Response to Ashley Smith — Part IV

Her first email read like this:

“You are grossly uninformed and uneducated on this topic:

There is NO SUCH THING as “THE Scientific Method.” There is NO SINGULAR method that scientists follow. What we all learned in 6th grade is WRONG.

Laws, theories and hypotheses have NO HEIRARCHY WHATSOEVER. NOTHING is upgraded. THEY ARE LIKE APPLES ORGANES AND KUMQUATS.

Science and spirituality are NOT at war, you uneducated Internet fool. They are totally SEPARATE entities and areas of life. Dawkins is blatantly and COMPLETELY MISUSING and ABUSING science for his AGENDA. The man should know better.

I STRONGLY SUGGEST that you EDUCATE YOURSELF about what science actually is and is NOT- what it can and cannot do.

THIS link, from the University of California at Berkeley is the BEST ON THE INTERNET ( and it is reputable) for information about what science is. YOU simply do NOT understand that God falls WAAAAAY BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES of what science can actually address. Science is SILENT on the matter- COMPLETELY SILENT. It does NOT get involved , NOR IT IS EVEN ABLE TO.

SCIENCE HAS LIMITS, YOU LAUGHABLE INTERNET GEEK A**HOLE. PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF, YOU FOOL !!!!!!!!

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12″

[Censorship is my own]

Well that was lovely, calm, thoughtful and respectful!

On her first point, that there is no one ‘scientific method’ that all scientists follow. I have since challenged her in multiple emails she has replied to on that claim, each time she has restated her claim, but with no evidence what-so-ever. I asked her for one piece of published, peer-reviewed science that didn’t follow the Hypothesis-Test-Conclusion structure, but she has not presented anything. She has no evidence for her claim.

“Laws, Theories and Hypothesises have no hierarchy whatsoever, nothing is upgraded.” She then states. She’s right, I have never said anything to the contrary on my blog, or anywhere else, ever. So I don’t know what relevance it has to the topic. It is true, hypothesises are not the same as theories or laws, but that bares no relevance to the topic.

“Science and spirituality are not at war you uneducated internet fool” she goes on to say. Like I said earlier in response to a comment, I think that they are polar opposites and must necessarily be at war, because their beliefs and claims are in stark contrast to each other.
Its also worth saying that she claims science and spirituality are not at war, and then goes on to attack science in defence of her spiritual beliefs. Ironic really.

I suggest you all visit the link she sent me, it not that long so its not heavy reading. After you read it, formulate your own opinion as to the intent of the link.

okay… Its pretty weak isn’t it, and like her emails and comments, it has no evidence to back up its claims, and just says what it wants to say. It’s not in-depth, its not thorough, its quite a poor page, and its credibility is not great, seeing as there is no author. It may be on a university website, but some universities also endorse homeopathy and other ridiculous alt-med claims, so it is of little value credibility-wise.

On to the next email.

“You are a total fool. The best cream of the crop theories we have are ONLY APPROXIMATIONS AT BEST. There are many theories outright WRONG.Even accepted quality science has been very wrong.

Our best scientific genuises in history were ONLY fog fighters struggling mightily to understand the world.

Get off the pedestal. Scientists are EXTREMELY FALLIBLE and no better than anybody else.”

and followed shortly after, before I could respond, was this:

“YOU ARE WRONG, A**WIPE. THERE IS NMO NEED FOR YOU TO MAKE SOME STUPID POST ABOUT THIS.

THE UNIVERISTY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELY HAS COMPLETELY DISCREDITED YOUR INTERNET BLOGGING A**, YOU F*CKING STOOGE.
YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT SCIENCE IS, IS P*SS PORR.

YOU LOSE.”

The first email she sends is a lot nicer, I wish she wrote like that more often.

I’ll talk about it first.
Her first claim, that our best scientific theories are estimations at best. This is just wrong. Our cream of the crop theories, Evolution, the Big Bang Theory, Germ Theory of Disease, General and Special relativity, these have all been tested countless times before, over and over again, to the utmost detail, and never has an experiment contradicted any of them to date. This doesn’t mean they are right, we can never prove anything completely correct in science, but it suggests that they are. Even if they are not, they are pretty close to how it would be. Just like Newtons Laws of motion, they’re pretty good, but relativity is just a little bit better. So if they are wrong, they are basically right because they fit every aspect of the universe that we have measured with precision.

