MonDie

The prediction is that the theory will be self consistent. If it's not self consistent, it has been falsified. The only thing unscientific about this is that it doesn't rely on empirical observation. However, if the formulation of predictions relies on empirical observation alone, then practically all science that has ever been conducted is actually pseudoscience. I explain this below. In science, the two major tools are empiricism and logic. A statement consists of various claims, and those claims can be proven false directly through empirical observation, or indirectly through logic. As an example of empiricism, if my claim is that an object will be red, I can test that directly by looking at the object. As an example of logic, if neon is produced inside of the rod, I will see red neon light when I run an electric current through it. In the latter, the logical connections are: neon emits red wavelength light; neon will emit light if I run an electric current through it; if there is neon in my rod, running an electric curent through the rod will run the electric current through the neon. Logically, this tells us that the neon hypothesis predicts red light. However, if I were allowed to break the rules of logic, I could argue that the neon hypothesis predicts green light. So science relies on the soundness of two methods, empirical observation and logic. If metaphysics solely relies on finding self contradictions in the theories, then metaphysics only relies on one of those methods, logic. The conlcusion is that the tools of metephysics comprise a subset of the tools of science, so you cannot denigrate metaphysical methods without denigrating scientific methods. In that case, the question should be: is the metaphysical method enough for one to arrive at any firm conclusions?

No, you didn't offend me, although it may look like you were trying to after I edited the post, removing most of its content. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/04/%E2%80%98turn-down-the-volume%E2%80%99/ It reminds of the time when I meditated while hearing the clock ticking from the other room. It soon became obvious that the ticking was changing volume depending on my attention toward it. If I recall correctly, it was louder when I wasn't attending to it.

EdEarl, I hope I didn't somehow accidentally offend you.

I've worked on something that might be called a meditative state. I focus on repressing a variety of types of thoughts. The mental state becomes stronger and more immediate with each rehearsal. It is useful as a sort of thought interference. It puts a stop to certain thought patterns, e.g. libidinous thoughts, anxious thoughts, wandering thoughts. However, it tends to be hit or miss for certain matters.

In my uninformed opinion, I think we may have to distinguish between pain & pleasure as cognitive judgments and pain & pleasure as qualia. If "pain & pleasure" refer to specific qualia, then a weighing out of pain & pleasure cannot take into account desires. In this context, if I desire something that I feel I was deprived of, the thing desired isn't necessarily a form of pleasure. If the quale is pleasurable, that is an inherent property of the quale, whether I desire the quale or not. If one were to base a form of utilitarianism on qualia, it wouldn't necessarily take into account the self-concerned feeling of deprivation, for it might not be relevant; pain & pleasure become detatched from the thinking individual. For example, if making more babies (increasing the population) would increase the sum happiness while lowering the mean happiness, it would still be considered moral, despite the many people being deprived of their wishes. However, this way of thinking raises some questions. First, do pain & pleasure even depend on our cognitive awareness of them? Could a rock possess pain despite its lack of awareness? Second, does this fall prey to Wittgenstein's private language argument? Is it rationally justifiable to insist that certain qualia are "good" or "bad"? If "pain & pleasure" refer to cognitive judgements, they clearly depend on intelligence (a rock could not possess them). In that case, it make no sense at all to talk of reincarnation, because you are more than just a chunk of electrons, you have a specific way of thinking and a unique identity. You were the source of those cognitive judgements, and once your brain is destroyed, the thing that was identifiably "you" is gone. In this context, it may make more sense to talk of deprivation because of the focus on the experiencing individual. Also, we don't consist of the same biological materials throughout our lives. We are open systems that exchange materials with the environment.

The word 'feeling' is misleading. In those studies, being intuitive meant choosing the intuitive answer, the first answer that comes to mind. They weren't necessarily sensitive poets, they were just the people who didn't bother to check their answers. I think analytics could be a left hemisphere specialty, but I'm no neurologist. Unfortunately, the speaker mixes up which is the atheistic hemisphere, the left or the right. If the right is atheistic and the left theistic, that would pretty much falsify the hypothesis that the left hemisphere is less religious.

Whoops, I meant seconday sex characteristics. Either way, I think it was very misleading for me to use the term. Blame the caffeine.

Were you saying this about his description of metaphysics, or were you making a more general statement? The process of elimination described can be performed with only the assumption that definitions are true. Take this example: Scenario One: The suspect killed Mary at 3:00pm, was driving toward the conference from 3:10pm to 4:00pm, and arrived at the conference at 3:30pm. This statement doesn't need to make a prediction to be falsified. Normally, being falsified means that the statement is inconsistent with another statement that was independently shown to be true. In this case, Scenario One is falsified because it is inconsistent with itself. Not only is this good reasoning, it is reasoning that the validity of science depends on. Making accurate predictions tends to impress people, but science isn't a magic trick, science is logically justifiable in the same way that I'm logically justified in ruling out Scenario One.

