1. Sincerity no substitute for evidence

Comment #233641 by Pythagoras on August 20, 2008 at 6:37 am

Roland F,
Do you have a reference to the acupuncture study that showed that it didn't work?

I found some of the comments dogmatic. I don't think it's rational to automatically dismiss all alternative therapies. E.g. many current drugs are refined or synthetic versions of traditional herbal remedies.

I try to keep an open mind about alternative medicines. Some of them are obviously stupid (e.g. traditional homeopathy), and many of them have been proven to be ineffective (e.g. faith healing) but some of them probably do work but they have not been properly evaluated. Even mainstream medicine keeps changing its mind about some things. It's not easy to design medical experiments or to interpret the results because there are typically too many variables to control.

I'm curious about acupuncture, because I tried acupuncture treatment many years ago. It was administered by a qualified medical doctor who was experimenting with some alternative therapies. While I can't honestly say whether my treatment worked any better than a placebo would have, it did seem to relieve my symptoms (release of endorphins perhaps?). What was interesting, though, was that the doctor used an electrical device to locate acupuncture points. It would squeal when it found an acupuncture point. He claimed that the points located by the device correspond closely to traditional acupuncture points. I read about various studies into acupuncture when I was a teenager. Some claimed that it's effective for certain ailments and others claimed that it's not effective for certain ailments, but I'm not sure how well designed the studies were. Does anyone know of any comprehensive studies done on the effectiveness of acupuncture by reputable medical institutions?

Another alternative therapy that I've investigated and tried is chiropractic. For the problems I've had, it's been extremely effective. I've had various problems that lingered for many months that were fixed pretty quickly and effectively by chiropractic manipulation. Having said that, I have to add a DISCLAIMER: Some chiropractors make bizarre and outrageous claims about what kinds of ailments can be cured by chiropractic treatments. E.g. some chiropractors claim that almost all health problems are somehow related to the health of your spine and can be cured by spinal manipulation. I suspect there may be a small number of ailments (other than the obvious sore backs/necks etc) that might be caused by pressure on nerves or something like that, that could be cured by spinal manipulation, but most of the claims are almost certainly bogus. Also, I'd recommend getting a proper medical diagnosis before going to a chiropractor. Chiropractic can be extremely dangerous and can cause serious injury if your problem is something worse than misaligned vertebrae. And another point: not all chiropractors are equally skilled: some of them are more likely to put you in hospital than to cure your problem.

Regards,
Pythagoras

2. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #232346 by Pythagoras on August 18, 2008 at 1:31 am

All of the spooky QM stuff goes away if you accept the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Of course the many worlds interpretation is pretty weird and disturbing in itself. But the results of all those experiments with entangled particles cease to be mysterious and make perfect sense in the many worlds interpretation.

As for free will, generally nobody gives a definition of free will. Most definitions that people do give just don't make sense. There is this almost universal idea that free will and determinism are somehow mutually exclusive.

If you define free will as the ability to make decisions and act on them, then I claim that free will requires determinism. The less deterministic your brain and body are, the less ability you have to make decisions and act on them.

When I exercise my free will, I think about what possible actions I can take, and I think about their consequences and I decide what to do based on which consequences I would prefer. There is nothing about the process that requires non-determinism. In fact non-determinism will mess the process up.

3. Embracing goodness, without God

Comment #226358 by Pythagoras on August 8, 2008 at 2:23 am

The committee reviewing his application said there was inadequate "justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design theory, was correct."

Hillarious!

Why doesn't the end quote tag work?

4. Behe's Empty Box

Comment #193131 by Pythagoras on June 14, 2008 at 5:46 pm

The idea of irreducible complexity needs to be hit on the head. The whole idea of irreducibly complex systems as disproving evolution is logically unsound. It just indicates a lack of imagination.

If a system is irreducibly complex, i.e. removing any one part will stop it from functioning; does that imply that it could not have evolved? The answer is NO it does not! The whole irreducible complexity argument is invalid from the outset. Since evolution can add and remove parts, and parts can serve multiple purposes, there is no reason that the parts in an irreducibly complex system evolved for the purpose they currently have. The parts may have been part of another system which originally served a different purpose. The system that the parts evolved to support may have changed or disappeared.

There are plenty of known examples of this kind of thing. The mammalian ear comes to mind. I'm sure biologists could come up with many more.

