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@Ramshutu
There are a few other common tactics. Out-of-context quote mining and calling evolution a religion come to mind.
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@keithprosser
That is a valid distinction, however I don't think the existence of a mechanism to utilize something is necessary for it to be said to contain information. If so, then tree rings do not contain information, which is seems at odds with the common notion.
And when you say that cells read DNA, creationists of course liken this to reading language, when the two processes are utterly different, an example of equivocation.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
It's a common creationist argument that DNA contains information, and information by definition implies conscious intent, therefore DNA encoding must be by conscious intent.
The problem with this argument lies in its second premise. Information does not require a conscious mind to create. A prefect example is tree rings. Tree rings contain information about the age of a tree and past climate conditions. Do they require a conscious mind to create? Nope.
DNA contains information in the same sense as tree rings.
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@keithprosser
b.
Catching the perp would likely prevent future muggings. Also, getting the old lady's purse back would be a way of helping her.
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@RationalMadman
A better definition of fiat money is money that is backed by or convertible to a commodity. Intrinsic I don't know that anything could really be said to have intrinsic value. All value is subjective and/or dependent on circumstances.
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@Alec
A two degree rise in global temperature would have far more effect than just making it feel a bit warmer.
1. The sea level would rise about 15 feet. This means that hundreds of coastal cities would be under water.
2. Extreme weather events would increase in frequency and strength. These include hurricanes, heat waves and blizzards.
3. The ocean would increase in acidity due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. This would effect coral reefs.
4. All the above would have profound effect on the ecosystem, changing the the migration patterns of animals, for instance. Diseases now found only in the tropics would spread to the upper latitudes.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Please link a thread on these forums that follows your claimed pattern.
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@Ramshutu
The best way to recognize pseudoscience is to become literate in science. Unfortunately, many people aren't interested enough to take the time.
That said, there are several hallmarks of pseudoscience. Here is a list of most of the major ones. (I adapted most of these from https://quizlet.com/93340312/hallmarks-of-pseudoscience-flash-cards/)
1. Any mention of a conspiracy
2. Linking non-scientific sources (websites, youtube, etc.)
3. Failure to self-correct
4. Ignoring refutations and only emphasizing confirmation
5. Reversing the burden of proof (prove my theory wrong)
6. Lack of connectivity with previous theories (claimant says everything that came before is obsolete)
7. Reliance on anecdotal evidence or testimonials
8. Use of vague or obscure language
9. Double standards (contrary evidence is dismissed for the slightest flaw; confirmatory evidence is not)
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@Somebody
No, mass/energy equivalence does not imply an Aether. If you assert that it does, then you need to actually provide logical steps that lead to your conclusion.
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@Somebody
Nothing in what I said mentioned anything about Aether. Aether does not exist.
Since you've ignored virtually every refutation of your OP, I'll assume that you concede that it is not true.
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@Somebody
The Earth is currently expanding by 0.1 mm per year. It is also losing 55,000 tons per year of mass. Size and mass are not the same thing.
Global warming does not result in a loss of mass. It results in a gain of mass. It's a direct result of the equivalence of mass and energy described by E=mc^2. A warmer Earth means the Earth has absorbed more energy, which increases its mass..
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@Somebody
See my previous post. The Earth loses more from atmospheric escape that it gains from cosmic dust and meteorites. The article you cite only tries to estimate the latter.
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@Ramshutu
It's a net loss. The causes of changes in the Earth's mass are, in order of magnitude:
1. Atmospheric escape (100,000 tons/year loss)
2. Cosmic dust and meteorites (45,000 tons/year gain)
3. Global warming (160 tons/year gain)
4. Decelertaion of Earth's rotation (16 tons/year loss)
5. Radioactivity (16 tons/year loss)
The net loss of 55,000 tons/year is only 10^(-17) the total mass of the Earth.
It is interesting that 3 and 4 are due to the equivalence of mass and energy.
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@Ramshutu
Ok, I stand corrected.
It's still true that the overall mass of the Earth is not increasing. In fact, it is actually decreasing by about 55,000 tons per year, mostly due to atmospheric escape. That seems like a lot, but is negligible compared to the Earth's mass.
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@Somebody
Huh?I have no illusion that ONE DAY, I will change Somebody's mind, MAYBE EVEN JUST one iota,
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@Somebody
1. You completely miss the point. Even if animals have been getting steadily smaller since the dinosaurs, that is only 5% of the Earth's history. During the other 95%, animals were getting bigger. Yet you claim the Earth has been expanding the whole time.
2. You keep saying "the laws of probability" like that means something. It means nothing unless you state exactly which law(s) are being violated and how. It is also clear that you have only a cursory understanding of probability by the way you say "unlikely" and "impossible" as if they were interchangeable.
3. Expanding seafloors due to plate tectonics explain quite well why continents fit together like jigsaw puzzles.
4. There is no extra mass to account for because the expansion in the last 20 years is accounted for by thermal expansion due to a warming planet.
5. Once again, you have failed to answer whether you stand by your claim that the rate of the Earth's expansion has increased exponentially.
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@keithprosser
There's something to be said for ignoring crackpots, true.
Unfortunately, crackpot ideas sometimes have a way of spreading, especially pseudoscientific ones. While actual science prevails in the long run, pseudoscience can do short-term damage to public scientific literacy, and should therefore be opposed.
I have no illusion that I will change Sombody's mind one iota, but my posts aren't really for him, but for casual readers who may happen upon this thread.
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@Somebody
All animals?? This is completely untrue. Humans have not decreased in size. Nor have many other species, horses and giraffes, for instance.
And look at dinosaurs, the biggest creatures too ever roam the Earth..They appeared 240 million years ago. That is only 5 percent of the Earth's lifetime, which means that the Earth did most of it's expanding before dinosaurs. This completely contradicts your statement that an expanding Earth causes a decrease in animal size
I responded to all points in your post #16. To summarize:
1. You claimed that only one continent would cause the Earth to be unstable. That is simply not true. You went on to claim the Earth is perfectly balanced. The is not true, either.
2. You claimed that one continent was statistically impossible. I asked what statistical test you used. You have not responded.
3. You claimed that all animals have gotten smaller. I named at least two that have not. I also brought up the fact that the largest creatures on Earth only appeared after 95% of Earth's history, which directly contradicts your claim that an expanding Earth causes animals to get smaller. You have not provided an explanation for this.
Furthermore, you have yet to answer whether you stand by your previous claim that the rate of the Earth's expansion has increased exponentially.
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@Somebody
As has been explained to you, it is anything but a little error. It was crucial to your claim. I don't know how to make that any more clear.
And you again did not address your claim that the rate has been increasing. Are you standing by this claim?
The rest of your post is a Gish gallop of bald assertions and irrelevancies. One ocean would not cause the Earth to be unstable. The oceans are a tiny fraction of the Earth's crust. You gave no physics to back up your claim, therefore it is a bald assertion. You said Pangaea is statistically impossible and violates the laws of probability, but never said what statistics you used or what law of probability it violates. Another bald assertion. And I already addressed the animals-getting-smaller nonsense.
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@Somebody
Neither do you, or anyone, which is why you have no basis for making assertions about it.
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@Segregationist
I agree. Blacks and most whites should be in one school, and white Southerners like yourself should have their own "special" school.
I even have a suggestion for the department to oversee the white Southerner schools: Corrections.
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@Somebody
The fact remains that the Earth has expanded as all the evidence proves it. You are just picking on a mathematical error and ignoring all the important stuff. The geological evidence is there on the ocean floor so you can't deny it. Rocks don't lie but humans can.
A result that is wrong by a factor of 1,000 in an calculation upon which your entire theory depends is anything but a small mathematical error.
And you are not addressing the fact that you made matters worse by doubling down on your error and asserting that the 400,000 was so large because the rate of increase has grown exponentially over time. Yet if you had done the calculation correctly, you would actually need a decrease over time to account for your claimed growth, not an increase.
Given just these two points, your "theory" is in tatters.
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@Somebody
Do you actually understand the math in my previous post? If so, then how can you say that an imaginary number implies backward time travel?
Even if backward time travel is impossible (which you have not established, only asserted), that in no way implies that time must move at the same relative rate in all frames of reference.
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@Somebody
1 kilometer = 1,000,000 mm4 billion = 4,000,000,000Deduct 6 zeros from both = 4,000km add in some large meteor strikes which accelerated the growth and caused the main dinosaurs extinction event. Then, you end up with current planet Earth. Still a very plausible and logical explanation.Thus, we are both wrong and the answer was in the middle.xpanding Earth causes a decrease in animal size
That's two strikes. One more and you're out.
Hint: the rate of expansion is 0.1 mm per year.
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@Ramshutu
It will be interesting to see how he responds to this.
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@Somebody
Your website states that the Earth is only expanding at a rate of 0.1 mm per year which is insufficient to create an expanding Earth. This is false information. If you multiply 0.1mm x 4 billion years you get an expansion of 400,000 kms which is more than enough expansion for several Earth's.
Your math is way off. An expansion rate of 0.1 mm per year over 4 billion years yields a total expansion of 400 km, not 400,000 km. That is nowhere near enough to account for continental drift, especially since Pangaea began to break up only 175 million years ago. A rate of 0.1 mm per year only accounts for 17.5 km of expansion since Pangaea!
Even the larger figure of 3.7 mm per year from the dubious paper you cited only yields 648 km of expansion since Pangaea. Again, not nearly enough to account for continental drift.
Now, we must take into account that this rate of increase would be exponential and not a constant growth rate. Thus, this adjustment would create the exact Earth size that we have today which proves that the Earth has indeed expanded.
Ok, this is funny. It looks like, because your wrong calculation gives way too big a number for how much the Earth has expanded,(400,000 km, or 31 times the current diameter of the Earth), you throw in, with no justification, an assumption that the rate was less in the past, and has grown exponentially.
But your calculation was too high by a factor of 1000! If you had done the calculation correctly, you would need the rate to be greater in the past, not less!
What are you going to do now? Flip-flop, and say that the rate of expansion has actually been decreasing?
The rest of your post is a classic Gish Gallop of falsehoods and irrelevancies. I'll only bother to dismantle one of them.
2. Not to mention that all the Earth's animals have decreased in size due to increased gravity.
All animals?? This is completely untrue. Humans have not decreased in size. Nor have many other species, horses and giraffes, for instance.
And look at dinosaurs, the biggest creatures too ever roam the Earth..They appeared 240 million years ago. That is only 5 percent of the Earth's lifetime, which means that the Earth did most of it's expanding before dinosaurs. This completely contradicts your statement that an expanding Earth causes a decrease in animal size
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@Somebody
It's easy to see why that article did not make it into a top journal, but was relegated to an obscure Chinese journal. The authors estimate the Earth's expansion over the last 20 years to be 0.35 plus or minus 0.47 mm. In other words, the uncertainty in their measurement is larger than the effect they purport to measure! That should have been a show-stopper for any competent reviewer.
The fact is, current scientific consensus is that the Earth is not expanding at any significant rate.
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@linate
We don't know for sure yet, but the prevailing theory is that the rings are the remnants of a moon that orbited too close to Saturn and eventually collided with it. We know that the rings have a large amount of ice. The best explanation so far is that, as the moon got closer and closer to Saturn, its outer, icy layers were stripped off and the rest of it crashed into the planet.
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@Somebody
Why do all your theories involve a vast, global conspiracy?
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@Somebody
The problem with your "thought experiment" is that it assumes relativity says something ti does not say. Relativity does not say that moving faster than light means moving backward in time. In most of the equations of relativity, velocities faster than light yield nonsensical results. For instance, in the equation that relates velocity to time, using a value larger than the speed of light does not yield a negative number, which would imply backward time travel. Rather, it yields the square root of a negative number--an imaginary number. Imaginary numbers have no way to be interpreted in the real world.
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@Somebody
You have not demonstrated that you do. Einstein derived relativity, including that equation, by assuming only two postulates, 1) the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, and 2) The speed of light in a vacuum is the same in all inertial frames. Anyone with a moderate understanding of math, if they care to, can follow his reasoning step-by-step.E=MC squared.The difference is that I understand what this equation really means.
Your "theory", on the other hand, contains no logical steps, only bald assertions. If you think you have a valid theory, then you need to present your reasoning in a step-by=step fashion. Something like "if we assume A, then B must be true, and B implies C, and C means that D must be true, which implies that E must be true." Each step must follow logically from the previous one, so that anyone with an understanding of math and logic can follow it. In contrast to this, you are jumping directly from A to E, with no logical steps in between. As such, I would not expect anyone to give any credence to your theory.
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@Somebody
As Ramshutu said, OMICS International is a predatory publisher. Many of their journals will accept nearly anything without question or scrutiny as long as you pay their publication fee. The article you cite certainly was not peer-reviewed. It was accepted 3 days after it was submitted! Peer-review typically takes, at a minimum,, several weeks.
Among other deceitful practices, OMICS International claims that reputable researchers are members of its editorial board without their permission and when they, in fact, have nothing to do with OMICS.
As for the paper itself, none of the points it makes on why HIV is not the cause of AIDS is at all convincing. For instance, the fact that HIV tests can have false positives or false negatives in no way implies that HIV does not cause AIDS. The point that we cannot detect the virus, only genetic sequences of the virus, is also irrelevant, since those genetic sequences are unique to HIV.
And beside all that, the author has all the hallmarks of a scam artist. Among other things, he claims to be able to cure diabetes in 72 hours.
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@Somebody
Physics is based on math. Could you share the math behind your theory?
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@Somebody
Please tell me you don't work in the food service industry.Washing your hands only makes pharmaceutical companies and doctors rich. The soap and detergent chemicals react with the skin causing dermatitis, itchy scalp, dandruff and rashes. The pharmacy company sells both the the cause and cure for dermatitis. Thus, they get rich and keep quiet, hoping that nobody ever gets wise to the scam. By the way, germs don't spread via your hands normally. If you do have a little poop on your hands, then this may cause some trouble to those persons who don't eat appropriate foods. Note - Its only stale poop that is dangerous. That is poop that has been around for a few days. Fresh poop is harmless and can be beneficial if your own internal bacteria aren't sufficiently nourished or active.
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@Somebody
According to relativity, nothing can accelerate beyond the speed of light, so it is meaningless to talk about what happens at 10 times the speed of light.In order to prove relativity wrong all you need to do is add extra speed to the experimental or thought experimental craft. Now, an astronaut in a space craft which travels at 10 times the speed of light for 10 years and returns to Earth to find that he hasn't been born yet. Thus, this shows that time travel or time change is an illogical concept.
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@Mopac
Your "explanation" is a good example of why I find most religious claims to be nonsensical. I could ask for more precise definitions but experience has taught me that I would just get more layers of b.s.
There is nothing in God being defined as The Truth that in any way implies a trinity. You are therefore pulling a bait and switch when you constantly argue that God simply means The Truth, then suddenly add specific Christian doctrine like the trinity to the mix. We both know that what you really believe is that God means The Truth as revealed by the Bible and your church. Yet you always omit the second (and far more important) part.
Guess what? Even if people used your definition that God means The Truth, it would not help them one iota in evaluating any religious claims.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Sure, you have a right to your beliefs and don't need to give reasons for them. On a debate website, though, you should expect your beliefs to be questioned and not get bent out of shape when they are. Just because someone questions your beliefs or disagrees with you does not mean they are hateful. Assuming they are is itself a form of bigotry.
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What is the difference between God and God's Word?
If there is no difference, then that Bible verse means "In the beginning was God, and God was with God, and God was God." which is just a tautology.
If there is a difference, then your statement that God's Word is the Truth is at odds with your statement that God is The Truth, since The Truth cannot be two different things.
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@keithprosser
Sure. If you accept that an increase in well-being or a decrease in suffering is good, then this is reason enough to be moral.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Calling anyone who questions your beliefs dishonest and hate-filled is one way to avoid having to come up with logical reasons for your beliefs.
There is even a name for it, an appeal to motive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive
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@keithprosser
That's simple enough.
An action is moral to the extent that a reasonable person would expect it to increase the well-being or reduce the suffering of sentient creatures.
An action is immoral to the extent that a reasonable person would expect it to decrease the well-being or increase the suffering of sentient creatures.
The tricky part is attempting to rigorously define well-being and suffering.
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@keithprosser
Yes, that is one way to resolve it.
The dilemma is only a problem if you subscribe to divine command theory.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Nope, not everyone is motivated by hatred as you appear to be.
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@Mopac
Nothing there about God's word. Anyway, it is pretty incoherent.
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@janesix
My reason for coming here is quite simple. Religion is a bad idea, and I oppose bad ideas.
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@Mopac
Again, why bring it up?
Just as Jesus leaving a church does not imply his teachings are correct, Gilgamesh not leaving a church does not imply that Gilgamesh's teachings are incorrect.
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@keithprosser
Sure, it does not appear that divine command theory is correct. That is the point of the Euthyphro Dilemma, to show that the divine command theory leads to illogical consequences.
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@Mopac
Your definitions are becoming even more incoherent.
Previously you said that God is The Truth. Now you are saying God's word is The Truth.
Obviously a being's word is not the same thing as the being itself. Otherwise "word" would be empty of additional meaning, and unnecessary. Yet you say both that God is The Truth and God's word is The Truth. Both definitions being simultaneously correct is incoherent.
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@janesix
@Ramshutu
You will also need to explain what happens when the density of a star becomes so great that not even the nuclear strong force is enough to stave off gravitational collapse. What prevents the star from collapsing to a black hole?
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