I think the West's success started in the liberal arts. Basically in the monastery. Once a culture was created however, rebellion against the religion (the Enlightenment) lead to science blooming. People were interesting in studying the world, not yellowed paper about a Jesus dude. Galileo's works were for a long time on Rome's "index of forbidden books", which meant only the cloistered scholars could read them. So Islam, in limiting science by it's religion, has a lot in common with liberal art culture

I say, alcontali, you crash your jet into the sun, since it's what you want. You don't respect your betters, are rebellious to everyone, and your mom is disappointed in you

It's a theory, actually. — Artemis

Talk is cheap. Show me the code. — Linus' Law

Talk is cheap. Show me the man-made speciation. — Al-Contali's law

So you accept Western psychological studies only when they suit you? — Gregory

Dunning and Kruger tested the hypotheses of the cognitive bias of illusory superiority on undergraduate students of introductory courses in psychology by examining the students' self-assessments of their intellectual skills in logical reasoning (inductive, deductive, abductive), English grammar, and personal sense of humor. After learning their self-assessment scores, the students were asked to estimate their ranks in the psychology class. The competent students underestimated their class rank, and the incompetent students overestimated theirs, but the incompetent students did not estimate their class rank as higher than the ranks estimated by the competent group. Across four studies, the research indicated that the study participants who scored in the bottom quartile on tests of their sense of humor, knowledge of grammar, and logical reasoning, overestimated their test performance and their abilities; despite test scores that placed them in the 12th percentile, the participants estimated they ranked in the 62nd percentile.[1][9] — Wikipedia on the Dunning-Kruger tests

It looks nicely falsifiable. In my impression, it looks like genuine science. Any reason why it would not be?

And why are you asking for help to formalize your system on here? — Gregory

I only mention it when it is relevant to the conversation and because I like the idea. I guess that at some point I will run into people who will also be interested in the project. In fact, I have done projects in the past that started like that, through sheer serendipity, and which even made me a ton of money. Especially business opportunities tend to be very serendipitous. It's all about stumbling upon the possibility to do things with real upside potential.

You never seem to mention interesting projects that you would want to do? You seem to have a different mentality altogether; and not a particularly entrepreneurial one, I guess. Maybe you are rather a wage slave who continuously lives in fear because he only ever faces the downside potential of getting fired by his dictatorial boss? In that case you will indeed need to anxiously hang on to the little you have ...

You believe in your religion despite the evidence. — Gregory

What evidence? In your liberal-arts bullshit world, there is no evidence of anything. There are only word salads aimed at manipulating even bigger idiots.

Again, you're a moron. — Gregory

As a "liberal artist", the only fake skill that you have, and that you are known for, is talking shit about other people. Your social class of individuals is rightfully viewed with contempt only.

ust one example country, Pakistan, to give you an indication of the interest in STEM fields amongst Muslims: — alcontali

Pakistan has a population of 200 million; of course there are universities.
Talking about this mythical elevated interest in STEM fields, can you tell us how many Nobel prizes in STEM fields have been one by muslims?

What exactly about being able to change the attributes of species from generation to generation (as we do when creating new apples) is not convincing to you?

@Artemis @Gregory @Nobeernolife @Sir2u @alcontali
I should be used to it by now, but I continue to be dismayed at the level of personal invective in these conversations. There are no stupid people out here. Please criticize the ideas, not the person

Well, Alcontali is quiet on the question of STEM Nobel prizes by muslim scientists, so let me answer..... drum roll..... the answer is 2 (TWO!).
And one of them is Ahmediyya, a sect which is recognized by either Sunni or Shia as "muslim".

Yep, obviously a trememdous love for STEMM in those pious societies!

Sorry, meant to say "not recognized". The Ahmediyya had the temerity of adding another spiritual leader after Mohammed, which makes them unacceptable for the others.

I should be used to it by now, but I continue to be dismayed at the level of personal invective in these conversations. There are no stupid people out here. Please criticize the ideas, not the person — EricH

Hey, hold the horses! What "personal invective" am I guilty of? Not been calling anybody names here, afaik. I am not into that. If you want say I am guilty of un-PC wrongthink, then yes I plead guilty.

