Phi for All

I also held the same view. In fact, it still makes more sense to me. It seems more like lying to claim qualifications you don't have, rather than being fallacious. I've always used the Nizkor site for logical fallacies (courtesy of Sayonara3, many moons ago) and I could have sworn the fallacy was about assuming someone was always right just because they had the credentials. It makes more sense to me on an internet forum where you really have no idea what someone's qualifications are. I apologize for my insistence. Mea culpa.

You're entitled to your opinion, but you can't present it as fact, not even if you rhyme.

If you can't provide this evidence on your own, and need others to provide it for you, why do we need YOU?

Are you saying that the bottoms of my feet, which are bald, have a "type of hair" on them? Theists believe, atheists don't. Stamp collectors collect stamps, not stamp collectors don't. The atheist doesn't even think about God until someone brings it up, much like the guy who doesn't collect stamps doesn't think about collecting stamps. If you had a belief system revolving around turning lead into gold, and I didn't, why on Earth would you say my belief system revolves around NOT believing in alchemy? This is COMPLETELY INCORRECT. I don't care how much Edtharan believes you owe him $1M, him saying you do is NOT evidence. It's hearsay, and not even admissible in a court. You denying it is also hearsay, but since Edtharan is the one making the outrageous claim, it's up to him to provide witnesses and contracts that can be examined to determine their authenticity. The Bible fails those kinds of tests in many places, which at the very least proves that it is NOT inerrant. No one here has any evidence against the existence of God. There is plenty of evidence that the Bible has errors, and plenty of evidence that there was no worldwide flood, and NONE OF IT IS MERELY PEOPLE SAYING THINGS. We can look at geological records to see when severe flooding has happened, and there seems to be evidence of a massive local flood from the Black Sea (we can tell when the Black Sea was freshwater based on freshwater fossils, and when it suddenly became inundated by salt water from the Mediterranean) but none of the evidence supports a global flood, and there are also several reasons why the world couldn't be covered completely with water. They had lots of monks and lots of ink and lots of parchment and lots of time.

Suxamethonium assumed you were an elitist American proudly asserting that everything American HAS to be better. hypervalent_iodine was telling him you aren't an American and therefore don't fit that stereotype. She was NOT suggesting you had to comply with anything. She doesn't need me to answer for her, but she's asleep in Australia at the moment and I didn't want you to think she was aiming her comment at you. All good?

That's not fact, and isn't even a logical opinion. Belief is defined as acceptance that a statement is TRUE. Science has theories that represent the best explanation supported by the most evidence, but in order to keep digging for better answers they don't etch things in stone like that. If theism didn't exist, atheism wouldn't either. These are not two differing belief systems; atheism could NOT spring up independently of theism. This is one belief system and a stance by some that says I don't need that belief system.

Absolutely. And if we could get the Mexican government to cooperate, we could fly over the outdoor Cannabis sativa fields we see on satellite photos and simply drop a bunch of industrial hemp seeds on them. From what I've read, within a few plant generations, their pot would become normal hemp.

Good point. There are some beautiful stories in religious text, and I think part of their beauty is lost when people forget that they are just stories. The rest of the beauty is lost when people take every word literally, much the same as it would be with anything else.

Many of the Baptists I know don't think of Catholics as Christians at all. Neither are the Mormons, according to them. I think it makes it easier to qualify your own faith as real if someone else's isn't. Seriously? That's really funny. And not what most would expect. I'm reminded of the episode of Cheers where Woody and his fiance Kelly find out that she's Lutheran Church of America and he's Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. He's convinced their children would be half-breed monsters and he wants to call off the wedding because of her heresy. I've heard members of my own extended family comment about other Christians, saying that it's so tragic that they believe in Jesus but may not get salvation because their belief isn't quite right.

OK, thanks for clarifying. Prohibition failed in the US. It just created criminal empires based on liquor, much the same way drug cartels flourish now. There are more success stories in legalization. Portugal doesn't jail people who have less than a 10 day supply of ANY drug. They use the savings to target users with therapy and education. Crime is down overall, adolescent drug use is down and HIV diagnoses among drug users is down. Even the street prices went down, which probably affected the need for criminal activity. We know prohibition creates more problems than it solves. I'm still not convinced that legalization of all drugs is right for the US, but I think legalizing marijuana is a test we could pass. At the very least, as I said before, marijuana should NOT be a Schedule I controlled substance.

This is, unfortunately, the burden science has to bear. But since this is an online forum, we set limits on crap. They say that every crap-avalanche is started by that one last turd.

All that stands in the way are the corporations that manufacture armaments, the corporations that have military contracts, and the corporations that hire lobbyists to manipulate Congress into sending the military to pave the way for their business investments. Get past them and you're good to go.

You crack me up! "Science just learned...." What's your source for THAT? There are a LOT of things wrong with this. First, there are two conflicting Genesis accounts of the sequence of events at creation. Second, science did NOT just learn that a watery Earth was first, followed by light and then a separation of light/dark. Science has evidence to support the theory that the universe was already nearly nine billion years old when the Earth was formed, and our Sun was here before that. And Earth started out fiery and molten. Watery happened much later. So I suppose that's one of the biggest advantages to becoming an atheist. You get to toss the dogma and misinformation out the window and build your knowledge on firm foundations rather than hearsay and ethereal wishes.

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I wouldn't count out the dogs so easily mainly because of this. Wolf-pack mentality tells them to have one of them feint an attack to get the tiger to face one direction, while the other darts in to hamstring from behind. When the tiger turns around to defend, the first dog does the same thing. It's a very effective tactic, wearing down the opponent and bleeding them out. As others have mentioned, I doubt the tiger would stick around for much of a beating, but if flight isn't an option the dogs are quick and coordinated, I could see them taking down a full-grown tiger. It wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be impossible. Three smaller dogs (German Shepherds) would probably have a better chance with a wolf-pack type attack.

