• agamemnonymous
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    11 months ago

    Buddy, I don’t believe in astrology. I do believe in evolution. These are personal beliefs based on an overwhelming mountain of evidence.

    However, I would never say astrology is absolutely false, or evolution absolutely true because, as I’ve said, that’s brain rot. Absolute certainty is a poison. Sure, it seems justified with something like astrology, but once people get into the habit of declaring absolutes based on present evidence, that balloons into pernicious bullshit like astrology. It’s bad practice.

    I don’t oppose tending towards the evidence, I overwhelming support it. I don’t make decisions in my life based on astrology. What I do oppose is promoting bad cognitive habits like absolute declarations about reality.

    • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Except astrology is absolutely bullshit. It has been proven time and time again.

      And evolution is actually scientific fact, the theory is just about how it occurs, but the fact it occurs is 100% fact.

      There are truths in science, the fact you are unaware of that shows why you don’t know shit about science.

      • agamemnonymous
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        11 months ago

        I’m sure you are an excellent chemist, and a successful scholarly author, but 100% fact is not attainable. 99.999%? Sure. But there’s always a fraction of a percent chance that you’re in a simulation, or hallucinating, or that some hyper-advanced entity is playing an elaborate trick on you. All vanishingly small, infinitesimal even, but non-zero.

        100% certainty is incompatible with science.

        • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          It is.

          Sorry to burst your bubble but science is just an explanation for our reality as we perceive it. It does not matter if we are in a simulation, or collectively hallucinating. In our perceived reality evolution is 100% fact. Gravity is 100% fact. Carbon having 6 protons is 100% fact. 2+2 = 4 is 100% fact. Hydrogen reacting with oxygen at high temperature to form water is 100% fact.

          Dude, there are absolute facts in science, many of them.

          • agamemnonymous
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            11 months ago

            2+2 = 4 is 100% fact because it’s just mathematics, purely conceptual, and defined as such. Math isn’t science. Carbon having 6 protons is a 100% fact because that’s the definition of carbon, so if it doesn’t have 6 protons we don’t call it carbon. Definitions, even definitions used in science, are not themselves science. Those are human concepts, you can certainly have 100% certainty with man-made concepts.

            Reality itself is not a purely human concept, we did not invent it. Extremely likely theories to explain reality with mountains of consistent evidence are the closest we can get to 100% certainty. I’d bet my life on an extremely likely theory with mountains of consistent evidence, but it is still technically a bet.

            Consult your peers, see what they think about claiming 100% certainty. This conversation is going nowhere. I’m sorry for your mindset, and I hope it doesn’t affect your work.

            • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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              11 months ago

              Every scientist I know and have ever met accepts there are 100% facts within science, including evolution and gravity among others.

              Because as I said, science is a tool to explain our perceived reality, and things can absolutely rise to the level of fact. It does not matter if our reality turns out to be a computer simulation, because within that reality there are established facts that are true to said reality.

              Evolution and gravity are both facts and theories, but they are still 100% facts in our current reality.

              • agamemnonymous
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                11 months ago

                So now anecdotal evidence matters? Show me one published scientific work that claims 100% certainty of anything.

                • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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                  11 months ago

                  You’re the one who told me to talk to my colleagues, you shouldn;ty have suggested that if you wouldn’t accept the answer.

                  Stop being stupid, you don’t know any scientists or science, and are making blind assumptions.

                  And papers state the facts they use all the time without citation, because they are established facts. And I’m not going to waste my time trying to guide you through academic journals to learn to spot those moments, as it happens in most papers so if you haven;t learned to recognize it already then it’s not worth talking to you.

                  • agamemnonymous
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                    11 months ago

                    You’re the one who told me to talk to my colleagues

                    Yes, but then you didn’t do that, did you? I said to ask them, you made a sweeping anecdotal assumption instead of actually performing the test.

                    And then you could find one single example of a published work claiming 100% certainty.

                    Please let me know where you do your research so I can avoid it. Otherwise I’m finished here.