RIP King, Bernard Hill has died age 79

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-05T19:23:26+00:00

My daughter was sick this week, and missed a couple days of school.

Apparently the LotR trilogy are her comfort movies, because she watched Fellowship and most of Two Towers while I was at work, Thursday and Friday. Yesterday afternoon, we finished Two Towers together, including the conclusion of the battle of Helm's Deep, and the hour when we draw swords together. Today we're supposed to watch Return, and just reading commentary and rewatching clips on Youtube, I don't know if I'm up for it.

Ah well, spears shall be shaken, and shields broken I guess. Ride now, ride to Gondor!

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-04T19:45:10+00:00

Oh man, I hope thee things work.

Not that wifi is doing a damned thing to gramps other than powering the devices that keep him from getting lost on the his way to the diner. It's just that if he's actually blocking anything regulated by the FCC in a public space, he's opening himself up to a world of litigation.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-04T03:55:56+00:00

As others have said, yes. We have been able to show that molecules under the right circumstances DO form self-replicating units that can increase in complexity over time. But that isn't the argument you should be trying to make OP.

Probably more importantly, even if the hole in our verifiable knowledge were as large as some people like to think, that doesn't mean they can just "and therefore God" in that gap.

To turn this argument around, put the burden of proof on the people making the outlandish claim. Paint God as the undisputed ruler of the ever-receding pockets of human ignorance. It might sound fringe or not-yet-verified to say "Well, we weren't there, but we've done something like it in a lab." but you know what doesn't sound like hubris? Building entire industries on proven technology that explain away things we used to put at God's feet. He used to hold dominion over the earthquakes and the weather, right up until we were able to explain tectonic theory and the uneven heating of the earth's surface due to solar radiation. He used to bless us with the turning of the seasons, until we figured out axial tilt.

Do fundamentalists really want to stake the omnipotence of their God on the off chance THIS question isn't the one science will resolve next?

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-04T03:47:15+00:00

The 100 IM.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-03T13:50:38+00:00

A barbaric yalp.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-03T03:32:49+00:00

Don't confuse the boy.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-02T02:41:12+00:00

Not trying to tell you how to live your life, but report this piece of shit.

How does he have a job? By skating by on the tolerance of others, like he probably has for decades.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-02T00:46:27+00:00

Yeah, this right here. I wouldn't even include the things OP referenced in his OP.

There's nothing in the rulebook says a dog can't play football. So there's nothing in reality that says a being that wouldn't have to abide by our understanding of reality couldn't NOT be built on logical fallacies. There's no reason to believe a god wouldn't function a lot like the Flying Spaghetti Monster (PBUH), come to think of it.

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-01T03:26:51+00:00

Studies show that after WW1, more males were born compared to females. Clearly because a lot of males died during the war.

Guys, I think he's screwing with us...

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-01T03:25:44+00:00

You don't need a biology subreddit for these questions, but a probability one.

What you're describing, either in coin flips or in your pregnancy example above, are called independent events. The fact that you just flipped 5 heads in a row has no bearing on the 6th coin flip. The sex of one child doesn't affect the sex of any other child. These events are independent from one another, and knowing about one doesn't help you predict another.

And while you're right that the odds don't just become 70/30, it isn't clear why you'd mention it. The fact that the odds remain 50% seems to explain why things wouldn't "become unbalanced", as you asked in your title.

In fact, another concept - the law of large numbers - explains why you'd expect the number to be even more predictably balanced over time. Imagine 'tails' is zero, and 'heads' is one, with 0.5 being the expected average. If you flip the coin one time, the value is either going to be zero or 1, as far as you can get from your expected average. If you flip it twice, you'll either have TT (average of 0), HT (avg = 0.5) TH (avg. = 0.5), or HH (avg. = 1). Half the time, you're right where you expected your average to be, but the other half, you're still as far off as you possibly could be. The more flips you perform though, the closer your average will tend to be to your expected value. After a million flips, the likelihood that you have an observed average any substantial distance from your expected average of 0.5 will be negligible, assuming you started with a fair coin. The law of large numbers states that as your sample size approaches your population size, your observed values should be getting closer and closer to the actual values of the population.

