Prometheus

That was my point; it shouldn't reduce the burden of proof. Just as the cost of acting shouldn't increase the burden of proof. Let the evidence speak for itself.

That is a double-edged sword. One can argue with equal validity that the costs of not acting to reduce emissions are so severe that the burden of proof should be reduced. Which of these two alternatives one adopts depends largely on political bias. Let the evidence attend to itself and leave aside political bias.

Sure, a political debate need ensue from the science. But the science should be determined by evidence, not debate.

How do we convince people of any science? Lay people do not generally debate which science is true. There is no debate about the existence of exoplanets: the evidence is there. Why is climate science any different?

Is this a homework question? What have you tried so far? This is a question related to the Bernoulli and Binomial distributions, so you may want to check those out if you haven't already. You could also look at probability trees to give you some intuition, though actually solving problems with them gets messy. There is a simple formula to solve this, but just using it doesn't help understanding. I'm assuming you are sampling from an infinite population - it's different if sampling from a finite population. Do you know which - do you understand the difference?

Sorry, i edited that while you were replying. But still, without evidence your interpretation is only as valid as mine. God is the Hidden Variable.

No. I believe there are theories of ethics and aesthetics which are at least as important to humans as scientific theories. But if you are making statements about physical phenomena, rather than abstractions, then scientific theories are the only ones that are falsifiable and so the only ones with any credence. Otherwise we are free to make up any old rubbish. Without evidence why is my theory that God is the Hidden Variable behind the collapse of any wave function any worse than your theory?

Sure, then you may be engaged in some rational discourse, but not a scientific one.

It's really odd. There are a lot of people who talk about the 'deep mysteries' of the universe which you cannot understand with mundane thoughts. You have to expand your mind, man; there must be something more. But then you show them some theory and results that elude a 'mundane' interpretation and they reject it out of hand because it does not correlate to anything in our everyday experience. The macroscopic world 'makes sense' to us because we have evolved within it. The microscopic world is under no obligation to conform to this sense.

Parents at my niece's school in North Carolina are complaining that 1984 is recommended reading. Apparently the theme is too adult. Not read it myself: is it too much for 13 year olds?

Perhaps off-topic but the ideology most likely to end humanity is consumerism with its links to AGW. Are you then as emotionally invested in removing this ideology as religion? War is about 50th and violence about 25th in global causes of death. Even if we assume every single instance of those is attributable to religion, there are bigger threats to humanity. I agree its unpleasant, but maybe a bit much to say it is deranged moronic psychopathy that must be purged - which means physically removed, by violence if they resist. Is your friend doing other things to warrant your vitriol? Forcing you or others to believe? Did you try calling your friend a moron, or psychotic, or deranged? Did you threaten to purge him from the Earth as soon as possible if he did not change his thoughts? Do you think it would work? You keep saying that but have yet to actually provide evidence. You know, decide on measures of religiosity and scientific output, determine what confounding variables might exist, decide how one might prove causation from any observed correlations. You know, this science you so laud but have yet to demonstrate. I imagine USA may score reasonably high on a religiosity score, but near the top, if not top, on the scientific output score, so I doubt the picture is as clear as you would like it to be. But that's just my opinion: i await your data. And if the anecdote i offered was rejected as being unrepresentative in this discussion, why do you feel your third-party anecdote has weight? Either anecdotes are acceptable in this discussion or they are not: or are they only acceptable if they conform to what you already believe?

I also get these vibes. You can tell an awful lot about the people living in a house from how they keep it, the conditions they live in, the style of the furnishings, the books, or lack of, on the shelves, the presence of pets and so on. I once stumbled into where some homeless people lived, got some pretty bad vibes from that place. You don't suppose the smell of stale urine had anything to do with that? But at least you are starting to think like a scientist. An experiment is an excellent idea. If you are detecting something other than the panoply of clues from the furnishings then you should be able to determine the personality of previous inhabitants even in an empty house. So find some empty houses, and determine the previous tenants' personalities. Have a separate person, with no personal connection to you just in case they are too eager to please you, find the prior tenants and perform an established personality test. Repeat a few times so that if someone says you just made some lucky guesses you can quantify just how unlikely that would be. Do you agree that would be a prudent way to proceed? Would you accept the results? I'll be honest here, my intuition is mildly racist. Only my intellect keeps it in check. Are you saying i really should hate those people?