Her second argument made in the email is that scientists are fallible, just like any other human beings. Again, she’s right, but it doesn’t prove her point at all. Scientists are fallible like the rest of us, but science was designed to eliminate those errors, and other things like bias which would interfere with observation. Science is the perfect way to eliminate the fallibility of humans.

I will now address her second email.
This is no more than a blatant ad hominem attack, it makes no arguments, it assumes it is correct without any evidence, and it uses vulgarity to try and beat me as opposed to actual evidence. Nothing needs to be said about this email other than that it demonstrates her style of argument, the level of her intelligence when faced with actual reason, and the rigidity of her arguments.

I made short responses to her again, warning her that vulgarity was not the wisest thing for her appearance. She responded to my thus:

“YOU SILLY TEENAGER A**HOLE. SCIENCE ( as well as scientists) ITSELF IS VERY FALLIBLE. SCIENCE IS A HUMAN CREATION AND ENDEAVOR, YOU STUPID A**, PRACTIED BY SCIENTISTS.

SCIENCE ITSELF IS FALLIBLE- VERY FALLIBLE . IT IS FAR FROM PERFECT AND CONSIDERABLY LIMITED. Your views are SO ERRONEOUS AND UNINFORMED I FEEL BAD FOR YOU.

The best scientific theories we have are ONLY APPROXIMATIONS- NOTHING MORE. Even they CAN be either wrong or need work . And some of the lesser theroies are likely wrong.

Don’t you understand ANYTHNING?

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD” BY THE WAY ……..”

In another email shortly after
“SCIENCE CANNOT AT ALL ADDRESS GOD, YOU SILLY TEENAGE A**WIPE. IT DOES NOT DEAL WITH THAT- AND CAN’T. IT IS NOT EQUIPPED. SUCH QUESTIONS FALL FARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT SCIENCE CAN ACTUALLY DO , YOU SILLY TEENAGE A**HOLE.

YOU NEED TO GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD.

Science does NOT “prove” OR “disprove” ANYTHING ( including even scientific subject matter- which the supernatural and God are NOT ).

Furthermore, science CANNOT disprove God. This is BASIC knowledge. It does NOT deal with that. It is SILENT and NEUTRAL. YOU ARE A STOOGE. DAWKINS IS A TOTAL HACK AND ABUSING SCIENCE. HE IS A DISGRACE AND HAS AN AGENDA.

EDUCATE YOUR PATHETIC ASS:

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

READ UP. YOU HAVE A LOT TO LEARN.

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY ARE NOT AT WAR, YOU PATHETIC INTERNET BLOGGING STOOGE.”

and one more!

“YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW that there is NO SUCH THING AS “THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD” IF YOU WERE EDUCATED.

There are MANY, MANY, MANY methods used in science, YOU FOOL. You have OVERSTEPPED THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT SCIENCE CAN ACTUALLY DO. YOU HAVE AN INFLATED SENSE OF IT.

EINSTEIN HAD A DREAM OF TEAHCING PHILOSOPHY NA DLOVED – ABSOLUTELY LOVED READING KANT.DID YOU KNOW THAT, FOOL?”

She makes no new arguments in her first email in this series, other than bringing up a new layer to an old argument, that science itself is fallible too, because it is a human creation. Okay, lets look at that. Yes its a human creation, but it has been refined over the years to because a flawless way of testing reality. How do we know its flawless? Well we know it is prefect because the evidence surrounds us, if science was even a little bit long I surely wouldn’t be writing to you on my iPad, and you wouldn’t be seeing it almost instantaneously wherever you might be in the world. We wouldn’t be able to send probes across the solar system and track them precisely, reading from their instruments from billions of miles away. If it was even a little off, it wouldn’t work, so if it is wrong, its PRETTY DAMN CLOSE.

On to the second email in this series.
Her only claim here in this aggressive email is that science does not disprove god. Obviously, nothing can be disproved completely in science, just like nothing can be completely proven. But, in over 2000 years of observation of the natural world, we have not one scrap of evidence that god does exist, save a few holes in theories which always get plugged up over time. If there is no evidence for something, it doesn’t disprove it, but it very strongly suggests that it is incorrect.

Her response to this would be that God falls beyond the boundaries of science, and therefore cannot be tested by science. Well, like I have said before, If science tests reality (which it does) and God has an effect on reality (sure it would seeing as he made it all and performs miracles on it) then we should be able to find some ‘God’ lying around, but we haven’t. We haven’t seen anything. Anybody who denies that there is no substantial proof for god is clearly kidding themselves, as they can never produce any evidence themselves.

