Don't blame the science - this is about taking science's name in vain and claiming something is proven when science has always been very up front about the limitations in what, for want of a better word, is called current knowledge.
When did science become the deity of a religion where its name can be taken in vain and it has agency that men are to respect?
We already have a working example: The human brain. So, of course it is possible, unless you believe that the human mind is based on some sort of magic.
So in your opinion, the human brain has made improvements to itself at an exponential rate?
Are you talking about individual human brains or humans as a whole? Because the former results in senile old people, while DNA doesn't work that way.
Yea... but it wasn't a secret conspiratorial rule of the world though. So it doesn't count.
Ah, but FDR was just the front man for his Communist/Masonic superiors!
Sure. Did a the flood that Noah allegedly built an ark for actually occur? A huge global flood would leave geologic evidence that would be observable even today.
It would. And there are people who interpret geological evidence such as fossils and rock layers supporting a global flood.
You should note, however, that these are interpretations, and whether FOR or AGAINST they are not science. There's no control group you can run an experiment at the scales involved. We don't have a spare earth we can terraform and observe for a million years to confirm/disprove competing hypotheses on what actually happened.
Not every historical claim can be tested by science but a great many can.
Actually, none can. You can't experiment on the past. You could fail to replicate a historical event - but that mainly says that *you* failed with your existing technology and chosen solution - it doesn't prove that the past did not happen.
Can you build a scientific experiment to prove George Washington was president? That Julius Caeser existed? That the US fought the Battle of Midway?
You can find artifacts and documents that support those historical facts, but that's not scientific evidence. You can perform scientific experiments on the artifacts/documents to estimate their age, to evaluate their credibility as historical evidence, but that is not using science to test historical claims.
You use historical evidence, not scientific evidence, to test historical claims. Some scientific evidence can serve as historical evidence, but science is an inappropriate tool to determine what happened in the past.
There's a relationship, but like all commodities it's more complicated than that. But the futures markets and all sorts of stuff completely unrelated to supply and demand also are huge factors.
Isn't the futures market just a set of predictions on future supply/demand? So it's not completely unrelated, but perhaps prone to large errors. (since predicting the future is a risky business)
Unsurprisingly most of these claims regarding god turn out to be made up nonsense when looked at objectively or have been so twisted from the actual facts as to be effectively unrecognizable from what actually occurred.
Could you give an example? When you talk about "actual facts" and "what actually occurred", you sound like you're talking about past events.
Are historical claims a domain of science?
That is indeed true. However atheism is essentially a null hypothesis. It makes FAR more sense, in the absence of credible evidence, to believe that there is no "god(s)" than to by default in a theist position.
The default answer is "I don't know", not "I believe not". Saying we must believe there is no god by default is begging the question.
However, we exist and observe ourselves and value reason and truth - which is evidence in favor of the existence of $DIETY. A further evaluation of various human religions could further narrow down the likely true options.
This dude falls for the old trap that he doesn't understand something, therefore "God did it". Personal incredulity
Understanding what a low probability event is does not mean a lack of understanding.
Most people have no idea how cell phones work. Does that mean God made cell phones?
Wrong analogy. Can cell phones assemble themselves through random events, undirected by outside forces?
When you see a cell-phone, you don't think, "Neat accident!" You expect that some other human being designed and built it.
When it comes to a human being, we're order of magnitude more complex than the cell-phone, with correspondingly more capabilities. Yet somehow we're supposed to believe that the human being is a lucky accident, even as we acknowledge the cellphone to be an intelligently designed system.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. There is a finite amounts of it. Every human takes away from that finite amount, the energy need to make that human survive comes from that amount, and any additional amount used to make their life better comes from that amount. The more people, the less extra that can be used purely for increased standard of living. At some point you just have a bunch of people and the resources to keep them alive. There is nothing left to make them happy.
I've already addressed the finite matter point - one trillion, one googol - those are both finite numbers; but are large enough to boggle human imagination.
It's plausible that there's some point where earth's resources are the bottleneck for a human standard of living, but you have not demonstrated that we are anywhere close to that point.
We are the most valuable resource of all.
Source?
It's self-evidently true. You're posting on Slashdot, which was built by people, through a computer, which was built by people, over the Internet, which was built by people, using electricity generated by a power plant, which was built by people.
Notice a pattern there? People create. People design. People build. People figure out how to collect raw materials and finish it into the wide variety of products that make modern life prosperous and comfortable.
If you can't figure out that people are immensely valuable - go out into the wilderness and live off your own efforts. Civilization exists because it has people who build it up and maintain it. Take away the people, you don't get to enjoy civilization anymore.
I should have stated above the minimum threshold of a sustainable population in where there is no loss of important technical knowledge from generation to generation, the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole for each person added. More to your liking?
Sure. Now what evidence do you have for that extrapolation as human population continues to increase?
Like I said, humans are resources who can create resources. We are the most valuable resource of all. Comparing population growth to human standard of living in general for the past 100 years demonstrates continued growth.
By your logic, nobody should ever trust any scientific finding without have done the work for herself. By your reasoning, peer review counts for nothing. Those views are not rational. They are, however, extremely common amongst climate change deniers and others who would prefer to believe in a more attractive version of "the truth", despite there being overwhelming evidence of something less agreeable.
Don't be ridiculous. I'm saying that belief and faith is a normal thing, and is necessary for humans to practice science.
So there's only a problem if you love science AND hate belief, because that requires suspending Reason. And how do you practice Science without Reason?
It's really sad how many people who supposedly are for science do not get these important details right.
Can you read?
Apparently you don't even know what you just said.
There is substantial evidence supporting a minimum sustainable population.
So if it's substantial, surely is must be easy to cite and show it, right? Yet, your first reaction is to attack someone as illiterate
That's not how someone with a substantial amount of evidence behaves.
And that's before I even point out you contradicted your earlier point:
For every increase in human population on the Earth the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole
Every increase includes the increase going from 1 to 2 to 10 to 1,000.
By the way, learn to read the name of the person you're replying to before saying, "your argument". People might think you can't read.
There is no way you can believe a claim to be factual without using belief and faith.
There is always a chain of trust - a belief that your senses are accurately showing you reality; that scientific observations were documented properly; or that scientific models built off of those observations reflect reality; or even a belief that there is an objective reality at all!
What a warped view of reality. For every increase in human population on the Earth the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole, because the finite resources of the Earth are then divvied up among more people.
Wrong. Count the population today vs. 100 years ago.
Now measure the standard of living. Do you seriously want to argue that it was better 100 years ago?
No matter how efficiently resources are used, there is a point were the standard of living afforded to everyone isn't enough to live on.
You don't understand that humans are resources - the most valuable one of all. Humans CREATE resources. More humans is more resources.
Don't believe it? Consider what happens if everyone else in the world drops dead right now. Are you better off, with all of the world's resources to yourself?
Are you going to pick up your own trash, cook your own food, build your own car, refine your own oil, create your own art?
Resources may be finite, but that in of itself doesn't mean much. A trillion seconds is a finite number - and it's still an order of magnitude longer than human history.
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton
