Morning Discussion

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  am I the only one who thinks this neil guy comes off as an arrogant dick? his being right is irrelevant.... : crypt420
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    Wow. I've never thought of him as arrogant. Amazed that people can't think logically/rationally at times,... : AxeMan808
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      i don't think he knows as much as he acts like he does. but maybe that's what makes him accessible to so... : crypt420
      • this is a troll, right? : NexusOne
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        What? He has a PhD in astrophysics and is the Director of the space center at the American Museum of Natu... : indosauros
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          but he is black ! : gmd
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            Nothin' worse than an uppity black man pretendin' to know somethin' : MagicWishMonkey
            • Except an uppity black man actually knowin' somethin'! : Ride-My-Rocket
          • and hes all like oohh look at me i have 3 names! : alphablu
        • Well said, sir. : SqueegyTBS
      • What? Are you an astrophysicist? : MagicWishMonkey
      • ^^^ homeschooled : xsii
      • Judge the guy's competency in his profession based on his mannerisms and personality quirks in a public f... : miasma&!
      • Lol. : riptyde
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        Well it's a good thing you too dumb to be his peer. His peers on the other hand think quite highly of hi... : twifosp
        • lol "# 2000 Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive, People Magazine" : Hoax
      • "He took after-school astronomy classes at the Hayden and traveled to the Mojave Desert at age 14 to part : Kentor
      • He just pretends to know things. I see. : Jiven
      • clearly you know the fact : eeeealmo
      • Yea, that guy doesn't know shit! http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/curriculum-vitae#research : aethyr
      • did you come up with this on your own, or is there a blog you can blame : Downforce
      • hahaha : mikecyb
      • Ok, now you're either trolling or you're wrong. : Ride-My-Rocket
      • uh, what? Have you seen his credentials? : deject
      • I'm glad we cleared up that you don't know wtf. : ieGod
      • if only you were accessable : GloriousCow
      • brah, brah : Nitrium
      • Have you actually watched his videos? : chungathebunga
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        Now...imagine he is white! : VegasX
        • Translation: "His is far more intelligent than I am during my moments of THC induced brilliance, thus it ... : VegasX
      • you are an 11 on the troll scale. : hirez
      • lol Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most brilliant people currently on this planet in the most cosmic s... : R@zzle
      • I think he is a Muslim. : Lucy Labia
      • i got referred here from another crypt420 dumbass post, and I was not disappointed. : MercFox1
    • Watch how he approaches this situation with Dawkins. It's hardly arrogant. http://www.youtube.com/watc... : warcrow
  • he always seemed to me like a very nice funny hearty and smart person. he is the kind of person i'd like ... : xxx2xxx
  • what a surprise, knowing your past political beliefs : EvilDolemite
  • yes. everyone else loves him. you are probably an over sensitive cry baby. : NexusOne
  • Yes. : noobja
  • nah he is actually a pretty nice dude judging from every interview i saw with him. : Hoax
  • haha, no. If you want to see an arrogant scientist then check out Dawkins. NdGT is a sweetheart in compar... : skinlab133
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    He is not Carl Sagan, no. But how many other physicists are out there amongst the masses in pop culture?... : Lucien Irenicus
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      I prefer listening to Michio Kaku talk rather than Tyson. Not sure why... : retardhumper
      • Yeah, he's good too. Seems to be on TV more often than Tyson. : AxeMan808
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson is probably the polar opposite of arrogant. : Dschinghis Khan
  • honestly, I think you might be confusing arrogance with enthusiasm and confidence : proclone1
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    Not really. He's very well spoken and polite. And if there's anybody is qualified to refute intelligent... : Ride-My-Rocket
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      It's not the job of science to refute "intelligent design". : Marrbe
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        indeed, that's taken care of with much less effort. : eskimo spy
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          It deals with metaphysics, which is the domain of philosophy, not science. : Marrbe
          • http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=482&page=578 : boring gegtik
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            its the domain of christians attempting to make religious dogma look legitimate by trying to give it a co... : hobosapien
            • Seriously. Up until recently, people have been saying that God created everything they didn't understand... : Ride-My-Rocket
          • Intelligent design is very much in the domain of science as it makes claims about science (ie the "irredu... : EruditeCaveman
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        It is if the proponents of ID are touting it as a scientific theory : indosauros
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          (which they do) : indosauros
          • http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/... : indosauros
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          You can't refute creationism by way of science just because they try to defend it that way. : Marrbe
          • so long as the boundaries of creationism stay purely metaphysical you're correct : boring gegtik
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            ID presents itself as a science and is legitimately refuted through application of scientific findings. : Moonbase Commander
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              You can show that it's not science, but you can't refute it as such without referring to metaphysics. Whi... : Marrbe
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                you can cleave it into two parts: the wrong part, and the irrelevant part. : boring gegtik
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                  metaphysics isn't irrelevant mr gegtik :( : DonkeyPopsicle
                  • I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky mood wristwatch. : Endymion_
              • Are you trying to say science can't refute the parts of ID that use religious faith as justification? Of... : Moonbase Commander
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            Sure you can. If ID is claimed to be a "scientific theory" it is going to make predictions, testable cla... : indosauros
            • I should clarify "sure you can.. refute ID", not creationism, which you seem to be confusing (they are no... : indosauros
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            You can absolutely use well understood science to refute specific claims. They will just change their ... : Danny5225
            • Pointless though, since a correct metaphysics can invalidate the entire thing in one swoop. : Marrbe
          • who'd have thought that YOU would be arguing this lol : eeeealmo
      • You're right -- it's more of a pro-bono thing. : Ride-My-Rocket
  • Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the only one, actually. : Conan
  • Yeah... he thinks he's so smart... : someWayne
  • If by arrogant you mean hilarious, then yes. : barcibus
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    What a joyless prick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aadYN5OPKN8 : anhero
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      fuck that guy and his happiness : indosauros
      • lol : Rag and Bone Man
    • His infectious happiness is awesome. I'd love to take a class from him. Any class. He could be talking... : Ecks
  • I agree. That was an extremely arrogant talk. : themaestro2657
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  I like him so much. I actually think he's more engaging than Sagan was. Sagan was great, but Tyson has mo... : AxeMan808
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    It's a toss-up for me. I really enjoy both of them, but I like Sagan's approach more. He just seemed much... : ColoradoCNC
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      I really like the way Sagan pronounced words. : MagicWishMonkey
      • Sagan was/is the king. : underground banana plantation
  • Sagan was just so fucking poetic. Gotta love that in a scientist. : systatic
• Love that guy. Thanks. : KxRook
• "It's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system - no engineer would design that at a... : Moonbase Commander
• whats this between our legs? an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system hilarious : aurealis
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  You posted a scientist's speech just so you could score some points against Islam? I think you're failing... : ColoradoCNC
  • pssst its podung and he did post something good with all the false reasoning behind it. the last time i p... : Hoax
  • Yea, I was justifying posting an older speech by contrasting with what the current Nasa directors stated ... : podung
• I like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HghEBxHvgg : magistersmax
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  It's an excellent point. Concluding that "god did it" prevents further progression along that line. : SqueegyTBS
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    To be fair, taking the "God did it" approach frees up valuable time that can be used for more productive ... : MagicWishMonkey
    • I want my neighbor's land, I think I might accuse him of having sex with the devil and killing my livesto... : ColoradoCNC
  • Exactly. It's a willful ignorance that I find deeply disturbing. : basketofkittens
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  The full version of that lecture is fantastic and highly illuminating (contains the video from the OP as ... : rudds
  • awesome. : podung
  • that was very interesting, thanks : strider_
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  I like his approach but it is very broad and non-direction. I mean showing pictures of aborted fetuses wi... : VegasX
  • *non-direct : VegasX
  • All I'll say here is that your reasoning is not based on evidence. : kek
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  motherfucker dropped a bunch of aborted freak fetuses into the slide show : [fry]
  • Science!! : Lucien Irenicus
  • and accidentally called them aborted feces : OrkO
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    Your reaction kinda strengthens his point. : Moonbase Commander
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      please elaborate. i was under the impression that i find dead fetus collages to be unpleasant. i was a... : [fry]
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        I never said you were wrong. I said your reaction proves his point that our "design" is flawed. : Moonbase Commander
        • Well I feel stupid now which still makes you a dick. : [fry]
• Awesome, thanks for posting the link. : cap n KRUNCH
• Deadly Newt? I must look into this. : barcibus
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  Damn he is an awesome speaker, i've been watching some other vids with him... and DAMN this guy is aweso... : ghost hacker
  • about half way through this, it's pretty good : valael
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  Question: What's he referring to with the "collapse of Islam in 1100" statement? : underground banana plantation
  • Perhaps a reference to the culmination of the crusades, the Mongol conquest, the Spanish Reconquista, etc... : Danny5225
  • #6028