And her final email.
Her only interesting and non-ad hominem filled argument in this email is that Einstein dreamed of teaching philosophy and enjoyed Kant. SO WHAT?! I like Harry Potter, I like the moral story it teaches, just like I like the moral stories in Animal Farm, and I want every child to read both of these books, because they are amazing. It doesn’t mean I think any of it is science.

Philosophy is a broad topic, and the philosophy if Kant is a long way off the philosophy of your religion. This is also a prime example of the argument from authority, she seems to believe that Einstein is the be-all and end-all on what science is.

One more email remaining, this one came after the others.

This is it:

“You need an EDUCATION badly. Feel free to use this because it IS TRUE:

THERE IS NO SUCH THINGS AS “THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.” There are MANY, MANY, MANY METHODS used in science. What we all learned in 6th grade is NOT an accurtae representation of how science works in the real world as used by professional scientists…….. IT IS WRONG.

You Internet twats are either STUPID or MISINFORMED.”

Worth noting that this is all in 30pt red text, but I cannot make it appear this way with the iPad version of wordpress, and I didn’t pack my laptop when I came to Germany.

Also note the complete arrogance demonstrated on her behalf by saying “feel free to use this because it is true”, despite this claim she has presented no evidence to prove it, so she may as well be shooting herself in the foot.

That’s all, also note that I have once more challenged her to prove her main claim in the last email, and she has not replied yet. She has had plenty of time and opportunity, so I will assume she has none.

Summing up, Ashley has given no substantial evidence to support any of her claims, nor has she demonstrated any level of basic debating skills, quickly resorting to derogatory, ad hominem and vulgar attacks in order to try and prove her point. I look forward to her future response to this blog post, I’m sure she will be rather vocal, and I think I can say there will be another follow-up blog post when she replies again.

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Response to ashley Smith — Part III

the third comment reads:

“Science ITSELF DOES have limits. You are grossly uneducated and misinformed about this topic if you think it does not. You are MISUSING science.

Science ITSELF rests on several ASSUMPTIONS ( that we HOPE are true).

Remember, WITHOUT PHILOSOPHY, there would be NO science. Einstein himself said his reading of Kant ENABLED him to come up with and invent General Relativity.

We can be wrong, BUT we can NEVER be completely right in science. EVERYTHING in science is tentative.

Science is a HUMAN CREATION and ENDEAVOR. You have lost your way badly.”
—END COMMENT—

I will address this comment briefly, as it is predominantly a summation of previous arguments, or not worth too much discussion.

The first paragraph fails to present any argument to support itself, it just makes a claim, so I will ignore it until an argument is made.

What’s the big deal with Philosophy? Okay, Kant may have helped Einstein get his head around relativity, in the same way the Hungry Caterpillar helped to get my head around the life cycle of a butterfly. Kant didn’t tell him the answer, Kant merely inspired him. Even so, philosophy is quite broad, it branches from science to spirituality to politics to humanity, so claiming one philosophy helped a scientist in no way validates another part of philosophy.

Of course science is tentative, that’s what makes it great. It never makes any assumptions, it always double-checks, triple-checks and checks a million times more everything it claims, so as to be absolutely rigorous in its claims. This is not a fault of science, and it only strengthens it, making it more correct. Unlike in spirituality where the answer has been determined before even the basic facts have been observed, and then the beliefs are held to…well… religiously… until the bitter end. The fact that science is tentative is good for it.

Its a human creation and endeavour, yes, but that in no way brings it into doubt. Science’s main aim is to eliminate the human element in observation, that’s what science does.

It was after this comment that Ashley took her arguments to email, and sent me an email. I responded to the email in a rather brief manner, not making any arguments, only telling her that my arguments would be in a few post I was putting up soon. She responded in a rather angry manner, and a few exchanges have happened since, mostly involving Ashley talking to a brick wall, seeing as I was not going make any arguments until I could put up a post. Email responses will be in the final part of my blog post.

Response to Ashley Smith — Part II

Here is the second comment she left on my blog:

“Science cannot demonstrate what I dreamed last night ( although it really happened) , nor if a mother loves her daughter, nor tell us how to live our lives, nor determine the value of something , nor tell us if Guns N’ Roses has betetr music than Soundgarden etc.

Science is great for APPROXIMATIONS of the natural world. Approximations-that is it. And it HAS LIMITS. A subject matter MUST be scientific ( natural- natural phenomena that is testable) for science to address it and study it.

