# Skeptic, believer or .... ?



## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

At some risk, I have decided to broach the subject of skepticism. After having read a recent thread about ghosts, UFOs and such, I'm quite curious to know as to what extent skeptical / scientific mindsets populate AAAC.

I realise that these types of subjects can be a bit devisive, and in no way wish to incite some sort of flamewar. I am genuinely curious as to what the prevailing mindset might be.

As for me, count me in as a strong skeptic. I come from a technical / engineering background and use the scientific method in my approach to interacting with the world as much as possible. It works for me.

Where do others in the AAAC universe sit?


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## m kielty (Dec 22, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by eleccon_
> 
> At some risk, I have decided to broach the subject of skepticism. After having read a recent thread about ghosts, UFOs and such, I'm quite curious to know as to what extent skeptical / scientific mindsets populate AAAC.
> 
> ...


I put the skeptic in the same bag as I put the true believer.
It appears that even with the great knowledge that we claim to possess as a civilization we have only a meager mavigational construct to guide us through the actuality that we sense surrounds us.
Those who search for the paranormal and the miraculous fail to see the miracle that we already inhabit. Those that deny what may yet be possible fail to consider the limits of our perception.
My advice to myself is to keep an open mind but not let birds build a nest in it.

mk


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I can only echo the above. My academic background in archaeology gives me the mental discipline of asking the whys? along with the open heart of a mystic. Skeptisism is such an exclusionary concept. In any case if a UFO did land odds are it's a diety from some culture I've appreciated and I'll know the basic courtesies. Joseph Campbell told the story of a young man "asking if he knew God." Campbell replied " Thousands of them, but I think I know the one you mean." You use a methodology because " It works for me." An aborigine elder explaining the cosmos to a young initiate at a koorabie is using one just as functional.


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## mpcsb (Jan 1, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> ...Skeptisism is such an exclusionary concept...


I generally find believers to be very exclusionary as well. Where do non-believers fit into this? Skeptics, to my mind, at least give the impression that if proof were offered they would believe, proof at least being possible. Non-believers, such as myself, don't even think proof exists. Hmmmmm


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## ChubbyTiger (Mar 10, 2005)

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who do not believe, none is possible.

For all the fact the I'm a scientist, of maybe because of it, I don't believe that I know everything or that everything is knowable. As m kielty mentioned, I fine True Believers a little annoying. Even True Believers in science. I just don't think that we, as a race, are nearly good enough to really figure it all out. Thus, while I may be skeptical at times, I'm no skeptic. 

CT


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## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

After all is said, done, and read, it seems that the relationship our minds have to physical reality is a tricky one at best.

At present, our two best physical models seem to say, (amongst many other things) that:
-- Predictability breaks down at very small scales. There is a nonzero probability that even the most outlandish outcomes are indeed possible. Things are not 'decided' until we observe or measure them. In fact, there is a well known experiment that produces two distinct outcomes, dependent upon whether we are observing at the time. Other experiments indicate that some sort of simultaneous 'action at a distance' between particles occurs. Weird, counter-intuitive stuff.
-- There is no absolutely correct reference point in time or space. It all depends where you are relative to something else, and at what speed. Under sufficient velocities strange (to our everyday experience) things occur. These effects have been measured many times experimentally.
-- The notion we have that time is flowing is very probably false. It is treated by physicists as a real dimension in our present understanding of relativistic spacetime, but within a concept known as 'block time'. A reasonable argument could be made that all things that have happened and will happen are already 'there' in some sense, and the present is just the expression of energy and entropy. This of course opens the door for all kinds of juicy philosophical conjectures and constructs...the concept of 'free will' not the least amongst them...

Add this to the (well-reasoned) idea that absolute proof is not possible, our senses and info-gathering devices are always limited, shake vigourously, and one could easily conclude that _We Don't Know Jack_, thus one system of beliefs is as good as another. All well and good for some, and I totally respect that.

From my perspective, though, the scientific method has provided a way forward for us. The most effective way we know of to organise, test and use information and systems of thought. In its best form, a self-correcting, impersonal set of precepts which allow only the best data and methods into general use and acceptance.

This is where my belief, not faith, is placed. A bit of faith can't hurt, but I understand it to mean a belief in something in the absence of any reliable data. The ultimate origins of anything are still the domain of anyone's guess or belief, but it's been science, not the supernatural, which affords us the means to create our modern world.

My $0.02.

--AE


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## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

A clarification here. I don't wish to give the impression that I'm a rigid True Believer in anything. A common stereotype of the skeptic seems to be some sort of angry, pinch-lipped debunker type...perhaps that word in the thread's title has set the wrong tone?

I do wish to say that science is my minds filter as much as possible....that I use Occam's Razor with a certain amount of frequency. That the burden of proof is on the claimant, and that (especially) anecdotal evidence or arguments from authority are highly suspect.

However, I agree with someone (Carl Sagan?) who once said something akin to "I keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out." Show me good evidence, and I'm willing to seriously examine or change my position on virtually anything.

There, that's better.

--AE


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## globetrotter (Dec 30, 2004)

I read a great book by michael criton a few years ago, called "travels". non fiction. it is basically the story of some interesting parts of his life, with a good part involved with his belief in the supernatural. he believes very strongly. he is a harvard trained doctor, and an amatur scientist. I am assuming that he understands scientific method and is pretty bright. 

my feeling is that it might be, or it might not be - god, ghosts, ufos. I am not emmotionally invested enough to put the effort into really figuring out if any are true or not. they dont get involved in my life, and I stay out of theirs.


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## Lord Foppington (Feb 1, 2005)

I'm a "skeptic" in a commonly used sense of the term. That is, I believe you need reasons for what you believe, the reasons have to be reasonable, blah blah, etc., that "well, we can't really know for sure whether X exists, it might" (X being God, or flying hippos on the dark side of Mars, whatever) doesn't count as a reason to believe something is true or could be true.

But I'm not an old-fashioned epistemological skeptic, who doubts the existence of the external world, of other minds, or the reasonableness of reason. That type of skeptic may never be finally answerable, but it's a game that has grown old and isn't very compelling any more.

Stap my vitals!


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## m kielty (Dec 22, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by eleccon_
> 
> After all is said, done, and read, it seems that the relationship our minds have to physical reality is a tricky one at best.
> 
> ...


Forgive me in advance as I wade in over my head.

I consider the scientist to be in the wheelhouse of our ship of knowledge.
There seems to be an actuality,a consensual reality and an empirical reality. I believe it is the empirical realty that you are speaking of.
It is the empirical realty that has led us out of the darkness of superstition and ignorance that dragged down previous civilizations.

Time flow is like a symphony. It's illusionary movement created by the seamless merging of disparate but apparently harmonius elements.Yet the symphony is not "moving".
I've never been in the past or the future only the present.I've stood still as new elements appear and dissolve around me like the music produced by the instruments of the orchestra.
Those that suspend disbelief hear the music, see the future and believe in the past.
I prefer to be selective in my application of suspending disbelief.

Some of the problems that arise,come from the aforesaid wheelhouse,where the Captain takes empirical knowledge and creates a static dogma that leads to being asleep at the wheel when sailing through the icefields.
I take issue that" a bit of faith can't hurt".Any faithful belief is two steps back.
It is the faithful that are now attacking the citadels of science.
The only scientists I've known had no faith at all but had a rigid adherence to( not a belief in) the empirical truth,
a neccesary sacrifice?
If I were to suspend disbelief and "gaze" into the future,what would I see?
Perhaps,the skeptics and the true believers rolling about,like Godzilla and Mothra, locked in mortal combat ,destroying everything that surrounds them, while the rest of us try to find a quiet place to sip our morning coffee in peace.

mk


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## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

M Kielty

You owe me a new keyboard for that last sentence....and I now have a headache from laughing so hard at that visual....

Thank goodness I'm alone in my office.


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## pendennis (Oct 6, 2005)

I've found myself being skeptical, but in the more traditional sense, and not in the literal sense.

When "Star Trek" came on the scene in the mid-1960's, I was fascinated by the concepts of faster-than-light travel, and "transporting" individuals. Now that I've read more of the writings of scientists such as Farraday, Einstein, Hubble, Heisenberg, Sagan, and others, I remain as fascinated, but I'm also acutely aware of the limitations which must be overcome to make some of these things happen.

