@Akbar2thegreat said in #69:
> Nah, not feeling well 'today'!
I'm sorry to hear that, hope you'll have a better day tomorrow!
> Why do you act as expert and write so-called thesis? I just talked about you not knowing difference and you copied everything from Wiki (probably).
Never pretended to be an expert on epidemiology. In fact I explicitly pointed out that I am not. Neither did I call my post a thesis (that would be preposterous). You claimed I didn't know the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic, so I explained the difference. I gave you the definitions (which are perfectly consistent with my previous posts). You're still not happy.
> Firstly, the criteria used for declaring epidemic as pandemic is pretty vague and wrong. WHO has terrible criterion. Nevertheless, many factors matters like spread cause the term worldwide is itself misleading when dealing with pandemics.
> Last recognised pandemic (according to my method of view) was Spanish Flu.
Of course. That's exactly why I clarified the ambiguity in terminology. And of course you don't agree with the world health organisation on what a pandemic is. Why? Because you're playing a game of semantics. Whenever your argument doesn't add up, you just shift the goalpost and say: "Nuh-uh, that doesn't count according to my method of view."
Nobody likes playing meaningless word games.
> I never talked about epidemic prediction!
Indeed not, you talked about a disease wreaking havoc. It doesn't get any vaguer than that.
That's why I pointed out that epidemics are associated with a disease that wreaks havoc. But you'll argue semantics and say that epidemics don't count and that they are not bad enough to say that they wreak havoc. Despite them being analogous to hurricanes. As I have anticipated.
> I specified what I said in previous reply.
Is that supposed to reference this part: "Are you serious?
It's made for people to get ready beforehand amd take preventive measures like common healthy hygiene.
Not only for people rather for agency like WHO to monitor situations properly and see if any virus leaks."
If so, it didn't work out great, did it? The WHO wasn't founded on the basis on your ominous ancient astrological "prediction" and even if it were, the prediction warned nobody because it was as vague as it can be (as I've pointed out in a previous post, an actual warning would have included the pathogen, some of its properties, its place of origin, etc. That way the pandemic could have been prevented). COVID-19 took the world by surprise. The supposed prediction (probably a figment of your imagination anyways) was useless.
> I don't get you. I have explained my points before and seems like you are lagging in the talk.
> Re-read it. And pandemic criterion is terrible.
Am I supposed to re-read your post #69 prior to posting my post #67? Indeed, it's sad we don't have a time-machine! If not, please specify what you want me to re-read and why. It's not obvious from context.
Also, you have merely asserted that the criterion is terrible. You have given no reasons whatsoever as to why. No argument was made. Why? Because you just need it to be terrible in order to mask the fact that you have greatly underestimated the frequency of pandemics by a factor of 4. You seem to be chronically incapable of acknowledging even minor slip-ups. You're always right. You'll do whatever it takes, even change the definitions of words.
> You are repeating same things.
> Diseases wreak havoc every year but not pandemic.
Well. You just admitted that diseases wreak havoc every year (which is obviously true). That's exactly my point. And in #24, the post that sparked this discussion, you said, and I quote you verbatim:
"Extreme example: Based on positionings of stars, it was written in ancient text that in year 2020 AD some disease would cause havoc."
The astrological "prediction" was not about a pandemic, it was about a disease wreaking havoc. According to – drum roll – you. You played yourself. Thanks for validating my point that the "prediction" was unfalsifiable and vague and useless because as you said in #69: "Diseases wreak havoc every year [...]". So predicting that one would in 2020 is not exactly rocket-science. Great to see we're on the same page.
> How can you prove (assuming it to be true for a moment) your pixies theory in space? That's not how science works.
Yes, you're getting it! Unfalsifiable predictions are not how science works. You can neither prove nor disprove them. In science hypotheses need to be falsifiable, you need to be able to disprove it empirically.