There are many things that science is SILENT on.

Our greatest cream of the crop theories are ONLY APPROXIMATIONS- nothing more. Our greatest geniuses in the area of science were ONLY fog fighters struggling to understand the NATURAL world.”
—END COMMENT—

Okay. Lets discuss the first paragraph, which is her first argument in this comment. This is a very old argument always put up by religious people and spiritual people alike, whenever they wish to displace science or show that it is not perfect. So I’m quite familiar with the argument, and have thought about it in-depth before.

I’ll address each piece separately.
Yes it can demonstrate what you dreamed last night, science is unable to do it at the moment, but there is no reason to suggest that we cannot do it in the future. There are constant improvements in science relating to reading brain signals, and our understanding of the brain is getting better every day. Every piece of evidence points to the fact that everything you think, everything you dream, it all can be found somewhere in the grey matter inside most of our skulls. Similarly it is quite easily able to demonstrate that a mother loves her daughter by observing the levels of particular hormones and activity of certain areas of the brain.

The next thing brought up is science and morality, the claim is made that science cannot tell us how to live our lives. No, it can’t, because morality is a value judgement at its core, and science only deals with facts. Morality however is not a fact of reality, so it can be excluded from this topic. It is worth pointing out though that once a judgement has been made on the value of things, science is perfect for advising morality, as it gives the most likely consequences of actions, so that one can judge what is the best course of action. Not smoking, for example, is a way science can advise you on how to live your life.

The last point brought up in this paragraph is that science is unable to make judgements on art, specifically that science cannot determine whether Guns’N’Roses is better or worse than any other band. I say that to the extent of FACTS, which are what is important to science, and to the current discussion of reality, science can help us. Surveys, the most basic of science, can easily explain to us which band is best in the eyes of the public. Now this may not prove that Guns’N’Roses is better than Soundgarden, but ‘better’ is not a fact, it is a personal opinion.

I’m going to address the next 3 paragraphs in the comment together, because they are part of the one topic. They simply say that science can only judge on natural topics, those which are scientific, and that science only makes approximations, never concrete statements. It finally states that Science is silent on a number of topics.

She’s correct to some extent, but lets look at what that means.

The first point, that science only makes approximations. That is true, but they are so much stronger than approximations. The theory of Gravity, for example, is ‘only a theory’, it is just an approximation of reality. But it hasn’t been proven wrong yet so if it is wrong, to the extent we can measure it, its right.

Science is naturally tentative, because it can never prove something completely right or wrong, but that merit doubt in the uncertainty. Like I said, the theory of gravity and the theory of evolution are ‘only theories’, but they are theories which have not a single piece of evidence against them, which is why they are still accepted theories. In the words of Einstein, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
This is one of my favourite quotes, because it sums up science perfectly. This is how science works. The theory is still accepted because no experiment has proved it wrong. In the case of most theories, they have come up against millions upon millions of experiments, all of which have agreed with the theory.

So the claim that science is just a “best guess” is a claim which demonstrates little understanding of the true meaning of the word ‘theory’ when used in scientific terms.

The second point, that science can only judge on natural topics, is also true. But she neglects to see what that means for her religious beliefs. Seeing as there is no evidence to date of god, and the creator of the universe is surely a natural topic (he created it all, so he must be observable somehow) it is a safe judgement to say that either: God does not exist OR God has no tangible effect on reality, therefore rendering him non-existant.

The final point, that science is silent on a lot of topics, is also true. Science doesn’t get involved in politics, morality, everyday lives, personal decisions etc., science can inform these topics on the facts, but it cannot ever become involved in these areas because a level of judgement is always required. This doesn’t mean science is wrong, it just means science cannot make judgement calls, because they are not facts. However god is definitely not a judgement call. Your religion maybe, but not the facts of God’s existence. On to the third and final Comment, which is in Part three of this blog post.

Response to Ashley Smith — Part I

Hello skeptics, Good evening, Good morning, whatever,

This is the first time I write on my own personal blog during my time in Germany, and strangely, it has nothing to do with Germany. I wish to discuss today a recent string of comments and emails sent to me by an “Ashley Smith” (I assume by the non-gendered first name and common last name that it is a pseudonym, I will refer to them as a ‘she’ for simplicities sake) concerning the topic of the distinction between science and the supernatural. This is a topic I find quite interesting, and it’s a topic that I have talked about before. I will discuss specifics through the post, but in general, this topic surrounds the question of what is testable and what is not testable by science, and what it means for the supernatural, and specifically a universe-creating, all powerful Deity.

