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Peter P
2014 Apr 14, 6:15am
Why should we care if something is true? Life is like trading in the market. It is a stochastic game.
Heraclitusstudent
2014 Apr 14, 7:33am
It is a stochastic game.
A probabilistic view is not an exemption from common sense.
That same 0.000001% chance assigned uniformly to unproven superstitious beliefs makes you 99.999999% atheist.
Dan8267
2014 Apr 14, 10:09am
Yeah Liberals are ones to talk. They've been totally useless in American politics for about 3 decades now
You're entitled to your opinion no matter how bigoted and uninformed.
I can't remember the last time a liberal held an office of power. Maybe Jesse Ventura as governor, but nothing in the Senate comes to mind.
The point is to convince everyone else that the unicorn believer is an idiot who deserves no respect.
Then you've already lost every argument you put forth.
You're entitled to your speculation, but why should I believe your speculation is accurate when your facts are not?
Respected scientists believed the gorilla to be a mythical creature until someone dropped a dead one on their dissecting table.
Therefore, unicorns and the Loch Ness monster are probably real. The burden of proof is on the assertor.
We've already proved that every Big Foot sighting has been a hoax. If some species of ape is discovered and the person who finds it decides to call it Big Foot in order to garner more publicity, that doesn't make the myth of Big Foot any less bullshit.
Furthermore, it is a false dichotomy to say that a person is either close-minded to news possibilities or is naive enough to believe everything. The religious refused to be accept evidence. The skeptic demands evidence. I am a skeptic, and that's a good thing.
Until that day when an alien ship lands.
When that ship lands, I doubt the occupants will plead guilty to anally probing thousands of red necks.
One must strive to live a truth-agnostic life.
Now that should be the motto of Fox News: truth-agnostic.
One last thought... The peer-review process in science is brutal, but it is brutal for a reason. It is only by thoroughly attacking ideas that one can distinguish good ideas from bad ones. It is only by thoroughly attacking theories that one can have a high degree of confidence in them. Skepticism is good.
Dan8267
2014 Apr 15, 2:18pm
The burden of proof is on the assertor.
Now Dan, isn't it standard debate rules that the burden of proof is on the negative? It's been long time since high school, but I'm just sayin'......
Actually, the affirmative team has the burden of proof to affirm the year's resolution.
IMHO, the whole high school cross-ex debate thing was ruined by spreading a long time ago.
Strangely, there was an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer and Marge were in forensics and Homer did cross-ex debate. He mooned for rebuttal. That episode was brilliant because it so accurately portrayed all of forensics right down to the index cards the debaters used to use.
Tenpoundbass
2014 Apr 25, 1:51am
Anybody know where I can pick up a copy of The History of Fish?
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http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/09/news/companies/cosmos-neil-degrasse-tyson/
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/57638209-80/sagan-cosmos-religion-carl.html.csp
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/discovery_insti_5082921.html
And don't forget Dark Age Defenders, who think rationality began with the Church and their hero Thomas Aquinas, who "Rationally Proved" masturbation was worse than rape.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christophers/2014/03/cosmos-may-get-science-right-but-it-gets-church-history-wrong/