John Cuthber

Eagles.

Quite possibly, but as they are based on a premise which is, at best unsupported, (and probably wrong) they mean nothing. I have pointed out the error of your claims already but, just to refresh your memory. You can stop now.

Do you mean like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_a_circle#Rearrangement_proof

Interesting viewpoint. I'd not agree. I think we should leave the statues and put signs on them saying who they were, what they did and pointing out that, at one stage, we thought they deserved a statue as a monument but now we feel that we should leave the statues as a warning to posterity. The trouble with getting rid of all statues of slave owners is that you wouldn't have many old statues left (at least, not of real people) and that would be a loss to the students of the history of art etc. Destroying art isn't a symbol of a good society. Making sure people know what the art means seems more civilised to me.

Not really. The supreme leader of the Real Madrid football team is Sergio Romas Garcia. In that same way that a man can be the supreme leader of a group of men an entity could be the supreme leader of an abstract concept like evil. So, lousy logic there.

Great! I can define religion as "that which can't be reconciled with science" and you can define it as "that which can be reconciled with science" That way everyone is happy. (Unless of course, they were after a meaningful answer contingent on the conventional meanings of the words, but who would expect to find that on a discussion site?) Cross posted with iNow

There were no fat prisoners in Belsen; no matter how positive their mental attitudes were.

Just to simplify things, lets imagine you just have some gypsum i.e. hydrated calcium sulphate (without the hydroxyapatite ) and you put it in water. Some will dissolve. If I remember rightly the solubility is about 0.1%w/w. That's small, but fairly easy to measure. So, initially the calcium concentration will be near zero (depending on how pure your water is), and it will rise to some constant value which represents a saturated solution. The speed at which it will do that depends on lots of things. Finely powdered gypsum will reach saturation faster than coarse material. The gypsum will also dissolve faster if the solution is stirred. Then there's the question of what difference the salt makes. The simple answer is probably not much difference. The gypsum is likely to dissolve a little better in salt water than in pure water. But in the body, things are slightly different, The material which dissolves will be carried away and will probably be excreted via the kidneys. So, what you might want to think of is a set-up where the saline is replaced regularly or, even better, where it flows continuously past the material. Not such an easy experiment, but much more representative of the real situation in the body.

You are highlighting the problem I pointed out earlier. The term seems poorly defined. That's why I asked for your definition(s). For the purposes of this discussion, it might be useful if, even at this late stage, you said what your definitions of "science" and "religion" are. Then we can actually look at what the OP asked about.

Did they change regularly? Not particularly, but I'm a chemist so I'm used to seeing the instruction that says "weigh accurately about 1.2 grams of the sample..."

No, they are not religions by the dictionary definition. I would say "all ..." if that was what I meant. Now I accept that leaving out the word "some" or the word "all" makes it ambiguous, but since I have repeatedly explained what I meant I really think I should be able to expect you to remember it. What doesn't help is that, if I point it out, what I get is Strange doing some weird victory dance as if it's an achievement to get someone to say that a falsehood isn't true. Unreservedly.

I misread your post. I thought you said you had received the marks, rather than that you had removed them.

Yes, you quoted something that was probably never said. So...? No. But your accusations are interesting. You seem to thin you are being persecuted by both sides...

You seem to have answered your own question.

My point is that they are trying not to.

The CoE pretty much has "evolved" into a social club. But, while it is true that they have, in some regards, been dragged into the 20th century, they have not been driving the change. They have gay clerics- yes, but 50 years after the rest of society accepted homosexuality. The Catholic church is still strongly resisting attempts to make it recognise that gay people are human. They are still trying to spread the word of abstinence as a way to deal with HIV- even though "abstinence only " plans are known to fail more frequently than just about any other system. They have finally accepted that condoms aren't the Devil incarnate; but how many people had to die to convince them. This isn't religion "trying" to integrate with science, it's religion trying to assert dominance, even where the evidence shows they are wrong. This is not evidence that they are "trying" to reconcile religion with science; they are trying to avoid the incompatibility; but failing.

