Thread: God

"The researchers are sick. They are putting
there own longevity ahead of their morals"

Let me get this straight, are you actually trying to say that the scientists working on stem cell research are some how going against THEIR OWN morals to prolong their lives!?????

.........

The primary focus of medical research into stem cells is for the treatment of neurological diseases such as alzheimers and Parkinsons, they do of course have many possible applications within medicine, including in the dim and distant future the ability to grow organs in vitro, which would save many many lives.

Now the researchers involved do NOT think what they are doing is immoral!

A human embryo of that age is NOT a human being, it is a collection of cells! It is no more aware than skin cells that you rub off when you put on/ take off clothes!

Your views are based on ideas handed to you on plate and i doubt it is purely coincidental that you are heavily Christian.....

Incidently BEFORE you come back with that absurd "potential human being" NONSENSE, by the same reasoning everytime I don't sleep with a passing female i'm killing a potential child..............

"You know, before I die I would like to become as well educated in science as I can. So then I might be able to see if that very, VERY bold statement holds up. I don't think it will, but who knows... (BTW, I'm serious about the learning science bit; there's no sarcasm in this post.)"

An overview of the findings of science is not enough, a fairly reasonable grasp of the scientific method is needed.

And that is the problem, in today's society irrationality does have a certain amount of social acceptability, that means that people with beliefs currently in vogue will always struggle to accept the validity of the scientific method as the ONLY way of determining the truth about the universe around us. They will often pigeon-box it to one particular area namely science, ie. "thats one way of looking at it"......

Basically, people who aren't very small children who haven't already formed views will not neccessarily be able to 'think straight' even after a decent education in science.

Your particular problem seems to be with the nature of probability, the human brain is crap at coping with stupidly small numbers (and stupidly large numbers), it's also lame at judging probability (thats why people play the lottery), so its doubly lame at dealing with stupidly small probabilities.

Now, in science statistical test are continually used with given threshold values, ie. if the probability of X being true passes a given point we consider true.

Now that goes horribly against the way you seem to think of things, but the fact is that science WORKS, we can make sense of ecology, even though almost every aspect of experimental ecology relies on probabilistic data.

Perhaps looking at areas in science where statistical tests are prevalent would be usefull to you in convincing you of the impossibility (i cant think of another word)of stupidly improbable events.

Basically, people who aren't very small children who haven't already formed views will not neccessarily be able to 'think straight' even after a decent education in science.

If mathematics can get away with this
"Gödel showed that for any formal axiomatic system, there is always a statement about natural numbers which is true, but which cannot be proven in the system." why do you
need proof for god and consider everyone else
morons.

A human embryo of that age is NOT a human being, it is a collection of cells!

You are no more than a collection of cells.

Your views are based on ideas handed to you on plate and i doubt it is purely coincidental that you are heavily Christian.....

It has nothing to do with me being christian.

Incidently BEFORE you come back with that absurd "potential human being" NONSENSE, by the same reasoning everytime I don't sleep with a passing female i'm killing a potential child..............

My argument is not that the embryo is
a potential human being or is alive in our sense.
It is that further implications of expermenting on human life and process of how human life is formed. How they get
the stem cells is what's morally questionable.

They do not translate into unproveable objects or physical characteristics, because the word "proof" in maths has a very specific meaning,

A proof in mathematics is an explanation that follows logic.
Accumulation of alot of evidence is not an explanation that
follows logic. For example if you know
a theorem is true for n < 1000 by trial you don't accept that it's true for all natural n.

Secondly EVEN if the comparison was valid (which its not), your conclusion is still totally illogical:

My conclusion was that total abstance of evidence does not
mean abstance of existance.

The probability you are correct is still 1/infinity, just like my kangaroo in fact, NOTHING whatsoever has changed

You speak of probability where you abitrary
assign probabilites to events. What is 1/infinity supposed to
mean. Last I heard there was no number called infinity and certainly there is not an infinite number of things in the universe. It is totally bogus and you know it too.

Why not? If the bible said there was an inifinite amount of stuff in the universe, you'd have no problem believing it.

This is not accepted by science. I'm sure you can see contradictions in that if there was an infinite amount of stuft gravity would condence it all. The universe is
expanding so this cannot be true.

>Last I heard there was no number called infinity
its shorthand for saying something "stupidly" large, and of course, 1/(something stupidly large) is infintesimally small.

I know one of my books consistantly uses infinity sign for
a sentinel. My actual point was he is throwing around
arbitrary probabilites that have no meaning. I could just
as well say the probability of god existing is .5 and it would be none the lesser.

No its not! Do not put words in my mouth.

I'm trying to be as careful as I can to this regard.

They are extracted for invitro fertilization, these are the left overs that would otherwise be destroyed or unused.

I don't believe invitro fertilization is perfectly moral.
My morals are based on my views that human life is sacred
and is not to be tampered with. I don't really think
that any amount of rationalization is helpful in deciding
what is moral and what is not. I think it's best to go with
feelings. Another source is from aborted tissue.

I find it distasteful that people who have never had to make the choice and who will never have to actually carry a child try to impose their views on the rest of us.

That's one of the problems with living in a society and
obeying morals. There is this stigma that
society makes of a pregnant teanager life is doomed or something. What I'm saying is that they are blessed. They are carying human life: living breathing, developing rational thought, and maybe even someday being a future leader etc.

I find also it absurd that people who advocate the 'right to life' kill people working in abortion clinics.

I don't advocate killing anyone.

Yes we are.
We are a collection of cells capable of INDEPENDENT life (that is external to another human).

This is untrue. I don't think that many children would survive
the first 7 years of life alone. You will have to define what
human life is more carefully than this.

"A proof in mathematics is an explanation that follows logic.
Accumulation of alot of evidence is not an explanation that
follows logic"

.......... as i said before, a mathematical proof is not the same as the "proof" that gravity exists. The two are very different things:

One is a mathematical extrapolation given set of starting points, the other is the accumulation of a lot of evidence.

"My conclusion was that total abstance of evidence does not
mean abstance of existance"

And? I've never claimed it did.

"You speak of probability where you abitrary
assign probabilites to events. What is 1/infinity supposed to
mean. Last I heard there was no number called infinity and certainly there is not an infinite number of things in the universe. It is totally bogus and you know it too. "

How many THEORETICAL characteristics can the universe possess, given NO constraints?

An infinite number.

So what is the probability that one chosen randomly will be true?

1/infinity.