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At 12/10/07 06:10 PM, JerkClock wrote:

Bits and peices although nothing conclusive. Events described in the bible have been proven, most notably, the evidence discovered that the Noah's Ark thing happened.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I know this must have been attacked a hundred times already, but I can't leave it.

There is ..some..evidence of a flood around about noah time, noah probably built a rowboat and took his dog on or some shit and you guys just got carried away....

But jesus christ ..... how stupid is it possible for a human being to get without helping prove evolution that little bit more?

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you got right nice

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oh, btw

At the big bang theory stuff.

That IS just a theory.

Put it this way : we have been to our own moon barely one hundred times. The only means of knowing what anything outside of our solar system is like are A : a ruddy big telescope on a satellite and B: Maths. The universe began countless billions of years ago, and we honestly don't know enough to begin to pretend we know what happened.

As far as the begging of the universe is concerned, how can we know how it started when we are not even sure how it looks now?

But ask again in 10,000 years and science might have a definite answer.... and at least science is trying to go forwards, not holding us back like superstitions based on the childish need to know everything.

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At 12/18/07 02:35 PM, emmytee wrote: oh, btw

At the big bang theory stuff.

That IS just a theory.

God is less than a theory.

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At 12/10/07 04:45 PM, mayeram wrote: I was wondering if any of you religious newgrounders could prove that your religion is more valid then Pastafarianism.


http://www.venganza.org/

You might just have started a religious war on NGs

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The story of Mormonism as told by South Park.

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At 12/18/07 07:24 AM, poxpower wrote:

boat of that size

That is a good point, to be honest, I'm not disinclined to believe the story posted on page 7 about Noah just taking his dog on a boat or what have you. What with churches suddenly deciding limbo doesn't exist and stuff.

physical properties

If I put on a labcoat and said it was the "physical property" of the Earth to have 80000 degree days would that suddenly be true? What evidence do they cite to say it is constant, other than just, "well it's physical properties and stuff"?

very precise

I personally believe that among other things was just detail that got added later to sway non-believers.

dinosaurs,

The term "dinosaur" or "T-Rex" or what have you probably wasn't coined back then either. However there are writings of dragons and monsters, and plenty of them. It is easily seeable how they would perceive dinosaurs as dragons and monsters.

seashells

Okay first, you don't know for a fact that man always made shit out of seashells, and um, why do you keep bringing up fossilization? What I mean is you make it sound like stuff is only fossilized when human being touch them(I know that's not it, but that's why I'm asking).

we've not found ONCE an unfossilized dinosaur bones,

Again, what do you mean by this? I know you're not saying human beings have to touch them for fossilization to occur.

you have to look it up.

So the burden of proof lies with the person being presented to, not the presenter? No I think not.

And Noah was a homo sapien anyways.

Okay let's just say it was a local flood where he built a boat and took his dog along(which is more plausible anyway), it still could have happened right?

But you don't believe in radiometric dating ( a proven fact by science ).

Proven how? Saying radioactive decay is constant is a direct contradiction to the atomic properties regarding temperature. If it were true, stuff would decay even in absolute 0 temps, which is impossible if atomic matter can not move(which in absolute 0 it supposedly can't).

No, it wouldn't be a few, or "quite a few", the earth would have litteraly RUMBLED constantly.

If the rumbling was that constant it would be no more significant to anything living at the time than the blueness of the sky is to us.

Well you can't do that, you don't know which parts of the bible are truth and which ones are not.

With the exception of the parts documenting Jesus' life, that's correct. In fact, that's exactly why I believe the way I do.

elfer wrote:
just plain lying

Calling bullshit on unproven stuff isn't lying just because you say the words "it's proven."

pitch black

Dude give it a rest, who cares if it's really really dark brown or pitch black. Quibbling over minor, already conceded points is a logical fallacy you know?

Soaking something and freezing it

If it's soaken enough it's essentially the same, albiet encasing it in a big ice cube would create a sort of armor, so it would still be better.

Christianity was deliberately made up to troll the Romans

No you just made that up.

never exact.

Yes I understand that, all too well in fact. The thing is, over thousands, millions, and especially over billions of years there's room for major error with these "confidence intervals", especially considering that our assumptions for these are based on small approximations(that have confidence intervals of their own) observed within our lifetime.

legitimate

People can find any reason to call something illegit. Doesn't mean it's not evidence. I mean there are people who can find ways to "prove" we don't exist and claim our "evidence" for our existence doesn't even hint at being legitimate.

mechanism

Perhaps your miscalculations based on "confidence intervals"?

Again, this is similar to saying

And your argument is like saying, "well I'm plastic and elastic, so I move at constant speeds, because that's the properties of plasticity and elasticity." Doesn't amount to anything really.

I've already explained them

No you didn't. you said, "Well it's elastic and plastic and that means it's constant."

Building a giant sphere out of wood would be significantly more difficult than building a regular ship,

And because you say so, it's true. BTW, I didn't say an exact sphere, I said this:

More like an empty ball

Note that I did not say, "exact sphere." In fact, the scope of that is rather broad, as it merely entails a wood container without an open top(like a normal boat), not any specific shape.

changing your story

Presenting a logical explanaion for how something "could" happen is not the same as changing your story. Changing your story is if you're saying it has to happen a specific way from the start, then say it has to happen another specific way and so on.

However, since you were too dumb to notice, I never said it had to happen any specific way, only that it had to happen somehow, which does allow for any of a number of angles to be true, and presenting said angles would not be changing your story, since all the person is doing is saying that the general idea happened.

it was fake

Just because evidence isn't concrete doesn't mean it's fake, you saying so doesn't make it so.

the bible claims a global flood

And in all fairness, people's concept of "global" back then was, "A flat world encompassing only the land I know about." The biblical story could have easily been about a local flood.

Again, what if it was video that was stolen and presented as comedy by anti-pastafarians in order to discredit it?

No it was posted by the one who made it.

scientific

No I understand it, it attempts to measure stuff that goes way past the human life span by millions of years, and I'm sorry, it's not concrete. There's no way we can know it.

Why is it that dinosaur fossils and human fossils are never, ever found on the same strata of the geologic column? Not even once?

And what "strata" is this?

radiocarbon dating

And tell me how this, "radiocarbon dating" works. Yes I know how but I want to make sure you don't try to spin my explanation, so first you explain yourself, then I will.