When one reads of Heisinberg's theories, one realizes that transporter mechanisms are still a long way off. In simplest terms, Heisenberg posited that the more accurately one tried to measure things, the less accuate the measurement would be. He also posited that mere observation of a phenomenom changed the phenomenom itself.

When I was in high school in the early-1960's, it was fascinating to learn the basics of chemistry and physics. However, it also has created a life-long interest in learning what was smaller than the proton, electron, and neutron. How was it all held together?

I believe my inate skepticism is more about a "show me" attitude, than it is "you can never convince me". I'm amazed constantly by the ever-growing knowledge base we are accumulating. For instance, a small item ran on "Yahoo" that mentioned that physicists and astronomers had measured the speed of gravity (it's the same as the speed of light). What good this is in the near term is unknown, but I'm glad that this is now a known fact.

Another item recently ran that now propounds that light, while moving at a fixed limit, may have components that move faster and slower than the composite speed of light. So much for an absolute speed of light.

From 1968, in less than ten years, we went from room-sized computers to personal-sized computers. Does anyone think that nano-sized computers are not possible, much less feasible?

Dennis
If you wish to control the future, then create it.
Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae


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## Lord Foppington (Feb 1, 2005)

It's funny how these categories can get mixed up. A lot of religious people now are skeptical in the classic sense of the word. They say things like: "well, you never can really be certain of anything, can you? So how can you be certain there's no God?" Or more positively: "Reason and evidence can only take you so far--they're deeply flawed ways of getting at the truth--so we need a higher form of access to truth, faith, to tell us what we need to know." (There is in fact a very long intellectual pedigree of using skepticism toward reason and evidence as justification for religious faith, going back to the Renaissance.)

In such arguments, the scientists are cast as the dogmatic (anti-skeptical) ones, and accused (falsely) of claiming unjustified certain knowledge.

This reversal is kind of like the current right-wing strategy of accusing the left of being a bunch of postmodern relativists...and then defending intelligent design over evolution by saying "hey, they're both just theories."


Stap my vitals!


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## Gong Tao Jai (Jul 7, 2005)

You can count me as a skeptic, following Eleccon's definition. I am prepared to believe anything, given convincing evidence. With subjects such as UFOs, ESP, and the like I have not found the evidence very convincing.


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## J. Homely (Feb 7, 2006)

I'm neither a skeptic nor a believer -- I use whatever ideas work for me at a particular point in time. They don't have to be 'true', except in the sense that they serve my purpose, forward my objectives, enhance my understanding of something that's important to me for whatever reason. So I guess I'm a pragmatist. There are instances where it's of practical value for people to agree on certain 'truths', but even in those instances, it's often not necessary that those truths be verifiable in any objective sense.


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## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

Fascinating, *J.Homely*.

I was once close to a person who embodied those traits. She was a superbly facile individual who achieved much more than her background would indicate, and went on to tremendous success, even beyond her ambitious expectations. I certainly have to agree that it is an effective paradigm. There was much to be learned in the 'bottom line' attitude she had.

She never invested any real thought or effort into understanding things any more deeply than necessary. It certainly worked for her...I just never could supress my curiosity enough to truly adopt it.


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## Fogey (Aug 27, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by globetrotter_
> 
> I read a great book by michael criton a few years ago, called "travels". non fiction. it is basically the story of some interesting parts of his life, with a good part involved with his belief in the supernatural. he believes very strongly. he is a harvard trained doctor, and an amatur scientist. I am assuming that he understands scientific method and is pretty bright.


Isn't this the same man who says that global warming is a myth?


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## pendennis (Oct 6, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by JLPWCXIII_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Without straying too far from the main thread, Dr. Crichton presents a very well-researched effort in his book "State Of Fear". His citings represent an in-depth look at the so-called science behind the global warming theory, and the fact that there are an equal, or greater number of credible scientists whose research shows that global warming does not exist. The proponents, such as those signing the Kyoto Protocol, frequently use alarmist theories to put forward their agenda, which is frequently a socialist view of the world. Compliance would be forced on first and second world countries, while third world countries with emerging economies would be exempt. Those emerging countries are the ones which are the most egregious polluters.