People HERE keep screaming "EVIDENCE!" at njaohnt because a) he states matters of faith as matters of fact, and b) this is a science forum where assertions like that need to be backed up with evidence. Some people have a hard time understanding this difference, and it's made more difficult when they also refuse to read what others have shown as evidence to support their arguments. When someone makes 78 posts and just keeps repeating the same things over and over, it's pretty easy to tell they aren't picking up any details from the discussions. These are usually the people who call US close-minded while they just continue to preach things that have been shown to be opinion and belief rather than a thesis with supportive evidence. I agree with you here, JustinW. I respect a person's right to believe what they want when it comes to faith and opinion. When faith is held up as fact though, we can easily show that it's not. Keep your faith, be a better person for it, your religion probably wants it that way, but don't expect science to lend it any legitimacy by accepting shaky "evidence".

I don't understand what you mean by "Free Cannabis sativa recreational use legalization". What's the free part? Free legalization? Free Cannabis? Personally, I think it's wrong to treat pot differently than alcohol as far as legality. Having used both in the past, alcohol was far more addicting and its effects were more dangerous to others around me. I'd rather no one operate a vehicle while impaired, but I'd rather pass the slower-driving, paranoid stoner than be anywhere near the reckless, belligerent, speeding drunks. Politically, rather than legalization, I'd just like to see Cannabis sativa taken off the Schedule I drug list. It relieves nausea in chemotherapy patients, so it has medicinal purposes, and the number of people who have used it and NOT become addicted far outweighs those who claim addiction. The number of people in US prisons just for marijuana possession sickens me. I suspect that if you were to do a study on all the privately-run, for-profit prisons, you'll find a preponderance of pot prisoners. Those types of prisons are allowed to kick violent and hard-to-deal-with prisoners back to state-run facilities, so having docile inmates who just want to serve their time and not make trouble means profit for these prisons. As far as an impact on society, CaptainPanic points out that usage doesn't necessarily increase with legalization. We already have all the laws in place for public intoxication, driving under the influence, littering (in case anyone is pitching those roaches on the street), you name it. There would be far greater impact in that the US would be able to grow hemp again. Hemp fields would also curb unauthorized outdoor growing of Cannabis sativa, in addition to providing a myriad of new products, industries and tax revenue.

I used to do this in elementary school when the teacher made us write a five-page report and I didn't have much to say. Bigger writing takes up more room and makes it look like you have more than you actually do. In this case, you may want to try size 7.

Appeal to Authority derives a conclusion based on only the authority. It basically concludes that a person must be right about subject X if they are an authority in that subject. This is a statement that can NEVER be valid, and is thus fallacious. Assuming a person's statement is true because of their authority is a shaky foundation for any conclusion. Individually, an authority may be right about his/her subject in individual instances; the fallacy stems from assuming that ALL authorities on a subject are correct about that subject in every statement. Not every instance of someone saying "I'm an expert, I know what I'm talking about" is fallacious, but saying that anyone who is an authority must be correct is fallacious.

Do you have a problem with something a Mod or Expert said that makes you question their credentials or knowledge?

We've had some incredible crackpots come through here claiming to have PhDs and shaking various sheepskins in our faces. It didn't make their ideas any more sound, and rather than their credentials encouraging us NOT to question their ideas, their ideas instead made us question their credentials.

So the list of suspects could potentially be very large, including classmates and Uni acquaintances. Family or close friends playing a prank like this would most likely type the note for fear you'd recognize their handwriting, but they could have enlisted the aid of someone you don't know (improbable, imo). Speculatively, it would seem to be someone from your dorm (or someone who knows someone in your dorm) because of the security you describe. It seems likely that the note is aimed at you directly, but not in any malicious way, since no one else got a note (that you know of) and it was handwritten in cursive (someone planning a crime based on a elaborate scenario like this is unlikely to forget that handwriting can be matched). Could this be some kind of experiment for a Psychology class, to see how you react? It's not a very good experiment unless they can somehow monitor your response, I guess, but lots of tests of all kinds happen in college. I think it has to mean something. If it's so tough to get into your building and no one else received a note, the suspect had to go to some trouble to do this. People rarely make that much effort for nothing.

OK, lots of conjecture and pattern recognition on the picture, so let's move on to some other parts of the mystery that may help. Q1. Location. Are you in a large city, small town, rural or what? (attempting to limit the suspects) Q2. Residence. Do you live in an apartment, a house, a townhome? (how visible would the suspect have been going to your door?) Q3. Living Status. Does anyone else share your residence? (may not have been intended for you) Q4. Handwriting. Was the note in pen handwritten in cursive or print? Since the note was written in pen instead of typed, do you think this implies that it's NOT someone whose handwriting you'd recognize? Q5. Quote. Had you ever heard this quote before? Do you think it implies that there is something you should be doing right now to prevent a problem from occurring? If so, do you have any idea what it could be?

Wow, "Einstein is wrong", the Maya are involved, unfalsifiable concepts being asserted as "The Absolute Truth", and misuse of scientific terminology like "singularity". I am so close to yelling "BINGO!"

Good post, and I agree with everything, especially this bit. My daughter doesn't hate vegetables like some kids I know, but she doesn't naturally gravitate to them. We insist, and she eats them without complaint, but if left on her own I'm sure she wouldn't eat nearly enough of them to be good for her. I also believe she'll one day start choosing them on her own simply because of her childhood exposure and our insistence every night as we sit down to dine together.