It is however how pseudosciences like astrology work. That was my point :-)
> A logical fallacy. Science isn't necessarily true so comparing anything with it is baseless though currently it is most accurate but it's not supreme entity. (I guess we debated that before!)
Your discussion about the supremacy of science appears to have been with somebody other than me. I don't claim that every piece of scientific knowledge is absolutely true and never would. Science is always a work in progress, subject to change as new evidence emerges.
My point in that quote was that people in a pre-scientific world didn't know anything about the laws of motion that the planets abide by. They didn't even understand the apparent retrograde motion of planets and invoked imaginary epicycles to account for it. Is that contentious? Astrology to them was a good as any guess. That's what I said there.
Still wondering which logical fallacy I've supposedly committed here? Mind naming it and explaining how it applies? I'd appreciate it.
> For a moment let me assume astrologers wrong then how can you antiprove them? If they aren't true, it doesn't necessarily mean they are false either. And how do you know reality? You are no God.
I am not and I've never claimed to be. There's no such thing as proof in science. But you can disproof specific testable hypotheses by testing them empirically. This is called falsification. If astrology made specific testable hypotheses ("When Mars is in conjunction with Jupiter, the god of war's ire makes Jupiter's atmosphere glow in the light of aurorae increasing its maximum brightness to -3.1 mag"), science could test them (observe Jupiter's atmosphere during Mars-Jupiter-conjunctions and look for aurorae and their brightness, then compare that to the frequency and brightness of aurorae when both planets are not in conjunction) and either vindicate (which doesn't mean prove, there is no proving) or falsify them.
But since astrology mostly makes extremely vague untestable hypotheses ("There will be a disease wreaking havoc in 2020!"), science cannot falsify them. That doesn't mean that they are true, it just means that they are useless and unfalsifiable.
Do I know astrology to be (logically) false? No. But I do know that there's no evidence to suggest that it's true. It's not useful. It doesn't work. It doesn't make testable predictions. Scientific theories by contrast make many specific testable predictions that do work marvellously. If astrology could do the same, it would become part of science. But thus far it cannot.
Who knows, maybe new evidence will emerge that shows some part of astrology (or all of it) to be correct. I doubt it, but I remain open to the possibility. It hasn't happened so far though and I wouldn't hold my breath.
I therefore have no reason to believe astrology to be true. While acknowledging that I don't technically know it to be false (just like the pixies pushing on planet Earth, I don't know they don't exist either, there's just no evidence to suggest that they do.).
How do I know reality? Ultimately, at a fundamental philosophical level I don't. And neither does anyone else. I only know of the existence of my own mind. The rest are sensory stimuli that might be corrupted (it's unknowable whether or not they are).
When I said "I'm not interested in make-believe, I want to know what's real." I didn't actually mean it in this fundamental philosophical sense though. What I meant is that I want to know what works and what doesn't. I don't want to pretend that astrology works, when it actually doesn't. By "works" I mean: "Makes specific, testable predictions that are empirically vindicated". Newtonian mechanics "works" for instance.
> In that case, I guess you don't even believe in zodiac signs!
Well, there are zodiac signs. There are also constellations of stars (mostly based on asterisms, stars visually forming a group in our human, pattern-seeking minds, but not necessarily physically related to or gravitationally interacting with one another) associated with each zodiac sign. They have some (astronomical) use in dividing up the sky into chunks that are easier to understand and memorise for humans.
But I do indeed not believe that the characteristics astrology ascribes to people born under a certain zodiac sign hold any merit. They are mostly Barnum statements, agreeable and vague. A Capricorn being assigned a Gemini's character description after first learning about zodiac signs would identify with that description equally well as with the "correct" Capricorn description. There's no evidence that would suggest that the traits assigned by astrology are actually more common in people of the correct zodiac sign.
So I don't believe zodiac signs have any significance to my character or anyone else's.
> Yeah but mood is off.
> Thanks but first day of college went terrible. I hope second day goes well enough.
I hope something good happens that lightens your mood!
And I'm confident you'll have a better day tomorrow. Hang in there!
