Posts made by Mary

@Janus1:

Giving someone the power to use force does not = using force yourself. The state of California authorizes police officers to use force when necessary. Does that mean California beat up Rodney King? Lol.

president bush AND congress give the soldiers the authority to kill iraqi soldiers and insurgents in iraq. does that mean president bush and congress killed iraqi soldiers and insurgents?

if your paying such attention to detail, you should note that Bush didnt declare war either, since he is not capable. only congress can declare war. under the war powers act, the president can use the military for up to 90 days i think, but then he must be authorized by congress to extend that. so yes, congress authorized bush to use force, and no, bush did NOT declare war.

The Authorization of Force bill that Congress passed gave Bush the authority to use the military against Iraq, which he did very quickly. He might not have said, “Thus I declare war on Iraq”, but it was the White House that ordered “Shock and Awe” to begin. Once the bombs start dropping, you’re at war.

Once again: Congress gives Bush authority to attack. Congress did not order the invasion. Bush did.

@DarthMaximus:

I’m breaking my own rule. :D

Darth, giving authority to go to war and declaring war are two different things. Congress did not declare war on Iraq. Bush did. Find a link if you think otherwise.

I fail to see how.

Whatever. I provided links show how Congress Authorized the use of force.

And Links as to when Dec of War was used. Which was last in WW2.

There was no Dec of War for Korea, Vietnam, Gulf 1, among other conflicts since 1950.

You can quibble about wording all you want, but the authorization WAS given by Congress to the Pres.

It is like the thing with China in Apr of 01, does Regret mean I’m sorry. It is semantics.

Use of Force means war, what did these Congressmen/women think they were doing. If they didn’t know what they were voting for they should be removed for incompetence.

I think this is an issue that the Dems must sort out amongst themselves.
You should be mad at the Dems who gave the authority and try to remove them from office if you feel it was wrong.

Getting mad at Bush does you no good. If your elected Democrat officials go against what you believe you have to start voting for some different people.

Giving someone the power to use force does not = using force yourself. The state of California authorizes police officers to use force when necessary. Does that mean California beat up Rodney King? Lol.

Congress was told Iraq had WMD’s, ties to Al Queda, and was on the verge of getting a nuke. Rather than DECLARE WAR on Iraq, they gave Bush authority to DECLARE WAR, shifting the repsonsibility of DECLARING WAR to the White House. The hope was, if Saddam knew that Bush can DECLARE WAR himself, perhaps Saddam will finally comply with all resolutions.*

*Some phrases were highlighted for clarity.

Now, do I blame Congress? To some extent, yes. They were too trusting that Bush would use diplomacy, instead of rushing to war like he did. But blame ultimately lies with those who lied to Congress, chose to go to war, and had no clue what to do after we “won”: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.

@DarthMaximus:

I’m breaking my own rule. :D

Darth, giving authority to go to war and declaring war are two different things. Congress did not declare war on Iraq. Bush did. Find a link if you think otherwise.

I fail to see how.

Whatever. I provided links show how Congress Authorized the use of force.

And Links as to when Dec of War was used. Which was last in WW2.

There was no Dec of War for Korea, Vietnam, Gulf 1, among other conflicts since 1950.

You can quibble about wording all you want, but the authorization WAS given by Congress to the Pres.

It is like the thing with China in Apr of 01, does Regret mean I’m sorry. It is semantics.

Use of Force means war, what did these Congressmen/women think they were doing. If they didn’t know what they were voting for they should be removed for incompetence.

I think this is an issue that the Dems must sort out amongst themselves.
You should be mad at the Dems who gave the authority and try to remove them from office if you feel it was wrong.

Getting mad at Bush does you no good. If your elected Democrat officials go against what you believe you have to start voting for some different people.

So you agree Congress did not declare war on Iraq. That’s all I wanted.

Jen, find just one news site with “Congress declares war on Iraq”, and link it here. Otherwise, STFU because you have no clue what you’re talking about.

Darth, giving authority to go to war and declaring war are two different things. Congress did not declare war on Iraq. Bush did. Find a link if you think otherwise.

And yes, the President’s followed all the paperwork. He didn’t declare war on Iraq, Congress did. He didn’t declare war on Terrorism, Congress Did. He didn’t issue warrants for the arrest of Saddam Hussein or Ossama Bin Laden, the Supreme Court did.

Open a law book, open a history book and turn off Michael Moore so maybe you get an actual fact once in a while, Mary.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/19/sprj.irq.int.bush.transcript/

“On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.”