No one here can doubt you speak true to your thoughts: a most commendable trait, and one that i envy. For i too see the abhorrence in religion you speak of. Worse yet, i also see what Dimreepr sees... It is like listening to a piece of music that truly elevates your heart, makes you feel things you cannot begin to describe and didn't even think possible to feel until you lose yourself (i hope you have experienced such; whether in music, in dance or in love, the medium doesn't seem to matter). You play it to another person, but they are not moved as you were. That is a little sad, just because you know of this beautiful thing which they are unable to see; but they likely see beauty elsewhere so it's not so bad. But it is worse when there are people who listen to that same music often, call the names, beat the rhythm, congregate to listen to it but are are little moved by it, if at all. For them it is an anthem, a badge of membership and a fools ticket into that better placed which is always just a little farther. Maybe it is best to silence that music. Maybe such people will then wake from their slumber. But it is beautiful music and i would be sad to lose it. And i fear they would not wake anyway...

Don't take it literally: by doing so you are making the same mistake as many a theist. And i know you don't believe these things actually happened but you are as emotionally invested in them as those who do, only from the other side of the fence. If you can't let it go, how can you expect people who actually believe it to let it go? And we all on this thread want them to let it go, right? I thought we had on this thread at least come to an understanding that religion isn't some homogeneously evil entity; that is has done some good and provided some solace to individuals, even if only behind closed doors. No? A great purge perhaps? An unfortunate choice of words, maybe you didn't realise the connotations. But such language is exactly what polarises people, dividing communities and fanning the tribalism you profess to lament. Does everyone here really think the way to get religious people to let go of their cherished beliefs is by labelling their religion as stupid or evil? Would it not be more fruitful to seek common ground - to understand the stories in their canon and pick up the obviously frayed threads and help weave a new narrative. From Genesis through Paradise Lost to Frankenstein we see a demonstration of exactly this process. And maybe we ourselves will learn a thing or two in the process too. For sure there is a time barbs, and perhaps, with the heaviest of heart, violence. But there are many more low hanging fruits that can be picked with compassion, understanding and patience. Nothing. I preferred Babylon 5 and Star Trek (TNG). But to each her own.

Who are these people and what is wrong with them? If a woman doesn't conform to your ideas about what a woman should be perhaps you should consider that your ideas are wrong rather than the woman.

Debating whether this is a good way to learn all the elements.

And dead salmon have been found to respond to human social situations. And from those videos am i to take it you believe plants can read human minds? Funny typo: in these 5 words you successfully communicated to me what you had failed to say in the preceding 3-4 paragraphs. At least i understand what you are saying now. Of course they can. Right now i am experiencing a feeling of bemusement which is turning into the physical act of slapping my forehead. I agree with you on the importance of our emotions and relating to others. By why the need to invoke spooky woo? The primacy of love in human affairs is not threatened by rigorous science. Maybe in matters of the heart, but not in matters of fact. What you feel might be more important than having an accurate representation of the worlds workings. After all would you rather be content or right? But this is rarely a choice we have to make: we can be content and understand things. Science doesn't concern itself with meaning, nor does it profess to. If you want to consider the truths of the human condition then the arts are the appropriate medium. But they are are the sorts of truths we create rather than discover. Yes, there are parts of the universe that feel joy and depression and everything in between. Those parts are us. Think not that you feel at the whim of the universe, but rather that universe manifests its parts in many ways one of which is the emergence of consciousness from complex organisms. Just as the surf breaks upon a beach, so too we feel. We need add nothing else.

It is strange that we spend so much time teaching people so many things- except contentment. Like most things it comes naturally to some, but the rest of us have to learn. It is perhaps a more subtle skill to acquire but no less important for it.

But i've been liaising with the Martians for about a year now with very positive results, under very strict conditions too. They are definitely, i can vouch for it. I already have some videos, but i will make more later. Are you convinced yet? I have lots of evidence.

Precisely. But your 'proof' is only as valid as mine - what's the difference? If i am to accept you have proved telekinesis then you must accept me as King of the Martians. Which would be silly. So the question is why don't you think your proof is silly? Again, what's the difference?