While there were about 1,700 scientists who signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, there were more than twelve times as many who stated that the numbers used to prove the point were either fabricated or exaggerated.

Dennis
If you wish to control the future, then create it.
Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae


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## ChubbyTiger (Mar 10, 2005)

> quote:The only scientists I've known had no faith at all but had a rigid adherence to( not a belief in) the empirical truth,
> a neccesary sacrifice?


Well, count me out of that. The empirical truth is nice and all, but it won't keep you warm at night. We would like for everything to make sense, in a mathmatical sort of way, but it simply doesn't always work like that. We were sure that the earth was flat, then it was round but was orbited by the sun. Then we went round the sun. Newtonian physics was the answer, then Einstein came along and screwed that one up. Matter and energy, time and space, were different and orthogonal. Now they're intimatly intertwined. Now, we have dark matter and we're wondering if the kinetic energy of gluons is really the root of mass. Our blood sort of sloshed around, then our liver did something to it, then our heart. Now we wonder why so much of our DNA doesn't seem to do anything. Oh, and why exactly have humans evolved to tolerate ethanol so well (which isn't present in any fresh food)?

We, scientists, like to think that we have the answers. We don't. We just see the questions really well. Our understanding of the universe, and our place in it, is constantly evolving. I have to believe that 90% of my current understanding of the world is BS, just like 90% of Aristoltle's understanding was crap. The limit of knowledge and wisdom, which human kind may never reach, is God.

CT

PS And this is after half a bottle of a nice Reisling. Now that's something I can believe in.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I assume those silent majority scientists won't mind if we feed their grandchildren to the captive zoo bred polar bears who survive their specie's extinction in the wild.


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## ChubbyTiger (Mar 10, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> 
> I assume those silent majority scientists won't mind if we feed their grandchildren to the captive zoo bred polar bears who survive their specie's extinction in the wild.


I don't think a majority of scientists believe that there isn't global warming, but there is a sizable group who do not believe that it is due to human influence. There's a difference. Regardless, the media will insure that nobody ever hears from a non-crackpot scientist who disagrees with the current dogma. Bah.

CT


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## J. Homely (Feb 7, 2006)

> quote:_Originally posted by eleccon_
> 
> Fascinating, *J.Homely*.
> 
> ...


The sort of pragmatism I refer to doesn't preclude a healthy intellectual curiosity. Why would you think so? In fact, those who think there is "AN answer" to everything are often the most UNcurious. But then again, if they do no harm to others, what care I?


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

"Scientists with an agenda, frequently socialist" Well gee, drag out the old McCarthy red scare tactic. We must therefore assume the claimed 12 to 1 majority are altuistic men of letters without their own agendas? By what criteria do we measure the appelation scientist anyway? Is a chemist working for Dow Chemical as qualified to comment on the decades long research by a climatologist tasked with the issue by no less than president Ronald Reagan? Now certainly theres a socialist. Must I bow to 12 archaeologists from Brigham Young who agree the pre columbian pyramids of Guatamala and Machu Pichu of Peru are merely temples and fortifications of the lost tribes of Israel? The argument of numbers is no more than Rudyard Kipling's "rule of the Bandar Log.' People of power today are in for a rude repeat of history. Mother Nature won't always warn us by wiping out cities with predominately poor black americans.But then a goodly portion of our fundamentalist zealots in power believe in armageddon and embrace it's theology. It doesn't matter much if your a jihadist with a rhinoceros horn dagger or a corporte greedhead clearcutting redwoods.


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## pendennis (Oct 6, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> 
> "Scientists with an agenda, frequently socialist" Well gee, drag out the old McCarthy red scare tactic. We must therefore assume the claimed 12 to 1 majority are altuistic men of letters without their own agendas? By what criteria do we measure the appelation scientist anyway? Is a chemist working for Dow Chemical as qualified to comment on the decades long research by a climatologist tasked with the issue by no less than president Ronald Reagan? Now certainly theres a socialist. Must I bow to 12 archaeologists from Brigham Young who agree the pre columbian pyramids of Guatamala and Machu Pichu of Peru are merely temples and fortifications of the lost tribes of Israel? The argument of numbers is no more than Rudyard Kipling's "rule of the Bandar Log.' People of power today are in for a rude repeat of history. Mother Nature won't always warn us by wiping out cities with predominately poor black americans.But then a goodly portion of our fundamentalist zealots in power believe in armageddon and embrace it's theology. It doesn't matter much if your a jihadist with a rhinoceros horn dagger or a corporte greedhead clearcutting redwoods.


