/sci/ - Science & Math

Well done.

At least you have something you feel justifies you to feel superior to both sides.

You can't provide proof unicorns don't exist.
You can't provide proof dragons don't exist.
You can't provide proof furries don't exist.

You can't prove anything negative, it is a fundamental impossibility.

On a side note, you can't prove anything positive (with the only exception being the logical conclusion of cogito ergo sum).

Why haven't you converted to solipsism already?

OH BECAUSE THIS LINE OF LOGIC IS FUCKING RETARDED AND WE SHOULD FOCUS ON THINGS WE SHOULD TEST.
All gods thus far have failed all tests to prove their existence. QED, all experimental data leads to a negative conclusion: not an adamant "does not/can not exist", but "statistically improbable and not worth considering" conclusion.

Noone makes that assertion.

There is no science or math in this thread.

>>4760106
congratulations, you got mad

>>4760106
>You can't prove anything negative, it is a fundamental impossibility.
Yes you can.

>>4760106
Of course you can, silly.

Also, responding to this thread.

>go away EK

>>4760133

Show me how you resolve the devil's proof, exactly.

I was adamantly against an anthropomorphic deity until the Mandelbrot set.
Now I can't even rationalize there being a designer.

Fuck divine intervention though.

>>4760240
*not being a designer

>>4760227
Proving a negative is devil's proof?

>>4760227
> Prove the world is not flat

Here you go.

>>4760240
>>4760243

Then again chaotic systems don't necessitate a "creator"
You all are agnostic whether you like it or not thanks to logic's failure to describe the nature of existence.

>>4760249

Devil's proof is a proof that is impossible to achieve. Proof of a negative is one example of a devil's proof.

>>4760253

Falsified data/tampered evidence, lies, fiction, falsehood, incorrect testing, that is merely an image of the flat earth from above!

>>4760266
If you discount this proof, of the world's non-flatness, you don't just discount proofs of negatives, you discount all proofs.

>>4760106
>Implying you can't prove a negative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem

>>4760271

Such is a devil's proof, it can't be satisfied.

I could always say a magic fairy tampered with the evidence and you can't see the invisible fairy but it will always mess with your experiments and you can't prove magic doesn't exist.

>>4760273

Math is an abstraction and has no basis in reality

>>4760106
>that .gif

>>4760280
>Dat non sequitur

>>4760280
Benoit Mandelbrot would like to have a word with you.

>>4760253
One of the sub theories of string theory is that the universe is two dimensional, and the third dimension that we see is a projection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
I'm not exactly a proponent of string theory, but my point is that nothing can be known for sure. Although I do agree, it seems very unlikely that there is a god, I will never be completely sure.

>>4760298
you sure that nothing can be known for sure, brah?

>>4760278
So... everything is devil's proof?

Why has nobody mentioned this.

Before I begin I'd like to say I don't really label myself as atheist simply because there is so many misconceptions and I really just don't give a fuck.

The bottom line is perhaps if you analyze the root words you can make a fairly weak argument that "atheist" does imply they think there is no god.

BUT, the FACT is that most self identified atheists DON'T think that. They actually say that "atheism" means that they don't believe there is a god, but the DON'T believe there is no god.

Get the difference?

There are too many ways to interpret the difference between atheism and agnosticism I don't even want to cover it here but the point I'm making is that the two are very close,

someone needs to just put up a definitive definition of them once and for all, because as it stands now, "atheism" to one person might mean something almost entirely different to someone else and we can't really say who is right

>>4760307
x-x=19+7
0=26
wat am i looking at here

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PROOF.

You get evidence. From that evidence you distribute your probability mass (which totals 1) amongst theories, depending on how well they predicted the data and your prior probability. Repeat. Pick the theory with highest probability.


There is no reason why I should assign non-negligible probability to a bearded man in the sky (same with unicorns), and that makes me an "atheist" rather than an "agnostic".

mfw when no where in sci but no one even mentioned what an axiom is yet, strictly you can not even proof x = x. Nothing can be prooven ...

>>4760076
Look up our current theory for the start of the universe, it leaves no space for a god to start it.

Want a nice laymans run through? The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking, will let you be able to talk with a modicum of knowledge on the subject.

>>4760317

Proving a negative, and technically a positive, yes.

From the standpoint of logic, there is only one positive you can prove.
"I think, therefore, I am". If you were not, you could not be thinking, and since you can prove to yourself that you are thinking (you cannot prove other people are thinking, and you cannot prove to other people that you are thinking), you must therefore be.

So you exist, but everything else is magic. This belief is called "solipsism", and it is the only thing you'll reach if you want to run on what has proof and what doesn't have proof. Agnostics are quitters.

>>4760380
>Pick the theory with highest probability.
>Calls others idiots.
Someone needs to read some Popper.

>>4760521
>Implying that behavior isn't what people do EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY INCLUDING YOUR IDIOT ASS

"Well I believe that such and such choice has a higher chance than such and such choice to get me what I want."

Suck a fat fucking dick you fucking poser jesus fucking christ instead of sucking fat cocks and sputtering "popper" in some semen splatter, why don't you say WHY you fucking fat faggot fuck?

>>4760560
Fuck, you need anal reconstruction surgery it's so devastated.

Here you go son, educate yourself.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#ProKnoVer

>Implying that behavior isn't what people do EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY INCLUDING YOUR IDIOT ASS
I didn't imply that. I implied that behaviour is for idiots.