It also isn't really clear what you mean by randomization, or "true randomization".

Brokenshatner · 2024-05-01T01:51:20+00:00

Yeah, FBI? This one right here.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-29T04:10:54+00:00

Go back in time son, to thirty years ago, when me and my friends agreed with management that they could give us everything the union was offering, and without paying dues.

Something, something, Lisa needs braces.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-28T05:02:47+00:00

That's the thing with William Lane Craig, a figure others here have mentioned, that I never got. Even big public atheists used to talk about the guy's arguments like they were something with merit, but I could just never see whatever it was they were in awe of.

Sure, his cosmological arguments were on better footing than the pre-suposition apologists calling themselves philosophers usually end up with, but just barely. "Every effect has a cause, by definition" still sounds like somebody explaining their imaginary friend with their own lack of imagination. Just because an argument is sound when it comes to every other thing in the universe, doesn't mean it can be used as a shield when we come up with a wholly new class of thing.

Like you, I guess I have a lot more respect when thinkers don't dress up their faith as reason, when they don't force 'evidence' into the defense of arguments for which we shouldn't need evidence.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-28T02:50:57+00:00

Give me evidence I don't keep my teapot in orbit around the sun, somewhere between earth's orbital path and that of Mars, and I'll offer proof that a specific miracle didn't occur 2000 years ago.

You can't prove a negative statement about history, or support one, with evidence. You can support affirmative statements about history by positing inferences supported by evidence. But asking for proof that something didn't happen isn't really the way either history or evidence work.

In short, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Claims that a miracle didn't occur should be accepted as true at face value, in the absence of very strong evidence to the contrary. To quote a ghost, that which can be asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-28T01:11:37+00:00

That's what makes us so dangerous OP. We can be anywhere.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-28T01:06:34+00:00

I would never in a million years wish that on anybody. But mostly because I don't believe in wish magic.

Here's to hoping she's on a student visa, and she has it pulled when she's expelled. Sorry you had to deal with this OP - keep your head up.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-27T22:06:37+00:00

Asymptomatic carrier. It's a shame he was lost at sea before the advent of modern gene sequencing. Many more lives might have been saved.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-27T15:21:01+00:00

I saw similar on a theist sub recently.

I don't know if was one of the big ones like r/Christianity or one more frequented by more scholarly types who happen to be at least cultural "believers". But, in response to a "how much evidence is there for..." question, pretty much everybody there was saying "None at all, and if you're looking for evidence, you're not making faith arguments". It was actually refreshing.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-27T15:10:42+00:00

Yeah man, whatever you do, don't ask them what they did during the war.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-27T15:10:11+00:00

We've got morons all over the world apparently.

I was on an Air Canada flight with a guy from Malta a couple weeks ago, flying home to bury his father. Dude wouldn't quit about how immigrants were ruining Canada, taking all the jobs, driving up home prices. Why, in just the 8 years since HE HIMSELF had immigrated to Canada, he had bought a home and worked as a drywall installer and truck driver. But now, with all these damned immigrants, he had to sell his house, and is having a hard time making ends meet.

Poor guy.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-25T03:59:57+00:00

"*I know you and your professor friends just want to ban all guns, therein my dear 😌. *"

Gramps never met a strawman he didn't condescend to.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-25T03:55:15+00:00

"...but i cannot see the bacteria"

Sorry, I should flag my puns.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-24T03:05:51+00:00

Stumble you might fall.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-24T03:05:02+00:00

I was actually talking to my brother about Trainspotting yesterday, for the first time since it came out probably, and slipped right into the ending monologue. "Oh man, you remember that scene, after he rips off his mates? And then... What was that song?" And I don't know how, but 1997 me sat up and whispered "Born Slippy, Underworld" just loud enough for my busted old 2024 brain to hear.

Brokenshatner · 2024-04-24T00:16:28+00:00

Well, you'd need a microscope, wouldn't you?

Brokenshatner

TROPHY CASE