In what way is religion trying to bridge the gap(s)? The last I heard was a group of senior religious leaders arguing for their continued place in politics on the basis of the "revealed truth" of religion. My approach is education.

Good question, and very interesting; but fundamentally irrelevant. "Science" as an entity doesn't "preach" a policy of doing the wrong thing. It's hypothetically possible that a scientist (in a rather loose use of the word) burned a witch to see what would happen. But it's religion that tells people to do it because it's "right". There are, of course, "scientists" who tell lies for money. And there are policemen who do the same. But it isn't actually part of being a policeman, and it isn't part of being a scientist. Deliberately misleading people is the antithesis of science so, as I said, it's irrelevant. And, of course, when they get caught (which is rather likely in science) they get into trouble. You said that elephants grow on trees. Making an offensive false statement, predicting that it will be refuted, then claiming some sort of victory when it is, is a new low in debating techniques.

I never said that, and I have pointed out plenty of times that I never said that. Since it's not true, the rest of your post is silly. It seems that you don't understand that "Black people come from Africa or Australasia" isn't absolutely true, but it's a reasonable generalisation of history and not racist. "Religious people oppose equality of marriage" is a similar statement. It's shorthand for "in general..." And in some cases, "it's an article of faith that..." But the point is that, since marriage is actually a secular event, religion has no legitimate claim to make the decision. So, once you learn to stop reading generalisations as absolutes, you will see that I really never did say what you are (offensively) claiming and perhaps you could then get on with looking at the reality. Others have reported that , for example, the biggest hindrance to vaccination programmes in 3 parts of the word is religion. That's not saying it's the only problem; in spite of your daft claim, I never said that. The worst you can accuse me of is failing to add things like "often" or "in general" in my posts. That make you claim about weasel words all the sillier.

Good, but let's only involve them in the decisions where religion is more likely to be right than science. (and in the same way, where science is more likely to be right, we can leave religion out of it). Where they make the right decisions, they are redundant; were they make the wrong ones, they are a bad influence. So, where are they useful?

It looks like you need to start by telling us how you are defining science and religion. My view that one is based in faith and the other in logic and observation seems to tally with the dictionary, but not with you. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion" synonyms: faith, belief,... science ˈsʌɪəns/ noun the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. I'd be happy to if they would act as one. But, instead they insist on getting involved in making important decisions; and making the wrong choices.

Is there proof of the fundamentals of Taoism or Buddhism? Aren't reincarnation etc articles of faith? If they were happy with that then nobody would bother with them. But they are not. As I said earlier, they don't just get together and sing songs. They stick their noses into tings that are better addressed by other processes. However in the real world they do irrational things and they get in the way of people trying to be rational. Things like the dead children.

"So you agree we should drop the issue of religion been a problem and focus on the actual problems and their causes. Good." Actually, I think we should focus on the topic. Of course, if you think that religion is a probe (and you accept that science isn't) then you have found a fundamental difference between the two which can't be reconciled and you have shown that the answer to the thread is that they can't be reconciled. In any event, science and religion cant't be reconciled because they have totally opposed views to evidence. It's been pointed out that, for example, some of the major churches now accept evolution. Great, but in doing so they are not being religious, but being scientific. If they did the same thing with all of the areas where there's a disagreement- contraception, sexuality, racism etc they would stop looking like a religion and look like a social club. Science and religion would- in a way- be reconciled by that process, but only by the death or religion. Virtually nothing would be left that was "an article of faith" rather than a matter of reasoned opinion. The suggestion has already been made that we ensure that critical thinking is taught in schools. That would bring about progress towards this sort of "reconciliation".

On a related note, perhaps I'd have been a bit less blunt if it hadn't been the early hours of Saturday morning. Also I might have found this at the time https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

Clearly true- albeit, I suspect, by accident. You keep obsessing over it. But at last you have company. And yet, you never actually showed that I disagreed, and the pretty clear evidence is that I did accept that religion wasn't the whole cause.