What exactly about being able to change the attributes of species from generation to generation (as we do when creating new apples) is not convincing to you? — Artemis

Charles Darwin asked the following questions about his own theory in "Difficulties of the Theory":

Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species.

Chapter 6 of Darwin's book is entitled "Difficulties of the Theory." In discussing these "difficulties" he noted "Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?" This dilemma can be referred to as the absence or rarity of transitional varieties in habitat space.[7]

Another dilemma,[8] related to the first one, is the absence or rarity of transitional varieties in time. Darwin pointed out that by the theory of natural selection "innumerable transitional forms must have existed," and wondered "why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth." — Wikipedia on speciation

Evolving modified apples out of the original apples seems indeed perfectly possible. I have no problem with the idea that this can be done "by insensibly fine gradations" and we can indeed observe "innumerable transitional forms". Evolving an apple out of a primeval fish seems to be another problem altogether. Darwin's troublesome questions have actually never been answered conclusively, even though new speculations are of course always available. It is obvious that without man-made speciation, the "Difficulties of the Theory" cannot be addressed. In the end, it is about problems likely to be encountered when reverse engineering non-human technology. There is absolutely no guarantee that it will ever be fully understood. I've got nothing against speculative and tentative hypotheses, but I do not see that as anything else than that.

I've been seeing a bunch of insults, so I cut and pasted all the names from the last few days. Apologies if I tarred you with a broad brush. :smile:

Why is evolving an apple out of a fish the kind of proof you need? When clearly it would just take too long and too many resources to do? I mean, you'd be dead before the experiments were concluded.

It's kind of like demanding scientists create a whole new planet with functioning gravity before you accept the reality of gravity.

I mean... do you have some better, more evidence-based explanation?

Well, Alcontali is quiet on the question of STEM Nobel prizes by muslim scientists, so let me answer..... drum roll..... the answer is 2 (TWO!).
And one of them is Ahmediyya, a sect which is recognized by either Sunni or Shia as "muslim".
Yep, obviously a trememdous love for STEMM in those pious societies! — Nobeernolife

Well, no, I just thought that @Artemis objection was more interesting than your disconnected remark about (Barrack Obama's and Aung San Suu Kyi's ridiculous) Nobel prizes. I only have 17 fingers on both my hands, and I was already typing away with them.

Concerning Nobel prizes, I tend to generally agree with what Nassim Taleb says about them:

Taleb and Nobel laureate Myron Scholes have traded personal attacks, particularly after Taleb's paper with Espen Haug on why nobody used the Black–Scholes–Merton formula. Taleb said that Scholes was responsible for the financial crises of 2008, and suggested that "this guy should be in a retirement home doing Sudoku. His funds have blown up twice. He shouldn't be allowed in Washington to lecture anyone on risk."[4] — Wikipedia: Nassim Taleb's biography

Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman is also being mercilessly vilified in the bitcoin community for making utmost inept remarks about bitcoin. I also consider him to be totally clueless on the subject.

"Bitcoin Is A Bubble." Krugman said that the cryptocurrency was an obvious bubble. He said its prices were going up because it was “some fancy technological thing that nobody really understands.” — Investopedia.com on Paul Krugman

I use bitcoin every day.

I have done good and profitable software engineering projects with it.

If Krugman believes that nobody really understands bitcoin, how comes that the bitcoin software reference implementation works like a charm? Do you hear people complaining about it? I don't. Furthermore, it is just standard C++. A 30-year old programming language. Nothing fancy at all.

How comes that someone like Krugman calls things that he does not understand "some fancy technological thing" and that he swears that "nobody understands it". Has anybody ever written software of that size and magnitude without understanding what it is?

So, there is no point in glorifying Nobel prize laureates to me, because I share Nassim Taleb's opinion on Myron Scholes, and I am also convinced that Paul Krugman is totally clueless on the subject of bitcoin. By extension, that Nobel prize means absolutely nothing to me. I do not even want to mention Barrack Obama's and Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel prizes, because that would lead me to making vitriolic remarks.

I consider the Nobel Prize to be mostly some kind of back patting ceremony between the cultural Marxists in Sweden and Norway and some other questionable libtard figures.

