[aaerdan]

REGISTER TO REMOVE THIS AD

Originally Posted by Longknife

Seriously, am I the only one that looks at things like the birth of the universe and says "Nope, we can't answer that," and leaves it at that? xD

No.

But there are varying degrees to this, too.

Not everything is clearly in black and white, ones and zeroes.

Not in reality, anyway.

If one answer is 99% accurate, and another answer is 75% accurate, neither can be deemed accurate, but similarly, neither can be fairly deemed to be equally inaccurate.

And if it is impossible to achieve 100%, does one give up trying, even when the cost of the attempt is actually manageable/tolerable?

If one does not even bother to try and seek answers, it means 100% failure. At least if one tries, the possibility of failure isn't 100%.

But of course, it's all up to the individual.

[Moshineko]

The thing, though, is to accept that nothing is ever 100%, at least that we can do. There's a prinicple or law or something that I can't remember the name of (want to say Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, but I'm too lazy to look it up), that states that no matter how good our tools, we have a slight imperfection due to the nature of things. One ruler may be microns longer than another, thus giving a different reading, electron microscopes may not be able to focus fine enough, etc.

Thus, we'll never know 100% about everything. We'll always be finding a smaller unit to measure, and a more accurate way to measure.

As for the beginning of the universe not being important, well, pure science is always important. Curiosity often pays huge dividends when you'd think it was just more sciency bull. So pure science is always worth pursuing, no matter how silly it seems.

[Rutiene]

Originally Posted by Longknife

Seriously, am I the only one that looks at things like the birth of the universe and says "Nope, we can't answer that," and leaves it at that? xD

I look at the question, and look for the most reasonable answer as of right now. Do I believe it? Not completely. But I accept that it's our best answer, and I wait for more discoveries. Do I have my own beliefs and hypotheses? Of course. But those are my own and based loosely around faith, and I recognize that as well.

The quest for knowledge is what has brought us to the current technological level, so I truly do believe that it is important to keep questioning. If we always just left it at 'Nope, we can't answer that." we'd still think the earth is flat and the sun revolves around us as the best answer to where we reside in the universe.

[MStevens24]

I agree with long, and tbh you guys have once again brought this thing off topic.

But, meh, w/e all debate topics go off hand.

And to answer some of the things that have been said.

1. you can never, and I mean never, truely say where we came from.

I mean think about it, lets ASSUME, for one second, that we came from stars, that one day that metor came and struck the earth and bang we have life!(bit of sarcasm there)

Where did that metor come from? and where did the thing that from? and the thing that created that thing, ect.. ect... eventually you run into the end of the road, where something had to just exsist, that wasnt created, theirs no possible explanation of why it was there, only that it is there.

Next point carbon dating, instead of trying to explain this myself on why this is just a guess to I will qoute an article

Although this technique looks good at first, carbon-14 dating rests on two assumptions. They are, obviously, assuming the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been constant, and its rate of decay has always been constant. Neither of these assumptions is provable or reasonable. An illustration may help: Imagine you found a candle burning in a room, and you wanted to determine how long it was burning before you found it. You could measure the present height of the candle (say, seven inches) and the rate of burn (say an inch per hour). In order to find the length of time since the candle was lit we would be forced to make some assumptions. We would, obviously, have to assume that the candle has always burned at the same rate, and assumes an initial height of the candle. The answer changes based on the assumptions. Similarly, scientists do not know that the carbon-14 decay rate has been constant. They do not know that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is constant. Present testing shows the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere has been increasing since it was first measured in the 1950’s. This may be tied in to the declining strength of the magnetic field.

Also you guys seem to confuse evolution, no where in the scientific community is their a fact of proof of "where" we came from. You guys confuse the theroy of evolution as a theory of life, when in fact it isnt.

All evolution is, is a theroy of what happend AFTER, we were created, not before. The points being:
Adaptation
Genetic drift
Gene flow
Mutation
Natural selection

I qoute another article

Origin of life

The origin of life is a necessary precursor for biological evolution, but understanding that evolution occurred once organisms appeared and investigating how this happens, does not depend on understanding exactly how life began.The current scientific consensus is that the complex biochemistry that makes up life came from simpler chemical reactions, but it is unclear how this occurred.Not much is certain about the earliest developments in life, the structure of the first living things, or the identity and nature of any last universal common ancestor or ancestral gene pool.Consequently, there is no scientific consensus on how life began, but proposals include self-replicating molecules such as RNA, and the assembly of simple cells.

Now I believe in GOD, but I also believe in evoltuion, I believe as mosh said in one of his examples, Humans becoming taller, polar bears becoming all white, the fact all white animals in the african jungle are killed off, they are all signs and facts of evolution.

While darwin did make a theroy on orgin while he was on the island in south america (forgot the name) it isnt included in the final theroy of evolution.Because to be short, the scientific community doesnt have a damn clue about how it happened.

[Rutiene]

Thank-you!

I've tried to explain that earlier, but I usually get lost in my own science-speak.

[Longknife]

Originally Posted by Rutiene

I look at the question, and look for the most reasonable answer as of right now. Do I believe it? Not completely. But I accept that it's our best answer, and I wait for more discoveries. Do I have my own beliefs and hypotheses? Of course. But those are my own and based loosely around faith, and I recognize that as well.

The quest for knowledge is what has brought us to the current technological level, so I truly do believe that it is important to keep questioning. If we always just left it at 'Nope, we can't answer that." we'd still think the earth is flat and the sun revolves around us as the best answer to where we reside in the universe.

