Divining Rods and DCP

[_Themis]

Maybe it is just me, but the fact that he likes the Alps and has been to Costa Rica would seem to shed little light on the issue at hand.

DrW doesn't know, and, more significantly, doesn't care to understand, why those facts are relevant. He is, as I suggested (but did not explain in detail), essentially ignorant of my intellectual biography. Yet he confidently pronounces on my allegedly "dim view of science and scientists." And I'm supposed to regard him as a serious conversation partner?

No one needs to know in order to discuss these issues. I doubt I am the only one who is noticing as soon as he brought up an interesting discussion of rational empiricism that you are now finding excuses to not engage in the discussion.

[_Corpsegrinder]

Dan wrote:

If you're going to throw Scratch-like nonsense like that at me, why don't you at least go for something more plausible? You could, for example, accuse me of being the second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dallas, or demand that I account for my whereabouts on the day AIDS was invented in a CIA laboratory, or something of that sort.

Wow, you really do whine an awful lot.

A bullet fired from the grassy knoll would have passed through the windscreen of JFK’s limousine. No bullet hole in the windscreen equals no shot from the grassy knoll, so I guess you’re off the hook as far as JFK is concerned.

However, it’s clear that you do indeed take a dim view of scientists who wish to test the Church’s claims of divinity in a rigorous and scientific manner. Conversely, you are friendlier toward scientists who are willing to exempt the Church’s fantastical claims from the requirements of proof--such as those who contribute to Mormon Scholars Testify.

Mormon Scholars Testify may indeed include the testimonies of many scientists, but as far as their testimonies are concerned they are most definitely not speaking as scientists. In as much as they purport to speak as scientists when they bear their testimonies they are, in effect, misrepresenting the principals of their profession.

And that’s why Mormon Scholars Testify is generally less creditable than, say, 9/11 Scholars for Truth.

[_Morley]

You confuse scientism with science. They're not the same thing.

"When someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'." --Daniel Dennett

[_Daniel Peterson]

The responses here illustrate pretty well why I don't judge this a serious place for discussion.

But, by the way, it's true: When Daniel Dennett speaks, the thinking has been done.

[Guest]

"When someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'." --Daniel Dennett

Bullseye!

But, by the way, it's true: When Daniel Dennett speaks, the thinking has been done.

Can the same be said for when Daniel C. Peterson has spoken?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Bullseye!

Well, "bull" something, anyway.

Close enough for this gullible and uncritical place.

[_DrW]

Maybe it is just me, but the fact that he likes the Alps and has been to Costa Rica would seem to shed little light on the issue at hand.

DrW doesn't know, and, more significantly, doesn't care to understand, why those facts are relevant. He is, as I suggested (but did not explain in detail), essentially ignorant of my intellectual biography. Yet he confidently pronounces on my allegedly "dim view of science and scientists." And I'm supposed to regard him as a serious conversation partner?

Dr. Peterson,

I can assure you that I care at least about your academic interests, philosophy of life and worldwide travels as you care about mine. And I am also pretty confident that I have spent more time learning about you than you have spent learning about me.

What does any of this have to do with whether or not you explain the reasoning behind your calling yourself a rational empiricist?

[_Corpsegrinder]

Well, "bull" something, anyway.

Close enough for this gullible and uncritical place.

As opposed to the gullible and uncritical place known as Temple Square?

[_Daniel Peterson]

I can assure you that I care at least about your academic interests, philosophy of life and worldwide travels as you care about mine. And I am also pretty confident that I have spent more time learning about you than you have spent learning about me.

But you still don't know enough to have anything intelligent to say about my attitude toward science and scientists.

Yet you, the passionate lover of facts, the devotee of empirical data, have presumed to pronounce on my supposedly "dim view of science and scientists."

I, by contrast, have said nothing comparable about your attitude toward, say, historical scholarship or the arts. Why? Very largely because I, the supposed enemy of empirical fact, have no relevant information upon which to form an opinion. (I also have utterly no interest, but that's a separate matter.)

What does any of this have to do with whether or not you explain the reasoning behind your calling yourself a rational empiricist?

Absolutely nothing. I have no interest in conversing with you, not because I nearly went to Caltech as an undergraduate or spent time at the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica or entered BYU as a mathematics major with a life-sized photo of Albert Einstein on my dorm room wall, but because I don't find you intellectually serious on the issues you say you want to discuss. You're dogmatic, ill-informed, and prone to sloppy, self-serving distortions.

You wanted to know.

[_Buffalo]

The responses here illustrate pretty well why I don't judge this a serious place for discussion.

But, by the way, it's true: When Daniel Dennett speaks, the thinking has been done.

That really doesn't hold water. And it seems awfully convenient. If you're going to post here, post here. You know what I mean?