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quote:Originally posted by VAlibrarianWell, yes it has. I do not blame the Catholic Church for the existence of HIV, but her effort to stand in the way of condom use is another example of "knowing better" than science. Such efforts are simply immoral, though carried out in the name of defending morality.
quote:As for experimental data that overpopulation exists in the third world, well, large scale starvation does accompany major droughts. North America and Europe may have high population per square mile, but we are also politically more stable, well-watered, and possessing a high state of technology in farming. None of these things are common in Africa. Many would agree that the population of Africa is already high relative to the ability of natural resources and political institutions to guarantee a steady food supply. At current birth rates, the problem will get worse before it gets better.
quote:Certainly a valid point of view, but in that case most of what is taught as science in schools is not science at all, for what is taught is taught as fact, not as method.
quote:So how do you provide experimental evidence regarding morality?
quote:Originally posted by xethoquote:So how do you provide experimental evidence regarding morality?Morality Definition: "The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.""Standards" implies majority, "right or good" is opinion. Put those together and you have majority opinion."experimental evidence" which is synonymous with the Scientific Method as stated by http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html1. Observe some aspect of the universe. 2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed. 3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions. 4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results. 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation. If these definitions are true, then morality can be experimentally tested by observing the reaction of the majority of people to things.How many people believe birth control is immoral, and how many believe promoting disease through unsafe sex is immoral. Whichever of these has the largest majority supporting it, determines morality.
quote:In Africa the death rate is a problem, but overpopulation is too... Is it just me, or are those mutually exclusive?
quote:Religion & Science---------------------------Summary & ConclusionsMy hypothesis is that either language, and/or thought are fluid and comparisons may yield different results over time. I concluded there is no relation between religion and science, in general the dissimilarities in this thread were less redundant than the similarities. For the time being Theoretical Physics IS similar to a religion, until it requires less redundancy to be described as accurately as religion. (when it becomes more widely understood)MethodsIdeal Test If every persons thoughts were compared directly, the debate could be settled.Practical Test Thought is insubstantial and an observable medium is required. Naturally, language is a good parallel to thought, although there are some differences. I intend to analyze language in an effort to compare the similarity of thought by using the words in this thread as the experiments data.DefinitionsAccuracy is a measure of interpretability of a thought put into the fewest words.A=T^Wm/Wt accuracy equals thoughts to the power of minimum words that can describe the thoughts, divided by total wordsOriginality is the number of thoughts per word in the description.O=T/WRedundancy is inversely proportional to originality.R=W/TDissimilarity is the difference between the minimal description of thoughts by their accuracy.S=(Wm1-Wm2)/A1*A2Similarity is the reciprocal of dissimilarity.S=1/((Wm1-Wm2)/A1*A2)Establishing ParallelsPeoples minds created language to communicate thought. How many ways could something be described accurately in words? The quantity of language used to describe things accurately, indicates language is much more redundant that thought, and thought must be expanded to be communicable. The more language redundancy, the greater the accuracy for a single thougth being conveyed.The more original the similarities, the more likely they are related. They're less likely to be related if it requires an enormous amount of words to describe the similarities.Effectively, the more something is discussed, the less you should need to say when comparing it to something else. When something is new, the amount of redundancy needed to describe it accurately is much greater, and this obscures wheter it is similar to other things by giving seemingly false positives.Thread AnalysisReligion and Science aren't new and have been described often, so communication should require more originality and less redundancy than I found in the thread. Therefore there is likely no connection between the two. I suspect in the distant past, science was like religion, because it was too new to compare accurately.Given the statment "Theoretical Physics is like a Religion". Theoretical Physics is new and most people don't know much about it yet, so it requires more redundancy to be described accurately. How well understood something is changes the results in favor of similarity. Therefore I conclude TP is like Religion. It will be at least until it isn't new, then it most likely wont be.Later That Day...-------------------Me: So Professor, do I get an A?Professor: You cheated, that bizzaro kid wrote the same thing on two dozen napkins, but had it done on time; where are the numbers supporting your hypothesis, anyway?Me: I left them out to make it more legitimate and original by being less redundant.Professor: Yeah, nice try.
quote:The quantity of language used to describe things accurately, indicates language is much more redundant that thought, and thought must be expanded to be communicable.
quote:MethodsIdeal Test If every persons thoughts were compared directly, the debate could be settled.Practical Test Thought is insubstantial and an observable medium is required. Naturally, language is a good parallel to thought, although there are some differences. I intend to analyze language in an effort to compare the similarity of thought by using the words in this thread as the experiments data.
quote:Establishing ParallelsPeoples minds created language to communicate thought. How many ways could something be described accurately in words? The quantity of language used to describe things accurately, indicates language is much more redundant that thought, and thought must be expanded to be communicable. The more language redundancy, the greater the accuracy for a single thougth being conveyed.
quote:They're less likely to be related if it requires an enormous amount of words to describe the similarities.
quote:Thread AnalysisReligion and Science aren't new and have been described often, so communication should require more originality and less redundancy than I found in the thread. Therefore there is likely no connection between the two. I suspect in the distant past, science was like religion, because it was too new to compare accurately.Given the statment "Theoretical Physics is like a Religion". Theoretical Physics is new and most people don't know much about it yet, so it requires more redundancy to be described accurately. How well understood something is changes the results in favor of similarity. Therefore I conclude TP is like Religion. It will be at least until it isn't new, then it most likely wont be.