Here’s a lawsuit arguing that Bush should NOT have the authority to declare war: http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/14/cf.opinion.jackson.lawsuit/

“WASHINGTON (CNN) – A group of lawyers, soldiers and parents went to court in Boston to ask a judge to issue an injunction against President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to keep them from attacking Iraq unless Congress declares war.”

I don’t know how or why the moderators still let you post. This is just trolling. It took about 10 seconds to Google some links to prove you wrong yet again.

has no bearing on the fact that the Mayor and Govenor refused to declare a state of emergency through proper channels with proper paperwork and allow the President and his administration to use the funds and manpower already earmarked to assist to do their job.

Because we all know Bush is a “paperwork” and “proper channels” kind of guy :roll:

Oh, and being stunned for a few minutes after the first plane hit is perfectly understandable. Remaining shell-shocked after the SECOND plane hit is inexcusable. At the very least, I would want to know if my family is OK. After all, I’m the president, and this is an attack on America. Hmm, maybe my family is at risk? Maybe I should find out if they’re ok? Nah, gotta finish “My Pet Goat” first.

Edit: Oh, listen to the newly released tapes from dispatchers on 9/11. Listen to them calmly go about their jobs as the planes crash and the buildings implode. You won’t find a single one that froze for even a minute. Now compare that to our Commander in Chief reading a child’s book for five minutes…

But hey, there’s a saying: The American people deserve whoever they elect.

@cystic:

@Mary:

So Bush can lie repeatedly, ignore the UN, and invade a foreign nation, but when it comes to hurricane relief, he’s worried about overstepping his bounds? Am I hearing this right from some people?

lmao
i was thinking this exact thing this morning.
“How can the guy justify invading another nation, kill thousands of its citizens, and impose its will, but is afraid to send federal aid to a nation that is clearly in over its head??”

I’m thinkin’ that the guy dropped the ball again. what a knob.

My favorite Bushism so far has to be his praise of our eminantely qualified FEMA director: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Brownie!”. Apprently, running a horse-breeding facility provides the perfect training to helm the nation’s largest emergency repsonse organization. Bang-up, indeed!

was this before or after he derided the response as being unacceptable?

There’s so many Bushisms, you need a timeline to sort them all out.

Darth, do you deny this? Regardless, I have to correct myself: Bush spent five minutes reading “My Pet Goat” AFTER the SECOND plane had hit the towers and AFTER being told “America is under attack”. Here’s video if you want it:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/bushpetgoat.htm

It’s not like this is a big secret or anything. America’s under attack, I’ll just sit here and read to a bunch of kids. Now that’s leadership!

Bad presidents (E.g., Bush and Johnson) abuse their authority for spurious reasons.

Good presidents (e.g., Lincoln) exceed their authority for a greater good.

All that’s required for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. When the chips are down, Bush shows his true colors. The first time, he spent 8 minutes reading “My Pet Goat” while planes were hitting the Trade Center. This time, he vacationed in Crawford while Orleans died on national TV.

So Bush can lie repeatedly, ignore the UN, and invade a foreign nation, but when it comes to hurricane relief, he’s worried about overstepping his bounds? Am I hearing this right from some people?

My favorite Bushism so far has to be his praise of our eminantely qualified FEMA director: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Brownie!”. Apprently, running a horse-breeding facility provides the perfect training to helm the nation’s largest emergency repsonse organization. Bang-up, indeed!

New poll. Probably obvious how I voted.

Yes, of course it is. It must. This is the only universe i know of. This is the universe i live in.
So, you are arguning for me, using Bayes Theorem:
We life in this universe.
Thus the probability for the universe to have conditions “hospitable for life” is …… 1.
I have to take that into account for everything i calculate.

I don’t think you understand conditional probablity. What is at stake is NOT “Is the universe life supporting” (we know it is), but “IS the universe designed to support life”. Those are two VERY different questions which you seem to be conflating.

Flip a coin a hundred times. Get heads every time. You don’t think that supports the hypothesis “the coin is loaded for heads”? Wait, but the hundred flips already happened, right? Just like we find ourselves in a universe that supports life. I still don’t think you’re going to get it. You remind me of why casinos put signs by the roulette tables: if black has come up five times in a row, red is due, right? LOL. Dust off your copy of C&C and read up on conditional probablity, esp. since you’re confused about something as simple as a black raven providing confirmation for a hypothesis.

Lastly, you fail to recognize the significance of fixed constants that always generate a life-supporting universe. Something like this: Well, if those constants had ANY other values, the universe would be inhospitable for life. For some bizzare reason, the constants just happen to be fixed in such a way that a universe with stars, planets, heavy elements, atoms, molecules, etc. always comes about. Gee, that wouldn’t cry out for explantion :roll:

But I’m repeating myself now. You either get it or you don’t. This is why materialists are the worst critical thinkers. Once the blinders go up, it must be hard to see past the tunnel vision.