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    By: SpaecKow x Show Full Post

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    If you read an Orientalist book, they will give you the conventional wisdom on Islamic civilisation, which is that it ended with the Incoherrence of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali published around 1100. There are various problems with this, for example the important work of scholars like Ibn Khaldun written over two hundred years after al-Ghazali, and the general continued development of Islamic architecture and technology all the way up untill the 1700's when the West finally outpaced the Islamic world in learning and technology.
    
    But al-Ghazali singlehandedly ending Islamic civilisation is still a popular idea, even though he was a Western Sunni and therefore read only in about half the Muslim world at best, leaving Shia iran and all of south asia up to itself. To explain: the Incoherrence is an Islamic philosophical work denouncing the metaphysics of the ancient greek philosophers in favour of islamic mysticism, and is blamed for closing the gates of ijtihad, islamic jurisprudential practice (or innovation). With that closing, Orientalists say, the Muslim world also closed itself to all ideas from the ancient world, (which is science and reason) and from that one mis-step is supposed to come the moribund state of the Muslim world.
    
    However, al-Ghazali had no problem with mathematics at all, just with the moral philosophy of the Greeks, and Wael Hallaq who is a modern Western scholar of Islamic law, has done work that shows some evidence that taqlid (non innovative sharia) is not the endemic practice even today in the Muslim world, and a good deal of evidence that a comprehensive tradition of ijtihad continued well into the modern period, hundreds of years after Ghazali.

    Oct 05, 2010 4:29pm PDT
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    If you read an Orientalist book, they will give you the conventional wisdom on Islamic civilisation, whic... : SpaecKow
    • The Mongol conquests did a lot of damage to all of Asia, but I wouldn't give the Crusades the same credit... : SpaecKow
• Is that Dawkins at 5:40? : EruditeCaveman