Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[Dan From Smithville]

social sciences are anything that deal with human society and social relationships between individuals or in groups.

Broadly speaking, Social Sciences deal with human behaviour, human cultures and human activities. You want to know more, then look it up. For me, I am retiring for the night, as it is late. Maybe I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

That is all my recollection on the subject as well.

Have a good evening. Sleep well.

 

[PureX]

Does the amorality of a tool promote amorality or immorality in the user of the tool?

Yes.

Or does the user of a tool use it by their own amorality and immorality to promote their personal agendas?

Yes.

Science is not just a "tool". Science is a methodology for conceptualizing reality, like religion, philosophy, and art. But by it's design, science is specifically amoral, unlike religion, philosophy, and art. Which is why when it's being used exclusively, it promotes an amoral conception of reality (and truth).

 

[PureX]

This is BS.

excuse, the language.

Sciences do deal with morals, but not those in Natural Sciences (eg physics, chemistry, Earth science, astronomy & life sciences (or any biology related disciplines)), which are only concerned with studies of nature.

The study of morals is called Ethics, and Ethics falls under the Social Sciences.

Ethics overlap with other Social Sciences disciplines, such as Sociology, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Law (eg legal ethics), Political Sciences (eg political ethics), and many others.

Natural Sciences have different scopes to sciences in Social Sciences.

For you to say that science don’t deal with morals, is wrong…you are looking at the wrong science.

The scientism cultists think EVERYTHING that supports their worldview is science(s).

It's laughable, really.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes.

Yes.

Science is not just a "tool". Science is a methodology for conceptualizing reality, like religion, philosophy, and art. But by it's design, science is specifically amoral, unlike religion, philosophy, and art. Which is why when it's being used exclusively, it promotes an amoral conception of reality (and truth).

That is your opinion and not one that I agree with. It can, but does it always. I really don't know and I don't know that you know either.

Is it science that creates the morality or is it the agents with or without morality that are creating it?

I would put you in the category as a definite science denier. You may or may not agree. Some consider the definition of science acceptance is accepting and using technology, but that is insufficient to a definition.

What I have seen is that you see anyone that accepts science or disagrees with your opinions all ensconced in some mythical cult of scientism.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The scientism cultists think EVERYTHING that supports their worldview is science(s).

It's laughable, really.

And the science denier sees all science is attempting to destroy their worldview.

Also laughable, really.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes.

I don't think so. Hammers.

I remain unconvinced.

Yes.

Science is not just a "tool". Science is a methodology for conceptualizing reality, like religion, philosophy, and art. But by it's design, science is specifically amoral, unlike religion, philosophy, and art. Which is why when it's being used exclusively, it promotes an amoral conception of reality (and truth).

A method is a tool.

 

[cladking]

I can't see where you learn science or have learned from science.

It is wholly irrelevant whether I know any science or metaphysics at all. The only thing relevant is whether my words reflect reality or not. I believe they do which is why I try to make the points.

You talk about things that there is no evidence for and you speak of them as if they are established and known to exist and just as you claim.

Just as reality is the sole measure of my words so too is their accuracy the sole means we have to create models which better reflect that reality. I believe the fact that experiment and my beliefs coincide so closely is testament to the fact that there exist better ways to interpret reality. I understand you can't see this this correlation but it is apparent that this is because you dismiss the evidence and experiment as mere assertion. Just as ancient words had meaning AND were chiseled in stone it's entirely possible my words reflect reality as I've defined it as well. Ancient words (if I am correct) were consistent with a natural understanding of reality as constructed and modeled by a logically wired brain using this self same logic and scientific observation as defined by consciousness. They made sense in terms of their understanding of nature which I call "ancient science". This is a complex concept and in many real ways it is the same thing I'm attempting here. Where ancient man had only logic and observation I also have modern science and experiment to guide deductions which led to my model construction. That I don't elucidate every experiment that I use to get to my conclusions doesn't mean the experiments don't exist; it merely means I can't stop and provide links to say the sky is blue or objects fall if not supported. Facts are facts whether I cite experiment or not and this statement is true with or without Siri's OK. I built on the works of giants but I did not use their models, premises, or opinions. I've always invited everyone to challenge any point I make and have always responded when they did.

