Bible-beater pilots

Robert Perkins wrote in message . ..
On 24 Nov 2003 08:48:15 -0800, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:

Religion is based on faith.

Science is based on doubt.

Two sides of the same coin.

Experimentation is based on faith.


No.

Classically, an experiment is designed to disprove an hypothesis.

--

FF

Brian Burger opined

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, Ash Wyllie wrote:

Dan Luke opined

"Wdtabor" wrote:
America: where the Conservatives aren't conservative and the Liberals
aren't liberal.

Where do I sign up for the new party?

WWW.LP.ORG

Close, but no cigar. The LP's blind faith in laissez-faire capitalism
betrays a failure to understand that *any* unrestrained power threatens
liberty. It matters not whether that power is in the hands of
government, religion, labor unions or business.

Of all the organizations mentioned, only governments claim the right to
shoot first and ask questions later.

Really? Read some history before you make statements like that. I'd start
with the British East India Company, Dutch East Indies Company, the
Belgians in the Congo, and anything Cecil Rhodes was involved in.

The key word is *claim* . The East India companies were chartered by
governments, and the governments may well have delegated its right to
slaughter to the companies. It is a bit hard to compare the behaviour of 16th
century companies to 21st century comanies. I have not been shot once for
leaving a show room with out buying something.

It was King Leopold who bought the Congo (using money loaned by the Belgian
parliment) as his private hunting preserve. It's hard to call him a company
since he was a reigning monarch - in fact he was the government.

Good old Cecil made himself a government.

All those wonderfully unrestrained capitalist companies - and they started
to look a lot like governments after a fairly short while. Including the
use of force and similar entertainments.

You are confusing mercantilists with capitalists. Capitalists prefer to trade.
It is more profitable in the long run.

-ash
for assistance dial MYCROFTXXX

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:31:03 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

The DC ADIZ is there because some people took their version of "In God
we trust" just a little bit further - that's the point. Ok, they took it
a whole lot further, but I'm sure you understand my point.

If they trusted in God, they wouldn't have taken matters into their
own hands, IMO.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:31:05 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Robert,

Experimentation is based on faith.


Huh?

Most of the diatribe against faith posted around here is directed
against what those in my church call "blind faith", or faith without
submitting the subject matter to a test. But it isn't at all what I've
meant by "faith" since about the age of 15.

In scientific method, you advance your hypothesis and propose a test.
Publish it. Anyone who acts to submit your hypothesis to that test is
acting on faith in that hypothesis.

If it's proven out, that faith becomes knowledge. If not, toss the
hypothesis on the scrap heap and wait for or formulate refinements.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

Wdtabor opined

In article , "G.R. Patterson III"
writes:

Wdtabor wrote:

Well, would you vote LP if it meant that someone like Ron Paul would be
replaced by someone like Chuck Schummer?

Well, personally, I will vote for *anyone* running against Schumer that has
a chance of winning. With the possible exception of Clinton (either one).
Since I don't live in New York, however, I don't presently have that
opportunity. That also means that I don't have to call him "my" senator.


Yes, but the problem is that an LP party candidate can siphon off enough
votes that would otherwise go to a "Ron Paul Republican" to allow a "Schumer
Democrat" a win in a close race. I advocate, within the LP, that we only run
candidates in races where we either have a real chance of winning, or no
chance of changing the outcome.

We should run someone against Ted Kennedy, who will surely be elected anyway,
to introduce the public to LP ideas, but in the last two elections, we
instead caused two senate seats to go to Dems that otherwise would have been
GOP. The result has been a successful Kennedy led filibuster keeping Strict
Constructionist appointees off the appeals courts, a perfect politcal example
of carefully shooting ourselves in the foot.

That is what hapened in the Kennedy's last Mass election ('00 I think). Carla
did not do well .

-ash
for assistance dial MYCROFTXXX

On 25 Nov 2003 08:09:26 -0800, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:
Robert Perkins wrote in message . ..
Experimentation is based on faith.
No.

Yes.

Classically, an experiment is designed to disprove an hypothesis.

Yes, I agree. But I'm not talking about how experiments are designed,
I'm talking about the mindset of a person who follows the directions
of the experiment, in an attempt to verify or disprove. If you do the
experiment, and it's properly designed, then you're interested in the
outcome. That's faith. If you didn't believe in the first place, one
way or the other, you wouldn't go to the trouble of doing the
experiment.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

If you do the
experiment, and it's properly designed,
then you're interested in the
outcome. That's faith.


Not in my lexicon. "Interested in", "Having an interest in" and "believing in"
are three different things.

"Believing in" means running your life and your mind as if the hypothesis were
true.

"Having an interest in" means standing to benefit from others believing in the
truth of the hypothesis.

"Interested in" means curious about; wanting to know whether the hypothesis is
true or false.

In my argot, faith refers to running your life and your mind as if the
hypothesis were true, often to the point of no longer being "interested in"
whether it is =actually= true or not.

Jose





--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

On 25 Nov 2003 18:47:22 GMT, (Teacherjh)
wrote:

In my argot, faith refers to running your life and your mind as if the
hypothesis were true, often to the point of no longer being "interested in"
whether it is =actually= true or not.

Then we have a difference in argot, which is no surprise to me. What
you're describing, in my worldview, is *blind* faith.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card

In my argot, faith refers to running your life and your mind as if the
hypothesis were true, often to the point of no longer being "interested in"
whether it is =actually= true or not.

Then we have a difference in argot, which is no surprise to me. What
you're describing, in my worldview, is *blind* faith.


OFTEN to the point of... , not ALWAYS to the point of...

In any case, "faith" does not come in when testing a hypothesis. In fact, it's
lack of faith that is involved, after all if you had (enough) faith, you
wouldn't need to test it. So the original statement (maybe not yours) still
doens't ring for me - that testing a hypothesis is an act of faith, blind or
otherwise.

Jose



--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Dave Stadt wrote:
"Icebound" wrote in message
...


"Love thy neighbour as thyself".


Doesn't that go against the adultery one?





LOL.

You've got me conjuring up this mental image of an adulterer trying to
love himself the way he just did his neighbour.




--
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
--- Serenity Prayer