Regards,
Pythagoras

5. The Faith of Flanders

Comment #184337 by Pythagoras on May 24, 2008 at 5:10 pm

As a long time Simpons fan, I think you might find it's a subtle parody.

Groening seems to be an atheist. He admits to being an agnostic. Admitting to be an atheist would probably hurt his ratings.
http://www.celebatheists.com/?title=Matt_Groening

6. Mayor challenges pope during Genoa visit

Comment #182290 by Pythagoras on May 19, 2008 at 3:28 pm

flobear wrote:

Uh... don't they mean "pro-choice"? Maybe this is an Americanism but saying "I'm pro-abortion" is kind of like saying "I'm pro-slaughter" instead of "I like steak."

7. Can we at least demand 'Secular Communion'?

Comment #86964 by Pythagoras on November 10, 2007 at 5:33 pm

I enjoy a robust debate, but this is getting silly.

One of the reasons that religion exists is because we have a natural tendency towards an "us and them" mentality. The fact that religions exploit and inflame this tendency is one of the major problems with religion. There also seems to be ample evidence of this mentality here. It reminds me of the scene from the Life of Brian with the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea. http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm

I can understand people getting upset about the unflattering cartoon, but putting that aside, Richard Norman makes some valid points, even if, as PZ rightly points out, his arguments are not as strong as they could be. I don't think anybody is saying that faith is a good thing per se, but refusing to cooperate with people who have different views to ourselves is counter-productive. I'm not saying that we should not be critical of religious moderates, but we should not be critical of them simply for being "religious moderates", we should be critical of the individual irrational beliefs that they hold. Saying "All religion is bad and religious moderates are stupid and irrational" is just not productive and simply not true either. Moderate religions are a step in the right direction and religious moderates should be encouraged to continue the process and keep the good bits of religions (like promotion of community, kindness and charitable works) and discard the bad bits (like morality based on the dictates of mythical deities).

I think this is a major point that Sam Harris has been trying to make, that we should be fighting one issue at a time and not necessarily under the banner of atheism or any other such label. Take one issue like the Catholic Church's stance against the use of condoms to prevent AIDS. There are many religious folks, including many Catholics who are opposed to this. I think nearly every atheist, agnostic, humanist, bright etc would be in agreement on this issue, and we should put aside our petty squabbles and make alliances with whoever else agrees with us to fight that kind or irresponsible stupidity.

I think there is a place for labels in raising awareness, but we should focus on the issues and not get so hung up on the labels and petty "doctrinal differences" that we use them to divide ourselves from each other and from our allies.

One other point: I don't agree with Mr Myers that 9/11 wasn't a major factor, if not the main motivator in the recent popularity of atheism. I've read many many forum posts by atheists such as myself who say that 9/11 was the catalyst for them becoming active about atheism. I've been an atheist for over 20 years, but I hadn't given religion much thought until 9/11. Perhaps US atheists have other reasons as well, but 9/11 has got to be right up there.

I'll try submitting this for the second time. Most of my posts seem to disappear.

Regards,
Pythagoras

8. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #76079 by Pythagoras on October 4, 2007 at 4:13 pm

I agree with Sam on the term Atheist, but we do need to band together and communicate. In forums I keep getting asked "What do atheists believe in?" That's like asking "What do non-stamp collectors collect?" And I keep seeing religious people writing articles about the new Atheist religion. We have to counter that strongly.

9. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66900 by Pythagoras on September 1, 2007 at 12:49 am

I agree totally with the review.

Religious people are crazy if they really believe anything that the Bible actually says. It's only the fanatical ones that actually believe in God and what the Bible says (e.g. like at least 40% of the US population) that Dawkins disagrees with, so Dawkins is completely misleading everyone by criticizing a minority view.

Just because people wrote stories, doesn't make them true or false. That makes sense. Dawkins obviously doesn't understand this. I mean Shakespeare's plays are real, and so must have described real events. Dawkins probably believes that Shakespeare was just making things up too. What a fool!

I feel sorry for those scientific types like Dawkins who know they are right. It's such a pity they are so confused. Scientists base their theories on careful observation of what is really going on in the world. How silly they are. Serious theologians who understand the reality of ideas aren't foolish enough to be misled by facts and logical arguments.