A)
B)

A) Yes Really.
B) Yes I know, even when evidence is presented that people were healed and stuff by Jesus they still argue he was just a rare person with telepathy. It's simple fact that no matter what you prove, people can find ways to "prove" the opposite. It's more evidence than some idiots going "Look a drew a picture of a flying spagetti monster"

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At 12/18/07 09:08 PM, JerkClock wrote: Okay lets just say it was a local flood where he built a boat and took his dog along(which is more plausible anyway), it still could have happened right?

Yeah, but that's not evidence for the bible, because that's not what the bible says. The bible says that God opened the heavens and flooded the Earth. If it was a local flood caused by natural forces, how is that in any way evidence for a religion?

Proven how? Saying radioactive decay is constant is a direct contradiction to the atomic properties regarding temperature. If it were true, stuff would decay even in absolute 0 temps, which is impossible if atomic matter can not move(which in absolute 0 it supposedly can't).

Absolute zero is a theoretical extrapolation of the behaviour we observe in matter. Thermodynamically speaking, you can't actually reach it.

And you're right, if we somehow magically cooled something to absolute zero, it would cease to decay, but that's because the matter can't hop the activation barrier for alpha decay. Once that barrier is reached for one molecule, the activation energy for further alpha decay is driven by... alpha decay!

Get it?

No, it wouldn't be a few, or "quite a few", the earth would have litteraly RUMBLED constantly.

If the rumbling was that constant it would be no more significant to anything living at the time than the blueness of the sky is to us.

Yeah, except that they wouldn't be able to build anything (example: boats, fires), walk around, or live due to the utter destruction of plant life this would entail.

Calling bullshit on unproven stuff isn't lying just because you say the words "it's proven."

Ok, but calling bullshit on something is lying if you don't give any reason whatsoever as to why it's wrong.

If it's soaken enough it's essentially the same, albiet encasing it in a big ice cube would create a sort of armor, so it would still be better.

No, it's not the same, because something that is just soaked and frozen is not protected from the elements like something that is actually encased would be. Furthermore, if something is saturated and freezes, it's liable to fall apart, ESPECIALLY upon thawing. Ever wonder why we can't freeze people and revive them? The water inside our cells forms a sharp crystal lattice when it freezes, and destroys them.

Yes I understand that, all too well in fact. The thing is, over thousands, millions, and especially over billions of years there's room for major error with these "confidence intervals", especially considering that our assumptions for these are based on small approximations(that have confidence intervals of their own) observed within our lifetime.

The error only becomes "major" because the magnitude increases, not the proportion. As for confidence intervals being based on other confidence intervals, you think scientists aren't aware of that? That's what we have error propagation for.

People can find any reason to call something illegit. Doesn't mean it's not evidence. I mean there are people who can find ways to "prove" we don't exist and claim our "evidence" for our existence doesn't even hint at being legitimate.

See, this is what you're doing though. You're just ignoring all current and past research, and throwing the scientific method out the window, then claiming that you have "evidence" for your theory that isn't subject to the same standards that you hold science to, nor the same standards that science holds itself to.

Perhaps your miscalculations based on "confidence intervals"?

You don't know what confidence intervals are, do you?

And your argument is like saying, "well I'm plastic and elastic, so I move at constant speeds, because that's the properties of plasticity and elasticity." Doesn't amount to anything really.

I didn't say that it was because of the properties of plasticity and elasticity. Again, the reason you're saying it doesn't amount to anything is because you don't understand it.

Let me try to dumb it down some more:
- Continental drift is driven by convection of the mantle
- Convection is plastic behaviour
- The mantle only behaves plastically over long periods of geologic time
- To change the speed, you would need to change the properties of the mantle to permit plasticity over shorter periods of time. You would also need to increase the difference in temperature between the Earth's core and the Earth's crust, in order to increase the driving force of convection.
- In order to change these properties of the mantle, you'd have to change shit like the strength of silicon-oxygen bonds. Not happenin'.

If you can't understand what I've said here, then stop talking about continental drift until you take some geology and physics.

Note that I did not say, "exact sphere." In fact, the scope of that is rather broad, as it merely entails a wood container without an open top(like a normal boat), not any specific shape.

Ok, but any non-rounded shape would be plagued by the shear and torque forces that the water would subject it to, so we're looking at a sphere or an ellipsoid.

Presenting a logical explanaion for how something "could" happen is not the same as changing your story. Changing your story is if you're saying it has to happen a specific way from the start, then say it has to happen another specific way and so on.

Position A) There is scientific evidence for the biblical account of Noah's Ark, this is evidence for Christianity
Position B) Maybe cavemen build a ball-boat to survive a local flood that doesn't require Christianity to explain

See the difference?

However, since you were too dumb to notice, I never said it had to happen any specific way, only that it had to happen somehow, which does allow for any of a number of angles to be true, and presenting said angles would not be changing your story, since all the person is doing is saying that the general idea happened.

However, since the point of the debate is to

it was fake

Just because evidence isn't concrete doesn't mean it's fake, you saying so doesn't make it so.

Well, it was either deliberately faked or fails to provide evidence for the biblical theory. Either way, it is in no way useful evidence.

the bible claims a global flood

And in all fairness, people's concept of "global" back then was, "A flat world encompassing only the land I know about." The biblical story could have easily been about a local flood.

Right, but then it doesn't comprise evidence for Christianity, because we don't need Christianity to explain a local flood. If someone wrote about some flood that actually happened, that doesn't make the parts about God true, because we don't need God to explain an ordinary flood.

Again, what if it was video that was stolen and presented as comedy by anti-pastafarians in order to discredit it?

No it was posted by the one who made it.

I read a whole bunch of articles saying otherwise, but I'm not fighting with Google to find them.

Trust me.

scientific

No I understand it, it attempts to measure stuff that goes way past the human life span by millions of years, and I'm sorry, it's not concrete. There's no way we can know it.

Ok, of course we can't know it 100% completely, but when something is consistent with all of the physical evidence that we observe, it really, really suggests that it's true.

Why is it that dinosaur fossils and human fossils are never, ever found on the same strata of the geologic column? Not even once?

And what "strata" is this?

Uh, any of them?

radiocarbon dating

And tell me how this "radiocarbon dating" works. Yes I know how but I want to make sure you don't try to spin my explanation, so first you explain yourself, then I will.

Radiocarbon dating dates the time of expiry of an organic material by comparing the amount of carbon-12 in an object to the amount of carbon-14. We can use this to determine the age of the object because living things of particular classes maintain a particular balance of the two isotopes until they expire. We know this through empirical observations and testing. It is true in all observed cases.

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Elfer, you deserve a medal for putting up with this crap.

Which is why I voted for you in the politics awards ^_^

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We can't let people like JerkClock convince other people to think the way he does with regards to science. There's just too much to be lost.

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At 12/18/07 10:24 PM, Elfer wrote:

stuff

Right so if it doesn't follow the bible word for word, that disproves religion.

Absolute zero

Yes but we have indeed been able to measure the fact that molecular particles do in fact move slower at lower temparature and faster as higher temperatures. Which would mean radioactive decay is faster at higher temperatures, and slower at lower temperatures, thus not constant and that's just one factor, one which is scientifically proven to change it.

alpha decay!

If it's moving slower it'll take it longer to hop that activation barrier.

Yeah, except that they wouldn't be able to

If they were used to it, they'd have found way to build stuff. Probably not a massive ship though. But it also depends where on the massive continent you would live. If it's on the outskirts where the shaking is less violent it's more than possible. Especially when you consider there'd more likely live there anyway due to massive earthquakes not shaking their homes down.

Ok, but calling bullshit on something is lying if you don't give any reason whatsoever as to why it's wrong.

Argumentum Ad Ignorantium. Not knowing it's false does not make it true.

The error only becomes "major"

Yes and as a result there is no way they can have anything but plausible theory. Nothing more.

"evidence" for your theory

All I said is there is more evidence than pastafarianism had, not that it's proven beyond a doubt.

You don't know what confidence intervals are, do you?

Gaps caused by non-exactness of science.

- Continental drift is driven by convection of the mantle
- Convection is plastic behaviour

And you know this how?

- The mantle only behaves plastically over long periods of geologic time

And you know this how?

Ok, but any non-rounded shape would be plagued by the shear and torque forces that the water would subject it to, so we're looking at a sphere or an ellipsoid.

There'd be problems with having a bunch of animals on board to begin with, so yes, I'm not hard pressed to believe that.

See the difference?

Okay I see what you're saying, no earthly events could prove God's existence whether he created it or not. That does make sense. However there is suggestive evidence is all I'm saying, not that it's concrete beyond a doubt proven.

useful evidence.

Still more than pastafarianism has.

we don't need God to explain an ordinary flood.

True but the thing with this story is God supposedly informed him beforehand it was going to happen. And considering that local floods happen all the time(and did back then), it's unlikely someone would know beforehand it was going to be disasterous enough and build a boat pre-emptively to survive it. True, it could just be he had a 6th sense, but then again ifGod was proven there wouldn't be other belief systems.

Trust me.

You obviously made that up on the spot.

Ok, of course we can't know it 100% completely, but when something is consistent with all of the physical evidence that we observe, it really, really suggests that it's true.

The physical evidence combined with small observations that are anything but conclusive and combined with theoretical science. I'm not saying it's not a good theory for what little we have to work with, just saying it's anything but proven.

Uh, any of them?

Usually when I hear the term strata it refers either to the atmosphere or to rainy clouds, so I'm afraid I don't know what that is.

Radiocarbon dating

Here's what I found on the matter:

http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Cours eware/Chronology/08_Radiocarbon_Dating.h tml

Radiocarbon dating relies on a simple natural phenomenon. As the Earth's upper atmosphere is bombarded by cosmic radiation, atmospheric nitrogen is broken down into an unstable isotope of carbon - carbon 14 (C-14).

Cosmic radiation is fairly predictable over short periods of time such as the human lifespan. I can easily see this as being fairly reliable for determining a dead person's age when they died in recent years.

But think back millions of years, do you think that the same amount of cosmic radiation surrounded us as does today? What about billions of years ago? I think it's safe to assume that, while not necessarily true, it is more than likely that there's be a major difference that far back. Combine this with the radioactive decay thing it also uses which I explained above, there's easily room for major error. Major enough that you can't conclusively prove this stuff true by any means.

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At 12/19/07 10:46 PM, JerkClock wrote: Right so if it doesn't follow the bible word for word, that disproves religion.

Didn't say that. I said that if it doesn't follow the bible closely enough to even necessitate a god to explain it, then it's not evidence FOR religion.

Yes but we have indeed been able to measure the fact that molecular particles do in fact move slower at lower temparature and faster as higher temperatures.

Correct, because temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of molecules in a substance. Which leads us to your incorrect application of the idea...

Which would mean radioactive decay is faster at higher temperatures, and slower at lower temperatures, thus not constant and that's just one factor, one which is scientifically proven to change it.

Wrong. The kinetic energy for alpha particles comes from the decay itself, and is independent of the temperature of the decaying substance. As I said earlier, once alpha decay begins, it is self-perpetuating.

Note that this is why radioactive things heat up. Saying that low temperatures slow radioactive decay is roughly equivalent to saying that nuclear fission plants don't work.

alpha decay!

If it's moving slower it'll take it longer to hop that activation barrier.

...What? First of all, alpha decay for a given molecule would have a specific release of energy, and therefore a specific kinetic energy given to the alpha particle. Second, there's no issue of hopping an energy barrier faster or slower, you either get over it or you don't.

If they were used to it, they'd have found way to build stuff. Probably not a massive ship though.

Correct, they could probably build rudimentary things, like spears and maybe even rafts, but nothing so complex as a large ark capable of holding and providing care for a huge number of animals.

But it also depends where on the massive continent you would live. If it's on the outskirts where the shaking is less violent it's more than possible.

Yeah, but if you can only live on the places where there's no fault lines, how did the animals migrate all over the continent and still proliferate for a million years or so?

Ok, but calling bullshit on something is lying if you don't give any reason whatsoever as to why it's wrong.

Argumentum Ad Ignorantium. Not knowing it's false does not make it true.

Ok, but if there's evidence to suggest that something is true, and you claim it's false but give absolutely no evidence, you're still losing the argument. It doesn't make it true, but it's got a hell of a lot more evidence than what you're saying.

The error only becomes "major"

Yes and as a result there is no way they can have anything but plausible theory. Nothing more.

Yeah, true. This is why if you're going to come up with an alternate theory, you have to actually present evidence for it. If you're going to say someone's theory is wrong, despite repeated testing by the scientific community, you have to actually provide some evidence that suggests that it's wrong, you can't just prove it wrong by uninformed assertion.

