Phi for All

In the early 80s, I was part of a group of actors, and we worked with the Denver Police Department academy trainees filming some domestic abuse scenarios, based on a relatively new system the DPD was promoting. The system categorized domestic violence in 10 escalating steps, and the officers had been trained on the proper responses to each. It was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had. Having a police force properly trained in domestic abuse is one of the most difficult but necessary things a progressive society can offer its families. It's a way to step in and have dangerous common situations diffused before they can escalate to physical violence while still respecting personal rights on personal property. 40 years of these kinds of policies and procedures have made a favorable impact. We lose about three women a day in the US to domestic violence, and that's a horrible number. One an hour is a human rights violation of international scope, and I sincerely hope the supporters of Putin/Trump are looking at these figures and rethinking just what kind of men they really are.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38794677 And it all stems from a backward, uber-conservative argument that the state has no right to get in bed between a husband and his family. This is the result of small-government-mindedness, and harkens back to barbarism and reiver mentality. It's cowardice of the worst sort for a "man" to raise his hand against a vulnerable family that's forced to live within his reach.

Any reputable school of economics. We'll listen to a lecture as we eat our apples.

I think you're a person who has tricked themselves into thinking they can argue against something they don't understand, armed with something they only think they understand. Does that make sense?

The religious right have quite a lot of power in US politics. Reality seems at odds with your statement. And I'm calling the Metaphor Police. You shouldn't be mixing them like that.

No. Belief is either blind like faith, or it's untethered like hope, or it's grounded like trust. Your faith that your god(s) will cure Aunt Emma is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE the trust I have that a board certified oncologist will be able to cure her. I can check the doctor's credentials, I can go over past history on the procedures used, I can dig deeper into epidemiology, or I can even decide to go back to school and study medicine. I can learn to use my brain so the explanations I choose to believe are based on trust, and not on hope. And especially not on faith, a form of belief that requires me to believe STRONGLY in disproportion to my ability to reason.

This is wrong. The belief that something unobservable is responsible for natural events requires faith, a type of belief that persists despite a complete lack of evidence. You have faith that it was your god(s) and not the doctor that saved Aunt Emma from cancer. The belief that billions of years in a primordial soup of chemicals, heat, and light produced the diversity of life today is something that can be verified by those who can be bothered. We can use the accumulated human knowledge based on thousands of years of observation, history, and in more modern times, the scientific method. Using these tools, we uncover explanations we believe in because we trust them to be true, not because we hope or make believe or use blind faith.

"It's all bullshit, folks, and it's bad for you." -- George Carlin

Enjoy your alternative facts. Thanks for the chat.

Science doesn't contradict the existence of your god because it's unobservable. That precludes science from being a tool that can help in these instances. Can you understand that? Science needs to deal with reality or it's not effective.

No evidence. Not a shred that suggests a supernatural explanation is needed, ever. That, and the fact that over 9000 versions of Christianity alone exist, each claiming to be true. That kind of con game is easily recognized.

You seem to be saying that since we don't know everything, we can't trust what we think we know. That may have been true at some point, but you know, science happened.

! Moderator Note Is there any evidential support you can offer that raises your idea beyond a Wild Ass Guess? This is what we need to develop a discussion of your idea. Without it, the wheels of your mind spin with no traction. Please provide evidence.

You don't know what you don't know, so trying to argue from this position is extremely weak. You're misusing terminology, you don't understand the basics of science (or you wouldn't claim it's trying to "prove" anything). You should be ranting about religion, it's what you know, because it's abundantly clear you don't understand science in the least. I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm pointing out where your discussion strategy is weak; it's like when the US president makes the mistake of thinking a tariff will punish a foreign exporter instead of his own consumers, and you suddenly realize he doesn't understand what he's talking about.

Observation: This statement seems like an emotional response masquerading as reason. Learning requires you to be wrong a lot, so you can... well, learn from your mistakes. But if you won't acknowledge when you're wrong....

What I'm saying is that creativity and objectivity are like wave state and particle state, in that it's not a "one or the other" situation. They're inseparable aspects of scientific enquiry. And that's really all the further that analogy should go, btw.

Can you find out where they do "do that"? That's where you want to transfer.

https://phys.org/news/2009-10-life-friendly-moons.html These guys are excited by a new technique where they watch a planet transit in front of its star. If they detect a wobble, it suggests the planet has an orbiting moon.

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.” Douglas Adam, Salmon of Doubt

In this instance, isn't the value of creativity calculable by how well its revelations compare with reality? Reality isn't concerned with your concepts of beauty or creativity. If you model your theory mathematically, you don't need creativity in the equation because it was there the moment your creativity showed you how to better test your idea against reality.

I disagree that the press really tried. If he wants to give an interview, the press are obligated. What they failed to suppress was the lies on top of lies he gets to pump out when they cover him live. They need to keep him on delay, and break in with more than just a banner when he tries his alternative facts. Have an actual person up in the corner of the screen who corrects the lie, then go on with the interview. Trump will hate it, he will stop giving interviews. And when he switches to rallies, the media needs to refuse to cover them. Never cover Trump live again. He's lost the right to speak in real-time.

Our volunteer moderators are going to decide what corrections to the section header are needed, based on suggestions made, and then we'll pass them along for Admins to approve. Sorry to cut this discussion short, but nobody, NOBODY has time to participate in ill-chosen and uncivil battles when more pressing matters hang above us all.

How could President Businessman make the mistake of thinking an import tariff on Mexican goods made Mexico pay for the wall? I'm guessing President Hate follows up with some ultra alt-right media pitchforking about "Americans" who drink Corona and Dos Equis. It's the only way this catastrophic plan works to harm Mexico. As to the media, if they want our trust back, they need to refuse to cover these people live. Always put them on a time delay, and when they lie you stop, check the facts, report the facts, and then start the recording again. Trash alternative facts. Trash them and the horseshit they rode in on.

Republican leadership seems content to let the bull wreck certain pieces of china, but don't seem capable of saving the shop. Whatever you do then, don't think about what Putin has on him that he's afraid the world will find out about.

I don't see how science "proves" a creator's existence. Science doesn't "prove" anything. It weighs the evidence in a carefully controlled methodology designed to minimize subjectivity, and shows us which explanation has the preponderance and is therefore most aligned with reality. By siding with the most likely explanations, science doesn't have to claim there's no room for a creator, just that one isn't necessary. The stance on god(s) is that we have no evidence for or against. The god(s) that insists on being unobservable actually preclude the use of science in the first place. All natural things are observable in some fashion, and science is interested in natural things.