No talking squirrels.

Squirrels make a vast array of sounds including one that sounds like a sobbing infant. I know only a few words including "thank you" expressed as facing away and moving the tail side to side.

No evidence that there exists or ever existed species of humans best described by new nomenclature like Homo omniscience, Homo running in circles and so forth.

You dismiss such evidence despite its appearance in the Bible and chiseled into stone. You dismiss the implications of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You dismiss things like the "random" location of the brocas area. You dismiss the fact history didn't start for 1000 years after the invention of writing.
There's always plenty of evidence but we each interpret it to fit our beliefs.

cave-dwelling Homo sapiens were more intelligent and knowledgeable than modern Homo sapiens.

I don't know this for a fact but it is very apparent that in ancient times "intelligence" was critical to individual survival and huge amounts of knowledge were required to operate in the real world. Over time, especially after the invention of agriculture, intelligence became less and less important until today it is a liability. Many intelligent children learn to hide it by third grade now.

I am assuming cavemen were almost universally smarter (more clever more quickly) than 98% of the population today. The smartest among them were likely smarter than the smartest homo omnisciencis as well. However, it would hardly be surprising that the ability to use memory and its capacity has "evolved" (improved). Ya' see I don't really know anything and the farther away from my theory I get the less likely I am correct. This lesson is lost on most people who compute the acceleration due to gravity by timing the fall of a stone into a well and suddenly know everything about gravity. I don't know.

 

[cladking]

You dismiss things like the "random" location of the brocas area.

...And you dismiss it because I can't produce a brain scan of an extinct homo sapien! I'm simply showing the evidence that suggests if we did have a brain scan it would be different than any living human. Everyone watching a living homo sapien would say that "it" acts and looks like an animal.

We could not communicate with it. In time we might learn it a little English and have very limited communication.

To it we would seem to be sleep walkers.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is all my recollection on the subject as well.

Have a good evening. Sleep well.

Well, @gnostic didn't answer if social science only describes how humans do morality or if social science also prescribes morality.

"social sciences are anything that deal with human society and social relationships between individuals or in groups." Anything is too vauge, when it comes to what social science can actually do.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is a good question. Unlike some, I won't claim a vast knowledge and expertise at subjects outside my scope and provide a definitive answer in all its absolute glory.

I honestly don't know or if I do know something, it doesn't come immediately to mind.

Are psychiatry and psychology social sciences or a bridge between science and the minds of humans...and other animals? Those seek to understand who we are and establish aberrations in order to restore those with them to equilibrium.

Well, it is a problem in that some people will say that social science is science done on humans including that they are subjective, but that the science is still objective.
Others at least in the Nordic countries will claim that some variants of science in social and human sciences are in effect also subjective and normative.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It is wholly irrelevant whether I know any science or metaphysics at all. The only thing relevant is whether my words reflect reality or not. I believe they do which is why I try to make the points.

It is relevant and I have seen nothing to convince me or anyone else that your claims reflect reality.

I accept that you believe what you say. But you are trying to convince others that what you say is fact and have failed to do so and I predict will continue that way.

Just as reality is the sole measure of my words so too is their accuracy the sole means we have to create models which better reflect that reality. I believe the fact that experiment and my beliefs coincide so closely is testament to the fact that there exist better ways to interpret reality. I understand you can't see this this correlation but it is apparent that this is because you dismiss the evidence and experiment as mere assertion. Just as ancient words had meaning AND were chiseled in stone it's entirely possible my words reflect reality as I've defined it as well. Ancient words (if I am correct) were consistent with a natural understanding of reality as constructed and modeled by a logically wired brain using this self same logic and scientific observation as defined by consciousness. They made sense in terms of their understanding of nature which I call "ancient science". This is a complex concept and in many real ways it is the same thing I'm attempting here. Where ancient man had only logic and observation I also have modern science and experiment to guide deductions which led to my model construction. That I don't elucidate every experiment that I use to get to my conclusions doesn't mean the experiments don't exist; it merely means I can't stop and provide links to say the sky is blue or objects fall if not supported. Facts are facts whether I cite experiment or not and this statement is true with or without Siri's OK. I built on the works of giants but I did not use their models, premises, or opinions. I've always invited everyone to challenge any point I make and have always responded when they did.