McCarthy was correct. The State Department was infested with Communists, as were other branches of the U.S. Government. He was just the wrong messenger.

So, the 1,700 scientists who signed on to the Kyoto Protocol were "altuistic men of letters without their own agendas"? Does working for Dow Chemical make one less qualified than the "climatologist tasked with the issue by no less than president Ronald Reagan"?

None other than the "greedhead" corporate lumber companies, were the first to realize that clear cutting was not the answer. They've replaced far more timber than has ever been cut.

As with any computer model, which is what climatologists use to make their predicitions, they are rife with assumptions which may have little or no relationship to what is really happening. These models, which are necessarily limited by the size of the computer on which the modelling programs are run. Therefore, the input is necessarily limited. Depending on what the program is to achieve, input is discriminatory.

Maybe the pre-Columbian pyramids of Mexico and Central America were
"merely temples and fortifications of the lost tribes of Israel". I wasn't there when they were built, and probably neither were you. We only know what was based on what we know now. There was no written record kept. Archaelogists work with the hand they were dealt, and their results are always subject to interpretation of the same data by others.

It is also assumed that dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite 65 million years ago. Now, there is growing evidence that they were already becoming extinct when the meteorite hit.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, only because New Orleans was in its path. As with any weather phenomena, storms follow paths determined by certain pressure gradients, prevailing surface winds, and high altitute winds. Hurricanes have been hitting the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts since the end of the last ice age. People who live where hurricanes strike should not be surprised when they are hit sometime between August and October each year.

Politics plays a huge role in science. Don't be so naive to believe that politics only comes into play when the results aren't what you want to believe.

Dennis
If you wish to control the future, then create it.
Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Have you ever looked at a forestry map from the past few centuries and the present? It was said a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi without touching ground. We have 3% of the original redwoods standing, 2% are in private holdings and are being clearcut. Planting what lumbermen call 'peckerpoles' to be cut in two years for 2x4s has indeed resulted in a gross board foot increase, and ask a carpenter from a tradition of carpentry about that timber's quality. This does not replace old growth forests which act as 'carbon sinks'to store CO2 over vast controlled time periods, watersheds to prevent Filipino villages from being wiped out by mudflows or return fresh water into the biosphere. Nor do sterile monoculture treefarms replace complex systems that support biodiversity. And lastly, they certainly do not support republican voting, flag decal on hardhat working lumbermen. If it did, pray explain why our good stewards of the land have shipped all the larger equippment to Sierra Madre Mexico and the Russian Federation?


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## pendennis (Oct 6, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> 
> Have you ever looked at a forestry map from the past few centuries and the present? It was said a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi without touching ground. We have 3% of the original redwoods standing, 2% are in private holdings and are being clearcut. Planting what lumbermen call 'peckerpoles' to be cut in two years for 2x4s has indeed resulted in a gross board foot increase, and ask a carpenter from a tradition of carpentry about that timber's quality. This does not replace old growth forests which act as 'carbon sinks'to store CO2 over vast controlled time periods, watersheds to prevent Filipino villages from being wiped out by mudflows or return fresh water into the biosphere. Nor do sterile monoculture treefarms replace complex systems that support biodiversity. And lastly, they certainly do not support republican voting, flag decal on hardhat working lumbermen. If it did, pray explain why our good stewards of the land have shipped all the larger equippment to Sierra Madre Mexico and the Russian Federation?


Right now, there is more acreage devoted to trees, than there was in 1776. With nearly 300 million people in the United States, we still only occupy about five percent of the land.

If you believe that lumber will always be used for housing, look at the cost of metal studs compared to 2x4 wood. Wood may very well be on its way out as a building material.

