Phi for All

! Moderator Note Unacceptable violation of Rule 2.1, Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited.Keep your bigotry out of this thread. If you disagree with this, report it but don't respond to it here.

We already have one, and as Cap'n said, the format is not ideal for ease of use.

Well, thanks for your condemnation for disbelief in God. You can also condemn me for disbelief in invisible pink unicorns and the tooth fairy. All three show a marked lack of evidence that don't meet any of the criteria I require before trusting that something is real. And from my perspective, it's not even disbelief. There are theists who believe in god(s), and I'm simply not one of them. I don't have a disbelief, I choose not to participate in a belief in god(s). I'M NOT AN ANTI-STAMP COLLECTOR, I JUST DON'T COLLECT STAMPS!

! Moderator Note Please provide a discussion point that doesn't violate rule 2.7, "... members should be able to participate in the discussion without clicking any links or watching any videos". A snippet (not the whole article) relevant to what you wish to discuss would be preferable.

You ignored all the questions I asked, and chose to focus on how forgiving you are. And on top of that, your answer still makes no sense to me. Are you saying "the population" gets to decide what I believe or not because I'm just a part of it? How does THAT work?

! Moderator Note STOP! This is the biology section, where students come for mainstream explanations. Keep your speculations and fringe ideas away from mainstream fora. If you seriously consider these to be "stupid concepts", you may want to reconsider your membership here. Don't respond to this modnote. And everyone else, drop this tangent in respect to the very legitimate question posed by the OP.

A typical misunderstanding of atheism. So many people think of it as something active when it isn't. Why do YOU get to put words in my mouth about belief? Why is belief in god(s) the default I choose not to participate in? Another reason why science and religion conflict. Science respects the null hypothesis, where religion rejects it for the fantastical. If I don't collect stamps, why would you label me an anti-stamp collector? Can't I just not care, as studiot points out? Personally, I'm a humanist. Until god(s) decides to become observable, I'll focus my worldly attention on my fellow humans. I generally like them better, and they are more or less predictable.

Your explanation above is so narrow that it makes your generalizations about human life on Earth seem trite and unsophisticated. I don't know anyone serious about science who insult animals the way you say, yet you use the blanket term "scientists", implying all of them. The beauty of the universe includes the biology of all life. I can't believe you've been here this long and can still say things like this. It's like you haven't learned anything because of your own narrow, cynical views. I don't know how to discuss this with you anymore. You accuse everyone else, yet you remain pure within your condemnation. And since you never seem to take anyone else's explanations on board, you've resorted to soapboxing about "our current state". For me, discussion requires a little more open-mindedness. I've tried to understand where you're coming from, but I've failed.

I had hoped to take this step by step, but you keep bringing up more and more concepts that need correcting, and I just don't have the time to deconstruct each sentence. I was willing to do it with the OP, but each response just takes me further out into the weeds. Your idea that technology destroys natural resources is just so bizarre, like you're trying to argue that we should never have started making tools, which would leave us pretty much back in the trees with the other apes. I get the feeling that's what you're arguing for, and your cynicism seems misplaced and hypocritical, considering that you're using an intellect honed by tens of thousands of years to type on a computer that was only made possible by changing (not destroying) one resource into another. I'll try to get back to this, but we're probably not compatible in this; you keep referring to "our current state" in the negative, and I think we're in the most marvelous time our species has EVER known.

An atom is the smallest part of any element that still retains all the properties of that element, so there will be varying percentages of those elements present in anything. We don't differ that much from other animals at that level, or even plants. So an atom has only those properties its element has, whether it's hydrogen, carbon, or whatever. I don't think that's going to help your idea. Is there anything about a grain of sand that's inherently relative to a castle made from sand?

I think if you explain the difference between a complex "mechanic of a human" and a "simple mechanic of a human", it will help me get the concept you're explaining. Also, are you saying that these "mechanics" are the source of other features in the universe? I would question the idea that our words lock us into a single definition. Your posts even here show that the words you use can mean completely different things to different readers. I know you're probably not saying that abstract concepts are the combining of two things together in an image to represent something else, but it looks like it. Maybe "two or more things"? There are multiple types of abstractions, and I'm unclear which type you're referencing. And some abstractions are designed to take multiple instances and combine them into a single concept, which disagrees with what you're claiming. If I use the word "house" as a compressed abstraction, it represents as many different images as there are people who hear the word.