Furthermore, there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, which is the field in which I am much more interested, rather than the field of Obama's and Aung's fake "peace" prizes or the congratulations for Scholes' and Krugman's Mickey Mouse economics. It is the Fields medal that is the most prestigious prize for achievements in mathematics. And no, I don't know the religion of the recipients of the Fields medal. I don't keep track of that.

Why is evolving an apple out of a fish the kind of proof you need? When clearly it would just take too long and too many resources to do? I mean, you'd be dead before the experiments were concluded. — Artemis

Well, that just means that it cannot be done. That does not mean in any fashion, however, that it is not necessary.

It's kind of like demanding scientists create a whole new planet with functioning gravity before you accept the reality of gravity. — Artemis

The impossibility to do that, does limit scientists' understanding of gravity.

The fact that gravity cannot be generated artificially in a laboratory, is a problem in many, many ways.

It does not mean that gravity does not exist, but it certainly means that there are serious problems with the understanding of its true nature:

Over the past few centuries, two theoretical frameworks have been developed that, together, most closely resemble a TOE. These two theories upon which all modern physics rests are general relativity (GR) and quantum field theory (QFT).

Nevertheless, GR and QFT are mutually incompatible – they cannot both be right. — Wikipedia on the physical ToE

As I mentioned in an earlier remark, reverse engineering non-human technologies turns out to be, more often than not, a non-trivial problem. If it were possible to artificially generate gravity, my intuition says that the incompatibility between GR and QFT would soon be resolved.

Well, that just means that it cannot be done. That does not mean in any fashion, however, that it is not necessary. — alcontali

You haven't explained why it would be necessary though.

Neither have you given me a good or better, evidence-based alternative theory.

You haven't explained why it would be necessary though. — Artemis

I actually did.

All life on Earth shares a last universal common ancestor (LUCA)[10][11][12] that lived approximately 3.5–3.8 billion years ago. — Wikipedia on LUCA

Does that non-human technology even support speciation? The only way to provide evidence for such claim consists in triggering such speciation artificially. Otherwise, it is still very possible that this non-human technology does not support speciation at all.

The only way to demonstrate that a device can cut wood, is to actually cut wood with it.

Neither have you given me a good or better, evidence-based alternative theory. — Artemis

I haven't given an alternative theory for the incompatible GR + QFT combo either. That does not mean that it would now suddenly be compatible.

The only way to demonstrate that a device can cut wood, is to actually cut wood with it — alcontali

But you're not demanding that something just cut wood. Because the examples I gave do that. You're demanding it down the whole dang tree into matchsticks :joke:

I haven't given an alternative theory for the incompatible GR + QFT combo either. That does not mean that it would now suddenly be compatible — alcontali

A working theory can't just be usurped because you're dissatisfied with some very minor evidenciary gaps. You need to find an alternative better theory and/or actually disprove the original theory.

A working theory can't just be usurped because you're dissatisfied with some very minor evidenciary gaps. — Artemis

Well, concerning "very minor evidenciary gaps", I do not think that the speciation problem would be minor. The problems that Darwin mentioned in Chapter 6 of his book, "Difficulties of the Theory", are not minor either.

In one way, it does not really matter, because without the possibility to engage in artificial speciation, there are also no human technologies possible based on that principle. Hence, we cannot engineer anything based on that hypothesis, which means that it has no applications. What is even the value of a theoretical idea that cannot possibly have applications somewhere in a downstream discipline? Seriously, if we could make money from any of this, then nobody would be complaining about it, but just be making money with it instead.

Therefore, I consider the whole idea to be futile. If I were professionally active in biomolecular engineering or a similar field, I would just work with what really works, and for the time being just forget about artificial speciation and the LUCA hypothesis, because there is just no money in it! ;-)

What is even the value of a theoretical idea that cannot possibly have applications somewhere in a downstream discipline? Seriously, if we could make money from any of this, then nobody would be complaining about it, but just be making money with it instead. — alcontali

Well, I disagree fundamentally with the idea that any idea has to have monetary benefits to be worthwhile. Knowledge is an end in itself.

