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Post by dividavi on Feb 5, 2020 8:41:28 GMT
Here are examples of adages that you've heard in one form or other and which are declared to be irrefutable truth - when they're not.
1. Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of Absence - No, Absence Of Evidence sure as shit Is Evidence Of Absence. Imagine there's a mass murderer in your town. All homes in your neighborhood are searched, everyone is questioned, nothing is found to incriminate anyone for anything. Yes it's possible, though unlikely, that the murderer(s) resides in that house with mom, dad, two kids and a dog. The available evidence is that it's someone from a different locale. Of course evidence of something is not proof of anything. Here's a write-up on that topic.
2. We didn't evolve from monkeys. Rather, we and monkeys share a common ancestor - All human beings are cousins to each other since we share a common ancestor at some point in the past. Human beings are also cousins to chimpanzees, we are more distant cousins to Old World (African and Asian) monkeys, and we are even more distant cousins to New World monkeys. The last common ancestor of humans and today's Old World monkeys lived about 25 million years ago and was a tailed primate, something that we would refer to as a monkey. Yes we did evolve from monkeys. No, there never was a female baboon that gave birth to a fully formed human, Creationist stupidity nothwithstanding.
3. Evolution and abiogenesis are completely different things - No they're not. There was a time when the planet was bereft of life with no bacteria or viruses present. There were chemical reactions and these resulted in complex molecules being formed. Some of these molecules survived (subsisted might be a better word) and grew more complex yet. At some point these molecules became complex enough to be considered alive. These ancient bacteria differentiated into different forms and eventually became eukaryotic, like modern trees, fungi and people. It's all evolution, from pre-living formations to modern creatures.
4. If women ran the world there would be no wars - Experience says otherwise. Margaret Thatcher didn't hesitate to make war on Argentina. Catherine The Great (Russia) overthrew her husband in a coup, made war on the Ottomans, Iran and Poland, among others. Maria Theresa was no pacifist either. And what of Bloody Mary, Boadicea, Zenobia and others?
5. science asks how, religion asks why (attributed to UK author Peter James) - Actually, religion doesn't ask anything since every cult or creed already knows the answer. The answer to any question about why things are this way instead of that way is this: Because God wants it this way.
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Post by puvo on Feb 5, 2020 9:59:14 GMT
Here are examples of adages that you've heard in one form or other and which are declared to be irrefutable truth - when they're not. 1. Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of Absence - No, Absence Of Evidence sure as shit Is Evidence Of Absence. Imagine there's a mass murderer in your town. All homes in your neighborhood are searched, everyone is questioned, nothing is found to incriminate anyone for anything. Yes it's possible, though unlikely, that the murderer(s) resides in that house with mom, dad, two kids and a dog. The available evidence is that it's someone from a different locale. Of course evidence of something is not proof of anything. Here's a write-up on that topic. 2. We didn't evolve from monkeys. Rather, we and monkeys share a common ancestor - All human beings are cousins to each other since we share a common ancestor at some point in the past. Human beings are also cousins to chimpanzees, we are more distant cousins to Old World (African and Asian) monkeys, and we are even more distant cousins to New World monkeys. The last common ancestor of humans and today's Old World monkeys lived about 25 million years ago and was a tailed primate, something that we would refer to as a monkey. Yes we did evolve from monkeys. No, there never was a female baboon that gave birth to a fully formed human, Creationist stupidity nothwithstanding. 3. Evolution and abiogenesis are completely different things - No they're not. There was a time when the planet was bereft of life with no bacteria or viruses present. There were chemical reactions and these resulted in complex molecules being formed. Some of these molecules survived (subsisted might be a better word) and grew more complex yet. At some point these molecules became complex enough to be considered alive. These ancient bacteria differentiated into different forms and eventually became eukaryotic, like modern trees, fungi and people. It's all evolution, from pre-living formations to modern creatures. 4. If women ran the world there would be no wars - Experience says otherwise. Margaret Thatcher didn't hesitate to make war on Argentina. Catherine The Great (Russia) overthrew her husband in a coup, made war on the Ottomans, Iran and Poland, among others. Maria Theresa was no pacifist either. And what of Bloody Mary, Boadicea, Zenobia and others? 5. science asks how, religion asks why (attributed to UK author Peter James) - Actually, religion doesn't ask anything since every cult or creed already knows the answer. The answer to any question about why things are this way instead of that way is this: Because God wants it this way. 1 - I think that issue is solved by saying absence of evidence can be evidence of absence, where evidence can be reasonably expected. 2 - I most often hear this as a rebuttal to the question "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" I think its reasonable to point out that we didnt evolve from the monkeys they are talking about, and when I last looked into this years ago, im not sure I came to the same conclusion that that common ancestor would be called a monkey. But it doesnt really matter, the point is the same.
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Post by Winter_King on Feb 5, 2020 10:27:26 GMT
Abiogenesis and evolution are different things unless you are using the word "evolution" to describe something else other than biological evolution.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2020 10:45:10 GMT
"Take your coat off, or you won't feel the benefit of it when you go outside"
"Beer before wine, you'll be fine. Wine before beer, makes you queer"
"Two muckles in the duckle and one in the sky"
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Post by dividavi on Feb 5, 2020 11:45:00 GMT
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Feb 5, 2020 13:40:45 GMT
I've refuted #1 many times myself on these boards. You linked to one website offering a rebuttal; I like this one because it analyzes it using the mathematical basis for what evidence is: www.lesswrong.com/posts/mnS2WYLCGJP2kQkRn/absence-of-evidence-is-evidence-of-absenceAs for #3, I'd say they're different fields of study on a contiguous subject. It's not unlike saying Cosmology is no different than Physics. One might could say both Cosmology and Abiogenesis are very specific types of Evolution and Physics; namely, how both got started.
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Feb 5, 2020 13:55:08 GMT
Meh
Evolution explains life’s progress abiogenesis explains life.
It’s the difference between a car and a road.
They are different it’s just in the absence of God there would be no other option but to connect abiogenesis.
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Post by Arlon10 on Feb 5, 2020 14:05:26 GMT
1) There is a lot of confusion about whether it is possible to "prove a negative." It is possible to prove a negative, but depending on the scope of the proof, it can require rather elaborate investigation. This is fully explained here. 2) Although in a strict scientific sense monkeys are different from apes, it has not been unusual in casual speech to use the terms interchangeably. There are countless "casual" definitions of "energy" that have nothing to do with the science of physics. In casual speech people might fail to distinguish weight and mass. 3) Not many people say or believe that. 4) Religion attempts to answer questions science cannot and probably never will. Many obviously retarded atheists fail to understand that.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2020 17:15:54 GMT
Here are examples of adages that you've heard in one form or other and which are declared to be irrefutable truth - when they're not. 1. Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of AbsenceAbsence of evidence is evidence of absence only in situation where evidence would be expected. And in the example you cite, this is not the case. Yes, they really are. And your example does nothing to challenge that. Whilst I disagree with the statement, the example you give is irrelevant. The claim is not that no woman would ever start or participate in a war, but that wars would not occur if women ruled the world. In 1982 women did not rule the world, so what Margaret Thatcher did in that context isn't relevant.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Feb 5, 2020 23:41:02 GMT
Here are examples of adages that you've heard in one form or other and which are declared to be irrefutable truth - when they're not. 1. Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of AbsenceAbsence of evidence is evidence of absence only in situation where evidence would be expected. And in the example you cite, this is not the case. Actually, the example he cites is a good one. If you search every home in a neighborhood and find no evidence of a murderer, that is, indeed, evidence the murderer is not in that neighborhood. Reason being that, given the murderer was in that neighborhood, there is a <100% chance of finding no evidence, while if the murderer isn't there there is a 100% chance of finding no evidence. One may argue that's not strong evidence, since maybe the neighborhood is large and there are many places a murderer could hide him/herself and any relevant evidence. The example I give regarding a case where no evidence would be expected even if something was true/existed is whether or not there's life on some extremely distant planet that we can't investigate/know anything about.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2020 23:50:31 GMT
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence only in situation where evidence would be expected. And in the example you cite, this is not the case. Actually, the example he cites is a good one. If you search every home in a neighborhood and find no evidence of a murderer, that is, indeed, evidence the murderer is not in that neighborhood. No it isn't. Or at least, it is equally evidence that you didn't search well enough, that one of the searchers is the murderer and didn't rat himself out, or any one of a number of other things.