I have seen no evidence that your beliefs correspond to any experiment. You refuse to provide this evidence. All you do is claim it is invisible to anyone that challenges you. How reasonable do you think that denial is?

Squirrels make a vast array of sounds including one that sounds like a sobbing infant.

So you claim.

I know only a few words including "thank you" expressed as facing away and moving the tail side to side.

That doesn't mean thank you. Clearly you don't speak squirrel.

You dismiss such evidence despite its appearance in the Bible and chiseled into stone. You dismiss the implications of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You dismiss things like the "random" location of the brocas area. You dismiss the fact history didn't start for 1000 years after the invention of writing.
There's always plenty of evidence but we each interpret it to fit our beliefs.

I dismiss it since you refuse to demonstrate it is evidence or that it supports your claims.

I don't know this for a fact but it is very apparent that in ancient times "intelligence" was critical to individual survival and huge amounts of knowledge were required to operate in the real world.

If you do not know it to be a fact, then it is irrelevant to supporting your claims. That intelligence offers an advantage is not in question. The quantity of knowledge required to survive is a fact not in evidence in your words and a reasonable conclusion cannot be drawn from the claims.

Over time, especially after the invention of agriculture, intelligence became less and less important until today it is a liability. Many intelligent children learn to hide it by third grade now.

That is a belief and an odd one. I can't figure out how a person that is claiming not to have any reason for this view would come to it and post it as a fact.

I am assuming cavemen were almost universally smarter (more clever more quickly) than 98% of the population today.

Assuming. I see. So, evidence supporting or contradicting that has no bearing and there is nothing to discuss. For all I know the smartest scientists of my generation never achieved their potential, because they were a poor wood cutter living in a poverty that prevented them from achieving. Speculation is speculation. Neither science nor convincing reason to accept wild claims as revealed truth.

The smartest among them were likely smarter than the smartest homo omnisciencis as well.

There you go again. New, unknown, unevidenced and unrecognized species of Homo. Your species concept seems to be whatever you can dream up.

However, it would hardly be surprising that the ability to use memory and its capacity has "evolved" (improved). Ya' see I don't really know anything and the farther away from my theory I get the less likely I am correct. This lesson is lost on most people who compute the acceleration due to gravity by timing the fall of a stone into a well and suddenly know everything about gravity. I don't know.

Then what is there for us to discuss in an area that requires the participants to know something and be able to explain and support their views?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

...And you dismiss it because I can't produce a brain scan of an extinct homo sapien!

I dismiss it because there is no evidence for your claims or that our species is extinct. That last alone doesn't even make sense.

I'm simply showing the evidence that suggests if we did have a brain scan it would be different than any living human.

You are not. You show no evidence. You post conjecture. Your conjecture that you seek to see exist well beyond the trivial technical familiarity you attempt to launch it from.

Everyone watching a living homo sapien would say that "it" acts and looks like an animal.

I agree. I watch them all the time.

We could not communicate with it.

Incorrect. We communicate with them all the time. Just because you fail to communicate your ideas as fact doesn't mean we are not two Homo sapiens communicating.

In time we might learn it a little English and have very limited communication.

All the English speaking Homo sapiens already know English. We know it.

To it we would seem to be sleep walkers.

I'm convinced that some Homo sapiens are sleep walkers.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm currently delving into the philosophy of science, but I need to dig back into the wider field of philosophy that I used to read on more frequently. Perhaps we need more people grounded in a wider base of philosophy than a few tender egos that seem to fixate on clearly limited personal positions of philosophy.

