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[–]TaleSlinger 1 point2 points ago

Its a fine sentiment, but hardly "the only argument ever needed".

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine that give me a better understanding on why this argument isn't strong, and doesn't work in practice.

My friend explained to my why he believes the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle -- and most of Quantum Mechanics is wrong, and the world is, consistent with classical mechanics, properly interpreted. His arguments included numerous examples and appeals to phenomenology and equations.

I can't recreate his arguments here, though I "sort of" followed them for most of the hour of discussion, but I can't hope to determine what value his arguments have -- if any, and in spite of my degree in Physics, I couldn't make a judgement on this "belief" without hundreds of hours of hours of study and in depth discussion with him. While I don't think of him as and expert in "exactly" this field, he does have a PhD from MIT, and many years of highly respected experience in closely connected fields.

This holds a nugget for why believers believe -- they don't have the ability to make an independent judgement about the world, and one respected group says one thing, while another respected group says something completely different. At some point, you need to make a judgement on the value of the source, rather than the "facts" that the source presents.

That's why we need to have a strong public school system that is free of political influence, whose only charge is to teach well-vetted facts.

[–]09112001 2 points3 points ago

About evolution, sure. But this can't be used for the origin of life, the origin of the universe, any moral question, etc.

[–]asimovs_engineer 1 point2 points ago

Why not?

[–]09112001 -3 points-2 points ago

if someone doesn't value evidence

There is no evidence for the origin of life, the universe, or moral questions. There is evidence for evolution.

[–]asimovs_engineer 3 points4 points ago

Well I guess it depends on what you mean by evidence.

And what do you mean by, "moral questions"? I might recommend a video, by Sam Harris himself actually/

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]TheJotunn 1 point2 points ago

You just said that there is "no evidence for the origin of life, the universe, or moral questions." The evidence for the origin of life is that we are here and we are life, so there must be an origin. The universe? The same thing. We're here, in it. And moral questions are just that, moral. There's no evidence for subjective morals.

Now, if you're talking about evidence as to WHAT these things actually are, you started answering your own question in saying that the Big Bang is, indeed, a fact. There's evidence all around us to start figuring out what happened. There's evidence for MOST things that the scientific community thinks. That is, after all, what separates us from them.

[–]TheFounder 0 points1 point ago

I'm sure he's said something contradictory too. Something along the lines of

"Saying you can't reason with someone who is unreasonable isn't good enough"

Can't be sure of exacts; it was in one of his recent lectures; each of which is over an hour long and I have stuff to do today :P

[–]Ishikadu 0 points1 point ago

Funny because I'm listening to this right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnssYJFSNfc&feature=relmfu 20:45 for the whole thing.

[–]bpmf -1 points0 points ago

Its true: water IS two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Its also true that that is not how I choose to think about water.

[–]Vincenti -1 points0 points ago

The only repost ever needed.

[–]Decitron -2 points-1 points ago

how asinine.