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Doesn't scientific data still need to be interpreted at some point? And don't different scientists sometimes draw different conclusions while looking at the same data?
Much like religious people can read the same Bible and come away with different understandings of what it is saying and what we are supposed to be doing with that information?
Or maybe some people are just more verbose than others. And some people want very much to try to express their thoughts as specifically as possible, even at the risk of sometimes talking over the other persons head (ability to comprehend).
We app post quickly and sometimes pouring down our ideas into a post can come out in a clumsy or a obscure way and can be hard to follow. I smetimes look back at a post of mine and shake my head *hell's bells, did I post that?" We have to make allowances.
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Originally Posted by looking4answers12
One last thought/question for now (from me).
Doesn't scientific data still need to be interpreted at some point? And don't different scientists sometimes draw different conclusions while looking at the same data?
Much like religious people can read the same Bible and come away with different understandings of what it is saying and what we are supposed to be doing with that information?
True and the debates and wrangles about science are not dissimilar from those we see on the Christianity forum. The big difference is that the former is based on reliable data that has stood up under prologed questioning and testing while the latter is based on a very doubtfully reliable book.
Thanks for the reply. I never understood how people can claim that dinosaurs never existed.
My old Science Teacher in High School in a Christian School was adamant that Paleontologists just chipped out whatever shape they wanted to into imaginary dinosaurs, all in the pursuit of duping poor, hapless folks into believing that the world was older than the Bible says it is (well, at least - according to Bishop Usher's calculations, I should specify): the conspiracy theory!
I knew he was ridiculous because I had dug up fossils of various animals (nothing exciting - no dinosaurs; little shells, trilobites, etc) out of my grandparent's backyard hill (which was almost vertical). I don't recall chipping out any specific shapes heh heh! He flatly said he didn't believe me, and the whole situation always astounded and annoyed me.
Having been a big fan of dinosaurs (what kid isn't at some point?) and also a Christian, I found myself constantly having to make excuses when reading books that dealt with the dinosaurs age and evolution. Thank God for the public library, though - it was a bit more reliable than the School's little Baptist library.
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Originally Posted by Trimac20
I guess some people think having a phD makes them 'scientific' thinking. There is a little thing called an agenda. I'm Christian but I subscribe to theistic evolution, I still don't hold it as irrefutable proof (I mean it may not be as we believe it to be). I guess some people simply try to argue away things with no basis.
Well, I think many people with a PhD have a right to brag - it is a mark that one has undergone higher education.
The agenda may be imagined, in many cases. For instance, I have friends who firmly believe that Hebrew was the very first language, based on their religious belief in the Bible as an accurate record of the beginnings of humanity. When the field of linguistics is brought into the disucussion with clear, undisputable proof that Hebrew was NOT the first human language, most people are satisfied. But not my particular friends. To them, they first question Linguistics as a legitimate area of study and feign ignorance of it's existence. Next, they declare it doesn't make sense (they aren't 'Linguists' - so they have trouble following certain areas of argumentation), so it must not be true. Thirdly, they declare that the Linguists are actively working (ALL of them) to discredit what the Bible says - and if they aren't actively working for this "Satanic" agenda, then they are dupes of the Devil and his unwitting minions. Fourthly, the discussion is discarded as being "too Negative" - they only want to hear positive things that bolster and uphold their faith; anything else is seen as negative.
This is just one example, but a potent one, I think. I'm sure many of us have experienced reactions like this, and some have used those very same excuses to try to paint scientific fields and college-educated professionals as nothing more than "pawns of Satan". These people see anything that disagrees with their belief as being part of the "World System" of the Devil, or whatever they want to call it. All some big conspiracy of alllll the scientists working together, working together to prove Fundamentalist Christians wrong concerning their extreme literalism. The only world-wide agenda that seems obvious is the anti-modernist ideals that started the Fundamentlist Movement in America: for they were very outspoken about them, whether modern Fundamentalists (the word has now come to be used for any type of religious extremist, rather than it's original, specific definition) realize it or not.
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Originally Posted by looking4answers12
Now, I'm gonna have to look up the story about the Bear.
There are many different versions of this story among different peoples, but the one I like the best is the one in which he fell asleep while using his tail to ice-fish. As you can imagine, the hole froze over and he was stuck.
OUCH!
a... When the field of linguistics is brought into the disucussion with clear, undisputable proof that Hebrew was NOT the first human language, most people are satisfied. But not my particular friends. To them, they first question Linguistics as a legitimate area of study and feign ignorance of it's existence. Next, they declare it doesn't make sense (they aren't 'Linguists' - so they have trouble following certain areas of argumentation), so it must not be true. Thirdly, they declare that the Linguists are actively working (ALL of them) to discredit what the Bible says - and if they aren't actively working for this "Satanic" agenda, then they are dupes of the Devil and his unwitting minions. Fourthly, the discussion is discarded as being "too Negative" - they only want to hear positive things that bolster and uphold their faith; anything else is seen as negative.
