8 hours ago, FBW737 said:

You can post links to articles that support your point of view and I can post links that support mine. All that says is that the real experts on the subjects disagree about many thing.

And that's all you can do.  I don't recommend getting personal, but I know how strong the urge to do that is as I've done it myself more than once, and I've regretted it.  I understand well how you feel.

Some people have such strong beliefs or biases that no matter how many facts you present that refute their beliefs they will never concede the argument.  It can be frustrating, and the irony is that they probably feel the same way.

It's better to just present the facts and let everyone decide for themselves.  You can't win every argument.

Dave

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by dave2013

10 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

You can't win every argument.

It doesn't mean you have to concede; you just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by dmwalker

22 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I had almost posted something similar. A few articles I had read pointing out that colors don't really exist, only wavelengths, and that the way humans see the world is simply an interpretation by our minds....

And in the universe there may by thousands of ways to interpret reality, many possibly completely beyond our experience and maybe understanding.

One of the animals in that gym everything in UV range. I think it was a bird but not sure.

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by newtie
ed

21 minutes ago, newtie said:

One of the animals in that gym everything in UV range. I think it was a bird but not sure

That ties in to the fact that bird plumage can look completely different in UV light.

36 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

That ties in to the fact that bird plumage can look completely different in UV light.

Looks like.

3 hours ago, n4gix said:

Please stop the projection.  The entire sentence quoted above is nothing less than argumentum ad hominem. If you cannot make your presentation without projecting your own shortcomings as a debater, then I may be forced to give you a brief vacation from participation via AVSIM.

It would be argument ad hominen if the disposition he was displaying wasn't germane to the debate. But you Fr. in this instance are mistaking Argument ad Hominem for a legitimate rebuke which is an act of charity. His tactic is that he is making claims to know thing that nobody could possibly know and when I politely point out to him that there is a difference between knowing and believing several times he completely ignores it. Agnosticism doesn't mean I cannot believe one way or the other. It means I cannot know one way or the other.

Here is my second post in this thread and I was reluctantly drawn into making a comment by Martin if anyone is interested in looking:

"I have never believed in Extraterrestrial Life since the first and last time I ever seriously considered the possibility but there is a whole bunch of main stream positions that I completely disagree with."

Italics mine for emphasis.

So before I rebuked Martin anyone can see he levelled the "seudo philosophy" insult among others at me. Which is in fact a real example of Argument ad Hominem. Instead of making arguments against my position he decided to attack my intellect instead. 'Oh your stupid because you disagree with me'.

Some people are seriously and majorly over confident about what they think they know. I wouldn't mind a bit if they used the word I believe in lieu of I know or we know. At least that reflects a bit of humility. But they don't because they like to laud it over everyone else. If Martin is so cock sure of himself let's have his credentials in all the academic discipline's that he claims in dept and irrefutable knowledge of. I'm not proud. I have a diploma in Mechanical engineering and an honour's degree in Philosophy.

And lets hear the refutation of the article from the Journal of the Philosophy of Science that I posted earlier suggesting like I said that the honest position is agnosticism. And lets hear the argument against, its either Darwinism or there is no life as we know it in the universe re:Teleology.

Martin choose to report me to a moderator because I dared to contradict him, rather than to refute my arguments which are DEFINITELY debate worthy.

And by the way Fr. if you want to moderate a debate its important to not take one side or the other.😉

 

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by FBW737

18 hours ago, FBW737 said:

You're quite the pompos individual. You must be a professor or something to that effect.

 

No, not really, but if I think you are posting nonsense I will tell you. Likewise, if I think your comments are praiseworthy, I will tell you. Its called honesty, an honestly held opinion. I wouldn't worry too much about it, you have expressed the opinion my beliefs are nonsense. Unless you now agree with me? People think I post nonsense frequently, I don't mind at all if they have that opinion, its their right. 

Lets look at why I think your comments have been nonsense in places, also contradictory. 

 

First you said, and I quote...

 

Quote

"I don't believe that their is life anywhere in the universe except on earth."

 

So you don't believe.

 

Quote

"You might be right, you might be wrong"

 

Now we might be right and we might be wrong.

 

Quote

"And I don't believe there is life anywhere else because there is zero Evidence"

 

Now its don't believe again. And the notion that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence is lost on you.

 

Quote

"I hold to the intellectually honest position of agnosticism"

 

So now, rather than "don't believe" you are now an agnostic. So don't believe and don't disbelieve. You think we can't know if it does exist or doesn't exist out there, so agree with me

 

Quote

" my intuition is that life does not exist anywhere else in the universe except on earth"

 

So now, you don't know for sure, its just your intuition that tells you probably not.

 

Quote

"now that I've put to rest stupid notions about Aliens"

 

So now you don't believe again. 