The joke about philosophy is in a sense how cognition works and if it has no limits, is limited or in effect without any effect.

E.g. if you look at epistemology you can notice it is about how to with reason justify how the correct way to know works.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, @gnostic didn't answer if social science only describes how humans do morality or if social science also prescribes morality.

"social sciences are anything that deal with human society and social relationships between individuals or in groups." Anything is too vauge, when it comes to what social science can actually do.

I agree, it is a broad and incomplete definition.

I'm going to abstain from a deeper response as I continue to review the subject and re-familiarize myself with it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The joke about philosophy is in a sense how cognition works and if it has no limits, is limited or in effect without any effect.

E.g. if you look at epistemology you can notice it is about how to with reason justify how the correct way to know works.

I think I see what you are saying. It is circular in a sense. You have to accept it or believe it in order to accept it.

If my understanding is wrong, please let me know.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

When science becomes our only means of defining reality, WE become amoral.

That's not been my experience personally or as an observer of others. Empiricism is the only path to knowledge about reality for me and many others as well.

Having a strictly empiricist epistemology does not speak to one's moral sense. With atheistic humanism, we employ rational ethics. We begin with a vision for society and for personal behavior and invent rules that facilitate that vision. There's a bit of trial-and-error there, as sometimes, there are unintended consequences to some of those rules as with prohibition. When we see that, we tweak those rules to conform better with that vision.

In humanism, the societal vision is given by utilitarian ethics, which strive to create the most freedom, economic opportunity, and social opportunity for as many as possible. In personals matters, it's the Golden Rule. Both embody love and empathy.

All the more-so when the scientism cultists actively attack and disparage any means we humans have of determining and enforcing morality, like philosophy and religion.

There is no cult of scientism, but you seem to be a one-man cult dedicated to promoting that fiction.

As you might have noticed, this atheistic humanist hasn't abandoned philosophy. I've given you much of my own here already. The rest has to do with naturalism.

Here is an excellent example of both scientsm AND the amorality it engenders ... "In biology, fittest means the most fecund. In economics, the fittest business is the most profitable one, as other less profitable business either just get by or close. In college applications, the fittest applicants are the ones that are accepted. I find the concept very much a description of reality ... (scientism) ... and not only harmless, but helpful" (amorality).

You haven't made the case that there is anything objectionable there, although you imply it. The first part is amoral. It is descriptive. I define how the word "fittest" is and can be used. The last part of the last sentence was a judgment, but not a moral judgement. These are ideas that are helpful to me.

Perhaps this is exactly where you et al have gone so very wrong.

You keep telling me that I have gone wrong, but everything is good here.

We're not supposed to be "learning science" so much as studying reality with the tools of reason and science.

I did and do both.

Once you "learn science" all you can do is point and scream at heretics.

I learned a lot of science as an undergraduate (BS biochemistry) and medical school, and I used it to make a living and to make a difference in the lives of others.

believers in science will see nothing but a semantical argument here because they already know science and are blind to everything they don't know.

You are like many others who frame not being believed as not being understood.

A car mechanic uses science to know reality as surely as any cosmologist

A car mechanic learns his craft through empiricism just as the cosmologist does, but the comparison ends there.

I protest the deification of science

Are you making the same claim as @PureX , which he calls scientism? If so, his cult is up to at least two now.

by those whose only morality has become "greed is good"

You'll have to take that up with them. That's not a condemnation of science.

I protest its use as a weapon against the weak and dispossessed

Agreed, but my answer is the same as the one above.

I protest the species rushing headlong into oblivion as every convert cheers it on.

Same answer. I thought that we were discussing science

We live in a world with governance for rent and college applicants selected by the Supreme Court. We live in a world where product design is to lower quality and fix them so they have as little lifespan as the "consumer" will tolerate (or even less).