Let's do something different here, if you don't mind. Let's take your OP step by step and have you clarify what you mean, so we don't get so many posts berating you for not being clear and tossing words like salad. For instance, I don't know why you pluralized "natures". Normally, this would tell me you're talking in terms of inherent features, but that doesn't make much sense. And if you're talking about the collective phenomena we see around us, then again the plural is confusing. What do you really mean by using "natures"? Is this just saying, "We adapt to what happens in the natural world"?

It doesn't mean crazy in this context. It's related to the use of pseudoscience, assertions made without recourse to the scientific method.

To be fair, crackpot as we use it here at SFN is supposed to refer to the idea, not the person, but when the person only offers such ideas and we see nothing scientific to discuss, the label often sticks to the person. I think many people here are sufficiently critical thinkers to recognize when someone who offers mostly crackpot ideas comes up with something genuine, something that can actually be tested. I'm sorry, I did assume you were voicing an objection, but I realize now you may have been giving us an example of all the behavior we've listed. The mention of artistry and smiling and wisdom and dualities and choking in this context sort of threw me off.

The highest sciences?! Too... many... jokes.... Astrology has given us... what? Astronomy has given us a mountain of knowledge about the universe we live in. And you really need to start giving citations for claims like, "...all the cutting edge scientists are coming back on their appinions (sic) on astrology", because I know this simply isn't true at all, not in the slightest.

We call it "the scientific method", and it's responsible for most of our current accurate knowledge. Your misconceptions seem to stem, at least in part, from the incorrect assumption that science is trying to "prove" anything. The methodology requires us to provide evidence to support our ideas, not just assertions and hand-waving. If there is a great deal of evidence that supports, and none that refutes a hypothesis, we may begin to call it a theory, but we never call it "proof". Proof is for maths.

This seems akin to what we see from creationists and others who dogpile on a sound byte they've heard ("If we came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?") and ignore the subsequent explanation because it's SOOOOOO much more tedious and hard to understand. They have profiled us as Darwinists and Einsteinists and that seems to justify not listening to any clarifications.

! Moderator Note The situation you're in right now is that you need to provide extraordinary evidence to back up your extraordinary claims or your thread will be closed. Nobody wants to listen to you preach about your ideas, they want to discuss your ideas in a scientific manner, most likely because this is a science discussion forum. Please. Do not respond to modnotes. You're objections to using the scientific method are off-topic for this thread.

! Moderator Note That's not how it works at SFN, ever, and especially in the Speculations sub-forum. You're making extraordinary claims, which need to be backed up with extraordinary evidence. The questions being asked of you aren't dogmatic, they're the very basis of the scientific method. The "homework" needs to be done by you. You need to show more rigor in your approach to this phenomenon, otherwise your explanations for it can't be taken seriously. Step by step, the methodology allows us to trust our conclusions about our observations. The members you're discussing this with are trying to be helpful. You seem eager to jump to your conclusions, and they're just trying to help you formulate a stronger hypothesis. No need to respond to this modnote, since that would be off-topic. If you disagree with it, report it.

There's also confirmation bias. The less depth of knowledge you have in a particular subject, the more susceptible you are to holding on to a crackpot idea. And it's made worse because these folks have an inflated idea about their depth of physics knowledge. And even worserer when they synergize their intuition-based terminology generating quantum thought processes into salad-tossing mode.

We see this a lot here. I think these folks look at a physics problem in a very linear way, like connecting the dots, or following a breadcrumb trail. They learn a little bit about a perplexing concept, and then jump to a conclusion and expect there to be a simple way to connect the two (and they usually look to us to provide the connection). But "the Box" they're so desperately trying to think outside of has more than two dimensions, and a breadcrumb trail doesn't work well when you need knowledge that's above your head.

Yeah, that's a movie plot scenario. First, the victim you have enough motive against to kill for has to have a pacemaker. Then you have to make an EMP device. When you use it on the victim, it has to be in a place where you're alone with the victim, otherwise it will look very suspicious when everyone's phones and cars stop working (including your own; getaway much?). If you're alone with the victim, you don't have to go all Hollywood on him. The guy has heart problems, there must be a dozen simpler ways to do the deed.

They don't, and it's because they have a firm grasp of the basic and advanced math that help them express their ideas in terms other scientists understand. That will be more difficult than you learning what they know.

Interesting approach to discussion. Not a fan of ad hominem arguments myself.

Why would you think this? The only reason I can think of is that you're trying to justify dropping out of school. Help me understand why you think formal education might be diminishing our capacity to think.