E=MC squared is a liberal plot

If I'm not mistaken, most vaccine refusers are actually college-educated and well off financially. Go figure.

I . . . just can't turn away. From their "Counterexamples to Evolution" page:

"As scientific theories require that their laws be immutable, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule. Thus, if evolution fails to account for any one of these items (or countless others), it must be discarded."

Wait, what? Scientific theories require that their laws be immutable? Really?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Wait, what? Scientific theories require that their laws be immutable? Really?

It's as if they have science confused with fundamentalist Christianity.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I . . . just can't turn away. From their "Counterexamples to Evolution" page:

"As scientific theories require that their laws be immutable, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule. Thus, if evolution fails to account for any one of these items (or countless others), it must be discarded."

Wait, what? Scientific theories require that their laws be immutable? Really?

At the beginning of the page they've written:

If any of the counterexamples listed below is correct, then the theory of evolution fails. Moreover, if there is merely a 5% chance that each of these counterexamples is correct (and the odds are far higher than that[1])

If you follow the footnote:

Many of the counterexamples are indisputable, rendering each of their probabilities of being correct nearly 100%.

Anyone else find it funny that these counterexamples that are indisputable have a probability of being correct that is nearly 100% and not actually 100%?

Tkyl wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I . . . just can't turn away. From their "Counterexamples to Evolution" page:

"As scientific theories require that their laws be immutable, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule. Thus, if evolution fails to account for any one of these items (or countless others), it must be discarded."

Wait, what? Scientific theories require that their laws be immutable? Really?

At the beginning of the page they've written:

If any of the counterexamples listed below is correct, then the theory of evolution fails. Moreover, if there is merely a 5% chance that each of these counterexamples is correct (and the odds are far higher than that[1])

If you follow the footnote:

Many of the counterexamples are indisputable, rendering each of their probabilities of being correct nearly 100%.

Anyone else find it funny that these counterexamples that are indisputable have a probability of being correct that is nearly 100% and not actually 100%?

Reminds me of Brasseye...

The more and more I read, the more absurd things I find. I'd start quoting every thing I found funny, but at that point I might as well just quote the entire site.

This is a good one, emphasis mine:

The theory predicts wormholes just as it predicts black holes, but wormholes violate causality and permit absurd time travel.

Absurd time travel sounds way more fun than boring old regular time travel. If I ever invent a time machine, instead of assassinating Hitler I'm going to throw an octopus at him. Take that, causality!

muttonchop wrote:

Absurd time travel sounds way more fun than boring old regular time travel. If I ever invent a time machine, instead of assassinating Hitler I'm going to throw an octopus at him. Take that, causality!

Would it be an octopus that could accurately predict the outcome of Germany's battles?

Robear wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, most vaccine refusers are actually college-educated and well off financially. Go figure.

That is correct.

I always find it incredibly pretentious the way that some people think they know more about medicine than their doctors just because they read Jenny McCarthy's book.

SallyNasty wrote:
Robear wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, most vaccine refusers are actually college-educated and well off financially. Go figure.

That is correct.

I always find it incredibly pretentious the way that some people think they know more about medicine than their doctors just because they read Jenny McCarthy's book.

Unfortunately, critical thinking is not necessarily part of a college education.

Sonicator wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
Robear wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, most vaccine refusers are actually college-educated and well off financially. Go figure.

That is correct.

I always find it incredibly pretentious the way that some people think they know more about medicine than their doctors just because they read Jenny McCarthy's book.

Unfortunately, critical thinking is not necessarily part of a college education.

The call the last guy in the Medical school graduating class doctor as they say.

The lack of a single useful device developed based on any insights provided by the theory; no lives have been saved or helped, and the theory has not led to other useful theories and may have interfered with scientific progress.[11] This stands in stark contrast with every verified theory of science. The only device based on relativity is the atom bomb, but that has destroyed far more lives than it's saved so it can hardly be considered useful.
This was my favorite quote. I consider nuclear reactors to be pretty useful (if occasionally explodey) and mostly based on the same ideas as the bomb.

Hmm. If it is just liberal propaganda, can we start tossing conservatives at black holes, since they think nothing will happen to them?

The theory predicts wormholes just as it predicts black holes, but wormholes violate causality and permit absurd time travel.

Would that require jumping to ludicrous speed?!