Indians, those great aboriginal stewards of the earth, used forest fires to help control hunting and farming. Man has always used whatever means necessary to insure his survival.

Mud flows, such as those occurring in third world countries, are almost always attributable to engineering disasters, perpetrated by those who don't have an understanding of hydraulics, and other engineering principles.

As with all economic movement, it relates to reducing labor costs. It's far easier to reduce labor costs than that of materials. That's why jobs move from country to country, and probably has a great deal to do with labor rates in Mexico and Russia, and not the quality of the timber.

Dennis
If you wish to control the future, then create it.
Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Thankyou for the appropriate technology, human ecological modification impacts and the inferiority of third world peoples to understand basic engineering lesson. Somehow in my 6 years of study in archaeology I missed those salient points.I would take issue with the Rousseau Noble Savage concept of indians being great stewards of the land. Would you care to visit a cliff stampede site with several hundred unbutchered buffalo remains? Or how about the Chaco Canyon complex where excess population density for the intricate ( third world engineering) irrigation system and a extended drought led to social collapse and a period of warfare and living in cliff dwellings? As to controlled burning,where? the grasslands or coastal chapparrel? Sorry, those are allready fire ecology zones, people or no people. I suppose terraced rice paddys, The largest religous structure in the world ( Angkor Wat, Cambodia) and just simply living for millenia without mudslides mean nothing if you don't build massive mudflow coffers after foriegn timber companies strip the forests. If you haven't noticed, those Philipine jungles where John Wayne and other republican war heros hid out are largely tossed out japanese chopsticks now.Again, our timber barons are merely moving on as the industry has since day one. That they are going over national borders has utterly nothing to do with labour costs. It's called exausted old growth timber. If we have more board feet today why has the machinery dedicated to larger trees been shipped overseas? Again, we have sterile, monoculture tree farms devoid of the complex floral and fauna populations of a living system, planted in nice straight lines and harvested in nice mass cuttings. That is NOT a forest. Thats a cornfield.


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## Nantucket Red (Jan 26, 2006)

I'm neither a believer nor a skeptic. I simply do not care about ghosts or flying saucers (a.k.a. UFOs). I feel no compulsion to give elaborate and high-minded justifications. Quite simply, if these things have no practical value to me and I cannot use them to make money, I have no reason to be interested. My life is full of much more interesting and relevant objects for my attention.

-------------------------------------------------
God gave us women; the Devil gave them corsets.
- French proverb


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## eleccon (Oct 15, 2005)

J.Homely,

I see no conflict at all in being both curious and pragmatic in whatever ratio one chooses. In practical use though, I find it pays to keep that ratio a dynamic one. For instance, I might enjoy entertaining certain intellectual flights of fancy on my own time....but I invest very little curiosity or passion in my business decisions.

After all, one makes no profit contemplating the nature of it all...at least during business hours.


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## J. Homely (Feb 7, 2006)

> quote:_Originally posted by eleccon_
> 
> J.Homely,
> 
> I see no conflict at all in being both curious and pragmatic in whatever ratio one chooses. In practical use though, I find it pays to keep that ratio a dynamic one. For instance, I might enjoy entertaining certain intellectual flights of fancy on my own time....but I invest very little curiosity or passion in my business decisions.


Ah, I mistook your original meaning then.



> quote:_Originally posted by eleccon_
> 
> After all, one makes no profit contemplating the nature of it all...at least during business hours.


True enough... though you never know when deep contemplation may inspire a creatively profitable solution to a practical problem! (Ha! Try selling that one to a client when your bill includes a line item for "reflective contemplation on the nature of being".) []


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## mokita (Feb 9, 2006)

> quote:_Originally posted by Lord Foppington_
> 
> I'm a "skeptic" in a commonly used sense of the term. That is, I believe you need reasons for what you believe, the reasons have to be reasonable, blah blah, etc., that "well, we can't really know for sure whether X exists, it might" (X being God, or flying hippos on the dark side of Mars, whatever) doesn't count as a reason to believe something is true or could be true.


I agree. Being a skeptic is not the same as refusing to have an open mind; it is simply the expectation of rationality. An assertion must be backed up by something substantial (repeatable observation, measurement, logical inference from verifiable facts, etc.).


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