On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 09:53:03 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 9:15:34 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 06:11:53 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

No, it's rigorously defined. It means accepting as true that which is
not supported by evidence. In many cases (for instance most religion)
it means accepting as true that which is contradicted by evidence.

Ignoring evidence is practiced in both religion AND science. As
P. Pilate said, "What is truth?"

No, it is NEVER ignored by science.

NEVER? You are sounding like an absolutist. :-)

Sure, by individual scientists, who are fallible and never operate with
perfect reason.

Sometimes by the whole scientific community. But you are right because
it tends to be self-correcting.

Never.

But by science itself? Never. Which is why science never fails to lead
us closer to truth (and in so doing, isolates more and more religious
dogma as objectively false).

And that's a good thing since "dogma" is a creation of man, not of God.

Of course, since there is no reason to believe in a god. It's an
absurd belief for anybody living in our times. A belief that removes a
person from credibility.

And you yourself have expressed "faith-based thinking." You believe
(without evidence) that all alien civilizations destroy themselves
before they can become god-like. Remember? :-)

I don't "believe" this. I offer it as a plausible hypothesis to answer
the Fermi paradox, based on observation of human behavior. That's all.

And why would "human behavior apply to aliens?

It may not. But we can observe the things that allowed us to become a
technological species, including our tribalism, which is currently at
the core of our potential extinction, and recognize that this could be
characteristic of most species that follow our path. Again, a
hypothesis only needs to be plausible.