@F_alk:

@Mary:

You know Bayes Theorem, right?

Yes.

Every black raven we find is evidence that non-black ravens don’t exist.

No. :)

As you said you know Bayes Theorem …. have you heard of the Prosecutor’s Fallacy? That is what ID people usually use. An importantn point is:
We have no idea how often life has evolved in the universe. We can only guess and there creationists tend to use very small numbers (out of the gaps of course: I remember how it was doubted by creationists that other solar systems had planets … then -once we found planets (huge gas ones)- how they doubted that earthlike planets existed outside our solar system … and of course, they doubt that life would start there. How can you tell that having an earthlike planet does not lead to life in 85% of each cases ? Then, all life would evolve, and our sample suggests that it evolves into something intelligent.

Creationists all seem to follow a Bayesian definition of probability. Science usually takes a frequentist definition (when it comes down to experiments at least). We can use Bayes Theorem though: if we do, then suddenly -just because we exist- the probabilities for having natural constants, number of dimensions etc. the way they are is not flat over any possible value anymore (it is not evenly distributed). Indeed, just because we are here, the values that we see have higher probabilities.

About your “carbon chauvinism” and Bayes: So, you have a box with an uncertain number of balls in there (=number of planets that have life). You draw one. It is white (=carbon based life). What is the probability that there are no black balls (si-based life) in there ?

Materialism is just as much a religious belief as belief in God. Most atheists I’ve met are much worse than theists when it comes to discussing their beliefs.

Why would you try to bring your belief into theirs then? Are you christian missionary, trying to convert all those materialist scientists ;)?
Just face it: Science “won” over the church, although the church had a massive head-start. Still, it took more than 7 days for the universe to form and intelligent life to come. Rome is not center of the earth is not center of the solar system is not center of the universe.

I think this argument is by humans who just hate it to be “usual” and not “special”. Get over it ;) :).

BTW, Hawking stated that the probability for a universe like this to be created out of a Big Bang is about 98%, allowing the universe wavefunction to come into existance with nothing there before it.

@Linkon:

Mankind has practiced ID for centuries.
We are much better at it now.
Just think of all the different breeds of dogs, cats, horses, cows, corn, salmon, trout, tilapia, grapes, etc…

Tststs….
you can’t say “look, evolution doesn’t work: It can’t explain macro-evolution” and then say “look, ID works: Although i have to ignore macroevolution”.
…
Well, that is if you want to keep up the terms Macro- and micro- evolution. AFAIK only ID/creationists people use these terms. In evolution theory, there is no distinction AFAIR.

I have a copy of CHoice and Chance in my bookshelf. Just plug in the numbers. I guarantee you that finding a black raven reduces the probablity of the hypothesis “there are some non-black ravens”. I think the crucial point that you’re missing is that you have zero evidence for believing in anything other than carbon-based life, yet you believe so to avoid an argument. Your faith in the existence of strange life-forms is no different than that of a theist’s faith in the existence of God.

You argue about silicon-based life, and even if I grant that it’s likely, the likelihood is taking into account conditions in THIS universe, which are very hospitable for life. Are you really claiming that life can exist in a universe where atoms can’t form, where stars can’t form, where planets can’t form? Those are the kinds of universes which arise when tweaking the constants even a little bit. To believe in complex life arising without atoms or stars is ridiculous. If that’s the best you can do, the argument is in good shape.

As far as Hawking goes, it doesn’t hurt the argument at all if 98% of possible universes would have had the same constant values. Even if the constants are “fixed” at the moment of the Big bang, the question would simply become: why are the constants fixed in such a way that the universe supports life? You seem to forget that even if the constants are fixed or highly probable, we can still generate models of universes where the constants are different (and the fact that drives the argument would still remain: change the constants just a little bit, and the universe would not support life). In fact, it would support the argument if we found out that the universe HAS to be a life-supporting one, that all possible big bangs produce life supporting universes. How strange would THAT be?

There is no evidence that it can’t. It just did not happen on this one planet.
And there is as much proof(!) for silicon based life as there is for a creator. Although Si based life has the benefit that evidentally life can come from rather light elements of the chemical group.

You know Bayes Theorem, right? Every black raven we find is evidence that non-black ravens don’t exist. Every DNA-based complex life-form is evidence that non-DNA based life-forms don’t exist. If you belive in beings made of hydrogen or silicon, just to avoid some conclusion that is unpalatable, why not just believe in souls?