You have my word i'm the King of the Martians. I will provide proof when i feel like it by putting videos on facebook of my people obeying me on a recent trip to Mars. I am a serious person. Does this not "prove" Martians exist? If not, why not?

I agree in part, religious institutions too often serve their god or themselves before they serve humanity. Until they serve humans foremost they are a bane. But at some stage we must take personal responsibility for our actions, we cannot excuse religious extremists their atrocities because they were inculcated by the wrong doctrine. But perhaps that's another discussion. I quite agree. Religions contain no facts, but some truth. Taking them literally is to misunderstand them in the most fundamental way possible. I hope we never move on from fiction: our narratives are what us human. But i agree that it has no place in determining the facts of the universe. There is a time and a place for it. I'm reading lots of Terry Pratchett at the moment: he sums it up much better than i.

They are only lies in as much as Harry Potter is a lie. Or maybe the Iliad is a better comparison; it doesn't matter if it is historically accurate, it is an exploration of the human condition, as meaningful today as ever it was. No one rails against the Dark Side in Star Wars. Why? Because we all know its a metaphor, a story, not events that actually transpired a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. The problem with many religious people is that they have been brought up to revere holy books as a literal truth rather than allegory. The solution isn't simply to declare their holy book evil, or silly, or false - polarising the discussion - but rather to point out the wisdom contained in them and encourage people to engage with those aspects. Then in (a lot of) time the various holy books can take their place alongside the great classics of literature: no more and no less.

The title of the thread for starters. If you wanted to speak only of extra-sensory perception then maybe you should have named the thread accordingly. But i'm glad you don't believe in spirits. Of course it has a physical basis. Have you ever met something without a brain expressing an emotion? How do drugs influence our mind if emotions have no physical basis? And why do brain insults change personalities so much? And what's this talk of another physical space? Whether or not one person's experience is identical to another's can never be known. But when someone close to me feels sadness, i too feel sadness - maybe not identical, but close enough. Good art doesn't just tell you you about an experience, it takes you there. So i once had a patient who was seeing people trying to stab him. He wasn't sure it was it real. Should i have told him to stop being so insecure and stop trying to confirm whether others can see the same thing? Trusting yourself doesn't mean blindly accepting anything that comes willy nilly into your mind. We have to navigate a dangerous world, and having others around for a second opinion has proved extremely useful. Yes, what you feel is what you feel. What you perceive is what you perceive. No one is arguing against this. You have created this argument yourself, no one else. The guy who was under the perception that he was being stabbed - we believed him when he said that. But it was very important to establish whether people were actually trying to stab him, and we would have called the police, or whether he was the only one experiencing this - in which case we called a psychiatrist. But no one said what he was experiencing wasn't real to him. Similarly science does not question whether what someone experiences is actually what they experience - it is a method to ascertain whether a mental representation - a model - of the world is a good approximation. This isn't a subtle distinction - i am surprised you cannot see it. Well it says a lot when people can't tell if you're being sarcastic or sincere. Maybe you believe so strongly in the primacy of your own experience that you do not feel it necessary to communicate your thoughts effectively? And, yes, our feelings have physical correlates, so when we feel something there is some underlying neuro-physiological antecedent which could be measured - theoretically if not practically. This is not the same as saying that experience is meaningless without such measurements, or that most people should seek to confirm their experiences with such measurements - only you are saying that. But sometimes it may be interesting to measure such experience - to understand the physical correlates of consciousness. Then the psychiatrist will be better placed to make the stabbings go away.

You are confounding two very different issues. Yes, there is such a thing as subjective experience which no one else but the individual can directly experience - though they can communicate it. But no, this does not mean 'spirits' exist. Through sight or sound, different people can agree about things in the world. This is how we come to know the world is not merely an illusion of our mind: as much as we can only know that world through the medium of our brain, there is something there. The scientific method provides by far the best approximation of what that something is. This doesn't stop us having subjective experiences, some of which are subtle and nuanced and difficult to understand or communicate. The various arts are the proper medium to explore and communicate such subjective experience: we do not have to invoke any 'spirit'. That just makes for poor art and even poorer science. We are as much a part of the universe as any other part of it. There is no need for a 'spirit' for us to feel connected to it, we already are. No one does this. You are arguing against your own misinformed caricature of science.