Also, I don't think you're really aware of the rigor that is applied before something is considered a "plausible theory"

"evidence" for your theory

All I said is there is more evidence than pastafarianism had, not that it's proven beyond a doubt.

Ok, but you don't have any evidence. First you come up with a theory that contradicts all observed scientific evidence and provide no evidence for it, and at this point we've argued you down to one that's semi-plausible in the light of scientific evidence (i.e. it was a local flood and Pangaea is no longer required, and the boat was a lot smaller etc. etc. etc.) which still doesn't have any evidence for it, and even if it did, it would no longer be evidence for the biblical story.

So no, you do not have more evidence than pastafarianism.

You don't know what confidence intervals are, do you?

Gaps caused by non-exactness of science.

In a way, yes, but in another way, no. A confidence interval is where you can say "Given this data, we can be X% sure that the actual value lies between these two values"

Common values for X are 95% and 99%. 99% is used more often in things like chemistry, 95% is usually for non-essential quality control measures, decisions that will affect cost rather than quality, etc.

When doing confidence intervals on values based on other confidence intervals, the fact that the values are not exact is taken into account in the calculations.

- Continental drift is driven by convection of the mantle
- Convection is plastic behaviour

And you know this how?

How do I know which, that continental drift is driven by convection, or that convection is plastic behaviour? Convection is plastic behaviour by definition. The evidence for continental drift being driven by convection cells is more complicated, but to be honest, just friggin' think about it. It makes sense. We see formation of the sea bed at some points, and the curvature suggests that it's an upwelling of magma. We see subduction of the sea bed in other places, and it's got to go somewhere when it slides under the other plate. Put two and two together for yourself for once.

- The mantle only behaves plastically over long periods of geologic time

And you know this how?

Physics and chemistry.

There'd be problems with having a bunch of animals on board to begin with, so yes, I'm not hard pressed to believe that.

Well, if you're trying to provide evidence for a particular religion, you're at least hard pressed to support the details.

Okay I see what you're saying, no earthly events could prove God's existence whether he created it or not.

Thumbs up.

That does make sense. However there is suggestive evidence is all I'm saying, not that it's concrete beyond a doubt proven.

We're seven pages into the topic and you've yet to present any actual evidence, beyond a rock, which was on a mountain of all places..

Still more than pastafarianism has.

None is not more than none.

True but the thing with this story is God supposedly informed him beforehand it was going to happen. And considering that local floods happen all the time(and did back then), it's unlikely someone would know beforehand it was going to be disasterous enough and build a boat pre-emptively to survive it.

Ok, but this brings us around to the point that you have no evidence for this boat event ever occurring. On top of that, even if you did, we can come up with other, simpler, explanations, such as "If they had the technology to build boats, they were likely common, and someone probably hopped into their boat when the river started flooding"

You obviously made that up on the spot.

No way dog I just hate google.

The physical evidence combined with small observations that are anything but conclusive and combined with theoretical science. I'm not saying it's not a good theory for what little we have to work with, just saying it's anything but proven.

We have a lot to work with you know. We've got all the rocks and formations on Earth sitting there, talking to us. They're packed with more information than you would think.

Usually when I hear the term strata it refers either to the atmosphere or to rainy clouds, so I'm afraid I don't know what that is.

A "strata" is a layer, in this case a layer of the geologic column.

But think back millions of years, do you think that the same amount of cosmic radiation surrounded us as does today? What about billions of years ago?

Irrelevant. Radiocarbon dating is only used to date back thousands of years, not millions or billions of years. A drastic increase in cosmic radiation is unreasonable over that short a time span, unless you have evidence to suggest otherwise.

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Um JerkClock, how can you even still debate Noah's ark when your reasoning was so gargantuanatly crushed in regards to the pangea debate?

Without clearing up how the animals managed to migrate globally, all other evidence is irrelevant.

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At 12/20/07 12:02 AM, Elfer wrote: necessitate a god to explain it

God could have spoken to everyone directly and this been recorded historical fact and people would still argue it was ergo being everywhere and they hallucinated it.

independent of the temperature

Right because temperature effects how particles move, but when you say it doesn't, therefor decay is constant despite it being completely illogical.

heat up

Yes, but they are still effected by the temperatures around them.

...What?

Exactly, you don't understand and shouldn't speak as though you do.

Yeah, but if you can only live on the places where there's no fault lines, how did the animals migrate all over the continent and still proliferate for a million years or so?

Animals don't need shelter like humans do(or aat least, very few animals build themselves shelters), they could deal with more shaky environments.

evidence to suggest that something is true,

Which in this case there wasn't.

say someone's theory is wrong,

Not saying the theory is wrong, just saying that it is by names means set in stone, and that while there are hearty, well thought out reasonings behind it, it still doesn't

you don't have any

Erroneous.

confidence interval

Okay but the point still stands.

taken into account

All that means is they're aware it could be wrong, not that they are suddenly more accurate than they otherwise would be.

. The evidence for continental drift being driven by convection cells is more complicated

And I want the details.

actual evidence

What you call actual evidence is concrete and I never said there was any, just suggestive evidence.

They're packed with more information than you would think.

I know the sort of info they are "packed" with, I'm just saying it is inconclusive at best.

A "strata" is a layer, in this case a layer of the geologic column.

Okay in that case I see your point, dinosaurs and humans could have still co-existed though, if their way heavier corpses sank them lower over all that time or if they were hear before us, and died shortly after we arrived but just having been found in the same strata yet.

Irrelevant. Radiocarbon dating is only used to date back thousands of years, not millions or billions of years. A drastic increase in cosmic radiation is unreasonable over that short a time span, unless you have evidence to suggest otherwise.

Two things:

1. It is fairly predictable withing a human lifespan of about 75 years, over the course of 1000 years or more, it is plausible that it could be off by a notable amount.

2. If not radio-carbon dating, then what is used to date stuff over millions and billions of years?

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At 12/18/07 09:08 PM, JerkClock wrote:

What with churches suddenly deciding limbo doesn't exist and stuff.

Yeah really serious stuff, religion.

If I put on a labcoat and said it was the "physical property" of the Earth to have 80000 degree days would that suddenly be true?

I guess Elfer will explain it to you. A scientist is not just a random dude who failed at gym class so he decided to go make up things about atoms for a career.