 

Don't, we might be right, don't again, agnostic so can't know, intuitively no, and then don't again. 😁

See my point? 

 

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by martin-w

17 hours ago, FBW737 said:

I see your article doesn't deny LUCA.

 

Of course not, but don't ignore the rest of my reply regarding how humankind defines life. Some biologists define viruses as life and they were here long before cells, and then we have to consider if clumps of molecules that act like self replicating machines are life. It's not really an on or off switch, its a gradual progression. But I hope you now see that cells that merge together are not the same as a cell suddenly exploding into a multicellular organism that mankind has decided is life.

 

 

Quote

 

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/life-begin-cell/#:~:text=All life forms%2C with the,dating back billions of years.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition as to what life is. The definition we’re going to use, as we consider life’s origins and cellular nature, is that a living organism is anything that acquires resources, undergoes some sort of metabolic activity, and can produce copies of itself that share genetic commonalities.

Although I doubt that every biologist would agree that a free-floating molecule that can metabolize resources and replicate itself rises to the threshold of being “life” rather than “non-life,” this likely represents the first concrete steps that led from simple chemical processes to biological ones. These primitive metabolizing replicators likely existed with a great diversity among them, and many — if not most — certainly went extinct along the way. This predates a universal common ancestor, and even our notion of a cell, by many hundreds of millions (and maybe over a billion) years. Nonetheless, this is where current scientific thought takes us as to how life first originated on Earth.

If you define life as “something that needs to be cellular-based,” then you’ll conclude that there was no life until the first cell evolved. But it’s overwhelmingly likely that something simpler and more primitive, that had a metabolism and could self-reproduce, preceded the cell by some time. 

 

 

 

Quote

I can tell you just reading the first couple of paragraphs of that article I could raise a whole bunch of challenges to that kind of thinking.

 

Of course you could, you are a genius, some would say pompous. 😏

 

 

7 hours ago, FBW737 said:

I have a diploma in Mechanical engineering and an honour's degree in Philosophy.

 

Awesome, congratulations. 😁

 

7 hours ago, FBW737 said:

If Martin is so cock sure of himself

 

He's not, go read my replies again.

I don't know if life exists in outer space, other than on Earth, my replies have been to counter your believe that it definitively doesn't and your multiple posts to back up that believe. It might and it might not. Its you that seems cock sure that it doesn't. But then you contradict yourself by telling us you are agnostic. 

 

7 hours ago, FBW737 said:

Martin choose to report me to a moderator because I dared to contradict him

 

Nobody reported you to anybody. Your own comments got you into trouble. 🙄

 

One thing does stand in your favor though... you have a cat picture. I've a good mind to give you one of my famous  cat points. 😼

Edited November 23, 20223 yr by martin-w

9 hours ago, FBW737 said:

Martin choose (sic) to report me to a moderator because I dared to contradict him, rather than to refute my arguments which are DEFINITELY debate worthy.

And by the way Fr. if you want to moderate a debate its (sic) important to not take one side or the other.😉

Neither Martin nor anyone else "reported (you) to a moderator." Those who have been around for the past fifteen years know that I rarely stick my oar into an ongoing discussion.

I am not taking sides on the debate (and I use that particular noun loosely) per se, but rather have chosen to moderate character attacks. It is entirely possible to make one's position and logic clear without resorting to insults on the other party's intelligence.

Thank you for stepping in Fr Bill.  Most of us are friends here and I felt the urge to reply when one of my friends was being attacked but refrained because I am still skating on the thin ice edge of the lake.

Noel

On 11/22/2022 at 2:50 PM, W2DR said:

You've got to do it Martin. The women will go wild.

 

Seriously!!! 😲 You wouldn't lie to me would you? 

In that case I guess I should make an appointment with my hairdresser lady. 

 

Regardless of how vacuous it is. I'll give you the last word just to show you there are no hard feeling!😋

26 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Seriously!!! 😲 You wouldn't lie to me would you? 

In that case I guess I should make an appointment with my hairdresser lady. 

 

Of course I wouldn't lie to you 🙂. If you're ever in Florida and need a trim my barber lady would be glad to help. Her name is Coleen. She's the one who, years ago, convinced me to "take it all off". And she's a really good-looking  babe. I'm a lucky guy.

22 minutes ago, W2DR said:

Of course I wouldn't lie to you 🙂. If you're ever in Florida and need a trim my barber lady would be glad to help. Her name is Coleen. She's the one who, years ago, convinced me to "take it all off". And she's a really good-looking  babe. I'm a lucky guy.

 

You are saying that just "taking it all off" would do the trick? How would I handle the flocks of babes that would follow me around though? Where would I get the stamina?

Do you have a secret supplement formula to handle the physical demands? Is it that testosterone cream stuff? Do you slather it on? 🤔