[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: Dennis Avery & S. Fred Singer: Climate Science Frauds

[Nick Gier]

Hi Paul,

Great answer to Kai's false dilemma.

Nick

At 06:01 PM 6/26/2008, you wrote:
>Kai Eiselein, Editor wrote:
> > Actually both sides of this debate require suspension of belief.
> >
>
>Not really.  The Big Bang theory doesn't try to answer the question of
>what happened before the singularity or what caused it to explode.  It's
>just there to explain certain observations, such as why the farther away
>something is the greater it's redshift is, which it appears to do really
>well.  For example, the theory predicts certain ratios for the abundance
>of certain elements as a by-product of the known state of the universe
>within the first twenty minutes of it's starting point, which seems to
>fit really closely with what we've observed.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
>
>So there's little suspension of disbelief required.  You just follow the
>evidence, and don't worry about those kinds of questions (what happened
>before the Big Bang?) until you have some kind of framework you can use
>to address them.
>
>A deity, on the other hand, requires a whole bunch of different beliefs
>for which there is no evidence, nor is it predictive in any way.
>Fortunately, belief in that system requires belief with a complete lack
>of evidence (faith) and the assumption that no meaningful predictions
>can occur (God works in mysterious ways), so it all works out in the end.
>
>Paul
>
>
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"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each 
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole 
and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our 
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between 
science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the 
sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm

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