Posted on 10/22/2007 9:07:09 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Sounds like a system that has worked for them.
No, it's not. Saying everyone is a philosopher is like saying anyone who can weld his farm tractor hitch can also weld on the Space Shuttle.
You are not even close - everybody's thinking, including yours, is guided by their personal philosophy - just because you choose to live in ignorance does not diminish this reality. Just because you don't understand the thinking process - that does not mean it does not exist.
Clearly you did not understand philosophy and you seem to fear that which you do not understand - open your mind - don't be guided by fear. Everyone is a philosopher - even those ignorant of this reality.
I am not reading this BBS for lame ass psycho analysis. Go rag on some other total stranger.
RightWhale, you are another of the Darwinists that likes to argue to be argumentative. I will try to help you out. On a base level philosophy is “Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline” - you just made a very silly illogical analogy in an attempt to discredit the concept that everybody is a philosopher. You personally may be devoid of love of and the pursuit of wisdom and you may lack moral self-discipline - but I can safely say that most people, with the possible exception of you - are philosophers within the context of their own lives.
This is one of the silliest extreme positions you have ever taken (and you frequently take extreme positions)
Nobody forced you to read this and nobody forced you to post this nasty message. Who are you claiming is doing "psycho analysis"? Did happy-hour come early today? Did you actually call FreeRepublic a bulletin board system - sounds like somebody closed their mind in the late 1980's
That would be incorrect, but I appreciate the personal attention. However, I am finding all the personal attention to be becoming tedious. I don't need any more ad hominems and find the BBS to be less and less interesting and useful as time goes on and the quantity of the ad hominems increases while the quality decreases.
Lame
What are you claiming was ad hominem?
Are you still claiming FreeRepublic is a BBS?
Gain knowledge of what you are trying to talk about before you try to talk about it (so to speak).
Stop whining like a child and bring on some specifics
Juvenile
Eh?
You mean like:
square segmented compound eyes for crustaceans
hexagonal segmented eyes for insects
scanning receptor eyes like some zooplankton
whole skin distributed eyes like the brittle star
with movable tapetum like sharks
fixed tapetum like cats
selective color sensitive receptors like primates
color filtered receptors like birds
imaging with lenses and
focusing by moving a fixed power lens like bony fish
focusing by distorting a fixed position lens like mammalsv focusing by distorting both the lens and cornea like hawks
imaging with reflecting layers
concave mirrors like clams
corner mirrors like crayfish
pin hole imaging like the chambered nautilus
put all the blood vessels in the way of the image like the human eye
put the sensitive layer on the front of the retina like the squid
Or what?
Please clarify...
I was thinking of the tongue used as an image receptor. Didn’t see a thread on that, but there might have been one.
She was Russian, wasn’t she?
That might be. Seriously though, there was a news item last week.
A couple of the definition from my FR homepage:
Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific theories can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific theories are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific theories are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.
Truth: This is a word best avoided entirely in physics [and science] except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from ‘it seems to be correct’ to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it’s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no final or absolute truths. Source.
I hope these definitions help your understanding of how science works. Science attempts to explain things in the natural world through a mix of both data and theory, and by following the scientific method.
Proof is not a part of science; that is found in mathematics and fine whiskeys.
As for questioning science, that is good. It is especially good when you have sufficient knowledge of a particular field to make a contribution by either adding to the body of knowledge, or by disproving something that was formerly accepted.
But this scientific knowledge comes from study and research, not from religious belief. They are two different things altogether.
Intro biology courses don't deal with the differences between plants, animals, protists, fungi, bacteria and archaea? This really isn't complicated stuff. I'm not asking that forum participants know the ins and outs of hydras, but they should know what an animal is.
I've made no ad hominem attacks. But it is true -- you're lumping together different, completely unrelated concepts (speciation and the big bang?) in an attempt to make a murky philosophical point.
So it's "random" that more cryptic animals are less likely to be eaten than less cryptic animals? That's nonsense! A bug that is less visible in foliage in always less likely to be eaten by a bird than is a bug that's more visible. That's a pattern, that's a consistent pattern, and that's why selection isn't random.
Really, why did you attack me personally:
Alter Kaker: You vaguely disagree with just about every scientific discipline there is...
I am not the topic of this debate but you chose to attack me personally - do you understand what an ad hominem attacks is?
"An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Alter Kaker, what you said was a text book ad hominem attack.
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