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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 10:08am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7515 of 7532)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Who said anything at all about "no fault" as it applies to the way people USE blame?

I didn't mean it that way. It seems to me that people are responsible for what they do, in the way they are. There are always extenuations - though they may be trivial. Or the guilt may be real, but relatively trivial - and the extenuations enormous.

MANY times, the argument from design, and the argument from randomness - look the same in a particular case. Sometimes, one happens to be right, sometimes the other.

And you can have GOOD arguments on both sides sometimes - but BAD arguments - in terms of checkable facts - can OFTEN be rejected with CERTAINTY - within a sign - for a long chain of codes containing all the things the argument happens to be checked against.

People are working hard to produce an argument for design that fits facts, is orderly, and symmetric, and harmonious. That doesn't make that argument right.

It doesn't make it wrong - either.

People can have different aesthetic judgements, but in every way that matters to me - any argument from design that fits facts makes the doctrine of inerrancy of the Bible impossibly cumbersome, and makes nonsense of a lot of religious statements.

For reasoning, both statistics and causal arguments can be handy - even when they happen to be wrong - and this is comforting to remember when you can't tell whether or not they happen to be right or wrong in the case at hand.

You can be tolerant of some things, at some levels, and absolutely intolerant (within a context) in others.

commondata - 10:17am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7516 of 7532)

rshow55 1/9/03 10:08am - People are working hard to produce an argument for design that fits facts, is orderly, and symmetric, and harmonious. That doesn't make that argument right. It doesn't make it wrong - either.

And it doesn't make it testable. And if it's not testable, what's the point of it?

lunarchick - 10:36am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7517 of 7532)

Inerrancy

rshow55 - 10:38am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7518 of 7532)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

commondata 1/9/03 10:17am . . you can't test the creationists - and so what good can a creationist argument be?

It can work in people's heads - - and people NEED things to work in their heads - so that they as they are, and not as you might like them to be CAN SORT THINGS OUT FOR THEMSELVES.

They have a right to that. You or I don't have to agree with them. They shouldn't coerce us about a damn thing, at that level - or we them.

Though there are other levels, where accomodations may be indicated - some graceful - some optional - some even obligatory -- matters of life and death - or much agony.

commondata - 10:47am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7519 of 7532)

you can't test the creationists - and so what good can a creationist argument be?

In my view, none.

rshow55 1/9/03 10:38am - They have a right to that. You or I don't have to agree with them.

They sure do, and they have a right to believe the Earth is flat. As long as they don't want my tax money, pollute the minds of my children, or run the world (as they seem to at the moment) I don't have a problem. I was surprised that you were an ID advocate and that you were a torture advocate. Once again, you have a right to those beliefs and I have the right to disagree. And if we could take those arguments to logical closure I'd be confident of winning.

lunarchick - 10:54am Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7520 of 7532)

Propaganda 'oils' thought process - adjusts thinking .... alters the virtual identity of a people (Nation)>

It's a card that's being played right now!

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense