... then larger things again?

(pet peeve)

Still confused, I see. Well, there's not much I can do about it.

Looks good from here.

Which is why it's an excellent example.

Keep at it. You'll puzzle it out in no time.

That's why most people think the earth is flat, right?

People are bad observers.

What are you doing to your equipment? How did these "flappy bits" develop? How is it that every laptop you've claimed to own apparently crumbled at your touch?

You know what? I don't actually believe you. I think you're lying. Are you just trying really hard to justify your overpriced laptop? I have no idea why. Just take the knock to the pocket-book and move on. Everyone makes mistakes.

Perhaps you just like Apple products and are worried about their lack of marketshare? If that's the case, you may want to find a different approach. I've never had a laptop inexplicably disintegrate.

Anecdote: "an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay"

Seems to fit your tall-tale well.

Want me to make a list of all the consumer-grade non-Apple equipment that still work perfectly after years of use and punctuate it with the litany of Apple products that I've seen die or otherwise malfunction over a short span of time?

Would that fall under anecdote or data in your mind?

But who cares? Only an idiot would try to generalize from your tiny sample size.

Slashdot reminds me of the townspeople in "The Simpsons" the way the majority opinion changes.

It wasn't that long ago that Perl was a darling, loved by all, with indecipherable code flowing freely in sigs and comments. Many even seemed to take pride in creating and sharing the most obtuse code imaginable.

Now it's, apparently, the worst thing ever that no one in their right mind would use for even the most trivial task.

Oh, Slashdot. When will you build a monorail?

I know I was worried. When they changed the name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" and then "Climate Disruption" I was absolutely terrified that I wouldn't get the warming I was promised.

An El Nino plus extra warming? Sign me up! I can hardly wait!

Full disclosure: I'm a rabid pro-global-warming zealot.

Why?

Global warming has already been mentioned here, sure, but not by deniers.

I think you have a bad case of "talk about the thing I think I know about because I don't understand the current topic".

Not really. What the parent said was complete and total nonsense. Not just that point, of course, but several others, as I pointed out.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with his conclusion, just pointing out that his argument is shamefully bad. Critical thinking is worthless if you only apply it when you viscerally agree or disagree, after all.

You'll note, then, that the theory does not follow the method, scientists do.

Think.

While you're looking up induction, you should also look up ad hominem. :)

Holy crap! A Slashdot post that got this right!

Then you go and ruin it! The truth of your two premises doesn't even actually matter here as your conclusion does not follow from them. (You need another premise to make your argument valid. Can you guess what it is?)

Pretending you assumed we were all aware of the missing premise: Your application of the law of parsimony doesn't make any sense as it's not a thing that an individual explanation can pass or fail. That bit is about "following the scientific method" is completely incoherent. (What the hell does it mean for a theory to follow the scientific method? For example: Could you explain how, say, the law of gravity follows the scientific method? Of course not! That doesn't make any sense!)

Creationism isn't science, of course, but your argument, even corrected, doesn't get you there.

Looks like someone need to learn about induction.

(To be clear: You. You need to learn about induction.)

What would you call faith in the face of evidence to the contrary?

It's been well understood, for centuries, that the scope of science is bounded. We also know some natural phenomenon are likely beyond the scope of science. I don't know what to do with your statement "we will figure it out" as science, in case you didn't know, doesn't deal in truth -- it wouldn't work if it did!

Your bizarre belief that empirical science is the end of epistemology, which will reveal all that is knowable, is very much religious. The worst kind, in fact, as you don't have any doubt!

Let me guess. You're an autodidact, right? Figures.