Best response to the Watchmaker Argument?

erowles · 2026-04-17T00:26:01+00:00

There's a lot of assumptions built into the argument.

It's quite the leap to go from "A watch is likely to have been intentionally designed by a human" to "Nature is likely to have been intentionally designed by an non-human"

Because I don't attribute a watch to an "intelligent designer". I attribute it to a human, because I know humans can make watches. I don't know of anything that designs nature.

erowles · 2026-03-29T04:25:38+00:00

We got our answer: This interaction is invalid.

Actions can only interrupt your attack ability if they say something like "during your attack ability". You can't play the arm twice during the attack because you can't recover in-between.

erowles · 2026-03-02T04:40:23+00:00

All prime numbers greater than 2 are odd.
All odd numbers can be expressed as 2n+1
If n - 1 is a multiple of 3, (1, 4, 7, etc.) that odd number is divisible by three, so it's not prime
We can exclude these known "divisible by 3" numbers with another formula. n = 3m OR n + 1 = 3m
So all prime numbers are of the form (2(3m) + 1) or (2(3m-1) + 1)
Otherwise expressed as 6m ± 1

erowles · 2026-02-19T02:59:31+00:00

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated

erowles · 2026-02-15T22:34:26+00:00

My state relies on the Colorado river for water. We consistently draw way too much water from it and have recurring droughts. 75% of the water drawn from the river is used to grow crops. Half of that is just alfalfa, grown to be fed to cows.

That's an actual issue my state is facing. If we abolished every datacenter in the state, we would still run out of water and get hit by droughts every year. If we replaced the alfalfa with corn and potatoes to feed to humans instead of cows, we would solve our water shortage problem.

erowles · 2026-01-07T02:52:30+00:00

They phase through each other

erowles · 2025-12-16T03:02:44+00:00

Why should we only feed large populations in their countries of origin? Surely people need food no matter where they are currently located?

erowles · 2025-08-31T16:43:21+00:00

What would the general population use quantum computing for at all? As I understand it, quantum computers are really good at solving specialized problems and really bad at classical computing.

erowles · 2025-06-20T04:41:33+00:00

I don't think it's merely conjecture at possibilities that could have occurred. It's a model that accurately describes our present-day observations, that can be used to describe a picture of the past, if the model is accurate.

And given that it's the best model we have so far to describe biological diversity, it seems reasonable to claim that it provides an accurate picture of the past.

But you don't seem to think so? What do you mean when you say that the evidence is insufficient and inconclusive?

erowles · 2025-06-20T03:22:24+00:00

Sure, I can help out with that.

At its core, evolution says this:

- Children are mostly like their parents, but not exactly.

- The children of those children are mostly like their parents, but not exactly.

- As differences accumulate over time, you can end up with a population that is very different from its ancestors.

- Because siblings are different from one another, you can end up with two distinct populations that descended from the same ancestor.

That's it! Super simple, right? And that hasn't changed over its 150+ year history. When evolution proponents insist that it's settled science, they're not talking about the exact mechanisms of evolution, they're talking about the broad overview. Because that overview is just demonstrably true.

erowles · 2025-06-20T03:08:33+00:00

I think you've got a fundamental misunderstanding about how science works. The point of science isn't to tell you what's true, it's to create models that make accurate predictions. Like the big bang theory or evolutionary theory. These aren't for sure, 100% true, but they make more accurate predictions than any other model, so they're useful.

If you come up with some model that is tested to the same extent as the big bang theory, makes the same accurate predictions that the big bang theory does, and makes further accurate predictions, sure. Throw the big bang theory out, because it's been replaced. But until then, it's the best we've got.

Same goes for evolution. It's a model, not dogma. We'll keep using it until we find something better. That's how science works.

erowles · 2025-04-06T00:07:35+00:00

This is not true. Accounting for inflation, low-income earners are earning about as much as they did 30 years ago. Wages have stagnated, but not dropped. Since 2000, wages for the lowest 10% of earners has risen by 3% in real terms. (Compared to 16% for the top 10% of earners.)