I personally believe that among other things was just detail that got added later to sway non-believers.

Well it was added before the new testament, and everything in the bible is just add-ons to other things, as documented by many finds of old documents which are dated hundreds of years apart from each other. I don't know how many religious people think that the old testament was written in one sitting, then the new testament also in one sitting.

The term "dinosaur" or "T-Rex" or what have you probably wasn't coined back then either. However there are writings of dragons and monsters, and plenty of them. It is easily seeable how they would perceive dinosaurs as dragons and monsters.

Writings of these things mean absolutely nothing. We've never found an unfossilized dinosaur bone, while we found regular bones of every other animal thought to be alive during their time ( even extinct ones )
Unless the dinosaurs all had bones made of rock, this is a pretty clear indication that there were no dinosaurs back then, just the same as there were no hydras, cerberus, cyclopses, unicorns, rhuks, djinns etc. etc.

What I mean is you make it sound like stuff is only fossilized when human being touch them(I know that's not it, but that's why I'm asking).

just watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuhvLHVq9 QY

Proven how? Saying radioactive decay is constant is a direct contradiction to the atomic properties regarding temperature.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to do with temperature, but with decay of radioactive isotopes over a period of time. Some matter contains some radioactive particles, and when you manage to check how much radiation if left in them, you can approximate how old it is. For instance, let's say that something has a decay rate of like 1% per 1000 years, if you find it and it's at 100% of it's radioactive capacity, then it means it's 0 years old, if you find it at 50%, then it's around 50 000 years old etc.

I'm pretty sure their system works because they've been using it to date tons of shit for decades and it's always at least matched with written records, so why would it suddenly behave differently for things we weren't there to write about?

And if it does have to do with temperature, it's only in extreme cases ( like maybe it was in the sun or some shit ) and wouldn't affect something that's been lying underground at a constant-ish temperature.

If the rumbling was that constant it would be no more significant to anything living at the time than the blueness of the sky is to us.

Dude let's just drop it, you know as well as I do that the earth didn't constantly rumble 6000 years or 5000 years ago to whenever.

Anyways if you do anything, just watch the video I linked to. And maybe look up on how radiometric dating actually works and on how many methods there are of dating something. It's completely impossibly farfetched to think that somehow all these methods concord with each other to give constant yet false results for everything.

---

Anyways, the bottom line here is that you're saying, with your only basis basically being ignorance, that THOUSANDS of people, some of them Nobel Laureates and the smartest people on the face of the earth, coming from different countries over different decades, using different machines for different companies in different labs many times on different material somehow all came to the same conclusions about tons of things, even though most of them were also religious and therefore had no interest in disproving things in the bible.

I mean, I don't know what to say here. Surely you can realize how the odds are stacked heavily against you. Heavily as in you believe that if you throw an object upwards, it won't fall back down.

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At 12/20/07 02:01 AM, JerkClock wrote: God could have spoken to everyone directly and this been recorded historical fact and people would still argue it was ergo being everywhere and they hallucinated it.

Whether or not that's true, it never happened, so it's entirely irrelevant to the discussion.

independent of the temperature

Right because temperature effects how particles move, but when you say it doesn't, therefor decay is constant despite it being completely illogical.

You have cause and effect muddled here. Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, not a driving force that skews kinetic energy. When nuclear decay occurs, the alpha particle is released with a specific amount of kinetic energy because of the nuclear potential that is lost in the reaction. This event affects temperature, not the other way around.

heat up

Yes, but they are still effected by the temperatures around them.

The kinetics of radioactive decay are relatively temperature independent due to the mechanism.

...What?

Exactly, you don't understand and shouldn't speak as though you do.

Oh, the irony.

Let's see, so far you don't get how radioactive decay works, and don't really understand what temperature is, but you're trying to tell me I'm wrong about how temperature affects radioactive decay.

Animals don't need shelter like humans do(or aat least, very few animals build themselves shelters), they could deal with more shaky environments.

Plants wouldn't be able to live in a constant earthquake zone, as such, the animals would die out.

I don't think you fully understand the implications of constant earthquakes.

evidence to suggest that something is true,

Which in this case there wasn't.

There's plenty of evidence for all of the scientific concepts I've brought up here.

Not saying the theory is wrong, just saying that it is by names means set in stone, and that while there are hearty, well thought out reasonings behind it, it still doesn't

True, it's not 100% proven, but to say you have evidence for religion, but your theory on how it happened contradicts all sorts

you don't have any

Erroneous.

We've repeatedly debunked anything you've brought up, and to be honest, you haven't brought up anything for a few pages, as you've been too busy arguing the premise that all science is wrong.

confidence interval

Okay but the point still stands.

What point? That there's maybe a one to five percent chance that the age of the wood lies a bit outside the estimate? You're probably not aware of this, but the farther you get from the confidence interval, the less likely something becomes. The chance of a 70-year interval being off by a few thousand, let alone a million, is ASTRONOMICALLY unlikely.

taken into account

All that means is they're aware it could be wrong, not that they are suddenly more accurate than they otherwise would be.

No, it doesn't mean that the results are magically more accurate, but it does mean that the measurements are as accurate as reported, which is what you were trying to argue against.

. The evidence for continental drift being driven by convection cells is more complicated

And I want the details.

And you know what? You can go fucking look it up for yourself. You can barely comprehend what I've been saying about science so far, you don't understand any of the mechanisms I've tried to explain for you, and if you think I'm going to try to spoon-feed you evidence for continental drift when you don't understand ANY of the physics, chemistry or geology behind it, you can get fucked.

actual evidence

What you call actual evidence is concrete and I never said there was any, just suggestive evidence.

As far as I've seen, the only evidence you have is a picture of a rock on a mountain that you assume is magic wood. That's not even suggestive OF evidence, much less suggestive evidence.

Again, this is like me pointing to any hill anywhere and saying it's evidence for FSMism because that's what his burial place would look like.

They're packed with more information than you would think.

I know the sort of info they are "packed" with, I'm just saying it is inconclusive at best.

Then obviously you don't understand what kind of information they're packed with. Geology isn't even my specialty, but I can look at a rock cut and tell you the story of the rocks, ordering the events that happened in its formation from start to finish. People who actually study geology can pull out much, much more.

Furthermore, people who specialize in a certain area (for example, people publishing papers on geology) get into niche areas and study what information we can get from rocks in relation to a very specific field. For example, my geology prof specializes in the diffusion of gases through solids.