No, i wanted to say that they don’t mix their religious belief in the argument, not that they are free of any belief.
And do you want to say that ID is just an agenda ;) ?

Materialism is just as much a religious belief as belief in God. Most atheists I’ve met are much worse than theists when it comes to discussing their beliefs.

While any scientist who pushes ID does so free of religious nomination, the political wing who pushes it has a different agenda.

I’ve given up trying to explain the fine-tuning argument- either you get it or you don’t (you do know you can compare inifinite sets, right?). You seem perfectly willing to believe in non-carbon based life just to avoid the conclusion of the argument. There is no evidence for consciousness arising out of- say - silicon, and plenty of evidence that it can’t (e.g., the fact that all complex life-forms observed so far are all carbon-based). I don’t think you quite realize what a leap of faith your position requires.

That last line in your quote is pretty revealing: Are you saying that any scientist who pushes ID is “free of religious nomination”? Lol. It’s almost as if you believe scientists are these Spockesque masters of rationality. Oh contrare. They’re just like the rest of us and they all have agendas.

@F_alk:

@Mary:

It’s not an attempt to undermine anything. It’s simply a competing theory.

I don’t think it is a theory. It can not be used to predict any behavior.

The conditions at the start of the universe could have been anything.

That is true. We can’t say what was there … at least not yet. So, i would
again not call it a theory, but speculation.
Just because we are -at the moment- unknowing, does that mean that the former believe of the sun being town across the sky by a chariot was a theory?

It’s a very popular argument in cosmology.

It is not :)

To the link …
“To use the lottery fallacy against the fine tuning argument we must postulate a suitably large array of universes for which we have no other evidence at all. This isn’t a fatal problem because we are also postulating a Creator but persuading an atheist that he is standing on the same metaphysical ground as his theistic opponent can be rather hard.”

I don’t think so. It is just that the Creator argument (like the many worlds argument) can not be checked yet. Either you have to build a sound scientific theory of how to check the existance, or leave it as metaphysics/religion.

It also says:
"An example of the former (fallacy) is when we are asked why we are not amazed by the incredible odds that we were born given the number of eggs and sperm produced by our parents. Is it not amazing that I am not someone else? This is fallacious " … with regard to the existance of life.

On the terms, the same lines can be used against the creationist argument on the natural constants.
“As we are investigating why the laws of physics are as they are, the answer ‘because they are’ does not seem to take us very far forward and indeed, begs the question.”

This is effectively using the same argument once to defend creationism and once discarding it as a fallacy.

The author then says “but like all arguments for God, this one does not seem to convince anyone who does not want to be convinced” but i doubt that he considers the vice versa case which is as true. No scientist (i know of) wants to mix science into religion. On the other hand, we have people who want to mix religion into science (mainly believing/faithful religious people, who find it difficult to keep their religious believe while learning their science with critical thinking and constants doubts. It may be hard for a religious person to stay faithful when there is “no hard evidence”, intelligent design is a nice way out of that.)

All in all the article is putting up a huge straw man.
“We cannot know that our particular set of physical laws and constants are the only ones that will produce a viable universe.”
Agreed, yet
"One thing a design argument must not do is look for a ‘God in the Gaps.’ "
which is exactly what she is doing. We have insufficient knowledge, and probably never a way to gain more. Thus we need a creator.
That is not science, and exactly looking for a “god in the gaps”.

He in lengths argues about the existance of universes or not, then…
"Victor Stenger… has tried to demonstrate that many different constants produce viable universes …
First, it assumes exactly the same laws of physics that we have but with different numbers. Most fine tuners would say that the laws themselves have been finely tuned and so cannot be taken as read.

That is a “God in the Gaps” ….
(1) See we don’t know wether other universes could bear life. The universe as we see it must have been created the way it is (with its natural constants).
(2) Look, here are some “life bearing” universes, with different constants.
(3) The universe as we see it must have been created with laws the way it is.

I do appreciate that science is pushed by these questions. I yet don’t see them as being science themselves.

“The problems with the multiple universe theory are manifold but the most important is that we have no evidence for them whatsoever.”

We have no scientific evidence for god.

“there is no theory that predicts they might exist.”
Wheelers interpretation of the quantum mechanical measurement process lives on spawning more and more universes from the current one. There has been a ST:TNG show where Worf skips between these universes that is based on that idea.

"Also, for the multiple universe theory to help the atheist at all, the universes must all have different physical laws "
No, SOME must differ, not all.