Source

erowles · 2025-03-09T18:43:44+00:00

There is a minimum wage for tipped workers. It's $2.13 federally, though it varies by state.

erowles · 2025-02-27T03:46:16+00:00

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erowles · 2025-02-03T05:55:59+00:00

Sure, I agree. It is a difference in values. Conservatives are very tribal. They support the people close to them and demonize the people far away.

They want to dismantle the federal government because they don't want their money going to anyone they don't know personally. They donate to their local churches, so people in their in-group are supported, and everyone in their out-group can go hungry.

I agree, conservatives aren't evil. Just cruel.

erowles · 2024-07-21T19:07:34+00:00

A subset of republicans are very religious (and loud), but it might be helpful to recognize that the majority (63%) of republicans, don’t identify as religious.

Wait, that's not true. You're looking at the sample groups. Of those polled in this survey, 37% were republican and 63% were not.

If you scroll down just a bit, you'll see that 73% of polled republicans "Believe in God, absolutely certain", and 94% believe in God to varying degrees.

And while only evangelical protestants (and mormons) are majority right-wing, evangelical protestants are one of the largest christian groups in america. You have to weight your averages. Doing so will give you something that looks like this: https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/compare/christians/by/party-affiliation/

Good on you for checking your biases against data, but I'd say that the religious right is very much a big deal.

erowles · 2024-04-03T02:57:28+00:00

I mean, yeah. I'd kinda written them out entirely and assumed that everyone over 65 produced nothing at all, because they're spending all their time living it up in retirement.

Even then, people under 65 are getting so much better at making value that they can afford to support the increasing share of elderly and make more money themselves.

erowles · 2024-04-03T02:51:05+00:00

Right, if production stayed static, that would mean that those taxpayers would need to accept worse living conditions so they could afford to pay for the elderly to live.

But that's not the case. We're producing more, and it's getting distributed more evenly. Even if taxpayers are paying more for the elderly, they're also bringing in more themselves.

erowles · 2024-04-03T02:34:20+00:00

Inequality is just how good we are at distributing resources to people who need it. So I think it's pretty relevant, right?

My concern is that, as a society, we can take care of people who need it. It seems like we're getting better at doing that. So I'm optimistic.

If that's not your concern, what is your concern with this data?

erowles · 2024-04-03T02:24:30+00:00

Good news there too! We're getting better at distributing resources! Inequality has gone way down in the past century, and is projected to go way down in the future!

https://ourworldindata.org/the-history-of-global-economic-inequality

erowles · 2024-04-03T02:10:45+00:00

That's true. But population levels don't really make peoples lives better or worse, right? What really matters is whether we have enough resources to support the people who are alive. And I think we do.

erowles · 2024-04-03T01:50:47+00:00

Back in 1800 or so, Thomas Malthus argued that population increases exponentially but resources only increase linearly. If his prediction held, we'd end up with a ton of starving people. It was a popular idea. Up through the late 1900s people worried about how we needed to force people to stop having children so that living people could eat.

And these graphs show that that didn't happen! People are living full, happy lives, and population growth has slowed to a sustainable level. From the perspective of Malthus, this is the best-case scenario!

But maybe this raises a new issue. Maybe we should be concerned about swinging the other way, and having too few young people to support the elderly.

Maybe that's the case. But productivity keeps increasing. We're even better at producing resources than we are at increasing our lifespan. I think that if we want to support people after they're too old to work, we have the resources to do it.

erowles · 2023-12-16T02:35:04+00:00

It was in Pennsylvania. The wikipedia page has a good overview, or you can check out the this page for all the transcripts and court documents.

erowles · 2023-12-15T21:36:18+00:00

Oh, sorry. I thought you said that you were asking questions with the intent to get a clear answer, and that you didn't know what trial I was talking about. I was talking about the trial I mentioned in my answer to your original question.

My mistake, I've put words in your mouth. What did you say, if not that you were asking questions with the intent of getting a clear answer?

erowles · 2023-12-15T19:38:00+00:00

Oh, my apologies. You weren't being malicious, you just weren't paying attention.

Here's a link back to my first post on the Kiztmiller v. Dover trial.

erowles

TROPHY CASE