It seems almost incredible, but we have seen this here, with the rejection of Biology as a valid science, the accusations of a massive conspiracy by atheists scientists to discredit the Bible and accusations of bias.
It does no good to point out that one is only presenting the evidence. It is not long before evidence is forgotten and it becomes a string of Bible quotes about blindness and wisdom is foolishness. I have to mention one poster who did a fine job of demolishing claims of 'advanced science knowledge' in the Quran but completely rejected the same when it was done with the Bible.
Doesn't scientific data still need to be interpreted at some point? And don't different scientists sometimes draw different conclusions while looking at the same data?
Much like religious people can read the same Bible and come away with different understandings of what it is saying and what we are supposed to be doing with that information?
Yes and no depending on what you mean by interpret.
Generally speaking there is a clear conclusion from each experiment or study. The only issues come in when people decide to extrapolate beyond the bounds of what is directly testable.
Yes and no depending on what you mean by interpret.
Generally speaking there is a clear conclusion from each experiment or study. The only issues come in when people decide to extrapolate beyond the bounds of what is directly testable.
Precisely.
Let's say your car won't start. Now, let's approach the way to fix that scientifically.
1. Make an hypothesis using pre-existing known data and use that to correlate to what you don't know, i.e., - Yesterday the car started just fine. I came home last night. I see that the headlight switch is still in the "ON" position. I believe it's possible that when coming home last night, I got out of the car and never turned off the headlights. Thus, I drained the battery by leaving the headlight switch in the "ON" position.
2. Experiment - Take a voltmeter and check between the positive and negative terminals of the battery. This will verify if the battery has the proper voltage.
3. Refine the hypothesis - It is possible that the battery is not the sole cause of the problem. Improper charging voltage from the alternator could have an associated affect.
4. Experiment - Jump start the vehicle. Check the output voltage of the alternator while also inspecting the armatures and brushes of the generator. Is the output voltage proper? Does it fluctuate? The car seems to operate normally, now. All signs point to a dead battery.
5. Final Statement - I should note that ordinary people don't really do this but it is necessary for the scientific community to do so. Let's just imagine that we submit our automobile problem in a scientific manner for peer review. Our synopsis would look similar to this:
Upon starting a vehicle on the morning of 'XXXXX,' I noticed that when turning the key in the ignition, the interior lights dimmed, a "bogged down" noise came from the engine compartment and the vehicle would not start.
Brief inspection showed that the headlights were in the 'ON' position from the night before. Therefore, it is widely assumed that the battery drained due to the headlights being on all night.
I checked the battery with a voltmeter to verify a charge of between 12-14VDC. I only had 2VDC. This led me to believe the battery was drained. I continued by jumpstarting the vehicle with an 'XXXXX' battery charging/jumpstart system, and then checked the output voltage of the alternator - which was steady at 13VDC and showing no signs of fluctuation.
This led me to believe that the alternator was showing no signs of wear along the brushes or armatures but those were physically inspected as well, on a just in case basis.
My final conclusion is that upon arriving home the evening before, I was in a hurry and left the headlights on. After several hours, the headlights drained the battery to where it could no longer support the power required by the headlights. This subsequently led to an insufficient amount of power to engage the starter the next morning.
Testing battery voltage, output alternator voltage, and jumpstarting the vehicle proved that the battery voltage was low, alternator output voltage was nominal and that after successfully charging the battery, the vehicle started normally. All signs indicate that the headlight switch being left in the 'ON' position is what drained the battery.
Now... I would submit that to the scientific community and they would look at my conclusions and provide an amount of peer review. Some scientists may come back with a few ideas that I did not test. Did I test to see if the battery cables had corrosion on them? Perhaps sitting static, the output from the alternator was steady but due to corrosion on the cables, it fluctuates when I'm driving. Did I check for a possible fault in the switch in which it gets intermittently stuck in the "ON" position? Perhaps I turned the lights off, or thought I did, but the switch was slightly binding and kept it in the 'ON' position. Ultimately, they would provide a number of different ideas, and if we were to follow through with the scientific method, we'd go back and check all those things. Not to mention, we could also report back that the vehicle is now starting just fine after jumpstarting the battery.
