that all the buildings in this neighborhood have drains that all run into a larger pipe, does that mean all the buildings around here have caverns under them that are filled with sewage?

Finally, I observe in the civil engineering data to this neighborhood that all these larger pipes all come together into an even larger pipe marked “main drain” that runs to the city’s sewer system, and the city’s sewage system runs into a treatment plant and then returns the water to a river.

I must be Sherlock fucking Holmes! - actually that’s a good analogy, what if instead of finding facts and evidence a detective just set behind his desk and stated who he believed committed a particular crime, I mean, he is a detective, it says so on the door to his office, he knows what he’s talking about, right?

Yeah, sounds pretty dumb doesn’t it? You walk into the office and he immediately says, “The butler did it!” and you ask how he knows, and he says, “I just believe he did.” and when asked if he did any investigation, he simply says, “No.”

So, back to the building’s method of getting rid of the sewage, I now have empirical data, the civil engineering blueprints show how the sewage system of the neighborhood works, so why is this proof enough for me?

Well, I know that you can’t build a building without adequate sewage, the city or local laws would not allow for this, in this way I’m using facts together with logic (in this case, the blueprints and knowledge of local building codes, and the logical conclusion that the building could not be built without adhering to local laws about sewage disposal).

So now, in a way I have a scientific theory that says that there is not a cave under my apartment building, and that my toilet flushes into the sewer.

If I presented this information to the building’s owner, and they simply respond “No, it goes to a cave, that’s what we were told and that’s what we will continue to believe.” - that would look pretty fucking stubborn and quite frankly idiotic, wouldn’t it?

I mean, yes, we haven’t actually torn down the building and dug into the ground to see if the cavern full of sewage is there, but all the evidence would point to it not actually being there, and now the burden of proof lies upon the building’s owners, who continue to claim all the sewage goes into a cavern under the building, because the previous owners told them so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

They believe in the sewage cavern on faith alone.

Now, lets say they decided that they didn’t like my explanation, and went to city hall and petitioned to have all references to the sewer system removed from the city’s records and replaced with “there is a cavern below the building that all the sewage goes into.”

This is EXACTLY the way I see creationism being taught as science.

It’s a cavern full of shit.

Dear Creationist.

Creationism is not science.

Let me repeat that; CREATIONISM IS NOT FUCKING SCIENCE.

Creationism is religion, plain and simple, there is no way to argue around this, it’s nothing more than a bunch of shit you can’t test.

Please show me how you can test your theories (and they are just theories, not scientific theories, please stop using this fucking argument, it makes anyone who says it look like a fucking fool because you obviously don’t know what the fuck you are talking about).

Maybe we should focus on that, you guys say, “Evolution is just a theory” - just a theory - do you people even understand what a scientific theory is?

Let me lay it out for you, first, the word “theory”, as in the non scientific kind; since it seems to be where the confusion lies.

• Theory: a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

Okay, so in this regard, a theory is not a fact, it’s conjecture, it’s something you might think is true. I could theorize that when I flush my toilet, the contents of it go down the pipes and into an underground cavern beneath my apartment building. Lets say someone presented this to me as a fact, lets say everyone living in, or who have ever lived my apartment building has been told the same thing. Everyone would go on believing that there was a huge cavern under the building filled with sewage.

So, lets say, one day I start thinking to myself, “That must be a pretty big cavern, this apartment building is 40 years old, 40 years of flushing toilets, and I don’t smell a thing, the pipes leading down to it haven’t ever backed up, I flush my toilet and everything goes down just like it always has.” and I go to the owner of the apartment building and ask them about this, ask them how it is that this cavern under the apartment building has not completely filled up with sewage in the last 40 years, or why can’t I smell anything coming from this cavern full of sewage.

They might say, “Oh well, it’s a very big cavern, it can hold hundreds of years worth of sewage.” and “The cavern is very far underground, almost a mile in fact.”

So, I would ask them, “Have you ever seen this cavern?” and say they answered, “No, there was another building here when we bought the land, we demolished it and built this apartment building where the old one stood, we used the existing pipes that lead to the cavern.”

If I asked them, “How do you know the cavern is even there?” they might say “The previous owners told us.”

So, right now, this cavern is theoretical, we have no proof it’s there other than second hand “knowledge” passed from person to person.
This is where science comes in;

A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.-Wikipedia

In other words, a scientific theory isn’t just something that someone pulled out of their ass and called a cherry plumb.

In other words, in a scientific theory you make observations, you collect data, you find proof and come to the best possible explanation for what it is you have observed.

So, lets go back to our cavern of sewage analogy, I now want to prove that there is a cavern under my apartment building that all the contents of flushed toilets go to.

The first thing I may do, is look at the geological survey data for the area, within this collection of information about the plot of land that the apartment building is on, I see no reverences to caverns or caves in the area. It could be that the cave is so deep they didn’t know about it when they did the survey, but this is just one piece of information against the cavern, if I were to stop there, I really wouldn’t have my answer, just like if I had taken the owners of the building at their word.

So, next, I can find the civil engineering information about the neighborhood the building is located in, in this collection of data, I find schematics and information about the building’s plumbing.

It shows that all the drains in the building run to a larger pipe underneath the building, is this the pipe that leads to the cavern? 

In studying the data for the whole neighborhood the building is in, I see that all the buildings in this neighborhood have drains that all run into a larger pipe, does that mean all the buildings around here have caverns under them that are filled with sewage?

Finally, I observe in the civil engineering data to this neighborhood that all these larger pipes all come together into an even larger pipe marked “main drain” that runs to the city’s sewer system, and the city’s sewage system runs into a treatment plant and then returns the water to a river.

I must be Sherlock fucking Holmes! - actually that’s a good analogy, what if instead of finding facts and evidence a detective just set behind his desk and stated who he believed committed a particular crime, I mean, he is a detective, it says so on the door to his office, he knows what he’s talking about, right?

Yeah, sounds pretty dumb doesn’t it? You walk into the office and he immediately says, “The butler did it!” and you ask how he knows, and he says, “I just believe he did.” and when asked if he did any investigation, he simply says, “No.”

So, back to the building’s method of getting rid of the sewage, I now have empirical data, the civil engineering blueprints show how the sewage system of the neighborhood works, so why is this proof enough for me?

Well, I know that you can’t build a building without adequate sewage, the city or local laws would not allow for this, in this way I’m using facts together with logic (in this case, the blueprints and knowledge of local building codes, and the logical conclusion that the building could not be built without adhering to local laws about sewage disposal).

So now, in a way I have a scientific theory that says that there is not a cave under my apartment building, and that my toilet flushes into the sewer.

If I presented this information to the building’s owner, and they simply respond “No, it goes to a cave, that’s what we were told and that’s what we will continue to believe.” - that would look pretty fucking stubborn and quite frankly idiotic, wouldn’t it?

I mean, yes, we haven’t actually torn down the building and dug into the ground to see if the cavern full of sewage is there, but all the evidence would point to it not actually being there, and now the burden of proof lies upon the building’s owners, who continue to claim all the sewage goes into a cavern under the building, because the previous owners told them so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

They believe in the sewage cavern on faith alone.

Now, lets say they decided that they didn’t like my explanation, and went to city hall and petitioned to have all references to the sewer system removed from the city’s records and replaced with “there is a cavern below the building that all the sewage goes into.”

This is EXACTLY the way I see creationism being taught as science.

It’s a cavern full of shit.