The three comments left on the blog can be found in my article here Science is the Only Way to Test Reality if you wish to respond to them, or look at them first hand and the post that provoked them. However for the sake of making my own notes on the comments, I will have them here.

The first comment reads like so (Italicised to break it from the body of the post):
“You have no idea what you are talking about. Science has its considerable limitations and things it does NOT do. It CANNOT and does NOT address the supernatural OR God. This falls WAAAAY beyond the BOUNDARIES of what science can actually do. Science and spirituality are NOT at war. That is an Internet MYTH perpetuated by clueless and uneducated people. They do different things. Science does not get involved in that.

What Dawkins does is a complete misuse and abuse of science for his underlying dubious agenda. He should know better.

Lastly, there is NO such thing as “the scientific method.” There is NO singular method that all scioentists follow. What we all learned in 6th grade is a VERY INACCURATE picture of how science works as conducted by professional researchers around the world. It is outwright wrong and far too simple.

I suggest you educate yourself. The Internet contains A LOT of MISINFORMATION.”

—END COMMENT—

Lets tackle some of the claims made in this comment. I’ll try and respond to her points in order.

The first claim made by Ashley (can I call you Ash?), is that the supernatural and God fall beyond the limits of science. This is the main claim I have a problem with from this commenter. YES, it is true that the supernatural and God fall beyond the limits of science, because these hypothesises are unable to be disproved. There is no way that a testable hypothesis can be made about these two things, which means they fall beyond the realm of science. Lets look at it closer.

Now, science, as I discussed in the blog post I linked to, is, in my opinion, the only way to TEST reality. This is because science is the only effective method we have for testing things that exist. Things that exist are in reality. If we make the assumption that things that exist and have some tangible effect on reality can be observed in some way, then this means they can be tested by science.

Lets take God for example, because he’s a hot topic issue. We’ll take the claim that God exists, created the universe and occasionally comes down and messes with it in so-called ‘miracles’. We can make the assumption that such a being would have an effect on reality, quite a tangible effect, seeing as he created it all. So, we can also then assume that we should be able to measure this effect, by either observing a miracle or by looking into the past and finding that it just doesn’t add up without the huge assumption of a God who started it all. Is it only coincidence then that we haven’t seen any verified, proven miracles yet, and our knowledge of the beginning of time is getting greater and greater every day?

Nothing in Science points to God. Science is the only way that we can observe things that have an effect on reality. Therefore, by claiming that God is outside of the realm of science, a statement which I agree with, we are forced into two options. Either God exists but influences reality in no way what-so-ever, didn’t make it, doesn’t perform miracles with it, and doesn’t take our brain to his house when we die, OR God doesn’t exist. Neither option I think my commenter would like to agree to.

So she’s right, but it means God does’t exist.

Next is her claim that Science and Spirituality are not at war, and that the idea that they are is an internet myth perpetuated by clueless and uneducated people. Uneducated people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris? If you call them uneducated and clueless, then you are quite wrong, nothing else. It is not an internet myth, it is a fundamental problem with the two endeavours. The basis of Science and Spirituality are polar opposites. Science believes that the universe is orderly, follows a set of rules, is constant, and is ruled by cause-and-effect. Spirituality is exactly the opposite, the belief that all of the rigidness of reality science claims can be completely disregarded if you pray hard enough. They must be at intellectual war, there is no other way about it.

Next her statement against Richard Dawkins. She presents no evidence whatsoever for this claim, just makes it out of thin air. However she seems to be part of a group with a specific agenda against Richard Dawkins, one of those who thinks all atheists worship him and Charles Darwin.

The last point raised in this comment is the notion that there is no such thing as ‘the scientific method’. No evidence is put forward to prove that, but the claim is made that not all scientists follow the scientific method in their research. This is completely false. Every single piece of scientific research ever done follows the same process.
1. Observation
2. Hypothesis made from observation
3. Hypothesis is tested using rigorous standards and bias and variable control
4. Conclusions are drawn from results.
5. If hypothesis was correct, good, make another one. If it was incorrect, bad luck, make another one.
6. Rinse and Repeat.

I challenge Ash to present one piece of published, peer-reviewed, credible scientific research (if she’s ever read a scientific paper) which does not follow the structure of hypothesis-test-conclusion. Then we can discuss the scientific method and how it’s not true. Now onto the next comment, which will be in the second instalment.