The Song Fight Bulletin Board

fluffy wrote: I am a scientific atheist. I do not believe in that which does not have evidence to back it up. I do not discount the possibility that future evidence may appear however. That is how science is supposed to work.

As another scientist, we are probably coming from the same direction, but I am uncomfortable with the word "athiest". Have anyone constructed a testable hypothosis to prove the non-existance of an omnipotent, omniscient entity yet?
The problem I see with athiesm, is that without a providing a proof for something that is fundamentally unprovable - athiesm can rely on faith just as much as the "world-made-in-6-days-don't-tell-me-I'm-related-to-a-monkey" mob. I have always been struck by the fact that many scientists dealing with the 'big questions' of physics, such as Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Paul Davis all tend not to discount the spiritual side of cosmology.

<a href="http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/">read this</a>

Douglas Adams is so cool! Thanks for that awesome link, fluffy!

Caravan Ray wrote:

fluffy wrote: I am a scientific atheist. I do not believe in that which does not have evidence to back it up. I do not discount the possibility that future evidence may appear however. That is how science is supposed to work.

As another scientist, we are probably coming from the same direction, but I am uncomfortable with the word "athiest". Have anyone constructed a testable hypothosis to prove the non-existance of an omnipotent, omniscient entity yet?
The problem I see with athiesm, is that without a providing a proof for something that is fundamentally unprovable - athiesm can rely on faith just as much as the "world-made-in-6-days-don't-tell-me-I'm-related-to-a-monkey" mob. I have always been struck by the fact that many scientists dealing with the 'big questions' of physics, such as Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Paul Davis all tend not to discount the spiritual side of cosmology.

It's not the responsibility of the atheists to prove that God doesn't exist. (That's impossible anyway. Non-existence cannot be observed or measured etc.) They are not the ones with the hypothesis. The theists hypothesize that God exists, as an explanation for any and all aspects of the universe. However, they have no empirical evidence to conclusively support this hypothesis. So, it's only logical to be at least skeptical about the theory that God exists given the lack of evidence, assuming that one holds to the scientific method.

Lunkhead wrote:It's not the responsibility of the atheists to prove that God doesn't exist. (That's impossible anyway. Non-existence cannot be observed or measured etc.) They are not the ones with the hypothesis. The theists hypothesize that God exists, as an explanation for any and all aspects of the universe. However, they have no empirical evidence to conclusively support this hypothesis. So, it's only logical to be at least skeptical about the theory that God exists given the lack of evidence, assuming that one holds to the scientific method.

It's not the responsibility of theists to prove that God exists either.
Non-existence can be measured and observed. I have no money in my wallet.
Not everything that someone believes has to be subjected to the scientific method. You do that, and you end up marrying people who are really nice to you, but who you don't have feelings for.

fluffy wrote:QotD: What question would you really like to ask everyone?

Do you have a cute sister?

*walks by....looks around...continues walking*

My scientific & religious friend likes to remind me that Science doesn't ever prove anything to be true. The closest it comes is to fail to prove something false for a very long time.

So technically speaking, if all of your beliefs are vetted by the Scientific Method, then you should have no beliefs.

So you're always taking leaps of faith. You just need to use your judgment about them. And there's not much risk to believing in supernatural things, so the bar for belief is pretty low I think.

Oh and QOTD: Do you think I'm sexy and/or do you like my body?

Erik: That's not what's meant by proving the negative. You are able to observe the contents of the wallet. However, you cannot comprehensively prove something which is not observable (e.g. the presence of an invisible, intangible demon which has no influence on anything); anything which can't be measured within a system is outside of that system and thus, for the purposes of the system, does not exist. Yes, but she's married.

Jefff: Right, science doesn't prove anything to be true, BUT it provides a framework for making reproducible observations about things which are empirically observable. Obviously nobody can ever have the complete picture (it's impossible to have a system which contains itself) but the point to science is to asymptotically move closer to an understanding. Faith and superstition move you AWAY from that understanding. The whole point to science is that you don't HAVE to take anything on faith because you can reproduce the experiment and see it for yourself. God does not produce reproducible results. You are hot and sexy.

<a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... -GB">watch this</a>

fluffy wrote:Erik: That's not what's meant by proving the negative. You are able to observe the contents of the wallet. However, you cannot comprehensively prove something which is not observable.

Oh, I agree that you can't prove something that's not observable. But people misgeneralize that to "you can't prove a negative", and it's just sloppy.

erik wrote:Non-existence can be measured and observed. I have no money in my wallet.

I should clarify: you can't prove that things that cannot be observed do not exist. EG: you cannot prove that God does not exist, you cannot prove that ghosts/magic/aliens/ESP/etc. do not exist, etc. But, as I'm sure you know, just because you can't prove something -doesn't- exist, doesn't prove that it -does- exist.

erik wrote:It's not the responsibility of theists to prove that God exists either.

You've responded to the first sentence of my post outside of the context of the rest of my post. The statement was in the context of applying the scientific method to the existence of God, in response to fluffy and Ray's posts about "scientific atheism". Like I said, "assuming one subscribes to scientific method", it would be up to the holders of the hypothesis that God exists to provide empirical evidence supporting their hypothesis. I'm not saying that I subscribe to the scientific method myself (maybe I do, maybe I don't) or that it's anyone's "responsibility" (probably bad word choice there) to prove anything to me or anyone about God or anything. I'm trying to illustrate by example that the scientific method involves having a hypothesis and backing it up with empirical evidence. Like, in the example of your wallet, if I subscribed to the scientific method, I wouldn't really believe that you didn't have any money in your wallet until you showed me your empty wallet.

erik wrote:Not everything that someone believes has to be subjected to the scientific method. You do that, and you end up marrying people who are really nice to you, but who you don't have feelings for.