T
> Nah, not feeling well 'today'!
I'm sorry to hear that, hope you'll have a better day tomorrow!
> Why do you act as expert and write so-called thesis? I just talked about you not knowing difference and you copied everything from Wiki (probably).
Never pretended to be an expert on epidemiology. In fact I explicitly pointed out that I am not. Neither did I call my post a thesis (that would be preposterous). You claimed I didn't know the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic, so I explained the difference. I gave you the definitions (which are perfectly consistent with my previous posts). You're still not happy.
> Firstly, the criteria used for declaring epidemic as pandemic is pretty vague and wrong. WHO has terrible criterion. Nevertheless, many factors matters like spread cause the term worldwide is itself misleading when dealing with pandemics.
> Last recognised pandemic (according to my method of view) was Spanish Flu.
Of course. That's exactly why I clarified the ambiguity in terminology. And of course you don't agree with the world health organisation on what a pandemic is. Why? Because you're playing a game of semantics. Whenever your argument doesn't add up, you just shift the goalpost and say: "Nuh-uh, that doesn't count according to my method of view."
Nobody likes playing meaningless word games.
> I never talked about epidemic prediction!
Indeed not, you talked about a disease wreaking havoc. It doesn't get any vaguer than that.
That's why I pointed out that epidemics are associated with a disease that wreaks havoc. But you'll argue semantics and say that epidemics don't count and that they are not bad enough to say that they wreak havoc. Despite them being analogous to hurricanes. As I have anticipated.
> I specified what I said in previous reply.
Is that supposed to reference this part: "Are you serious?
It's made for people to get ready beforehand amd take preventive measures like common healthy hygiene.
Not only for people rather for agency like WHO to monitor situations properly and see if any virus leaks."
If so, it didn't work out great, did it? The WHO wasn't founded on the basis on your ominous ancient astrological "prediction" and even if it were, the prediction warned nobody because it was as vague as it can be (as I've pointed out in a previous post, an actual warning would have included the pathogen, some of its properties, its place of origin, etc. That way the pandemic could have been prevented). COVID-19 took the world by surprise. The supposed prediction (probably a figment of your imagination anyways) was useless.
> I don't get you. I have explained my points before and seems like you are lagging in the talk.
> Re-read it. And pandemic criterion is terrible.
Am I supposed to re-read your post #69 prior to posting my post #67? Indeed, it's sad we don't have a time-machine! If not, please specify what you want me to re-read and why. It's not obvious from context.
Also, you have merely asserted that the criterion is terrible. You have given no reasons whatsoever as to why. No argument was made. Why? Because you just need it to be terrible in order to mask the fact that you have greatly underestimated the frequency of pandemics by a factor of 4. You seem to be chronically incapable of acknowledging even minor slip-ups. You're always right. You'll do whatever it takes, even change the definitions of words.
> You are repeating same things.
> Diseases wreak havoc every year but not pandemic.
Well. You just admitted that diseases wreak havoc every year (which is obviously true). That's exactly my point. And in #24, the post that sparked this discussion, you said, and I quote you verbatim:
"Extreme example: Based on positionings of stars, it was written in ancient text that in year 2020 AD some disease would cause havoc."
The astrological "prediction" was not about a pandemic, it was about a disease wreaking havoc. According to – drum roll – you. You played yourself. Thanks for validating my point that the "prediction" was unfalsifiable and vague and useless because as you said in #69: "Diseases wreak havoc every year [...]". So predicting that one would in 2020 is not exactly rocket-science. Great to see we're on the same page.
> How can you prove (assuming it to be true for a moment) your pixies theory in space? That's not how science works.
Yes, you're getting it! Unfalsifiable predictions are not how science works. You can neither prove nor disprove them. In science hypotheses need to be falsifiable, you need to be able to disprove it empirically.
It is however how pseudosciences like astrology work. That was my point :-)
> A logical fallacy. Science isn't necessarily true so comparing anything with it is baseless though currently it is most accurate but it's not supreme entity. (I guess we debated that before!)