But apart from that, it does have monetary benefits. And I listed several products we use all the time because we harnessed evolution in the form of selective breeding. In fact, civilization as we know it couldn't exist without humans having harnessed evolution in that way. We continue to use that and deeper understanding of evolution to combat diseases, improve overall human health, find ways to solve food resource problems, and create luxury food goods.

Speciation is not a huge, insurmountable problem for the theory of evolution, as much as it seems to be a minor hole exploited by those who grasp at straws to dismiss something that's otherwise pretty airtight.

Knowledge is an end in itself. — Artemis

Well, we will have to agree to disagree. Knowledge without any possible application, ever, not even in a deep downstream domain, is in my opinion ultimately worthless.

In fact, in that case, it is most likely not even knowledge.

Concerning the LUCA and speciation hypothesis, its justification simply fails the falsificationist requirement. Hence, it is epistemically not even knowledge. You wrote that you find that a minor problem, while I think that this epistemic problem is essential.

we harnessed evolution in the form of selective breeding — Artemis

Unfortunately, that is not what the problem is about. The LUCA and speciation hypothesis is not about selective breeding. Speciation and selective breeding are simply not the same things.

Speciation is not a huge, insurmountable problem for the theory of evolution — Artemis

If it is not a huge, insurmountable problem, then why don't they just carry out the artificial speciation? This whole idea that man-made speciation would be unimportant or just a minor problem to the LUCA hypothesis really sounds like sour grapes.

Unfortunately, that is not what the problem is about. The LUCA and speciation hypothesis is not about selective breeding. Speciation and selective breeding are simply not the same things. — alcontali

Where exactly is the difference except for degree of change?

Once you realize that there are only so many traits that differentiate one species from another, and that you can change those traits through breeding, and you've done the experiment to change one or more of those traits..... Well, back to your wood cutting analogy, I don't need to chop down the whole forest to know what tools could chop it all down. One tree is enough.

then why don't they just carry out the artificial speciation? Thi — alcontali

Because it would take a really really long time and lots of resources and it's not necessary, because we have both identified the mechanisms by which it works and replicated them on small scales that prove them.

Evolution has such a preponderance of evidence on its side, that really the burden of disproof is on you. And that burden goes beyond merely waving at speciation in experimental settings.

Evolution has such a preponderance of evidence on its side, that really the burden of disproof is on you. — Artemis

That remark sounds like word-salad rhetoric from someone from the liberal arts.

Repetition makes a fact seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Understanding this effect can help you avoid falling for propaganda, says psychologist Tom Stafford. 'Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth', is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the 'illusion of truth' effect. — How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’

It is not about "preponderance of evidence" or any "burden of disproof". I really do not care if you repeat all of that 100 times or more. It is about experimentally testing the LUCA and speciation hypothesis, which has not been done, because that is currently not possible.

It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings.[1][2][3] — Wikipedia on the scientific method

Well, no, I just thought that Artemis objection was more interesting than your disconnected remark about (Barrack Obama's and Aung San Suu Kyi's ridiculous) Nobel prizes. — alcontali

I never said anything about Barrack Obamas and Aung San Kyuis ridiculous Nobel prizes. What are you talking about? Please try to do without misquotes and strawmen.

I've been seeing a bunch of insults, so I cut and pasted all the names from the last few days. Apologies if I tarred you with a broad brush. — EricH

OK, but please try to do in future without making false attribution, like "alcontali" is so fond of. It really makes communication impossible.

That remark sounds like word-salad rhetoric from someone from the liberal arts. — alcontali

Annnnd with that weird remark we've come to the point of no return for the conversation :roll:

A stupid person would be an immoral person. Everyone has the same intellectual light from birth it seems, considering that everyone I've met is a human (although evolution might take some effect here). If you think you are smart, there are the psychological studies about auto-suggestion. Some of those who think they are smart are making themselves smart by telling themselves they are smart! But some people are prideful, and thinking they are smart do not try to be smart. These people are failing at being smart. That's all psychology knows about this issue

I have been properly chastised. I will do my best to avoid such mistakes moving forward.

I will do my best to avoid such mistakes moving forward. — EricH

:wink: Phew!