Gian, I didn't read the articles entirely, and I didn't even know about ACE until I thought to question my own interpretation of the study. For the sake of my argument, you just need to know the basics of how ACE are calculated. Dogs hump eachother to show dominance. If fictional novels are anything to go by, humans do this too (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). I found this article on idebate. Apparently, primates use male-male rape to assert dominance. However, I haven't found any scientific backing for the hypothesis that homophobia is related to the fear of dominance rape. That hypothesis could explain why, to me, men with emphasized sexual characteristics who I am not close to can be disconcerting when they appear to be making sexual gestures. (The initial discomfort usually fades quickly with more exposure). Question: In ecology, both males and females have to deal with rape by males. What are the differences?

I despise that thumbnail image. Could you at least next time? Those types of links are an option in the advanced editor. Does there have to be a dichotomy between endogeny and learning? Consider Pavlov's dogs. The response of drooling from food is probably genetic (or endogenous), but that endogenous response can be associated with other things through learning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning When a dog learns what a bell is and to drool in response to the bell, it doesn't mean the drooling is somehow inauthentic or artificial. The learning of associations may be inevitable, or even necessary. Of course, there is the genetics vs. environment study posted by overtone (here they are again). I think it's a mistake to assume that being influenced by genetics is the same as being unlearned, as if 30-50% genetics means that 30-50% of the behavior would remain after all environmental factors are removed. The studies don't let us conclude that homophobia is unlearned and cannot be eliminated through cultural change. I would argue that all uniquely human behaviors require some degree of learning. The study can only take into account environmental variations (and genetic variations) that are found within that sample population. Everyone is presumably living in the same country, sharing the same culture, so there is a limit on how much their environments can vary. On the other hand, if half of the participants were shipped off to Africa at birth, there would be greater variation in environmental factors, thus we would probably see a higher percentage for environmental influences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study#Methods Go to the article if you want to see how they calculate A, C, and E.

I might not leave this image up for long, so make a copy if you like it. I made it, it's not copyrighted, so feel free to alter it and/or repost it. Note that these rules aren't always clear cut. My professor had some disagreements with the textbook.

EDIT: Forget it. I came to doubt my claim the more I thought about it. Anyway, if I contain even a trace of homophobia, it's probably been exacerbated by my more generalized social inhibitions.

I've linked to this before, so some of you may recognize it. Dan Batson gives a good overview of the research on religion and prejudice. Dan Batson has a degree in theology, so I don't see why he would be biased against religion. http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/science-and-religious-conflict-conference-does-religion-lead-to-tolerance-or-intolerance/dan-batson-with-commentator-steve-clarke Of course, there's atheism vs. theism, and there's religion vs. irreligion. Batson was speaking about the latter, not the former, but we seem to be using the word "atheism" to refer to irreligious atheism specifically. However, I am going to give a fair point for the religious side. IMO, when analyzing the various components of this abstract concept called "religion", most of the components fall under "ideology", "superstition", or both. If either one contributes to prejudice, it's probably ideology. Although the dominant ideologies tend to be associated with the dominant religion, ideology can be irreligious as well. For this reason, I think similar orientations should be present in secular movements, even if they have different distributions. This section of Wikipedia's article on atheism discusses atheism and prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Atheism.2C_religion.2C_and_morality Authoritarianism is the strongest predictor of prejudice.

Okay, so you're proposing a group selection mechanism that weeds out homophobia. I will not argue against that. Okay, so the amount of reproducing done by a heterosexual guy depends upon other factors, perhaps economic ones. But we weren't necessarily suggesting that an exclusive heterosexual would "benefit" from these homophobic genetics. Suppose that an otherwise bisexual man gets this genetic homophobia. Without the trait, he could hook up with males or females. With the trait, he was bound to hook up with females exclusively. The matter of 'how bisexual' may or may not be relative to the strength of cultural pressures. There will always be people who engage in a behavior even though it is stigmatized. Interestingly, the kin selection hypothesis really complicates the idea of a homophobia 'gene'. Both reproduction and kin selection benefit the individual's genes. If the kin also possess the homophobia gene, then it does not matter whether he makes his own offspring or nurtures the offspring of his kin. Either way, he's perpetuating the gene. If the kin don't possess the homophobia gene, then the homophobia gene benefits its own perpetuation by inducing the reproduction strategy. On one hand, the homophobia gene doesn't have to contribute to overall fitness to perpetuate itself, it just has to induce the individual to pass it on when his kin do not possess it also. On the other hand, a gene that lowers the overall fitness of its host has less potential. Suppose that, for the sake of individual fitness, the bisexual is better off taking the kin-selection path. In this instance, the non-homophobic variation would perpetuate more effectively than the homophobic variation. However, the above considerations may be trivial in the end. If it's true that individual fitness is greater with the kin-selection strategy, the non-homophobic variation can probably be considered beneficial the group. Even if the homophobic gene spreads initially by inducing reproduction, it would eventually spread throughout the group. Once the entire group has the homophobic variation, that group may be less adept than a group with the non-homophobic variation. Considering the above, I think there's a good chance that a kin-selection mechanism would work against the perpetuation of homophobia genes. Interestingly, the kin-selection mechanism was found to be in action on Somoa, where the culture was non-homophobic. They gave homosexuals a distinct gender category called "fa'afafine". Link to an article on the Somoa study: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100204144551.htm However, note that the kin-selection mechanism isn't universal. There was no support for it in an England study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16010468 To address a side issue, I just looked up some terminology for varying types of homophobia. We need to keep in mind that "homophobia" is discussed in two different ways in the literature. #1 involves an irrational discomfort or anxiety around homosexuals, and #2 involves something more like a rationalized dislike. In addition, this thread seems to have introduced a narrower third definition, one involving a disgust in the presence of homosexual sexual behaviors. I suggest that we call #2 heterosexism or sexual prejudice. I suggest that we call #3 homoerotophobia, as #3 seems to align well with Wainwright's intended use of the term (Girshick 32-33).

The power of optimism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50cZMFk3zhA I thought Moontanman might enjoy this one. It's by the same guy as the "context!!!" video posted by pwagen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=4_G9awnDCmg Some Inaccuracies: My textbook said hundreds of millions of sperm per day, not 50 million, and wiki.answers agrees with that. Also, AFAIK, men aren't biologically predisposed to have a stronger sex-drive; there are various hypotheses given for the strength of the female sex-drive. Other than that, it seems correct.

But it apparently has something to do with gender, despite having nothing to do with reproduction per Split's definition. I suggest that we ditch the sexist pseudopsychology posing as pseudoecology. That was very alpha-like, iNow.

You're right. Maybe the tiger is invisible. Maybe the tiger is super stealthy so as to be inaudible. Maybe the tiger immaterializes when you walk through it... Maybe there wasn't any tiger in the first place. If God is beyond reason, how can you contemplate what God is? If you can't, how do you set forth criteria that outline what God is? If you can't, what does the word "God" even mean? If the word "God" doesn't mean anything, how can you claim that God exists, created man, wrote the Bible, etc.?

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Even if there is no single observation that can altogether falsify an hypothesis, repeated failures to find evidence do suggest that the hypothesis is false. However, to apply this to God would require a mathematical treatment of the subject, which isn't possible as far as I know. Anyway, I offer you this contrasting statement: In the absense of evidence, the simpler explanation is absense.

Being in highschool doesn't necessarily mean you need a highschool level textbook. It all depends on how interested you are, and how much time you will spend studying from it. If you already took a chemistry course and were so interested that you wanted to learn more, I would recommend a college level textbook.

Alpha Male vs. Godzilla The terms homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual are generally used to describe attractions (i.e. erotic pathology), not sexual behavior.

I wasn't calling you anything. Anyway, would you be offended if I was calling you a Christian? Krash and Jesus sitting in a tree P.R.A.Y. I.N.G

This reminds of an experiment regarding religiosity and racism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_orientation#Intrinsic_Religious_Orientation_and_Prejudice Read the second paragraph under Intrinsic Religious Orientation and Prejudice, where it describes the movie experiment. NOTE: I disagree with the conclusion that intrinsically religious people are generally unprejudiced. It's possible that a better experimental design would have yielded a starker contrast. Here is the point I want to make. Someone can be persuaded to embrace a cause that they wouldn't be inclined to embrace otherwise. Obviously, you believe in freedom, or to each his own, and you have taken that to encompass sexuality. But your gut reaction doesn't need to be genetic to be out of your control. In the study I linked to, those white people obviously weren't genetically predisposed to avoid black people. If they were, black people should exhibit the behavior too. After all, a person's skin-color says next to nothing about that person's genetic traits. Thus, a more reasonable explanation is that they were conditioned to behave that way around black people. Behavioral psychologists are all about conditioning, from classical to operant to who knows what else. Your reaction might be the result of conditioning too. You described having a bad experience with some homosexual guys, but there could be subtler contributing factors too.

If God existed, he would be extra-terrestrial (beyond Earth). There you have it. Christians believe in extraterrestrial life.

There is a discussion of the nutritional value of meat in this link. The link should take you directly to a specific post. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73532-taking-choice-away/?p=734263 Even if lentils don't have B12 naturally, we probably could genetically engineer plants to produce B12. Protein isn't the big issue for vegans. That view isn't just outdated, it's plainly wrong to anyone that has tried to eat a protein-filled vegan diet. Unless you're a committed athlete, it's not that hard. Yet there are even vegan body-builders. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/sports/vegans-muscle-their-way-into-bodybuilding.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 You are right about the protein from meat contributing to brain growth in our ancestors, but our ancestors didn't have the same dietary options and knowledge of nutrition that we have. They probably didn't even know beans were edible until agriculture developed 20,000 years ago. Beans are filled with toxins that are removed through soaking and boiling. I am not here to vindicate the vegan movement, I am here to determine what is the most ethical course of action. Even if veganism isn't the most ethical path (being one that relies on double standards), that does not excuse us from our ethical duties as consumers. The line is blurry, but not necessarily arbitrary.

Iggy, your poem was in response to SplitInfinity, not TAR.