Comments on: 06-01-09 http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/ Promoting Science and Critical Thinking Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:04:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: stephanie http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-3720 stephanie Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:06:30 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-3720 I am special, thank you Christopher! I am intelligent enough to ponder this, and I have come to the considered and scientific conclusion, that I am unique and very special. :-P I am special, thank you Christopher! I am intelligent enough to ponder this, and I have come to the considered and scientific conclusion, that I am unique and very special. :-P

]]> By: Christopher http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-1587 Christopher Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:04:57 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-1587 What some people aren't getting is the sales tactic that this movie puts up and that this review calls out. The whole premise is that of the odds being so difficult that our planet must be special and therefore divinely directed. But the math of the film itself that there are a lot of planets. The conditions have to be right yes, but there are billions of chances out there. To say that we are sitting here postulating and that makes us unique is a fallacy of reason. To say that other planets could only sustain single celled organisms is based on the average conditions, not all of them. To say that are we are special is an outcry of ignorance because in fact we cannot tell. This article does not try to debunk god nor is in anti-religion as an earlier commentor claimed. It only calls out bad science. When religion sticks its foot into testable waters it will be burnt. Faith is a personal thing and it should'nt have to sale people. Science is a method and it's for everyone. I firmly believe that the people who made the film know the real science and odds and choose to leave out information and form a line of thinking that supports their agenda. They believe that a little slant truth is okay because god is the way and whatever gets you there works. But I refuse to be tricked. My key to skeptisism is Atlatis. I was a believer until I found out the origins and what happened to the information since. I think that anyone who sees this myth for what it is comes out thinking with more reason. What some people aren’t getting is the sales tactic that this movie puts up and that this review calls out. The whole premise is that of the odds being so difficult that our planet must be special and therefore divinely directed. But the math of the film itself that there are a lot of planets. The conditions have to be right yes, but there are billions of chances out there. To say that we are sitting here postulating and that makes us unique is a fallacy of reason. To say that other planets could only sustain single celled organisms is based on the average conditions, not all of them. To say that are we are special is an outcry of ignorance because in fact we cannot tell. This article does not try to debunk god nor is in anti-religion as an earlier commentor claimed. It only calls out bad science. When religion sticks its foot into testable waters it will be burnt. Faith is a personal thing and it should’nt have to sale people. Science is a method and it’s for everyone. I firmly believe that the people who made the film know the real science and odds and choose to leave out information and form a line of thinking that supports their agenda. They believe that a little slant truth is okay because god is the way and whatever gets you there works. But I refuse to be tricked. My key to skeptisism is Atlatis. I was a believer until I found out the origins and what happened to the information since. I think that anyone who sees this myth for what it is comes out thinking with more reason.

]]> By: Gordon http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-1550 Gordon Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:49:24 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-1550 "The film ignores the transitional twilight zone between the dark side and light side in which life might exist.) Plate tectonics must diligently operate to recycle carbon; there must be an atmosphere rich in oxygen, liquid water, and a circulating, liquid iron core generating a magnetic field to deflect solar radiation. (Never mind the microbes found at thermal vents in the ocean or at significant depths in mines — which do not require oxygen." The film is NOT all encompassing...there is much we do not know and science is always changing(advancing and re-adjusting) as things are discovered...fine tuning its laws and constants. Thermal vents and the terminator line between light and dark? so what...no Lexus there...no advanced life...and IN the thermal vents is ONLY where that type of life can be and it is not going to advance to the land or visit the moon or ponder this e-mail string...ever! Hugh Ross (I believe) said that other life will be found on ohter planets but it will be one-celled and preimative...it will have life...but it will NOT ponder its life and ask why “The film ignores the transitional twilight zone between the dark side and light side in which life might exist.) Plate tectonics must diligently operate to recycle carbon; there must be an atmosphere rich in oxygen, liquid water, and a circulating, liquid iron core generating a magnetic field to deflect solar radiation. (Never mind the microbes found at thermal vents in the ocean or at significant depths in mines — which do not require oxygen.”

The film is NOT all encompassing…there is much we do not know and science is always changing(advancing and re-adjusting) as things are discovered…fine tuning its laws and constants. Thermal vents and the terminator line between light and dark? so what…no Lexus there…no advanced life…and IN the thermal vents is ONLY where that type of life can be and it is not going to advance to the land or visit the moon or ponder this e-mail string…ever! Hugh Ross (I believe) said that other life will be found on ohter planets but it will be one-celled and preimative…it will have life…but it will NOT ponder its life and ask why

]]> By: Gordon http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-1549 Gordon Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:34:47 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-1549 “Shouldn’t that be one million?” No, it should not even be…one. Perhaps, by Darwin's own ‘rules’ we have no reason to even consider this conversation...we should just be banging one another over the head in order that we get our 'Lexus' and the other dude don't! Who cares about Darwin and evolution anyway—he just went about explaining how life ‘changes’. Tell me how inanimate chemicals like carbon and calcium became sentient and able to use a computer and keyboard to type this out…and that you’d then read this and think?! Chance alone cannot even determine how we came up with our moon...the ballistics don't work out (unless you consider a double impact by the "Orpheus” idea folks…which has so many unique parameters that our moon alone will cause you to ‘bend-a-knee’ screaming, “How is that possible?”). And too the parameters of all the universal constants (from Boltzmann to Planks to gravity…etc) are seemingly unrelated (yet simple and ‘beautiful’) and yet they can NOT be anything other than they are or…again…we would not be having this conversation! And how can random chance cause the ‘happening’ of the DNA code? It takes more ‘faith’ to believe in chance (for that cause alone) than it does to go with God! It's not chance there is purpose in the code—it carries the signature for life. How can anything carry information if there is not an intelligence that 'Somehow' got it in there in the first place? At the beginning (Big Bang - singularity) life was somehow ‘seeded’ into the energy/(the light). We are in the weirdest of situations and frankly, I am amazed that anyone talks about anything other than why there is something rather than nothing…and why I am me and not you…and here in this time and not before or after? We are not JUST bio-creatures! We are energy (‘spirits’) stuck in a bio-suit and limited to 'travel' (causing us to travel) in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time UNTIL we graduate life through death to go home to a dimensionality of somewhere up into the 10 area. We are going to ‘report’ on our doings here! I KNOW...I KNOW...That’s a wacky idea/thought/religious musing). But we have many weird facets in our 'make-up' and none seem to have a happy home unless the Science, Theology, and Philosophy join. CS Lewis commented: "If there exists in me a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy then most likely I was made for another world". And who is not with desires: perfection, fairness, knowledge...love; and even kindness! So let's be kind (to ourselves…and lay off the attack mode of name calling) and ponder why not...'life' in a state other than physical? Is not the quantum world a world that still has information and so intelligence…but it cannot really be called physical? I don’t understand how we can go off on the tangent of multi-universes when we do not even understand our own. To me (I’ll blame me) it’s seems like we are just moving our goal post further back so that the opposing team can not score (putting more squares on the checker board to confuse our opponent) and in both analogies it is just because we do not know how to play the game (or refuse to play by the information provided to our heart). Why not consider spirit life and expand the limits of science to encompass that possibility—who is hurt if we do not try? ((Only us)). It seems to me that we will go to great extents in cost and consideration and time…moving towards anything and everything OTHER than a spiritual existence in quantum type energy (light) ‘world’. No matter what the reason is for me typing this and you reading it; it is going to be STRANGE and AMAZING and SCARY! To look out the window and say “fluke of chance” is like hiking though the Black Hills of South Dakota…seeing the faces of four important presidents in the stone and saying: “Huh! Who’d have thought that the wind and rain were so ‘creative’ in this odd little ‘cosmically-dark’ corner of the state?” If you find information than it leads back to intelligence (we might not know WHO did it) but we know someone DID! “Shouldn’t that be one million?”
No, it should not even be…one. Perhaps, by Darwin’s own ‘rules’ we have no reason to even consider this conversation…we should just be banging one another over the head in order that we get our ‘Lexus’ and the other dude don’t! Who cares about Darwin and evolution anyway—he just went about explaining how life ‘changes’. Tell me how inanimate chemicals like carbon and calcium became sentient and able to use a computer and keyboard to type this out…and that you’d then read this and think?!
Chance alone cannot even determine how we came up with our moon…the ballistics don’t work out (unless you consider a double impact by the “Orpheus” idea folks…which has so many unique parameters that our moon alone will cause you to ‘bend-a-knee’ screaming, “How is that possible?”). And too the parameters of all the universal constants (from Boltzmann to Planks to gravity…etc) are seemingly unrelated (yet simple and ‘beautiful’) and yet they can NOT be anything other than they are or…again…we would not be having this conversation! And how can random chance cause the ‘happening’ of the DNA code? It takes more ‘faith’ to believe in chance (for that cause alone) than it does to go with God! It’s not chance there is purpose in the code—it carries the signature for life. How can anything carry information if there is not an intelligence that ‘Somehow’ got it in there in the first place? At the beginning (Big Bang – singularity) life was somehow ‘seeded’ into the energy/(the light). We are in the weirdest of situations and frankly, I am amazed that anyone talks about anything other than why there is something rather than nothing…and why I am me and not you…and here in this time and not before or after?
We are not JUST bio-creatures! We are energy (‘spirits’) stuck in a bio-suit and limited to ‘travel’ (causing us to travel) in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time UNTIL we graduate life through death to go home to a dimensionality of somewhere up into the 10 area. We are going to ‘report’ on our doings here!
I KNOW…I KNOW…That’s a wacky idea/thought/religious musing). But we have many weird facets in our ‘make-up’ and none seem to have a happy home unless the Science, Theology, and Philosophy join. CS Lewis commented: “If there exists in me a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy then most likely I was made for another world”. And who is not with desires: perfection, fairness, knowledge…love; and even kindness! So let’s be kind (to ourselves…and lay off the attack mode of name calling) and ponder why not…’life’ in a state other than physical? Is not the quantum world a world that still has information and so intelligence…but it cannot really be called physical?
I don’t understand how we can go off on the tangent of multi-universes when we do not even understand our own. To me (I’ll blame me) it’s seems like we are just moving our goal post further back so that the opposing team can not score (putting more squares on the checker board to confuse our opponent) and in both analogies it is just because we do not know how to play the game (or refuse to play by the information provided to our heart). Why not consider spirit life and expand the limits of science to encompass that possibility—who is hurt if we do not try? ((Only us)). It seems to me that we will go to great extents in cost and consideration and time…moving towards anything and everything OTHER than a spiritual existence in quantum type energy (light) ‘world’. No matter what the reason is for me typing this and you reading it; it is going to be STRANGE and AMAZING and SCARY!
To look out the window and say “fluke of chance” is like hiking though the Black Hills of South Dakota…seeing the faces of four important presidents in the stone and saying: “Huh! Who’d have thought that the wind and rain were so ‘creative’ in this odd little ‘cosmically-dark’ corner of the state?” If you find information than it leads back to intelligence (we might not know WHO did it) but we know someone DID!

]]> By: Why http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-1406 Why Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:39:22 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-1406 First, it seems to me the anti "creation intelligent design" folk are just as bigoted as the religious zealots they poke fun at. Second i would ask these questions. If evolutionary theory is correct, why then do such a huge and diverse number of species all happily live in an identical environment (eg coral reef-desert sand dune)? Did natural selection make a mistake, surly given the risks of random mutation, and constraints of environment, we should see the survival of only one or maybe two specie per environmental region? Also, why are biologists/geneticists so paranoid about extinction, biodiversity and depletion of the gene pool? Surely if evolution sorted it all out from one prime-evil cell, then it does not need a gene pool or biodiversity to continue on its merry way? Furthermore if their concern is indeed justified. Where then stands Monsanto and their terminator policy? Michael First, it seems to me the anti “creation intelligent design” folk are just as bigoted as the religious zealots they poke fun at.
Second i would ask these questions.
If evolutionary theory is correct, why then do such a huge and diverse number of species all happily live in an identical environment (eg coral reef-desert sand dune)? Did natural selection make a mistake, surly given the risks of random mutation, and constraints of environment, we should see the survival of only one or maybe two specie per environmental region?

Also, why are biologists/geneticists so paranoid about extinction, biodiversity and depletion of the gene pool? Surely if evolution sorted it all out from one prime-evil cell, then it does not need a gene pool or biodiversity to continue on its merry way? Furthermore if their concern is indeed justified. Where then stands Monsanto and their terminator policy?

Michael

]]> By: Dave http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-853 Dave Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:40:21 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-853 " It doesn’t really make sense to say that we evolved to do anything. " Isn't this the theory of evolution, that we evolve to meet a need? The point in the priveleged planet that you are missing is exactly what the commentor above me asked. That life exists without science. Why is it that our particular species has wondered about the origins of the universe and our existence since the beginning of man? No other species can apply their minds in this way. This type of inquiry is not a product of evolution and it does not coincide with the idea of natural selection. ” It doesn’t really make sense to say that we evolved to do anything. ”
Isn’t this the theory of evolution, that we evolve to meet a need?
The point in the priveleged planet that you are missing is exactly what the commentor above me asked. That life exists without science. Why is it that our particular species has wondered about the origins of the universe and our existence since the beginning of man? No other species can apply their minds in this way. This type of inquiry is not a product of evolution and it does not coincide with the idea of natural selection.

]]> By: Dan http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-09/#comment-348 Dan Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:47:39 +0000 http://www.skeptic.com/eSkeptic/?p=463#comment-348 "this suggests that there may be one billion habitable planets due to chance alone" Shouldn't that be one million. "It does not make sense to talk about science and discovery as though they could occur independently of life" Could life not occur independent of discovery? “this suggests that there may be one billion habitable planets due to chance alone”

Shouldn’t that be one million.

“It does not make sense to talk about science and discovery as though they could occur independently of life”

Could life not occur independent of discovery?

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