There is more information there than a single person could ever have use for, yet you claim to know what kind of information you can get, and you judge it to be inconclusive.

Have you ever heard of the overconfidence effect?

Okay in that case I see your point, dinosaurs and humans could have still co-existed though, if their way heavier corpses sank them lower over all that time or if they were hear before us, and died shortly after we arrived but just having been found in the same strata yet.

The "heavier corpses" idea not only doesn't make sense due to density, but doesn't make sense due to the numerous different characteristics of the strata which lie between humans and dinosaurs. There's no way it could have happened all in one flood, at least no way to explain it scientifically. If they really did coexist, they would have approximately the same geologic distribution.

Second, saying "It just hasn't been found yet" is a hideously improbable argument. If humans and dinosaurs coexisted, the probability of going on as many archaeological digs as humans have and never ever ever, not even once finding them in the same strata is so low it's not even worth talking about. Certainly low enough that you would need strong evidence in order to contradict it.

Two things:

1. It is fairly predictable withing a human lifespan of about 75 years, over the course of 1000 years or more, it is plausible that it could be off by a notable amount.

Again, I'm asking you to actually give an explanation of how you think this happened. You're just assuming it could be different without understanding how it works. Cosmic rays come to Earth from the entire universe, so to suggest that it was notably different a mere thousand years ago is to suggest very different activity throughout the universe that was synchronized at that point.

Cosmic rays come from so many sources that major variations lasting for an appreciable amount of time are just mind-bogglingly unlikely.

2. If not radio-carbon dating, then what is used to date stuff over millions and billions of years?

Uranium-lead, potassium-argon, argon-argon, rubidium-strontium, etc. etc. etc.

You're conflating radiocarbon dating and radiometric dating.

---

Also, just as a warning, more recent theories have been favouring slab pull as the driving force rather than seafloor spreading, so don't get confused. They both still involve action in the mantle, and both depend on the physical properties of the mantle.

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At 12/20/07 07:02 AM, poxpower wrote: A scientist

I know that, but they aren't always right either. 100 years ago most(with notable exceptions such as King James) though smoking was harmless, and 20 years ago they didn't think there was any healthy benefit to alcohol, taken in moderation or otherwise.

one sitting.

Well the point is there's enough wrong with the bible that it's hard to use it as a solid set of beliefs.

unfossilized dinosaur bone,

While that doesn't disprove humans and dinosaurs co-existing, it is sound reasoning for it. So I'll just concede the point.

radioactive particles,

That still assumes that radioactive decay is constant. And yes temperature would have to effect it if it effects the speed at which molecular particles move.

temperature,

Ice ages could effect it, very easily, as could natural periods of global warming(not the stupid crackhead theory of human caused global warming). Would these cancel age other out? Not necessarily, if something is trapped in a glacier for 10000 years during an ice age it is unlikely the next warming period would cancel that out. And also, even if it proved to be close within thousands of year, that's by no means the same as being reliably close over millions or billions of years.

radiometric dating

I found this:

http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.
html

correspondingly ancient events. Isotopes with shorter half-lives cannot date very ancient events because all of the atoms of the parent isotope would have already decayed away, like an hourglass left sitting with all the sand at the bottom. Isotopes with relatively short half-lives are useful for dating correspondingly shorter intervals, and can usually do so with greater accuracy

Which corresponds directly with my argument, and when you add in the uncertainty of how fast or slow the decay due to factors like temperature and other stuff which may also effect it, it leaves room for wide margins of error.

THOUSANDS of people

Ad Populum. They are using science which is inconclusive. If 10000, or even 10 million people conclude that the Earth is a cube and use radiometric/radiocarbon dating to prove it, then is it? What if 6 billion do?

Elfer wrote:
irrelevant

Well it is relevant from the standpoint that no matter what is written or proven, people will provide an explanation for how it could be contrary.

affects temperature

Yes, it does. Just like turning on your computer effects temperature. However it is still effected by temperature, hence why even in a moist free environment, your computer can not operate below certain temperatures, or above others.

And yes these are directly related as both involve the movement of molecular particles, and in both cases said movement effects temperature.

radioactive decay

I wouldn't so wrong so much as misunderstanding. You have good reason for your argument, there's just a piece you're missing.

constant earthquake zone

Basic vegetation could indeed survive, not tall trees or anything though, but would be enough that there could indeed be animals around.

your theory on how it happened contradicts all sorts

It doesn't have to be consistant with any branch of christianity, because I'm not with any branch and more of the open-interpretation christian type, which allows theories that don't reflect the bible all that strictly.

We've repeatedly debunked anything you've brought up

No you've come up with possibilities but not proven anything definitely.

70-year interval

I'm not contradicting science's ability to explain things in the short term, in fact I think it quite excellent at that. But you have to admit that over the span of thousands, millions, and billions of years the gap increases and could potentially be way off by the time you get to the latter two.

go fucking look it up for yourself

Concession noted.

evidence you have

So Jesus never happened?

you don't understand

Refusal to explain yourself noted.

overconfidence effect?

Erroneous Ad Hominem fallacy.

doesn't make sense

Right because heavier things don't sink. I'm not saying it would happen overnight, but over millions of years?

is a hideously improbable argument

Admittedly so yes. Still possible though.

from the entire universe

Yes I know that, and that is as such where the possibility of having at least a notable difference comes in. I know that events in the universe happened over millions of years and not thousands, granted. But consideringcomsic rays do come from the entire universe, it is more than possible that the entire universe could have changed enough as a whole to change the cosmic ray rate by a notable amount over a thousand or thousands of years.

radiometric dating

Yeah I read up on it when pox brought it up. It's not bad for what it is, but to say you can reliably measure events over millions or billions of years with it isn't true.

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At 12/21/07 01:10 AM, JerkClock wrote:

affects temperature

And yes these are directly related as both involve the movement of molecular particles, and in both cases said movement effects temperature.

You're just going around in circles here because you don't get the mechanism.

radioactive decay

I wouldn't so wrong so much as misunderstanding. You have good reason for your argument, there's just a piece you're missing.

Which is what? Temperature doesn't magically add energy to all particles in a substance at once, it works kinetically.

It doesn't have to be consistant with any branch of christianity, because I'm not with any branch and more of the open-interpretation christian type, which allows theories that don't reflect the bible all that strictly.