>>4760509
>The Grand Design
wat?

>>4760599

Wow thank you for linking me to something that's FUCKING RETARDED in relation to the ACTUAL PRACTICE OF SCIENCE WHICH HAS GIVEN TWO CENTURIES OF CONCRETE AND EXPONENTIAL RESULTS.

What a fucking retard. Trying to lecture TECHNICAL EXPERTS who WORK WITHIN THEIR OWN TECHNE EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY on non important shit regarding their field or having to EXPLICITLY REGURGITATE OBVIOUS STATEMENTS WHICH MOST WORKING SCIENTISTS INTUITIVELY UNDERSTAND.

>verisimilitude

FUCKING RETARDED MEANINGLESS SHIT. LITERALLY FUCKING RETARDED MEANINGLESS SHIT.

>>4760634

Once again in my anger I am FUCKING BOGGLED on the basis of that summary how anyone could read it as anything other than a logician's attempt to frame and dominate A WORLD OF FACTS AND PRACTICES into some schema which has nothing to do with the circumstances that gave fruit to that very world.

>my lack of face at the bungled attempts at trying to shoehorn science into "falsifiable" and "non-falsifiable" when the actual practice of science and acceptance of models is based on results within a historical context

>>4760106

Don't be so fucking ignorant, the whole point of providing a God is to fit the definition of philosophical necessity, as opposed to contingency. You can't provide unicorns on the same level as God because they would be contingent. This is Philosophy 101 - don't enter a philosophical argument if you can't cite the most basic of Anselm/Aquinas.

>>4760280
Ohhairther, my name's Ludwig.

>>4760076
>Atheism
>Disproving deist god
Nope.
The evidence shows that there are no miracles, thus no interfering god, thus theism is wrong, thus atheism.

>>4760634
>>4760650
Ever sentence you disgorge into your posts illustrates how stupid you are. I think it's time you stop now, for everyone's sake.

>>4760668
I smell a troll, 'cause no one would make the claim that a lack of evidence can conclusively lead to the certainty of something's non-existence.

Evidence suggests there are no miracles.
Are there miracles?
Probably not.

>probably

>>4760682
>conclusively
>aka beyond all doubt, forever, no matter what,
Stop strawmanning, I never claimed such a thing, and get out of our science discussion.

The Dragon In My Garage, by Carl Sagan
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm

There is no dragon your garage.

>>4760656

But a creator entity is only a contingent, not a necessity.

QED god is unicorns

>>4760678
>stupid for pointing out how stupid your example to refute someone by pointing out a pontificating idiot was

Dude it's fucking embarassing for yourself that you even took him seriously. I wouldn't trust that fuck to lecture on agricultural science just on the basis of that summary which shows a profound ignorance for how science is actually done as opposed to making models of "The Form of Science". Why the fuck would you trust him lecturing anyone on ALL SCIENCE?

"Oh no my infantile megalomania has lost a tool which I could use to lecture the actual practitioners of a field, which they have specialized in and have cultivated an increased body of useful facts over, is now lost boo hoo"

Get over it.

>>4760688
Science? I think you're in the wrong thread - there hasn't been much science in here.

But I do agree with you (and Carl Sagan). However, in the case of God, there is still a lot of space for a designer/creator's existence in logic - not evidence, but logic. I'd say that logic is as supreme as empirical evidence, since logic has proven the existence of most things or states in science before they have been proven.

>>4760690
I don't think you get what I mean. Look up some philosophical essays on contingency and necessity - it states that everything is contingent, in that it can be thought to not-exist/it is dependent on something else for its existence. The point of a deist entity labelled 'the creator' is to be necessary, to oppose the theory of infinite regression while still creating a logically possible starting point for existence.

>>4760699
>I'd say that logic is as supreme as empirical evidence, since logic has proven the existence of most things or states in science before they have been proven.
>[Thinking you can arm-chair philosophize about material facts]
Nope. Go back to ancient Greek, Plato.

If you want to cling to the idea of a non-interfering god, fine, go for it. This has absolutely nothing to do with miracles, with an afterlife, and so on.

Also, Pascal's Wager:
>Believing in Kryptonite, and spending time looking for it, just for the off chance that Superman is real and wants to kill you.

Sometime over the past 50 years the corporate and government media have convinced almost all of society that sitting on the fence is the educated opinion.

Consider the following: Einstein was wrong as often as he was right, he is remembered because his contributions to science are more valueable than the resources that have gone into investigating his mistakes.

There is no moral imperative when it comes to knowledge, that is the premise of science; I have no good reasons to believe in a God and there is no sequence of logic that will take me there and no information I can extract from the fact that such a God exists if he does.

It is downright wrong, you've spent your entire life being trained to believe people who have a strong opinion are ascientific.

Frankly, as to the question of the existence of a God, I could care less because it's not something that, experimentally, has any effect of this life.

But it's appologists like OP who are responsible for changing western nations, once paragons of progress in the world, into xenophobic, uneducated, brainwashed, backwards little hamlets of unreasonably rich idiots propped up on the labour of an entire planet.

If you're afraid to move society forwards, then Fred Reactionary and the young earth creation league of the great free land of I Hate Everybody Else are happy to pick up your slack pulling it back.

Everybody intelligent has been fooled to be so caught up in "I wonder if our current system can support that change" that actually started to slip backwards and lose a lot of the social progress that we spent the last centrury fighting for.

sci-related example: Petroleum engineering is the most highly paid degree

Fuck all of you