What you don't see in here is the injection of pseudoscience. It's just plain, old operation from the data we have. People who aren't qualified or who don't know about automobile batteries have no business arguing against my findings. Saying that gremlins came out to the car and flipped the switch into the "ON" position brings out a whole new set of evidentiary claims requiring proof. Saying that it is a global conspiracy by automobile battery manufacturers to get me to buy more batteries is also another realm of ridiculous claims that I needn't bother with or examine simply for the fact that it's distracting.
I could come up with a million claims based on ignorance and I could insist on those claims as being true. The denial of automobile techs or "scientists" to debate the matter with people claiming conspiracies or gremlins is not based on insufficient data at all but the recognition that it's merely a waste of time and the person they are arguing with is, simply put, a freaking idiot whose garnering attention for himself by coming up with some pretty wild claims.
Thanks for the reply. I never understood how people can claim that dinosaurs never existed.
It's easy once you recognize the power of willful ignorance. In fact anything is possible if enough ignorance is applied. But it also creates a lot of road kill; reason, rational, reality, truth, humanity, compassion, intelligence all suffer.
I have not studied that. I have studied the history of math, advanced engineering math which includes fourier series and transforms, igen values to solve systems of differential equations, complex analysis and am getting ready to study tensors and eventually full blown partial differential equations.
Yep, most engineers get this in their first 2 years of college. Congrats, only 2 or 3 years to go to finish that undergrad degree.
It doesn't make you any more qualified than anyone else to critique the educational background of biologists.
Last edited by KCfromNC; 01-16-2012 at 06:27 AM..
Reason: One can adjective any word
Doesn't scientific data still need to be interpreted at some point? And don't different scientists sometimes draw different conclusions while looking at the same data?
Much like religious people can read the same Bible and come away with different understandings of what it is saying and what we are supposed to be doing with that information?
No, it's far different. Mainly because there's actual evidence to underpin scientific debate.
It seems almost incredible, but we have seen this here, with the rejection of Biology as a valid science, the accusations of a massive conspiracy by atheists scientists to discredit the Bible and accusations of bias.
It does no good to point out that one is only presenting the evidence. It is not long before evidence is forgotten and it becomes a string of Bible quotes about blindness and wisdom is foolishness. I have to mention one poster who did a fine job of demolishing claims of 'advanced science knowledge' in the Quran but completely rejected the same when it was done with the Bible.
Yes - I'm sure you're right that it happens here - I've probably seen it countless times. The example you mention (the anti-Quranic/pro-Biblical one) is a good one, and frequently done by believers of different faiths, and I have seen it extended beyond matters of the text into areas of dogma and tradition within a single faith - say, a Jehovah's Witness versus a Catholic. Both part of Christianity, yet the one is willing to discredit the other's interpretation of scripture as misguided, and occasionally reach into the pseudo-scientific writings that declare that their OWN interpretation is not only more faithful, but more scientific.
A look at their literature reveals they have no problem in quoting experts as long as they selectively quote them AND in favor of their current opinion. The next sentence of the expert may entirely demolish the idea that is being put forth by the believer, but they will conveniently gloss over that - knowing that it will not be researched, just taken on faith. There is the famous example among the Jehovah's Witnesses of their mistranslation of John 1:1 and the biblical scholar they quoted: he had to publicly release a request for them to stop misquoting him out of context to seemingly bolster support for their choice of translation. He knew what they were doing, capitalizing on his expertise, but also knew that they were twisting his words and this probably proved to be an embarrasment to him.
I remember another example that says (more or less) "have biblical scholars disproved some traditional beliefs?" and their answer was "No, in fact, Biblical scholars have now proved the Bible even more" and to justify this statement in which ALL Biblical scholars are lumped together, they quote one source, a conservative source from the late 1800s! It's this selective quoting that is so misleading. What happened to the opinions of the scholars between the 1800s and now? What happened to opinions of the non-conservative scholars of back then? All gone, apparantly.
It's almost a losing battle among certain conservatives and fundamentalists. I mean - what kind of world does someone inhabit that they can deny even the simplest of natural truths because it conflicts with their Sunday School teacher's opinion? The cult of personality may have something to do with this, and the human desire to "be part of something" - to be in the "know". For many people, they would rather reject obvious truths held by the many (science, let's say) and cling to "hidden" knowledge (any system that denies the former to an extreme degree) held by the few: it helps them feel like they are part of something bigger than the rest of the world, part of a secret chosen few. The ego is an incredible thing, even when unrecognized as acting in such an instance.
I think this is why the obvious sometimes does not convince them, personally. It's similar to someone who is a fan of a new quasi-health scheme - they will defend it to the death (almost) against common sense, for they feel like they have finally found something, and woe to those who would question their intelligence in "finding" it. Ego.
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