Yes if we ALWAYS left ourselves to "Nope, can't answer that" we wouldn't get anywhere. But c'mon Jen, you yourself know I'm curious as fuck and one of the last people who would do that.

Any question I know I can find the answer to, I'll go for it. But this, we won't. We simply won't, at least not in our lifetimes.

Aaerdan, you can argue I'll fail but one that tries has a possibility of succeeding, but I can argue that it's a hopeless cause, and instead I can better spend my time succeeding in other questions, or at least enjoying myself, sitting on my ass. Yes we need some scientists to try to answer this, no matter how hopeless it seems, but that's their job, not ours. Plus honestly, our ponderings won't get anywhere, whereas theirs might.


And one thing I'm arguing, is science can NEVER disprove religion. Religion states there's an all powerful God that can do anything; you can't disprove that, so the arguements will never end, no matter how far science manages to dig. If the Big Bang theory were proven, you'll either see A) God made the big bang, or B) THIS IS A TEST FROM GAAAAWD!!!

Now personally, I'm Agnostic. I'm not willing to rule out the possibility of a God. Because of this, the arguement can never be solved for me. They could prove the Big Bang theory, and people would still ask what came before the big bang, and the possibility of God is still there. They could explain what was there before the big bang, and people would ask where that junk came from, and the possibility of God would still be there.

This question will NEVER die, nor t it. will it ever be solved. So why bother? Out of curiousity, sure, but your curiousity will never be satisfied. So just accept it, I say.

[Mokkun]

Meh, just to stay safe on the middle ground that's bound to be somewhere.

There is a notable distinction to be made with what you said, MStevens. There exist both a "The Theory of Evolution" and "The Fact of Evolution."

The latter deals with changes in species and such, like you mentioned above. These have become irrefutable facts and tested intensively to the point that it's been proven to hold truth.

The prior deals with what can only be assumed, hypotisized, and observed. There's no hard prove that humans and humanoid apes share a common ancestor. There is however evidence to support such an assumption. That's why this remains a theory; it can still be falsified by a new test, observation or discovery.

Ignorance makes religious and non-religious people stump down on evolution because they can't differate between the Theorem and the Fact. Now while it can be accepted that the Theorem is under debate, the Fact can't be debated to such an extent. It's like arguing that the Law of Gravity doesn't apply on Washington D.C on every other Monday just because you believe a book told you so.

[Rutiene]

I think what I was trying to say about this, Longy, is that it's always the path that is important. Actually being able to get to the answer is only a small part of it. The way getting there is what's giving us all the technological advances.

[Longknife]

Originally Posted by Rutiene

I think what I was trying to say about this, Longy, is that it's always the path that is important. Actually being able to get to the answer is only a small part of it. The way getting there is what's giving us all the technological advances.

Yeah, but among scientists who make studying the Big Bang theory their focus. Not among common people like you and me and everyone else here. xV

[Rutiene]

Curiousity is what makes scientists that go into those fields though. =P

But then, this is completely irrelevant to myself since I don't tend to think too much about it. My learning of evolution has always been very much based on current uses and whatnot.

[Dr. Slick]

I don't mean to go backwards in the conversation, but I think I have to kind of point this out.

A few pages back, one of you guys said to look how far science has brought us. I got to thinking, and it's not as if everything Science has done is good.

Nuclear Weapons, WMD's, Gas emission, and a lot of other things that I'm too dumb to think off from the top of my head.

"It has been estimated, for instance, that the past 20 years the oil-producing endeavors of the United States have accumulated eight million tons of radioactive wastes." - http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/radwaste.htm

We've invented weapons and chemicals that we don't even know how to get rid of. They have storing facilities which store thousands of gallons of nuclear waste in barrels that leak out and contaminate then entire area. There have been cases of missing nuclear barrels that no one knows where they went. Science has brought war to a place where it is almost certain that the next World War would mean the end of the Earth.

I mean, you can go on and on about how there might not be another world war, but you never know. No one ever knows what's going to happen. You say that Science is good and all the stuff, but it, in some cases, has brought the destruction of man-kind to a closer reach. I doubt that we may even live another 200 years without at least an entire continent getting annihilated by nuclear warfare. Sorry if this is kind of a step backwards, but I just had to get it out that science isn't always the right answer. Not for everything.

[Rutiene]

That's a completely separate debate, Slick. I have qualified each time that without living like in the ancient days of the hunter/gather societies, these technological advancements have allowed us to come this far. It is a separate argument as to which one is the 'better' life or wiser choice for our society.

[Longknife]

Originally Posted by Rutiene

That's a completely separate debate, Slick. I have qualified each time that without living like in the ancient days of the hunter/gather societies, these technological advancements have allowed us to come this far. It is a separate argument as to which one is the 'better' life or wiser choice for our society.

Personally I thought the Native Americans had life down pretty damn good.


But yah dat's off-topic...

[Dr. Slick]

I'll make a new thread about it.

[Moshineko]

Mmmmm. I wouldn't. You're arguing a negative there, it's very hard to say what would happen if the Age of Reason hadn't happened.

I can say that animals and humans have been pretty effectively killing themselves and each other out without science, so it's not as though dropping science would solve anything.

All the uranium we have was there already, just waiting for the right volcanic eruption.

And the Native Americans didn't. They drove buffalo off cliffs, killed off a dozen or so species on their way south from the Bering Strait, kept slaves, warred constantly, and were just as big pricks as the rest of humanity, really.