89
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 721:
Line 721: + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Talk:Essay:Quantifying Openmindedness (view source)
Revision as of 20:52, July 22, 2012
, 20:52, July 22, 2012→More answers: new section
Of the sixteen that I knew anything about I answered 'no' 12 and a half times or maybe 12 times, and 'yes' about three times. I don't know how I would mark the ones I didn't know anything about. Interesting test, though I don't think all the questions are particularly relevant.[[User:Cmurphynz|Cmurphynz]] 02:01, 25 June 2012 (EDT)
Of the sixteen that I knew anything about I answered 'no' 12 and a half times or maybe 12 times, and 'yes' about three times. I don't know how I would mark the ones I didn't know anything about. Interesting test, though I don't think all the questions are particularly relevant.[[User:Cmurphynz|Cmurphynz]] 02:01, 25 June 2012 (EDT)
== More answers ==
Here are my (JudyJ) answers to this test. I have added a few new questions, and expanded on a few others. These changes are in italics. The numbering is the same as in the original.
*1. Do you resist admitting the possibility that a [[conservative]] approach to education is far more effective for students than a [[liberal]] one?
*''1a. Do you resist admitting the possibility that a [[liberal]] approach to education is far more effective for students than a [[conservative]] one?''
::I don't accept either of these premises in their absolute form. Each side has something to contribute.
*2. If it were proven to your satisfaction that some idea you've been using to bolster a political argument was false, would you keep using that idea in your argument?
::Of course not.
*3. Do you resist admitting that something you accepted for over a decade is, in fact, completely false?
::Of course not.
*4. Do you resist the possibility that [[Hollywood values]] result in significant harm for those who believe in them, and to innocent bystanders?
::Assuming that, by "Hollywood values", you mean drug use, scandalous behavior, and a belief that the rules apply only to other people, of course such things harm the individuals involved and other people. People in show business are often associated with these attitudes, but they can be found everywhere.
*5. Do you think it is impossible that increased gun ownership reduces the rate of crime?
*''5a. Do you think it is impossible that decreased gun ownership reduces the rate of crime?''
*''5b. Do you think it is impossible that there is no significant correlation between gun ownership and crime rates?''
::Crime rates depend on many many things, as a study of historical crime rate statistics shows. If have seen comparisons of crime rates and gun ownership rates for a number of countries, and there is no conclusion that one can draw in either direction.
*6. When President [[Ronald Reagan]] told Mr. [[Gorbachev]] to tear down the Berlin Wall, would you have thought that it was politically impossible for the Berlin Wall to be torn down?
::Given that this is an event that actually happened, it isn't a good test of openmindedness. See my new question about Korea at the end.
*7. Did you think, or still think, that the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] ("Star Wars") is impossible?
::It's really a question of whether it would have been feasible. It is possible, but may well not have been economically reasonable.
*8. Do you think that it is impossible that the [[Shroud of Turin]] is authentic?
::I don't know.
*9. Do you think that there ''must'' be a purely material-based explanation (such as magnetism) for remarkable [[homing]] and [[migration]] behavior of birds and butterflies?
::I don't know, though my scientific sensibilities suggest that a scientific explanation will be found. This question appears to by attempting to elicit a response similar to the "intelligent design" position that some people take on biological evolution. I don't take such a position.
*10. Do you think that it is impossible for the speed of light to have been different in the past?
::It could have been, but it's confounded by things like the expansion of the universe. Same meter sticks? Same clocks? What does that even mean? We do know, from spectral lines of distant stars, that the properties of the universe have not changed significantly in its "recent" (say, 10 billion years) history.
*11. Do you think that it is impossible to measure openmindedness?
::I have no idea, really. I'm just going along with the hypothesis.
*12. Do you think that [[evolution]] ''must'' have occurred?
::Yes. To avoid filling this page with too much text, I have written an extensive essay on the subject on my [[User:JudyJ|user page]].
*13. Do you think that is impossible for the power of 2 in Newtonian gravity, whereby the gravitational force is proportional to 1/r<sup>2</sup>, to be more precise with an exponent that is slightly different from 2, such as a gravitational force proportional to 1/r<sup>2.00000001</sup>?
::This question is a little more complicated than meets the eye, since Newton's law was ''stated'' to be inverse square, so any deviation would not be Newton's law. Restating that as "would Newton's law, as modified to have an exponent of 2.00000001 (or whatever) better explain the universe? It would not. This theory was advanced by Asaph Hall and Simon Newcomb, with exponent 2.0000001574, in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, to explain the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury. ''It fails for the Moon and the other planets'', and was discarded shortly thereafter. I am not so openminded as to accept that it might nevertheless by correct.