Then how can you even call something evidence for Christianity in particular? This would mean that your definition of Christianity includes all possible scenarios, and therefore the required evidence is fully arbitrary.

In any case, a local flood survived by one guy and a few animals in a regular boat is in no way evidence for Christianity, as it is likely to happen just from probability, independent of the existence of the Christian god.

On top of that, all you've shown is that it's possible for that to have happened, not that it actually did.

We've repeatedly debunked anything you've brought up

No you've come up with possibilities but not proven anything definitely.

No, see, it's the other way around. You've come up with crazy, crazy theories that contradict vast amounts of established scientific principles, with no evidence for them.

70-year interval

I'm not contradicting science's ability to explain things in the short term, in fact I think it quite excellent at that. But you have to admit that over the span of thousands, millions, and billions of years the gap increases and could potentially be way off by the time you get to the latter two.

Again, the gap increases in magnitude, but not in proportion. Do you get what I'm saying?

And all of this still doesn't result in any sort of explanation for your wacky, physics-defying high-speed continental drift.

go fucking look it up for yourself

Concession noted.

Yes, I concede that you are unteachable, because you're unwilling to learn. I concede that I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him understand plate tectonics.

evidence you have

So Jesus never happened?

Jesus the man, or Jesus the messiah? I refer you to my biography of Rodney Dangerfield, the wizard. We have plenty of evidence that Rodney Dangerfield really did exist, far more so than we have for Jesus, but that still doesn't make him a wizard.

you don't understand

Refusal to explain yourself noted.

Refusal to learn anything for yourself noted. I did name at least one thing off the top of my head that rocks can tell us though, so whatevs.

overconfidence effect?

Erroneous Ad Hominem fallacy.

Erroneous? You're judging all science to be groundless and false when you don't even know what the proposed mechanisms are. I'd say that's speaking well outside the realm of your competence.

doesn't make sense

Right because heavier things don't sink. I'm not saying it would happen overnight, but over millions of years?

No, it wouldn't happen over millions of years, otherwise we'd find fossils and rock layers sorted by density, which we don't. Furthermore, something being heavier doesn't make it more dense. Dinosaurs were heavier than us because they were a whole lot bigger. Saying that their fossilized remains are more prone to sinking than other fossilized remains is like saying that a twig will definitely float because it's light, but a log will definitely sink because it's heavy.

This is very basic stuff.

is a hideously improbable argument

Admittedly so yes. Still possible though.

from the entire universe

Yes I know that, and that is as such where the possibility of having at least a notable difference comes in. I know that events in the universe happened over millions of years and not thousands, granted. But consideringcomsic rays do come from the entire universe, it is more than possible that the entire universe could have changed enough as a whole to change the cosmic ray rate by a notable amount over a thousand or thousands of years.

No, see, the fact that they come from all directions and distances makes it much less likely that it will deviate from the mean for an appreciable amount of time. What you're suggesting is a universal increase in cosmic ray activity, which wouldn't exist for any reason other than to support your theory.

Once more, you're just making up ideas that contradict established science, which isn't always a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when you don't have any reason for thinking that the established theory is false, and you don't have any evidence to suggest that your theory is true, aside from pre-existing bias to an overarching untestable theory.

radiometric dating

Yeah I read up on it when pox brought it up. It's not bad for what it is, but to say you can reliably measure events over millions or billions of years with it isn't true.

Once again, that's dismissal without cause. It seems odd that large amounts of tests done by different people using different equipment and different dating methods in different countries would all come up with similar results if it was truly so unreliable as you think, doesn't it?

Anyway, know what? This debate has gotten pointless. All you're saying at this point is "maybe there was a guy in a boat."

Present some evidence that suggests that Christianity is true. That means something that people can check on, not an unverified statement from a person who may or may not have existed two hundred years ago who said that he found some evidence that was mysteriously lost before it was examined by anyone important.

Just something, anything, that you think suggests that Christianity (and Christianity in particular) is true, that you feel isn't adequately explained by naturalistic science.

---

Couple of questions;

If God is immortal, then time is infinite. If time is infinite, the universe was bound to happen, indeed it's bound to happen infinite times, making God irrelevant. Explain this paradox.

What did the lions and spiders eat when they got off Noah's Ark?

And if religion and science are not opposing, why is Jerkclock arguing with Elfer? Further to that, do the Christians who side with Elfer consider why they side with Elfer and not Jerkclock - is this not evidence of religion and science opposing each other, and you taking the side of science?

Finally, at what part in the Bible does it say 'don't take this literally' or 'this is a very fine metaphor', or where does it hint to the allegorical and fictional nature of the Old Testament? Presuming you agree with Elfer.

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At 12/21/07 01:37 AM, Elfer wrote: Just something, anything, that you think suggests that Christianity (and Christianity in particular) is true, that you feel isn't adequately explained by naturalistic science.

A hypothetical God bless you for standing up for science.

I think the one thing naturalistic science fails to address is the sense of awe and wonder at the universe and at life itself - the Magic Mushroom experience, if you will. I think that's why religious people think scientists and atheists are missing something; religion is the only thing that explicitly gives credence to these feelings. Although, of course, I've had no difficulties squaring this with atheism, but the religious could view the two ideas as mutually exclusive.

Sam Harris makes that very point (Bill Hicks makes the same point from a religious perspective tho) on the 4 Horsemen documentary which you can see at www.richarddawkins.net.

That's what naturalistic science doesn't mention - transcendent experiences. Although when I have a transcendent experience, it's glory at the size of the universe, the beauty of the world, and the unlikelihood of life and the fantastic luck I have to experience it. And I do think, it's a shame that this feeling of transcendence, on a global scale, seems to translate to the horrors of organised religion.

---

Frankly, I think the explanation "God did it" doesn't do justice to my sense of wonder at the universe, and it's just a lazy way to dismiss it and say you have a solution for it, instead of trying to dig for it.

Sometimes I do get thinking about life, the mind and the universe, like how gravity, elastic deformation and rebounding, polymer chemistry, etc. etc. etc. can all come together to form something that amounts to "bouncy balls are fun to bounce" in my own human mind. The scope of it all can be mind-boggling when you get right down to it.

To be completely honest, the universe is absolutely fascinating, and to try to chalk it all up to a simple, catch-all explanation makes it significantly less interesting to me.

