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#401
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 12:56:35 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel wrote: You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. That is quite natural when people like you are over exploiting this thin set of experimental data, claiming e.g. "this is PROOOOF that a human soul exists" when it's not that at all. I NEVER said it was proof. You are being dishonest. And you are conflating "soul" with "spirit" after I have explained the difference (a minor matter but indicative of your sloppiness). Even if that body did lose 3/8 of an ounce as the moment of death, how do you know that this weight loss is due to a soul leaving the body? I don't, of course, but you have NO evidence that it is anything else. Perhaps that dying person just happened to fart at the moment of death and the sole other person present was too embarrassed to mention this? You misunderstand the physics involved in your speculation. There's no difference physically between a fart coming out of one end or a breath coming out the other end, except that breathing out is mostly CO2 whereas farts are mostly methane which has less mass/volume than air. Since no other person was present, there is no way to check this. A baseless speculation refuted by doing a few simple calculations. I have done this. Why didn't you before babbling nonsense? So instead of complaining over this, why aren't you instead working for having this measurement thoroughly? Of course this carries the risk (from your viewpoint) that this measurement is refuted rather than confirmed - is that what you are afraid of? I did the work for air in the lungs a long time ago because this was something that would not be accounted for in MacDougall's experiments. But it turns out to be a trick question: There isn't any difference: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/...s_with_air_as/ However, since methane is lighter than air, you get heavier when you fart :-) Archimedes figured this out over two millenia ago. |
#402
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 11:43:55 AM UTC-6, Bill wrote:
On Sat, 27 Oct 2018 08:56:33 +0200, Paul Schlyter wrote: So instead of complaining over this, why aren't you instead working for having this measurement thoroughly? Of course this carries the risk (from your viewpoint) that this measurement is refuted rather than confirmed - is that what you are afraid of? Just how's anyone going to accomplish that, since society will not sanction this sort of experimentation - much less fund it. I was discussing this with a friend and we concluded that we could set up some experiments outside of hospitals. Also, we wouldn't want to wait around for a "patient" to die so we could "encourage" them to do so :-) Perhaps Paul would like to volunteer to "help out" in the cause of science :-) |
#403
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Friday, October 26, 2018 at 3:16:38 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote:
You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, in this particular case *you* prefer to accept it as though it were god's word. Thin data is still thin data, which makes it very suspect, if not outright dismissable, without the addition of additional input. As you say, debate is worthless... which begs the question, why do you insist that, in your view, it is even worth talking about? |
#404
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Sat, 27 Oct 2018 12:09:20 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote: I was discussing this with a friend and we concluded that we could set up some experiments outside of hospitals. Also, we wouldn't want to wait around for a "patient" to die so we could "encourage" them to do so :-) Perhaps Paul would like to volunteer to "help out" in the cause of science :-) YOU are the one who should volunteer. After all you are the one making extraordinary claims, and you ought to back it up with extraordinary evidence. However, you have a problem. Religion frowns at suicide, it says only God, not men, can take lives, and that includes your own life. So what happens to the spirit of someone committing suicide? In old times, the bodies of people committing suicide were buried outside the churchyard, in so-called "unholy ground". ND they were rumored to have become ghosts, haunting those who were alive... |
#405
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Sat, 27 Oct 2018 09:30:17 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote: On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 12:56:35 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote: That is quite natural when people like you are over exploiting this thin set of experimental data, claiming e.g. "this is PROOOOF that a human soul exists" when it's not that at all. He will quite rightly reply that he never claimed it was *proof*. What he is claiming, though, is this: that since it's the only experimental data we have, even *though* it's thin, until such time as further experiments along this line are done to get better data, we should be basing our thinking on what data there is, not our personal prejudices. So the _default_ assumption, until more evidence comes along, should be that there is a human soul, and it has mass. That instead people are just rejecting the experimental data as bad or unworthy of consideration shows that they're biased. This is, of course, wrong, but I have found it difficult to explain exactly _why_ it is wrong. Basically, for science to function, it needs to take a fair amount of evidence to move what it works on. Plus, most religions don't claim the soul should have mass, so there is no pressure to be more fair to this idea, or the trouble of repeating the experiment might have been taken. John Savard Why should we draw any conclusion at all based on such meager and uncertain data? The correct scientific conclusion would be that more measurements are needed before any reasonable conclusion can be made. And even if other measurements confirmed that the human body loses a small amount of weight at the moment of death, how do you know that weight loss is due to a soul leaving the body? There could be some other explanation. |
#406
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On 28/10/2018 05:20, palsing wrote:
On Friday, October 26, 2018 at 3:16:38 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote: You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, in this particular case *you* prefer to accept it as though it were god's word. Thin data is still thin data, which makes it very suspect, if not outright dismissable, without the addition of additional input. I am sure he could round up some evangelicals and other religious types to volunteer to have the weight of their souls measured on their death. Modern weighing kit can do 1g resolution on 100kg so he may need to find patients who are not morbidly obese. I hypothesise that in addition to having mass the actual mass depends on how long their religion has been going so that Zoroastrians have the heaviest souls and Mormons the lightest ;-) His "evidence" is one crank more than a hundred years ago with very dodgy kit and cherry picked data. On that basis he wants to junk the conservation law of mass and energy by divine intervention. The far simpler explanation is that although the body has died the organs within it remain alive for a while and in particular the sweat glands on the skin. 18g is about one mole of water vapour which would quite easily evaporate from a dead body after the heart has stopped. People who have had a cardiac arrest note the intense heating of their head in addition to the pain in their chest when the coolant circulation has failed. It isn't too surprising that after death some heat is dumped by evaporative cooling. There is nothing magical going on here no matter what some quack doctor in the early twentieth century may claim. But it is up to those who treat this as gospel truth to put their money where their mouth is and repeat the experiment under controlled conditions and supervised by a magician to prevent cheating. Uri Geller was far too easily able to trick scientists who tried to study his spoon bending and "psychic" abilities. Strangely he could never perform a trick that Randi couldn't replicate. As you say, debate is worthless... which begs the question, why do you insist that, in your view, it is even worth talking about? He is indulging in lazy sophistry to try and win the argument. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
#407
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
In article ,
says... On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 12:56:35 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote: On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel wrote: You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. That is quite natural when people like you are over exploiting this thin set of experimental data, claiming e.g. "this is PROOOOF that a human soul exists" when it's not that at all. I NEVER said it was proof. You are being dishonest. And you are conflating "soul" with "spirit" after I have explained the difference (a minor matter but indicative of your sloppiness). So then please clarify - what has a mass of about 3/8 ounces? The soul or the spirit? Even if that body did lose 3/8 of an ounce as the moment of death, how do you know that this weight loss is due to a soul leaving the body? I don't, of course, but you have NO evidence that it is anything else. Since I wan't present at that sole measurement you are right. I don't know what actually happened. However, there are other possibilities more plausible than the spirit proclaimed by Christianity. I suggested farting. Check out this movie, at 48m-52m: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PYUYqAkS0Y Perhaps that dying person just happened to fart at the moment of death and the sole other person present was too embarrassed to mention this? You misunderstand the physics involved in your speculation. There's no difference physically between a fart coming out of one end or a breath coming out the other end, except that breathing out is mostly CO2 whereas farts are mostly methane which has less mass/volume than air. FYI: a dead person does not breathe... Since no other person was present, there is no way to check this. A baseless speculation refuted by doing a few simple calculations. I have done this. Why didn't you before babbling nonsense? My nonsens is less than your nonsense about invisible entities having mass. Aren't "spirits" supposed to be immaterial? Anyway, suppose the spirit is material and has mass. What's the state of the spirit? Is it: 1. Solid? Fixed volume and fixed shape. 2. Liquid? Fixed volume but variable shape. 3. Gaseous? Variable volume and shape. 4. Plasma? Variable volume and shape and non-neutral electrical charge. What would your answer be? If the spirit has mass, it must have one of these states. So instead of complaining over this, why aren't you instead working for having this measurement thoroughly? Of course this carries the risk (from your viewpoint) that this measurement is refuted rather than confirmed - is that what you are afraid of? I did the work for air in the lungs a long time ago because this was something that would not be accounted for in MacDougall's experiments. But it turns out to be a trick question: There isn't any difference: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/...s_with_air_as/ However, since methane is lighter than air, you get heavier when you fart :-) Archimedes figured this out over two millenia ago. Suppose you have a balloon filled with methane. It floats up into the air, right? Now, empty the ballon. Does it fall to the ground or continue to float upwards? |
#409
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
In article ,
says... On 28/10/2018 09:52, Paul Schlyter wrote: In article , says... On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 12:56:35 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote: On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel wrote: You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. That is quite natural when people like you are over exploiting this thin set of experimental data, claiming e.g. "this is PROOOOF that a human soul exists" when it's not that at all. I NEVER said it was proof. You are being dishonest. And you are conflating "soul" with "spirit" after I have explained the difference (a minor matter but indicative of your sloppiness). So then please clarify - what has a mass of about 3/8 ounces? The soul or the spirit? Approximately 1 mole of water vapour which is probably about the amount that would be lost due to evaporative cooling of a still warm corpse when the heart stops pumping blood around the body. A much more plausible explanation. |
#410
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?
On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 11:20:06 PM UTC-6, palsing wrote:
On Friday, October 26, 2018 at 3:16:38 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote: You are a very wise person since debate is worthless. The only thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental data in existence is a bit thin. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the drum for an opposing position which has NO data. I find it very interesting that when thin data exists, in this particular case *you* prefer to accept it as though it were god's word. And it is interesting that you prefer to misstate by claim in order to draw a false conclusion. Thin data is still thin data, which makes it very suspect, if not outright dismissable, without the addition of additional input. And no data is still NO data. As you say, debate is worthless... which begs the question, why do you insist that, in your view, it is even worth talking about? I might ask YOU the same question :-) I am only answering your not-very-well-thought-out objections. Otherwise, there would be nothing more to say. Why should we draw any conclusion at all based on such meager and uncertain data? My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME evidence that there is? The correct scientific conclusion would be that more measurements are needed before any reasonable conclusion can be made. Agreed, but why have you come to the opposite conclusion with NO evidence? And even if other measurements confirmed that the human body loses a small amount of weight at the moment of death, how do you know that weight loss is due to a soul leaving the body? There could be some other explanation. "Could be?" is a weasel word. It "could be" that you are a solipsist. |
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