*14. Do you resist admitting that some things taught to you in school are completely false, and even known to be false by some responsible for the material?
::Absolutely not. I could tell you some doozies from my 2<sup>nd</sup> grade teacher, and from my 8<sup>th</sup> grade science teacher. I do not know whether those teachers actually believed what they were saying.
*15. Do you deny that some widely required theories of science, such as the [[evolution|theory of evolution]], may actually impede the progress of science?<ref>
*[http://creation.com/back-problems-how-darwinism-misled Back problems: how Darwinism misled researchers]
*[http://creation.com/mueller-cells-backwardly-wired-retina-v-dawkins Backwardly wired retina “an optimal structure” New eye discovery further demolishes Dawkins]
*[http://creation.com/stuart-burgess-interview-biomimetics Biomimetics - Expert engineer eschews “evolutionary design”]
*[http://creation.com/design-features-questions-and-answers Biometrics - Examples of Scientists copying nature]
*[http://creation.com/cutting-out-a-useless-vestigial-argument Cutting out a useless vestigial argument]
*[http://creation.com/junk-dna-functions More nails in the coffin of ‘junk DNA’]
*[http://creation.com/lingering-death-junk-dna The lingering death of junk DNA]
*[http://creation.com/15-questions 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer]
*[http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/09/questions-for-evolutionists.html Questions for evolutions - Vox Day]</ref>
::It occasionally happens that some theories harm overall scientific knowledge. The Ptolemaic universe, "cold fusion", and various proposals relating to biology, medicine, genetics, and geology come to mind. But the problems seem to get straightened out by further study.
*16. Do you deny that the imposition of socialism and same-sex marriage on a nation could harm its competitiveness at international events like the Olympics?
::I know of no reason to believe there could be any correlation.
*17. Do you refuse to consider the possibility that "experts" may not have all the answers, and that the [[best of the public]] may have valuable insights to which experts are blind?
::Of course not.
*18. Do you think that if you read parts of the Bible years ago as a child, you can claim to "have read the Bible" and that you have no reason to read it regularly now?
::This seems to be a question of how one interprets the semantic meaning of "have read ...", rather than one of openmindedness about any factual matter. I believe that saying that one "has read" something should mean that one has read it in its entirety, or nearly so. In that sense, I have not read the Bible, though I have read many parts of it, on my own and in various Bible study classes in college and in my church.
*19. Do you believe that because the Earth's orbit and rotation are what they are now, they are guaranteed to remain stable for billions of years?
::Of course there are no guarantees; another star could totally disrupt the Solar system in then next few million years, but we have (at present) no way of predicting such things. I am aware that Young Earth Creationists sometime make exaggerated claims about the instability of the Earth's orbit, apparently in order to advance a claim that the orbit could not have been stable for more than a few thousand years. So I'll say that there is extremely good reason to believe that it has been stable for a few billion years, and will continue to be stable for a few billion more years. There is compelling geological and biological evidence that the Earth has been at roughly the same distance from a star with roughly the luminosity of the Sun for, say, 3 billion years. Also, extremely precise computer simulations<ref>https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:UasEK0r-uY8J:groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/keithw/Sussman-Wisdom.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESglombZ-xHvE-G9KSVHXBN-ZBdwKxZetIOnM5ATh6pL5QJsdj2ZfHrAYzrjVBr-6TPPKCfAazSBhixS04mA90GQ4e00385sQwu0U1qWCf26C4iKp515jvlSjPaa79fVF_pIKBI0&sig=AHIEtbTIS_9STbbpxZN5LDIIycucGuGKIw</ref> over a period of a few hundred million years into the future show that, while the Lyupanov time scale is only a few million years, the overall instability is quite small over that time frame.
''Here are a few questions that I have added. The one about Korea was added and discussed on the talk page, but was removed. I believe it is a better question than the one about the Berlin wall, because it refers to a situation whose outcome we do not know.''
*20. Do you deny the possibility that North and South Korea will someday be united, without a war?
::Absolutely not.
*21a. Do you deny the possibility that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe?
::Absolutely not.
*21b. Do you deny the possibility that ''no'' intelligent life exists anywhere else in the universe?
::Absolutely not.
*22a. Do you deny the possibility that special and general relativity are a substantially correct explanation for how the universe works at non-microscopic (not quantum scale) levels?
::Absolutely not.
*22b. Do you deny the possibility that relativity is ''not'' a correct explanation?
::I believe that future developments will eventually supplant the 20<sup>th</sup> century notion of special and general relativity. But I totally accept it as the correct scientific paradigm for its time, just as Newtonian mechanics was the correct scientific paradigm for its time.