End of America's Human Space Program

[Veneer]

Bear with my thick headedness. Again, another? Another book? What other book? Another book on decision making? What will make you game?

If I were to reply to the threads in question, I am afraid I would get a 90,000 word reply, in which case, I might feel morally bound to read it. As I said, I don't have the endurance for this sort of thing, and shall remain incorrigibly and blissfully ignorant.

[Interbane]

I would be game to read another critical thinking book besides Burton's or Riniolo's.

Here's a link to a 90,000 word article about why Google is making us Stoopid. Essentially, the argument is that our attention spans have been reduced by repetitive instant gratification of internet information. We only need to google and read for 15 seconds to find the information we want. Gone are the days of lengthy reading. I'm skeptical of it, but the idea is interesting all the same.

[bleachededen]

I find it amusing that your link to "Google is Making us Stupid" is a link to Wikipedia, which would be one of the main culprits of instant information gratification.

[Veneer]

I am familiar with the Googlization of the modern mind, having read several articles on it and experiencing it myself. I do read books, long books, but I don't consider reading a long well researched book and reading a long post with a lot of cut and paste Googlizations necessarily the same activity.

[Interbane]

I find it amusing that your link to "Google is Making us Stupid" is a link to Wikipedia, which would be one of the main culprits of instant information gratification.

Yeah, and what's worse is I got there by googling it first, then clicking a link. It's terrible!

[bleachededen]

That's awesome!!

[froglipz]

I disagree, and I like the instant gratification of Google and wiki. But I would like to be the one who only reads for 15 seconds, every time I try to Google something "really quick".........three hours later I am about 4 topics away and have widened my knowledge base exponentially....

[stahrwe]

It might be possible for you to change your beliefs but I could not more stop believing than I could breathing. It is part of the essense of who I am.

Right, you are your beliefs. In that situation, it's impossible to be any less than extremely biased.

There is an impression in our society that empiricism and objectivity trump [faith].

Please don't DMM me. You have changed my quote by substituting the word faith where I said belief, and while you did not put quotes around it and enclosed faith in brackets I protest that the impression left is that is what I said. Faith and belief are not interchangeable!

There are infinite false things you can have faith in. The only way to separate the wheat from the chaff is by applying reason and sorting through the evidence. Otherwise, anything goes. Yes, evidence and reason do indeed trump faith.

You are mistaken. There is only one one source of faith and it has a single object.

I’m not the one who says that Evolution is a fact, not a theory, or that Global Warming or Climate change as it is being called now is beyond question or that people who question Climate Change should have their faces rubbed in asbestos (is that an exact quote?)

For those who may be watching, I have recently become aware of complaints that I include too much information in my posts. So I will discontinue that process. It had been my inclination to do so in order that the reader may judge for oneself whether I was slanting the argument in my favor, now, it will be up to you, if you bother to read my posts, to investigate the source for verification o n your own. Regarding the word fact, as applied to evolution consider the following:
“The following quotation from H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" explains the point.
There is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_ ... y_and_fact

So perhaps Inberbane’s tolerence for validity places evolution at the fact position on the scale but I place it at the speculation point.

Evolution is a fact. That doesn't mean it's absolutely proven. You're very prone to dichotomous thinking, where reality is far better described in terms of spectrums. The reason so many people have to be adamant about evolution is because there are so many retards who discard it because they want to believe in something else. Stahrwe, you are the one who is biased. There are no cookies and cream for believing in evolution. What gains grant money is what is likely to show results. Things which are false will not show results. You simply don't get it. How many times have we been back and forth over this, but you're incorrigible and unmoving. You are phenomenally biased, so much so that no amount of evidence or reason could ever sway you. Do you doubt this? Can you show me how you think you are unbiased? Even logical contradictions have no impact on you.

I am shocked that you used the ‘R’ word.
This discussion is no longer about the end of the shuttle program but has morphed to faith. I suggest that we move it there.

This is like a child standing in front of an elephant saying "there's no elephant". After a while, the adult will likely get frustrated and shout at him. The strong language and militant atheism is a result of your inability to see the truth because you are so brainwashed into believing in a fiction story written by bronze age savages.

You and I have both seen politicians stand up and deny the obvious. I don’t think there is one Darth Vader type controlling all, but, if YEC suddenly seemed on the verge of discrediting other ideas, and therefore ending the grant money, I guarantee there would be vicious attacks, attempts to discredit the Bible, to disparage and denigrate YEC’s, to attack religion and try to make it look foolish.

Yes, politics and money cause bias. Money causes the most bias of all. Even in science, money causes bias. I said this before you did, many posts back. These are biases we must be aware of. Especially scientists, who are caught up in the middle of it. This bias isn't some hidden, behind the scenes "dark force" that blindsides scientists. It is critical for scientists to be aware of bias. It's actually the majority of their job. This is why studies must be double blind, have the correct samplings, compensate for placebo, etc. Science is all about eliminating bias. This includes political and monetary bias, which is exceptionally difficult to eliminate. But part of the beauty of science is that it is constantly improving in an attempt to remove all bias. That's why there is peer review, where even the review of peer review is reviewed. This is why grant applications go through a panel rather than a single person. There are no scientists on these panels who support investigations into UFOlogy, big foot detection programs, Loch Ness monster breeding, or Young Earth Creationism, because these ideas have been indisputably shown to be false. So if you mock such panels for not including a wide enough variance that YEC is represented, that is your fault for advocating a false position, not the panel's fault for not representing it.

Are you sure about merit. Google ridiculous studies. I did and below are just a few examples.

This is representative of the variance within science. Yes, there are also studies such as SETI and even funding for some promising areas that might lead to cold fusion. Even though these are borderline, they should be represented as at least possible. However, there are extreme ideas which are so preposterous that they will never be funded. No one will fund research into showing the Earth to be flat or young, because it isn't. You could spend your whole life reading through evidence for why it isn't, one article after the next, and not get through them all. You're continuously incapable of considering how much evidence there is supporting the ideas you oppose.

Suppose I were to reject all of your dating methods. Would that be fair? I suspect you would object. Yet you reject all of the Bible. Is that fair?

Reject them, they aren't my methods. I will defend them if they appear to be reasonable and truthful methods, honest and without bias, and their veracity is supported by enough corroborated evidence. For what reason do you propose you should reject them? If you want to, go ahead and reject them, and I will learn more about them and defend them if it appears you aren't correct.

[stahrwe]

I disagree, and I like the instant gratification of Google and wiki. But I would like to be the one who only reads for 15 seconds, every time I try to Google something "really quick".........three hours later I am about 4 topics away and have widened my knowledge base exponentially....

Precisely right, which is why stupidity is an excuse but ignorance is not. Even the most obscure subjects are only a google away

[stahrwe]

I am familiar with the Googlization of the modern mind, having read several articles on it and experiencing it myself. I do read books, long books, but I don't consider reading a long well researched book and reading a long post with a lot of cut and paste Googlizations necessarily the same activity.

Of course not, a book is edited and distilled to present the author's perspective a post is much rawer information and one can employ the art of skimming. I would rather have the 60,000 word article (BT limit is 60k not 90) which I can read in full or skim rather than the link which generates a 404 error and ends my review but not my curiousity.