And again. The problems with government, business, and the morals/empathy/sense of community of the culture itself

It is nether healthy nor unhealthy that we interpret all things in terms of our beliefs.

I find that it works for me.

Not recognizing that our beliefs and definitions pre-determine our conclusions is exceedingly unhealthy.

Like I said, my ways work for me.

You probably should stop telling me what my problems are, what I'm blind to, and what mistakes you think I'm making. You don't have any chance of making an impact if I don't agree. I've told you repeatedly that my way of approaching and navigating reality works well for me, which I understand as validation of that worldview. I have no incentive to change it.

I protest the belief that science is right and that any future changes will be to make it even more right creating ever more linear progress bestowed upon believers and heretics alike.

OK.

I expect man to continue learning both empirically and morally over the long run, although this century may be a bit rough with the climate change and move toward authoritarianism, but those things will teach those who survive them. I am optimistic about the long-term prospects for a better world after those lessons are learned.

Without experiment there is no science at all.

You've already been told why this is incorrect. Experiment is active observation. Sometimes, we don't need to or can't arrange the elements we're observing, as when observing heavenly bodies or the migrations of animals.

Meanwhile longevity has begun crashing

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think I see what you are saying. It is circular in a sense. You have to accept it or believe it in order to accept it.

If my understanding is wrong, please let me know.

No, you spotted the limit of philosophy well.

 

[cladking]

Assuming. I see. So, evidence supporting or contradicting that has no bearing and there is nothing to discuss. For all I know the smartest scientists of my generation never achieved their potential, because they were a poor wood cutter living in a poverty that prevented them from achieving. Speculation is speculation. Neither science nor convincing reason to accept wild claims as revealed truth.

Yes. Exactly. Darwin's beliefs in linear progress and stable populations led to his conclusion that only the fittest survive. He had no experiments, only speculation and old wives' tales so he was wrong.

Meanwhile if my assumptions are correct it explains how agriculture was invented and why history lagged writing by more than 1000 years. If my assumptions are correct and experiment is relevant it explain how species really change, people think, and pyramids were built. That I also assume homo sapiens were smarter has no bearing on this equation.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes. Exactly. Darwin's beliefs in linear progress and stable populations led to his conclusion that only the fittest survive. He had no experiments, only speculation and old wives' tales so he was wrong.

No. Darwin didn't believe in linear progress of species or that populations were stable. He followed the views of Malthus that populations over produced beyond the capacity of their environments to sustain them. It is not feasible that all survive, so what enables some to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than others.

He had numerous observations to base the theory of evolution. Natural selection was based on the observation that populations were kept in check by the environment and that those with traits that promoted greater survival and reproduction.

Meanwhile if

If? Now it is if? I acknowledge the retreat from the former implication that you were correct by fiat.

my assumptions are correct it explains how agriculture was invented

I know of no way your claims explain anything. They are just claims.

and why history lagged writing by more than 1000 years.

Again, claims, not evidence or anything to discuss.

If my assumptions are correct and experiment is relevant it explain how species really change, people think, and pyramids were built.

I don't have any reasons to know all of your assumptions since you withhold them. If you do reveal them it is with such an obtuse and convoluted depiction that recognizing them as valid assumptions has become insurmountable.

That I also assume homo sapiens were smarter has no bearing on this equation.

What are we smarter than? I think we are intelligent and at least some of us can act smart when needed. As a group, we tend to maintain the intelligence and lose the action.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes. Exactly. Darwin's beliefs in linear progress and stable populations led to his conclusion that only the fittest survive. He had no experiments, only speculation and old wives' tales so he was wrong.

Meanwhile if my assumptions are correct it explains how agriculture was invented and why history lagged writing by more than 1000 years. If my assumptions are correct and experiment is relevant it explain how species really change, people think, and pyramids were built. That I also assume homo sapiens were smarter has no bearing on this equation.

If populations are stable, then there would be universal stasis and nothing would evolve. All the evidence demonstrating evolution would need another explanation and there is no other that fits the evidence.