NathanialG wrote:
The only device based on relativity is the atom bomb

Um, relativity =/= nuclear fission.

fangblackbone wrote:

Would that require jumping to ludicrous speed?!

IMAGE(http://www.tablehunt.com/_images/plaid-mclean-E.jpg)

ClockworkHouse wrote:
MaverickDago wrote:
You'd also think that no one could actually believe that vaccines cause autism without a shred of credible evidence

Their was a paper published in the leading medical journal that gave some credence to that theory. Despite the fact that the paper and its publisher were shown to be complete and utter manipulated sh*t, desperate parent's searching for a answer will grab on to anything that seems credible, especially if a doc is saying it, so let's not go bashing everyone just because armed with hindsight, we're much smarter then them.

This is true, but also keep in mind that there have been attempts to link vaccines with all manner of disorders long before the Lancet study was published. In fact, part of the issue with that study is that it seems to have been geared specifically toward the conclusion that it reached.

Podunk wrote:

I'm a little extra bitter about this at the moment, since my kids and I (all vaccinated, btw) are currently recovering from whooping cough, a disease that has been allowed to come back from the brink of oblivion by the {ableist slur} bumpkins who refuse to vaccinate their kids.

I'll also admit that I'm less patient with this sort of thing now that I have a one-year-old and another child on the way. It makes me keenly aware of the ways that other people's decisions can endanger my children.

Maverick:
I'm not going to give credit to hindsight (how easy) when I could give it where it's due; to at least 10 years of studies and reports since Wakefield's showing no evidence of connection between autism and vaccines. If his was a properly done study, it would be repeatable, and his results would have been repeated many times over in that time. It would have sustained a level of scientific proof if it hadn't already, consistently been demonstrated to be utter sh*te prior to the cat being let out of the bag and that liar getting stripped of his titles.

But scientific journals aren't as hotly reportable as a frantic, desperate mother looking for an easy finger to point as something quantifiable to blame, so we don't hear about that so much. Especially one who was in the public eye as a quotable mouthpiece for controversy because she used to flash cleavage, fart, and pick her nose on MTV...how marketable.

The problem with media is that too many people still harbor notions that all media outlets strive to maintain the highest level of integrity and honesty possible. I think many, many people still give equal credence to things they find on the internet as they would things they see in the newspaper because we harbor rather naive convictions that if someone says the facts, it must be the facts or they wouldn't be saying it and people wouldn't be repeating it. Combine that with confirming personal biases and conspiracy theories, and you have a nice little coctail like conservapedia.

Clockwork:

And I'm a little perturbed that, as infant care-givers due to other people's selfish or lack of understanding or interest in the concept of heard immunity, my mother and I may have to fork out our own cash to get re-vaccinated in order to protect the little ones because they're not old enough yet to get their own vaccines. I have an inkling of your frustration, and have to resist the urge to not scream "DON'T YOU TOUCH THEM" when we go out in public.

Podunk: I'm sorry your little ones are going through that, I wish you and them the best : (

Robear wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, most vaccine refusers are actually college-educated and well off financially. Go figure.

With college degree being the minimum bar requirement for most decent jobs these days, I don't really think this is saying much. The only class resembling learning rational thought I took was Logic 101 as an electorate filler, and most people only get so far as that if they take it at all.

muttonchop wrote:

Absurd time travel sounds way more fun than boring old regular time travel. If I ever invent a time machine, instead of assassinating Hitler I'm going to throw an octopus at him. Take that, causality!

Already happened - at least I presume that's how Ronald Reagan was elected, and better yet re-elected.

Maybe not with an octopus, but something equally surreal.

And JonMan's reference to Brass Eye is an apt one...if you ever thought that 'celebrities' thought about what they were endorsing, then a quick view of the 'Drugs' episode will soon cure you, as various British minor celebs are talked into making information clips about a fictitious drug called 'cake'.

muttonchop wrote:

Absurd time travel sounds way more fun than boring old regular time travel. If I ever invent a time machine, instead of assassinating Hitler I'm going to throw an octopus at him. Take that, causality!

What if I'm only looking for slightly silly time travel, am I boned?

absurddoctor wrote:

Looking through the references, you have to love how only two of them appear to be to actual scientific papers. The majority of references are just statements with no links elsewhere, and one even refers to another page within the same wiki.

Very scientifical!

You're aware that science is just a liberal plot to make people question the existence of God, right? I'd post a link that totally proves this but liberals have censored it. Because they control the internet through Microsoft and the evil Bill Gates of Hell!

Also, I love this proof: The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.

A nice commentary on how the media has to present everything with "balance", think it fits into this discussion. The comic, Dara O'Briain, studied Maths and Physics in Trinity College Dublin.

All the religion bashing is fun (lets face it, sites like these demand it be done), but is this any different than the folks that still believe the US government was responsible for 9-11?

Ulairi wrote:

This is a joke site, right?

It's been said, more than once, that there's no reliable way to differentiate between satire and profound conservatism. No matter how batsh*t insane you make your parody piece, something similar is bound to crop up somewhere in conservative thought.

I mean, compare this paragraph from The Onion:

The Onion wrote:

TOPEKA, KS–The second law of thermodynamics, a fundamental scientific principle stating that entropy increases over time as organized forms decay into greater states of randomness, has come under fire from conservative Christian groups, who are demanding that the law be repealed.

with this actual paragraph from Conservapedia:

The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.

(original source for the comparison: Onion Say, Conservapedia Do, from Daily Kos).

I'm actually becoming rather frightened at the aggressive ignorance that's being embraced so strongly now by the religious. It used to be just amusing, but this sh*t is gaining real traction.

sheared wrote:

... but is this any different than the folks that still believe the US government was responsible for 9-11?

Yes. This is more like believing that the US government is responsible for hangnails. All of them. Ever. Napoleon's ouchy digit was caused by this democratic administration, and I can demonstrate this with these indisputable odds of veracity.

MaverickDago wrote:
You'd also think that no one could actually believe that vaccines cause autism without a shred of credible evidence

Their was a paper published in the leading medical journal that gave some credence to that theory. Despite the fact that the paper and its publisher were shown to be complete and utter manipulated sh*t, desperate parent's searching for a answer will grab on to anything that seems credible, especially if a doc is saying it, so let's not go bashing everyone just because armed with hindsight, we're much smarter then them.

The anti-vaccine crowd isn't living in a time warp. They have the same hindsight we do. I don't fault someone for being wrong but I do fault them for refusing to be right.

Tkyl wrote:

Anyone else find it funny that these counterexamples that are indisputable have a probability of being correct that is nearly 100% and not actually 100%?

To be fair, a scientific 100% is a pretty rare thing because man, life is complicated. I happen to think that when science arrives at a "near 100%" in an honest and scientific way, that's good enough. Then again I'm also willing to update my beliefs as new evidence comes to light.

sheared wrote:

All the religion bashing is fun (lets face it, sites like these demand it be done), but is this any different than the folks that still believe the US government was responsible for 9-11?

The people who believe paranoid 9/11 conspiracies aren't trying to get textbooks rewritten in order to push their viewpoint.

The whole example of the 13 and 17 year cicadas reminds me of the embarrassment of the banana video Cam Cameron made so famous.

If scientific laws were "immutable" once proposed, then evidence could never change them. The claim is essentially that science is perfect in an odd way - that is, that the first reasonable hypothesis is actually correct, and no further information can change it in any way.

This seems like a type of magical thinking. If only Darwin's speculations were exactly correct, then the modern evidence on evolution would destroy them, and tear down the edifice. But there's a contradiction there - if Darwin's speculations were *immutable* laws, then the evidence could *never* contradict him, since he'd necessarily have been completely correct, or the "laws" would not be laws at all. (If laws are mutable, then they are not laws, in the sense that the article means.)

This is what comes of having Divine Writ as your model of authority. Science becomes something that's literally outside the world view.

Paleocon wrote:

The whole example of the 13 and 17 year cicadas reminds me of the embarrassment of the banana video Cam Cameron made so famous.

You mean Kirk Cameron? Yeah, that's a classic.

BTW, this area will see 17 year locusts again in 2013! That's the brood which hit in 1979 and 1996. I remember though that that was nowhere near the size of the 1970 brood, which hits again in 2021. That one had periods where you literally couldn't walk outside in some areas around Baltimore without crushing cicadas underfoot and feeling them fly into you. And the sound was incredibly loud, too.

Looking forward to 2021. (What's funny is that the current 17 year/13 year broods are less than 10,000 years old, as the Ice Age means that the US East Coast was not a conducive habitat. So those are actually indicative of evolution, not exclusive of it, since brood breeding is specific to locations, date of emergence and calls.)