Re: Making money from Java

In article <nq_nf.256571$ir4.86685@edtnps90>,
Oliver Wong <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
><docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dnopvn$75d$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> In article <1134531661.345534.173010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> Richard <riplin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> If you assume the Bible is correct, then
>>>> there can be no evidence to demonstrate it to be false, because God
>>>> could,
>>>> by definition, do anything, so any "evidence" we found could simply be a
>>>> Devine artifact.
>>>
>>>Exactly. That is why religious beliefs are not in any way scientific,
>>>or even logical.
>>
>> I'd agree halfway, Mr Plinston. Religion is not 'science' if 'science'
>> includes, as one of its criteria, the reproducibility of results.
>>
>> 'Logic', on the other hand, may be seen as 'a game played by a particular
>> set of rules' (Witt.); given that definition a religion can be 'logical'.
>
> I think what Richard meant was that religious beliefs tend to be
>"unfalsifiable" and thus unscientific, a term I discovered while looking up
>the names of logical fallacies (e.g. Strawmen, etc.) for an earlier post.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfalsifiable

>From the abovegiven URL:

--begin quoted text:

Falsifiability was first developed by Karl Popper in the 1930s.

--end quoted text

The 1930s? That's barely a century back... I try to let these newfangled
logical concepts get a bit of hair on them before asking them out on a
date.

[snip]

>Psychoanalytic theory, for example, is held up by the
>proponents of Karl Popper as an example of an ideology rather than a
>science.

Psychology used to be classed as a 'soft science', along with
anthropology, sociology and the like... I was taught that disciplines
which could not have a 'control' in their experiments were 'soft
sciences'. After all... what would be the 'control' for the experiment of
an individual life?

>A patient regarded by his psychoanalyst as "in denial" about his
>sexual orientation may be viewed as confirming he is homosexual simply by
>denying that he is; and if he has sex with women, he may be accused of
>trying to buttress his denials. In other words, there is no way the patient
>could convincingly demonstrate his heterosexuality to the analyst. This is
>an example of what Popper called a "closed circle". The proposition that the
>patient is homosexual is not falsifiable.
></quote>

Reminds me of a fellow I heard, years ago, berating someone else for being
'an alcoholic', the beratee would propose an alternative and the fellow
would accuse him of being 'in denial'. I finally asked 'Is there *any*
way that you can be disagreed with on this matter which you would label as
something other than 'denial'?'

The response was a curt 'no'... and I then turned to the beratee and said
'I believe you might be able more productives uses for oxygen than this
discussion.'

DD

.