Comments on: I’ve got to go and incorporate this knowledge into my decisions

By: Gaikokumaniakku

Gaikokumaniakku — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:01:06 +0000

” if there is no designable test that can show that people learn something, then they haven’t learned it. You might say the test is bad, in which case I would say, ‘Fine. Design a better test, and then show it to me.’ But, if you want to say that people have been transformed but it’s a way that no one can actually show…”

I can design a lot of tests that are too expensive to use routinely. For example, I’ve got a number of ways to brainwash people into believing in (and practicing) monogamy and child-rearing (even though it requires tremendous personal sacrifices from them). The test must start pre-puberty and it’s concluded at the end of fertility. During those years, the test requires resources every day. It’s a real phenomenon but it’s too expensive to test.

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 15:35:49 +0000

I have never settled on a position, myself. But I just had a coworker cite, out of the blue and at rather more length than the conversation being interrupted warranted, Richard Dawkins’ use of the giraffe nervous system’s redundancy as part of his evidence for there being no deity.

I had to wonder which cargo cult version of Christianity out there is now preaching something that makes that a valid counter-argument.

It didn’t fill me with confidence about either side.

By: Dismal Farmer

Dismal Farmer — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 05:00:41 +0000

This is why I stopped believing in atheism and joined an organized religion. I saw that many people far better and smarter than I said it made them more spiritually enlightened. And I realized my deliberate ignorance of religions and belief in atheism and refusal to believe the witness and example of all these other people was distracting me from attaining any major improvement. I’d already learned that tangible things are fleeting and worth far less than things that are intangible.

People who are intelligent, unlike Bryan Caplan, tend to assume that if lots of other people say something is true, and they can’t see it, the burden of proof is on them and not the other people.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 04:18:12 +0000

This is why I gave up on organized religion. I saw no hard evidence that it was making me or anyone else more spiritually enlightened. And it was distracting me from things where I could attain measurable improvements. Lesser things, to be sure. But more tangible.