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Post by MCDemuth on Feb 6, 2020 1:06:24 GMT
I disagree with the idea that it's Completely "Junk"... The adage isn't very specific, and can easily be used to prove or disprove any theory...
Let's take this popular debate, for Example:
"Does GOD Exist?"
@graham 's suggestion of: "you didn't search well enough"... comes to the very heart of that debate!
Just because GOD didn't leave any evidence of his existence on PLANET EARTH, doesn't mean that he didn't leave evidence of his existence on, let's say: "PLANET VULCAN".
Since Humans have NOT been to "PLANET VULCAN" (or anywhere else in the UNIVERSE)... We can NOT be sure that he does NOT exist.
In this instance:
"The Lack Of Evidence of GOD on PLANET EARTH... IS NOT... Evidence of GOD's Absence in the UNIVERSE!"
The adage is not "Junk", it is completely TRUE!
However...
Yeah, I guess it could depend on how specific a person wishes to use that adage, and how other people chose to interpret it...
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Feb 6, 2020 1:37:29 GMT
Actually, the example he cites is a good one. If you search every home in a neighborhood and find no evidence of a murderer, that is, indeed, evidence the murderer is not in that neighborhood. No it isn't. Or at least, it is equally evidence that you didn't search well enough, that one of the searchers is the murderer and didn't rat himself out, or any one of a number of other things. Yes it is, and I explained why. At this point you're just arguing with math. That there are other explanations for finding no evidence (didn't search well enough, researcher is murderer, etc.) doesn't make it not evidence, it makes it not proof. It still lowers the probability (one can argue how much) of the hypothesis that the murderer is in the neighborhood.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Feb 6, 2020 1:43:13 GMT
I disagree with the idea that it's Completely "Junk"... The adage isn't very specific, and can easily be used to prove or disprove any theory... I agree with the gist of your post, but one saying that is very true is that "postulates shouldn't be multiplied without evidence" (Occam's Razor, or one version of it). So proposing the existence of beings for which no evidence exists is unnecessary and unlikely to be true considering such possible beings are only limited by our imaginations, and we can imagine far more things existing than what things actually exist (and some things that exist may be beyond our imagination). This is especially true when the reason we postulate them tends to come from our anthropomorphic biases that are provably unreliable. So what you said about God could just as easily apply to any mythical beings.
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Post by dividavi on Feb 6, 2020 3:51:35 GMT
6. People get along but the elite manipulate them into frightful acts.Oh goodness, I totally forgot the most famous crap-adage of all time: People are decent and get along with others fine. However, it's the leaders/elite/aristocracy/1 percenters who stir up trouble and manipulate the masses into wars and lesser strife. The singer Bob Dylan put it this way: "The south politician, he preaches to the poor white man, 'You got more than the blacks, don't complain.' 'You're better than him, you been born with white skin,' he explains. And the poor white remains, on the caboose of the train, but he can't be blamed, he's only a pawn in their game." Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had this to say on the subject: OK, that's all very deep reasoning and it's commonly accepted, but is it true? Of course not. The poor white men (and white women) of the American South enthusiastically voted for the most racist politicians available. The Southern white masses loved their segregated society. Similarly, the 19th century European masses didn't need much cajoling to create vast colonies in India, Africa and the rest of Asia. The Saint Bartholomew Day massacre was a popular action and so were the Crusades, witchcraft trials and anti-semitic riots.