Your discussion about the supremacy of science appears to have been with somebody other than me. I don't claim that every piece of scientific knowledge is absolutely true and never would. Science is always a work in progress, subject to change as new evidence emerges.
My point in that quote was that people in a pre-scientific world didn't know anything about the laws of motion that the planets abide by. They didn't even understand the apparent retrograde motion of planets and invoked imaginary epicycles to account for it. Is that contentious? Astrology to them was a good as any guess. That's what I said there.
Still wondering which logical fallacy I've supposedly committed here? Mind naming it and explaining how it applies? I'd appreciate it.
> For a moment let me assume astrologers wrong then how can you antiprove them? If they aren't true, it doesn't necessarily mean they are false either. And how do you know reality? You are no God.
I am not and I've never claimed to be. There's no such thing as proof in science. But you can disproof specific testable hypotheses by testing them empirically. This is called falsification. If astrology made specific testable hypotheses ("When Mars is in conjunction with Jupiter, the god of war's ire makes Jupiter's atmosphere glow in the light of aurorae increasing its maximum brightness to -3.1 mag"), science could test them (observe Jupiter's atmosphere during Mars-Jupiter-conjunctions and look for aurorae and their brightness, then compare that to the frequency and brightness of aurorae when both planets are not in conjunction) and either vindicate (which doesn't mean prove, there is no proving) or falsify them.
But since astrology mostly makes extremely vague untestable hypotheses ("There will be a disease wreaking havoc in 2020!"), science cannot falsify them. That doesn't mean that they are true, it just means that they are useless and unfalsifiable.
Do I know astrology to be (logically) false? No. But I do know that there's no evidence to suggest that it's true. It's not useful. It doesn't work. It doesn't make testable predictions. Scientific theories by contrast make many specific testable predictions that do work marvellously. If astrology could do the same, it would become part of science. But thus far it cannot.
Who knows, maybe new evidence will emerge that shows some part of astrology (or all of it) to be correct. I doubt it, but I remain open to the possibility. It hasn't happened so far though and I wouldn't hold my breath.
I therefore have no reason to believe astrology to be true. While acknowledging that I don't technically know it to be false (just like the pixies pushing on planet Earth, I don't know they don't exist either, there's just no evidence to suggest that they do.).
How do I know reality? Ultimately, at a fundamental philosophical level I don't. And neither does anyone else. I only know of the existence of my own mind. The rest are sensory stimuli that might be corrupted (it's unknowable whether or not they are).
When I said "I'm not interested in make-believe, I want to know what's real." I didn't actually mean it in this fundamental philosophical sense though. What I meant is that I want to know what works and what doesn't. I don't want to pretend that astrology works, when it actually doesn't. By "works" I mean: "Makes specific, testable predictions that are empirically vindicated". Newtonian mechanics "works" for instance.
> In that case, I guess you don't even believe in zodiac signs!
Well, there are zodiac signs. There are also constellations of stars (mostly based on asterisms, stars visually forming a group in our human, pattern-seeking minds, but not necessarily physically related to or gravitationally interacting with one another) associated with each zodiac sign. They have some (astronomical) use in dividing up the sky into chunks that are easier to understand and memorise for humans.
But I do indeed not believe that the characteristics astrology ascribes to people born under a certain zodiac sign hold any merit. They are mostly Barnum statements, agreeable and vague. A Capricorn being assigned a Gemini's character description after first learning about zodiac signs would identify with that description equally well as with the "correct" Capricorn description. There's no evidence that would suggest that the traits assigned by astrology are actually more common in people of the correct zodiac sign.
So I don't believe zodiac signs have any significance to my character or anyone else's.
> Yeah but mood is off.
> Thanks but first day of college went terrible. I hope second day goes well enough.
I hope something good happens that lightens your mood!
And I'm confident you'll have a better day tomorrow. Hang in there!
T