I think people should be free to subject their own beliefs to whatever methods they want, scientific or otherwise, or no methods at all if they want, as it's not really any of my business what people do with their beliefs. I've got enough work just tending to my own.

As for your second sentence there, I have no idea how that's relevant or where you're coming from.

Lunkhead wrote:Like I said, "assuming one subscribes to scientific method", it would be up to the holders of the hypothesis that God exists to provide empirical evidence supporting their hypothesis. I'm not saying that I subscribe to the scientific method myself (maybe I do, maybe I don't) or that it's anyone's "responsibility" (probably bad word choice there) to prove anything to me or anyone about God or anything.

Calling science a belief system trivializes it. Science is an accurate predictor. Religion is not. You can reproduce an experiment and directly observe its results for yourself, but you can't reproduce a prayer, and any observation is based on coincidence and seeing patterns which aren't there.

Animals (including humans) are really good at detecting patterns based on confirmation bias. B. F. Skinner showed this - with entirely reproducible results.

fluffy wrote:

Lunkhead wrote:Like I said, "assuming one subscribes to scientific method", it would be up to the holders of the hypothesis that God exists to provide empirical evidence supporting their hypothesis. I'm not saying that I subscribe to the scientific method myself (maybe I do, maybe I don't) or that it's anyone's "responsibility" (probably bad word choice there) to prove anything to me or anyone about God or anything.

Calling science a belief system trivializes it. Science is an accurate predictor. Religion is not. You can reproduce an experiment and directly observe its results for yourself, but you can't reproduce a prayer, and any observation is based on coincidence and seeing patterns which aren't there.

Animals (including humans) are really good at detecting patterns based on confirmation bias. B. F. Skinner showed this - with entirely reproducible results.

I didn't call science a belief system or otherwise trivialize science, in the part of my post that you quoted, or anywhere else that I'm aware of. Are you asserting that I did, by quoting me then following the quoted text with "Calling science a belief system trivializes it."? If so, that's not what I meant. If not, my bad.

Well, I quoted that specific series of sentences because I interpreted it as you calling science a belief system, due to the "assuming one subscribes to scientific method" and then later saying you don't necessarily do such. Sorry if that's not how you meant it. It just seemed very Socratic-method-y.

fluffy wrote:(it's impossible to have a system which contains itself)

Hah! I was counting down to the incompleteness theorem!

And lo... there it is.

Carry on.

So you assumed I was belittling science, and Erik assumed I was upholding it above all else, when I really didn't state my position one way or the other. Check please...

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Caravan Ray wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:QOTD:
I've heard that Aussies eat mashed peas, the way we eat mashed potatoes.
I saw something on some TV show where they have stands in the city that sell these pot pie looking things that they top off with a big scoop of mashed peas and gravy.

You've heard wrong.

You probably saw something that was filmed in Adelaide. They do that there and it is completely disgusting. But South Australians are fucking weirdos. Look at Sausage Boy.

See, I'm learning about the world here.

I believe you are refering to the Pie Floater, from the world famous pie cart. So world famous that they took away its spot in from of the train station to build tram lines. We love our icons here.

I'm losing track of the questions.

Why did I start looking at the roll call threads. Blargh!

fluffy wrote: Obviously nobody can ever have the complete picture (it's impossible to have a system which contains itself) but the point to science is to asymptotically move closer to an understanding. Faith and superstition move you AWAY from that understanding.

See, you're making assumptions about where to find that "understanding."

Science is great for improving the understanding of domains that behave scientifically -- that's true by definition. My faith gives me understanding in unquantifiable dimensions.

If two conclusions differ only in how they regard the unobservable, then they cannot be debated without involving some faith -- whether that be faith in something beyond science or faith in the unobservable applicability of science.

(EDIT.. ok the gist of that last paragraph has been repeated elsewhere. pardon the redundancy!)

-craig

My penance for going off topic:

What question would you really like to ask everyone?

Do you think you will still be participating in SongFight! in 5 years?

QotD: I'd like to ask this: when I book the cross-country coffeehouse tour, who's got a couch I can crash on?

Jim, we have a futon and a guest room, very comfy. Stop by any time.

Does anyone know where my sunglasses are? I haven't seen them since Sunday.

No, sorry CR.

QotD: I've thought about asking where everybody stands in regard to God / religion.

I was baptised, raised Catholic, and went to church and catechism for years, but never got confirmed. I'm definitely not
into organized religion, it's not for me. Religion just isn't much of a part of my life, one way or the other, anymore.
Generally I lean towards the "show me the empirical evidence" side but I try to keep an open mind.

QotD: What ways can I find to help my wife market her incredibly great artistic abilities (hand drawn psuedo-anime)?

Yeah, try deviantart.com or whatever it's called. Otherwise I have no idea...

QOTD - Who's got the nudie pics?

Probably everybody.

How do you get your gigs set-up? Do you approach clubs and say I wanna play here and they say sure? Or is there more to it?

Ken sets up all my gigs for me, it's really awesome. Thanks Ken!

what computer specs would you get on a new computer recording/playing live laptop? Today, I mean.

Me, personally, I would get a refurbished 12" MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM, probably the 2.2GHz one.

qotd: How much?

For you, it's free.

Are you fundamentally happy?

Maybe.

What's the worst band you've ever heard?

Wow, that's a tough one... I don't know. (I think Mr. Bungle's only good stuff is on their first album, btw.)

What's your favorite food to eat?

Pizza.

Do you have a cute sister?

Sure.

Oh and QOTD: Do you think I'm sexy and/or do you like my body?

Sorry, you're not my type.

I hardly participate in Song Fight *now*. In 5 years? Well, maybe.