“Finally, the vast number of universes required seems to insult every principal of scientific elegance from Ockham’s razor onwards”
Is it better to introduce someting totally new, like a creator, or to add more of what is know already ?

“The atheist should realise that hypothesising multiple universe is metaphysics and not science.”
We do. Unfortunately the “designers” don’t see that adding a creator is as much metaphysics. Both are not holding under scientific examination.

I agree with:
“It is not a scientific theory because it cannot be experimentally verified or falsified… Indeed it is a metaphysical statement itself–as it lies behind science, it cannot be examined scientifically”
Until i see an experiment that shows the signature of a creator, i doubt one exists. I wonder why it is not applied to the creation arguement by the author.

“So would the discovery of life on other planets with the same or a very similar genetic architecture to our own (be evidence for a creator), as this would suggest that different pathways to life are not common.”

That holds nothing.
If a way to create life is the most probable, and happened on two different planets, doesn’t mean at all that a creator created this “most likely” (or maybe even only possible) way.
The personal need for a creator speaks out of the whole article. I respect this personal need, but strongly object to bring it into science and mix metaphysics into science.

Remember, paradigm shifts often move with glacial speed. How long did it take germ theory to become established? How long before scientists gave up on spontaneous generation? Why was homosexuality considered a mental disorder all the way up to the 1970’s?

Yes … so we are slowly moving away from the need of a creator, and just see the last defenses of the ones that follow the old paradigm?

Just a couple points:

1. The argument uses science to offer an inductive reason to believe the universe was fine-tuned to support life. CURRENT science is that the physical constants could have been anything. Using relatavity, we can figure out what the universe would have been like if any of the constants had been different by even a millionth of a decimal point. In almost all cases, the universe is not life-supporting (only hydrogen atoms exist, stars can’t form, molecules can’t form, etc.). The conclusion is that we are either very lucky, or somebody rigged the universe. Here are your repsonses:

2. There could be an inifinite amount of universes. We just happen to be one of the lucky ones. True, this would be a defeater, but believing in infinite parallel universes at this point is a matter of faith. There certainly isn’t any evidence to hang your hat on.

3. Who’s to say life couldn’t arise in different conditions? To which I would reply that believing in a being made purely of hydrogen requires more faith than belief in God.

As for its popularity, it is certainly popular in philosophy, and I’ve never met any physicists who haven’t heard of it (granted, I’ve only talked to two ;) In the book “God and the philosophers” I read that half of cosmologists are theists, thanks in part to the fine-tuning argument. Take it for what it’s worth, but keep in mind that there wouldn’t be such an effort to disprove it if it wasn’t popular and didn’t have a certain appeal.

Here’s a better formulation of it: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/gpsu/old-conf/Review/The Fallacies of Fine-tuning.pdf#search=‘fine tuning argument AND cosmology’

You might want to address the actual argument instead of bemoaning its lack of funding. Besides, it’s not the type of thing that gets funded, as it is primarily a philosophical question. And the science behind the argument (Were the physical constants at the moment of creation fixed, or could they have been anything other than what they are? Is there going to be a Big Crunch? Are there infinite parallel universes?) IS being funded.

Remember, paradigm shifts often move with glacial speed. How long did it take germ theory to become established? How long before scientists gave up on spontaneous generation? Why was homosexuality considered a mental disorder all the way up to the 1970’s?

@theSexualHarrassmentPanda:

I’m skeptical of the whole intelligent design side b/c I think it is an attempt to undermine Evolutionary teaching. However at the same time I don’t think these Christian types who are pushing it do so b/c it is their main cause but b/c they seek to achieve a greater role for their cultural traditions in schooling. I think in someways they are right public schooling in terms of christianity is way too pc. Even at my school our Euro History course that covered the middle ageds barely refered to the Church. Imagine my surprise to be so unprepared when I got to WCiv in college and found that discussion of the church, its poltics and teachings were integral to an understanding of feudal and early modern europe.

It’s not an attempt to undermine anything. It’s simply a competing theory. The conditions at the start of the universe could have been anything. By either a fantastic coincidence, or intelligent design, the constants of the universe just happened to fall right into place to allow beings like us to exist. Don’t take my word for it. It’s a very popular argument in cosmology. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_hannam/fta.html

Oh, and I’m not a “Christian type” ;)

Since the universe itself seems fine-tuned to support life, I lean towards the “intelligent design” camp. Actually, if you accept the theory that the world is an illusion, everything is mind, and we’re all parts of the one mind (God), questions about evolution become meaningless except to ask, “Why did we design the world in that particular way?”.

Post em here.