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Post by dividavi on Feb 6, 2020 11:54:16 GMT
Abiogenesis and evolution are different things unless you are using the word "evolution" to describe something else other than biological evolution. Are viruses alive? That's the question I asked Google and while most sources said "no they're not," there was at least one that said "yes they are." Since the general consensus (at present) is that viruses are non-living we should not call their transformation from one strain to another as evolution but rather something else, maybe development. Virology should be a subset of chemistry, not biology. Since mutation is reserved for living entities another word or term should be used for viruses. I think it was Damon Knight who wrote a tale about a time-scope by which people could precisely view what was happening at any time in our planet's past. Using this device would it be possible to definitively say that we have identified the exact moment in time that the first living entity appeared on earth? The answer is that we couldn't do it even with a sci-fi time-scope. Instead, we would come across some period when non-biological entities possessed some, but not all, the attributes of life. If we were required to pick the time life began down to the hour I'd pick one moment, you'd pick another, others would make different choices. My point is that it's all arbitrary and we can't say that non-living things persist while other things live. Some molecular formations crowded out others in the pre-life era and the same thing happens today. It's the same thing.
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Post by general313 on Feb 6, 2020 15:57:18 GMT
Abiogenesis and evolution are different things unless you are using the word "evolution" to describe something else other than biological evolution. But whatever first life began, there was a long period of organic molecular activity that precipitated it. And that precipitation was an evolution in and of itself that also had a long period of atomic activity prior to a long period subatomic activity. So for me, evolution began at the moment the first sub-atomic particles formed in the extreme heat Big Bang which has resulted in a Universe as it where a tiny portion of its constituent parts is aware of itself. Perhaps life is the Universe’s “brain?” Trying to define a precise time when evolution began is as futile as defining the generation when our ancestors stopped being reptiles and became mammals. Similarly the boundary between life and non-life is fuzzy, as we can see with viruses. Astrochemistry is making new discoveries about kinds of chemistry once thought not possible because conditions on Earth aren't favorable to them. A recent discovery is observable helium hydride (a compound of one hydrogen and one helium atom), now suspected to be the first compound to form in the universe. Astrophysicists think this molecule played an important role in making other compounds available in the early universe.
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Post by general313 on Feb 6, 2020 16:16:34 GMT
Trying to define a precise time when evolution began is as futile as defining the generation when our ancestors stopped being reptiles and became mammals. Similarly the boundary between life and non-life is fuzzy, as we can see with viruses. Astrochemistry is making new discoveries about kinds of chemistry once thought not possible because conditions on Earth aren't favorable to them. A recent discovery is observable helium hydride (a compound of one hydrogen and one helium atom), now suspected to be the first compound to form in the universe. Astrophysicists think this molecule played an important role in making other compounds available in the early universe. Helium realizes itself. That helium is wasted. Is it right to waste helium on party balloons?
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Post by Rodney Farber on Feb 6, 2020 17:25:30 GMT
... 4. If women ran the world there would be no wars - Experience says otherwise. Margaret Thatcher didn't hesitate to make war on Argentina. Catherine The Great (Russia) overthrew her husband in a coup, made war on the Ottomans, Iran and Poland, among others. Maria Theresa was no pacifist either. And what of Bloody Mary, Boadicea, Zenobia and others? 5. science asks how, religion asks why (attributed to UK author Peter James) - Actually, religion doesn't ask anything since every cult or creed already knows the answer. The answer to any question about why things are this way instead of that way is this: Because God wants it this way. While I agree with everything you say, I wanna throw in my two cents. 4 - Is Warren capable of acting as the Commander in Chief if the s*** hits the fan. 5 - I'm reminded of a Penn Jillette quote:
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Post by general313 on Feb 6, 2020 17:52:53 GMT
5 - I'm reminded of a Penn Jillette quote:
There may be good reasons to be skeptical of religion but this is not one of them. The same could be said of language.
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