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At 12/21/07 02:27 AM, Elfer wrote: Frankly, I think the explanation "God did it" doesn't do justice to my sense of wonder at the universe, and it's just a lazy way to dismiss it and say you have a solution for it, instead of trying to dig for it.


To be completely honest, the universe is absolutely fascinating, and to try to chalk it all up to a simple, catch-all explanation makes it significantly less interesting to me.

God created the the universe, where 99.9 recurring percent is inhabitable, and an earth which is not even equivalent to a speck of dust on a planet in comparison, all for the sake of some elaborate test, which he doesn't even inform people about.

I hate it too.

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At 12/10/07 05:38 PM, SirStanley wrote: The Bible makes the prediction that the Jewish state will be re-established before the end of the
world, and it has, so +1 for the Bible.

It has? Could've fooled me.

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At 12/21/07 05:09 AM, gamshobny wrote:

At 12/10/07 05:38 PM, SirStanley wrote: The Bible makes the prediction that the Jewish state will be re-established before the end of the
world, and it has, so +1 for the Bible.

It has? Could've fooled me.

Even if it has, you have to admit that it is a pretty fucking vague prophecy for a omniscient being to inspire.

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At 12/21/07 05:28 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 12/21/07 05:09 AM, gamshobny wrote:

At 12/10/07 05:38 PM, SirStanley wrote: The Bible makes the prediction that the Jewish state will be re-established before the end of the
world, and it has, so +1 for the Bible.

It has? Could've fooled me.

Even if it has, you have to admit that it is a pretty fucking vague prophecy for a omniscient being to inspire.

It's also not particularly accidental; it's religiously-motivated political people ensuring this happens so they can bring on the end of the world. If it had happened accidentally, then that would be more convincing.

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At 12/21/07 01:10 AM, JerkClock wrote:

I know that, but they aren't always right either.

If you think they're wrong, you better have some pretty fucking strong evidence to suggest it.

radioactive particles,

That still assumes that radioactive decay is constant. And yes temperature would have to effect it if it effects the speed at which molecular particles move.

Well like elfer said, temperature doesn't affect the decay rate, it's rather the decay rate that affects the temperature. As long as it decays, it emits energy. Some that's at 0 kelvin couldn't have any radioactivity.
And in any case, on earth, there's no such thing as 0 kelvin, the coldest temperatures are registered in the antartic circle and in the high atmosphere, where there are no fossils to be found.

temperature,

Ice ages could effect it

Actually, you can date snow too, and it has nothing to do with radioactive decay or whatever. Don't really remember how they do it, but they use layers of old snow in the artic to determine things about the earth's past, mainly stuff like Co2 levels in the atmosphere and global temperature estimates, in fact it's one of the ways they know the earth has had many past rapid warming and cooling cycle.

radiometric dating

I found this:

Which corresponds directly with my argument, and when you add in the uncertainty of how fast or slow the decay due to factors like temperature and other stuff which may also effect it, it leaves room for wide margins of error.

No, CERTAIN isotopes cannot date old stuff. There's tons of different methods using different material to date things of a different age/ composition.
Some things can't even be dated because they don't contain any of those datable particles.

Ad Populum. They are using science which is inconclusive. If 10000, or even 10 million people conclude that the Earth is a cube and use radiometric/radiocarbon dating to prove it, then is it? What if 6 billion do?

Eh, no, that's not the argument for the masses, that's only when tons of people talk right out their ass about shit they know nothing about ( i.e. religious people). Dating techniques are insanely complex and precise and if you don't believe they work, it's sort of like not believing water boils at 100 celcius or that salt can't dissolve in water.
i.e. so ignorant it makes me want to cry.

At 12/21/07 01:57 AM, Earfetish wrote:

I think the one thing naturalistic science fails to address is the sense of awe and wonder at the universe and at life itself - the Magic Mushroom experience, if you will.

You mean that thing they constantly duplicate with drugs in labs?
Yeah I guess we'll never understand chemical reactions changing stuff in the brain :(

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At 12/21/07 08:54 AM, poxpower wrote: You mean that thing they constantly duplicate with drugs in labs?
Yeah I guess we'll never understand chemical reactions changing stuff in the brain :(

Well yes of course, I always appreciate that point, but the sense of communion that you get with this kind of thing, or prayer - well, I find the neurological explanation perfectly acceptable and there's a very good documentary on it called 'God on the Brain', but it's not spoken about at all in atheist/religion dialect.

I think there's a sense that science isn't interested in this kind of communion, but that's always been why I've maintained an interest in science - because there is this sense of a great communion with it, my transcendent experiences are all based on how fantastic the scientific explanations are. But I don't think the religious realise that the atheist viewpoint is also full of wonder and glory; whatever 'spirituality' people get from religion, I get from atheism.

I also think we need to state our aims, in that we might personally want the end of organised religion, but we don't want to put any undue pressure on anyone, just open the floor to critical analysis and debate. I think the fear is, with atheists in control, religion will be banned outright, churches will be shut down, bishops executed, whatever.

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At 12/21/07 09:16 AM, Earfetish wrote:

I think there's a sense that science isn't interested in this kind of communion, but that's always been why I've maintained an interest in science - because there is this sense of a great communion with it, my transcendent experiences are all based on how fantastic the scientific explanations are.

Well I don't know about you, but no amount of physics and drugs could ever replaced the permanent knowledge that I live in a safe universe where bad things come to those who deserve it and where I'll eventually be perfectly happy forever.
Being amazed at how cool a water balloon bursting in slow-motion and living your entire life never fearing your death.... two completely different things.

I wish I was religious. Religious people find happiness much easier even though they live in a lie infested comfort zone where they're easy to exploit. At least their happiness is real.

And that's why I intend to crush the fuck out of it >: )
Damn you bastards, tell me what to believe, will you? NEVER.

whatever 'spirituality' people get from religion, I get from atheism.

I guarantee you that you don't.

I also think we need to state our aims, in that we might personally want the end of organised religion, but we don't want to put any undue pressure on anyone

I won't say it but if there was a vaccine against it, I sure would vote for anyone who'd administer it to every idiot on this globe. Wait I guess I just said it.
On the opposite, I guess if there was a vaccine that would make us all religious, maybe I'd take that too.

But it's too late for that. It's that eternal question, "would you rather be stupid and happy than smart and unhappy"?
Everyone's I've ever asked it to invariably say they would rather be smart, which I find stupid, but whatever.